The identification of the Hagarenes, described as a lowly, racially degenerate race, with the Muslims is another way in which the appearance of Islam was explained. John of Damascus, who wrote about the Hagarenes, claimed the black stone of the ka'aba was worn smooth because “Abraham has sexual intercourse with Hagar on it.” This race was constructed along theological lines, and much like the Saracens, the Hagarenes were a community that was alienated from God.

XREF: Connects to broader scholarship on how religious difference was racialized in medieval Christian-Muslim encounters and to the earlier Saracens discussion.

Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imag…, loc. 156