Harad

In J. R. R. Tolkien's high fantasy The Lord of the Rings, Harad is the immense land south of Gondor and Mordor. Its main port is Umbar, the base of the Corsairs of Umbar whose ships serve as the Dark Lord Sauron's fleet. Its people are the dark-skinned Haradrim or Southrons; their warriors wear scarlet and gold, and are armed with swords and round shields; some ride gigantic elephants called mûmakil. Tolkien based the Haradrim on ancient Aethiopians, people of Sub-Saharan Africa, following his philological research on the Old English word Sigelwara. He deduced that this word referred to some kind of soot-black fire demon before it was applied to the Aethiopians. He based the Haradrim's use of war elephants, meanwhile, on that of Pyrrhus of Epirus in his war against Ancient Rome. Critics have debated whether Tolkien was racist in making the protagonists white and the antagonists black, but others have noted that Tolkien showed anti-xenophobic sentiments in real life, opposing any attempt to demonise the enemy in both World Wars. In Peter Jackson's film The Two Towers, the Haradrim were based on 12th century Saracens: they have turbans and flowing robes, and they ride mûmakil. The Haradrim appear in a variety of games and merchandise inspired by The Lord of the Rings. Harad is a large land in the south of Middle-earth, bordered to the north by (from west to east) the lands of Gondor, Mordor, Khand and Rhûn. Historically the border with Gondor was to be the river Harnen, but by the time of the War of the Ring all the land further north to the river Poros is under the influence of the Haradrim. The border with Mordor runs along the southern Mountains of Shadow. Harad's west coast (the nearest to Gondor) is washed by the Great Sea, the western ocean of Middle-earth. Harad's eastern shores looks out on the Eastern Sea, Middle-earth's eastern ocean. The elves named the land and its people Haradwaith, "South-folk", from the Sindarin harad, meaning "south", and gwaith, meaning "people".