In this short overview we have examined the evolution of the intellectual and semantic framework surrounding the representation of black African communities in the classical Arab world. The few literary and historical narratives included in this picture reveal important accounts of the process of elaborating a classificatory rhetoric of enslavement-generated minorities. In spite of the alarm calls by al-Djāhiz and al-Mas'ūdī and the timid and laborious developments put forward by Ibn Khaldūn, we see that the preponderance of Arab scholars, whether Muslim, Jewish or Christian, remained particularly imbued with prejudices inherited from the Ancients. Philosophers, doctors, jurists and Arab chroniclers quickly began to develop semantico-discursive schemas extolling the hold of stereotypes and stigmatization. With the spread of enslavement, the realms of knowledge seem to have been set aside in favour of strategies justifying domination and oppression. New and highly colourful taxonomies are emerging from behind this intellectual movement of paradigms of knowledge.