بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْم

Hadith Database – Hadith on a “Black Man” Being the Worst of Creation

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“’Ubaidullah b. Abu Rafi’, the freed slave of the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), said: […] The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) described their characteristics and I found these characteristics in them. They state the truth with their tongue, but it does not go beyond this part of their bodies (and the narrator pointed towards his throat). The most hateful among the creation of Allah is one black man among them (Khawarij). One of his hand is like the teat of a goat or the nipple of the breast.”

Source: Sahih Muslim, 1066g, https://sunnah.com/muslim:1066g

Status: Sahih

Explanation: This hadith purportedly states that a “black man” who lived in the time of Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) was described by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) as the “most hateful among the creation of Allah”.  As with other cherry-picked ahadith used by anti-Islam apologists (mostly Christians), this hadith is presented as proof that Islam is a “racist” religion, since it describes a “black man” as the “most hateful of Allah’s creation”.

There are a few problems with this argument. First, even IF the hadith was a prophecy about a “black man” (meaning a man having dark-colored skin and having African ancestry), who was such a bad person that he was called the “most hateful of Allah’s creation”, would that necessarily make it a “racist” statement? Can African people not be capable of being bad? If someone was to say “Adolf Hitler was the worst man in history”, would that statement be interpreted as being “racist” against Germans or Europeans in general? Of course not. In the same way, the claim that the Prophet’s description of this, as of yet unidentified, “black man” was “racist” is fallacious. This is especially true since the Prophet is reported to have denounced racism in many ahadith and praised people of African background, such as his close companion Bilal (may Allah be pleased with him).[1]

But as it turns out, the hadith does not even refer to a literal “black man”, i.e., someone from Africa! Uneducated Christians and atheists incorrectly assume that when the hadith refers to a “black man”, the meaning of the term in Arabic is always the same as it is in modern English. This is a ridiculous and silly assumption! As I have explained elsewhere, the Arabic word “aswad” (“black”) could even be used for Arabs who had a dark complexion, and it is absurd to assume that it only referred to people of African ancestry.[2]

So, who was the “black man” in the hadith above? He was known as “Dhu al-Thudayyah” (or “Dhul-Thudayyah”), meaning “he with the woman’s breast” (this referred to a peculiar feature on his shoulder).[3] His real name is reported to have been Hurqoos ibn Zuhayr al-Bajali.[4] Along with another man named “Dhu al-Khuwaysirah al-Tameemi”, Dhu al-Thudayyah was considered one of the early members of Khawarij (also known as Kharijites), an extremist group of Muslims that has been unanimously declared to be a deviant sect by Islamic scholars (a minority considers them to be unbelievers; see note #6 below for more).

But more important than what Dhu al-Thudayyah was, is what he was not. The title “al-Bajali” indicates that he was a member of the Bajila tribe, which was a tribe of Arabs.[5] In other words, he was NOT an African! Rather, he was a very dark-complexioned Arab man, and it was he who was declared one of the “most hateful of Allah’s creation”. In fact, there is another hadith in Sahih Muslim which declares all of the Khawarij to be “worst among the creation and the creatures”.[6]

It has also been claimed that Dhu al-Thudayyah and Dhu al-Khuwaysirah were one and the same, since both titles basically mean the same thing.[7] The latter was also known as “Al-Tameemi”, meaning he was a member of the Banu Tamim tribe, yet another Arab tribe (but not the same as the Bajila tribe). Regardless of the identify of this man, there is every indication that he was an Arab and no proof that he was an African (i.e.,, a “black” man as understood in modern English). This does not mean there were not any Africans among the Khawarij. There may have been, but as the hadith cited above (see note #6) states, all of the Khawarij were considered the “worst” of the Muslim ummah, regardless of their ethnic background. The reason for this designation was their rebellious and violent behavior, as well as their weak faith. This is in line with the well-known hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him):

“Verily Allah does not look to your faces and your wealth but He looks to your heart and to your deeds.”[8]

And Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) knows best!

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[1] In one hadith, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) told Bilal that he heard Bilal’s footsteps in front of him in Paradise:

“Narrated Abu Huraira: At the time of the Fajr prayer the Prophet (ﷺ) asked Bilal, ‘Tell me of the best deed you did after embracing Islam, for I heard your footsteps in front of me in Paradise.’ Bilal replied, ‘I did not do anything worth mentioning except that whenever I performed ablution during the day or night, I prayed after that ablution as much as was written for me’” (Sahih al-Bukhari, 1149, https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1149).

[2] https://quranandbibleblog.com/2022/08/15/did-prophet-muhammad-%ef%b7%ba-say-that-satan-was-a-black-man-refuting-a-stupid-islamophobic-polemic/

[3] The History of al-Tabari, Volume XVII: The First Civil War, trans. G.R. Hawting (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1996), p. 133.

[4] https://islamqa.info/en/answers/191140/dhuth-thudayyah

[5] Ibid.

[6] Sahih Muslim, 1067, https://sunnah.com/muslim/12.

There is a difference of opinion among scholars whether the Khawarij were “unbelievers” or only “deviant” Muslims. The majority of scholars hold the latter view (see Sahih Muslim: With a Full Commentary by Imam al-Nawawi, Volume 6, trans. Adil Salahi [Leicestershire, United Kingdom: The Islamic Foundation, 2021]. As such, the majority of scholars also hold the view that the meaning of the phrase “worst among the creation and the creatures” is that the Khawarij are “the worst of Muslims” (Ibid.). Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) knows best.

However, despite the disagreement on whether the Khawarij are deviants or unbelievers, there is scholarly consensus that they should be fought. This also applies to modern-day Khawarij such as the ISIS.

[7] See Julius Wellhausen, The Religio-Political Factions in Early Islam, trans. R.C. Costle and S.M. Walzer (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1975), pp. 24–25.

Wellhausen concluded that the identity of Dhu al-Thudayya cannot be ascertained and that “he is largely anonymous” (Ibid., p. 25).

[8] Sahih Muslim, 2564c, https://sunnah.com/muslim:2564c.