Christian legend promised Saracens could become human only by whitening through conversion
Evidence
The king met with four Saracens, who were black and blue as leadā¦ . Never before that hour did anyone see so horribly shaped a creature. Their black hue was marvelous, and their mouths were in their breastsā¦ . Their mouths were so broad, their eyes so large, that it made their faces repulsive. In their foreheads stood their eyesā¦ [They say], āWe are loathsome, but loathsome also are the soul and body both of a wicked manā¦ .ā David held [the rods] out to them to kiss; and they kneeled and kissed them. Immediately their skin became as white as milk, and they took on the hue of high blood, and all their appearance was made new. ā Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 108
Categorization
- SEED: The Cursor Mundi trope of rods that transmogrify black monsters into white humans is a vivid anchor for an essay on conversion-as-race-change.
- XREF: The human-only-after-conversion trope parallels later colonial-era civilizing missions and the racialization of conversion
- BMF: Not a clean match in the listed library, but the rods explicitly āchanging skin like a leopardā against Jeremiah in 103 evokes blood-magic transformation devices in fantasy, e.g. Marlon Jamesā Black Leopard Red Wolf, worth suggesting.