As early as the fifth century, black skin functioned as a symbol of the devil and other menacing religious frights. Dark skin was understood as a theological consequence of sin. Gregory the Great claimed that Ethiopia was a sign of the fall of mankind, and other Christian writers followed suit, tying dark skin to sin and perdition. Jeremiah surmised that the Ethiopian's skin could change like a leopard—one of many examples in which Africans were likened to animals. Muslims were often depicted with black, blue, or purple skin. Muslims reportedly worshipped Venus, a black goddess "dressed in a gold robe with a striking red blob for its hellish tongue." Islam has, from the beginning, been an identity situated in racial, ethnic, and cultural difference.

XREF: Connects to scholarship on the premodern origins of racial thinking, such as works by Geraldine Heng or the history of color symbolism in Christian theology.

Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imag…, loc. 103