نرجسيةُ الريادة ولِجامُ الإسلام: صورتان متضادَّتان عن الكُرْد والسودان والأمازيغ في التراث العربي

Abstract

This is a study on the image of Kurds, the Black Africans, and the Amazighs (Berbers) in the Arab culture. These three nations have had a common civilizational experience with the Arabs, and they share with them a common religion, history, and geography. The study analyses samples of how these nations were represented by Arab historians, geographers, travelers, and men of letters, and argues there is no one single image of these three nations in the Arabic intellectual legacy; rather there are two contradictory images: one of them laudatory, complimentary, and sympathetic; the other one bigoted, prejudiced, and unfair. The study explains this contradiction by the clash of two factors: first, the narcissism of leadership that developed in the psyche of the Arabs when they become the leaders of Islamic civilization, militarily and politically, for centuries. This narcissism is a common phenomenon in the culture of all nations that once occupied the center stage of human history. Second, the Islamic moral constraint that put restrictions on the Arabs, imposed on them to adhere to the values of equity and equality between human beings, and prohibited them from racial supremacism and discrimination. The study also alludes to the pre-Islamic Arab, Persian, and Judeo-Christian legacy, and its impacts on the way Muslim Arabs perceived these three nations.