The Negative Images of Blacks In Some Medieval Iranian Writings

Abstract

In 1961, in my last year of high school in Tehran, I wrote two emotional poems inspired by current black liberation movements in Africa and America. Like most Iranians, I did not suspect that the Middle East was as guilty of racism against blacks as Europe and America were. Ironically, it was in New York, in the late ‘60s, that I came across medieval Iranian sources showing racism against blacks. I decided then to do a paper on the subject, but resisted the project for a decade. In November 1979, when Khomeini ordered the release of all blacks among the American hostages “because [blacks] are oppressed by American society” (The New York Times, November 19, 1979, A:12), I was finally prompted to undertake the present study, to set the record straight.