Posted: September 13th, 2017

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.

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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-
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ISLAM
IN
THE
AFRICAN
AMERICAN
COMMUNITY