The Article's title - 1

The Article's title - 1 write a short summary and a response to the provided article. Students of black religion in America are now increasingly aware that vol- untary immigration was only one of the ways in which Muslims arrived on the shores of “the promised land.” Others came against their will, finding America a land not of promise but of bondage. These were the Muslims brought in the slave trade of colonial and post-colonial America. It is now a well-established fact that a significant number of black Africans brought to North America during the antebellum slave trade were Muslim. Numbers are impossible to determine, but there may have been several thousand. Some have even postulated that as many as 20 percent of African slaves were Muslim, but that estimate is probably high. These men and women seized into slavery came from a variety of areas in sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal to Nigeria. Some were highly literate and educated in their religion, while others were more humble practitioners. A few, such as the well-docu- mented Prince Ayub Ibn Sulayman Diallo, who was abducted in 1731 , even came from the ruling elements of their societies. Most of these African Muslims had never had any contact with whites before being taken into slavery. The account of one of them, Kunta Kinte of Senegambia, is documented in Alex Haley’s popular novel Roots, 1 also broadcast in a series specially made for television. The novel sets the scene of Kinte ’s Islamic heritage from page 1 , on which Haley describes the Mus- lim early morning call to prayer, which, as he says, had been offered up as long as any living person there could remember. Haley records other occa- sions attesting to Kinte ’s faith, as when he prays to Allah while chained in the bottom of a “Christian” slave ship. CHAPTER FOUR Islam in the African American Community Unfortunately for those who would have wished to practice their Mus- lim faith during the harsh circumstances of slavery in America, their Chris- tian overlords rarely permitted it. Just as Muslims who remained in Spain after 1492 had been forced to convert to Christianity, so American slaves were required to become Christians also. “When I was a Mohammedan I prayed thus: ‘Thanks be to God, Lord of all [the] Worlds, the Merciful the Gracious. . . .’ But now I pray for ‘Our Father. . .’ in the words of our Lord Jesus the Messiah.” 2 Slaves in America, however, did not have the option available to the Moors of leaving the country, although a very few did man- age to escape and return to Africa. While most of these black Africans did indeed become Christian, documents indicate that at least a few managed to maintain their Islamic faith, continuing as practicing Muslims until the early part of this century. Generally, they had to maintain their practice in secret. Some records indicate that a few even risked ridicule and harsh punishment by continuing to pray publicly, as they understood it to be their Qur’anic obligation to do. According to one account, a Muslim slave while pretend- ing to write the Lord’s Prayer in Arabic was actually writing out the Fatiha, the first chapter of the Qur’an. Those who could write left behind a few documents that have added greatly to our understanding of who these peo- ple really were, their experiences recording more than a century of trade in human life. A number of families now living on the coast of Georgia are said to be descendants of slaves, some of them reportedly Muslim. Best known, per- haps, is one Bilali Mahomet, who was probably taken into slavery around 1725 . His Bilali Diary , written in a West African Arabic script, is now locat- ed in the rare books library of the University of Georgia. Grant records from South Carolina contain reports of slaves who refused to eat pork and who prayed to a god named Allah. For many African American Muslims today, the presence of these Muslims in early American history, and their achievements both before being taken into slavery and while in bondage, have added a great deal to the sense of pride in being Muslim and of sharing in the long struggle for freedom that has characterized the black experience in America from its earliest days. “The Afro-American people have Islam in their hearts,” says a recent convert. “We have it on our tongues as we strug- gle to pronounce the Arabic which we have forgotten, but with which per- haps we came as slaves. This was the culture that was stripped from us, along with the language and religion. Most critically, the religion of Islam was taken from us through slavery.” 3 As we have already seen, the question of who is and who is not a Mus- 77 ISLAM IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY PLACE THIS ORDER OR A SIMILAR ORDER WITH US TODAY AND GET AN AMAZING DISCOUNT :)