Al-hajna — the stigma of mixed lineage

Hajna ("hybridity") among the Arabs was a social stigma that fell on the son of a slave woman. Ahmad Amin, in Duha al-Islam, presents its reports within the struggle between the Arabs and the mawali. ¹

Lisan al-Arab records that hajna in speech is what disparages you, and that the Arab "hajin" is the son of a slave woman because he is defective. ¹

Ibn Abd Rabbih mentions that the Umayyads did not appoint sons of slave women as caliphs, and that they said the Arabs were not suited to be ruled by them. Al-Asma'i explained this by their belief that their rule would end at the hands of the son of a mother who had borne a child as a concubine. Ahmad Amin, however, inclines to another explanation, namely that people held them in contempt. ¹

It is told that a Bedouin asked the judge Suwwar about his inheritance and that of his brother, who was a hajin, and that he answered that the wealth was shared equally among them. The Bedouin was angered at the hajin being made equal to him. ¹

Khalid ibn Abd Allah al-Qasri faced the satire of poets because his mother was a Byzantine slave woman. ¹