Islam: the Greatest Gift of African Muslim Slaves in America
From: Khatib Rajab <[email protected]>
Thhe author is originally from Zanzibar [now part of Tanzania] and now lives in
New York City. If you want to re-print this article please write to brother
Khatib directly. He has also written other articles on the history of Islam in
Zanzibar.
THE GREATEST GIFT OF AFRICAN MUSLIM SLAVES FROM MECCA TO MARYLAND
================================================== ===============
TANBIH
======
And what will explain to you the path that is steep?
(It is) to free a slave (Qur'an; 90:12-13).
=========================AMMA-BA'D===============================
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
=====================
Because thousands of Native Americans died from horrible overwork on
plantation and in mines, Priest Bartolome de Las Casas pleaded for their
conditions. James West and Michael B. Stoff (1998), in their book; AMERICAN
NATION quoted him:
The (Native) Indians were totally depressed of their
freedom.....Even beasts enjoyed their freedom when
they are allowed to graze in the fields. (p. 76).
Priest Bartolome de Las Casas was so horrified that he went to Spain and
asked the king to protect the Native Indians. In 1540, the Spanish
government passed laws stating that Native Americans should not be enslaved.
The laws also allowed them to own cattle and grow crops. Priest Bartolome
suggested that West Africans must be brought to America as slaves to replace
the Native Americans because they were resistant to European diseases and
were hard working in their countries.
Therefore, in 1619, a Dutch ship landed Jamestown with 20 Africans who were
sold to Virginians since they needed them to work in their tobacco
plantations. These African slaves were baptized and given Spanish names and
two of them, Anthony and Isabella married in Virginia. In 1624, they had a
son, William, the first child of African slaves born in the so called NEW
WORLD, now the United States of America.
THE ORIGINS OF "BLACK" HISTORY MONTH
====================================
Among the sons of Africa slaves was Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950), who
discovered that none of the schools taught the history of Black Americans.
So he started the American Negro Academy to study the important things Black
people had accomplished and on February 19, 1926, Carter G. Woodson
established "NEGRO HISTORY WEEK" which is now called the "BLACK HISTORY
MONTH" (OF FEBRUARY) in the United States.
We have also observed that by a sheer ignorance of Christocentric or a
deliberate covert paradigm, the history of Muslims in Maryland is neglected
by contemporary scholars even in the specific "BLACK HISTORY" month of
February. It is neglected despite Maryland had the tenth largest Muslim
population (1990) in America.
================================================== ====================
THE MUSLIM POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES (1990)
================================================== ====================
MUSLIM POPULATION PERCENTAGE PERCENTAGE OF
IN TOTAL STATE
THOUSAND* MUSLIM POPULATION POPULATION
================================================== ====================
CALIFORNIA 1,000 20.0 3.4
NEW YORK 800 16.0 4.7
ILLINOIS 420 8.4 3.6
NEW JERSEY 200 4.0 2.5
INDIANA 180 3.6 3.2
MICHIGAN 170 3.4 1.8
VIRGINIA 150 3.0 2.4
TEXAS 140 2.8 0.7
OHIO 130 2.6 1.2
MARYLAND 70 1.4 1.4
================================================== ====================
*Estimates under column 2 have been rounded to the nearest even number.
================================================== ====================
SOURCE: Fareed H. Numan (1990) THE MUSLIM POPULATION IN THE UNITED
STATES.
Perhaps, due to Christocentric historicity, most of the contemporary
scholars focus on the memories and contributions of Christian activists such
as Fredrick Douglas (1817-1895), the famous slave and Abolitionist in
Maryland. But they fail to inform us that political activism and
intellectualism of Fredrick Douglas can be traced to his ancestor; Bilal bin
Muhammad (d. 1859), a Muslim slave activist.
Bilal bin Muhammad, born at Masina in Mali was a slave at Salepo Island,
Georgia. He started his political activism during the Second American War
with England after he was entrusted with military leadership of over 80
armed slaves. Thus, he pledged to defend the Island of Salepo if attacked.
In 1815, Bilal bin Muhammad told his slave master, Thomas Spalding
(1774-1851) that he could "answer for every Negro of the true Faith (of
Islam) but not for the Christian dogs you own." Bilal bin Muhammad was
buried in Georgia with his Qur'an and a prayer rug.
Bilal bin Muhammad left twelve children and several Arabic manuscripts,
including the excerpts of AL-RISLAH (The Message), composed by Abu Bakr
Muhammad Zaid al-Qarwan, born in Morocco. This manuscript is a common
treatise of FIQH (Islamic Jurisprudence) in West Africa from where some
Muslims were captured, enslaved, Christinized and exported as human cargo to
Maryland, the first Catholic State named after Mary, the mother of Jesus
Christ, peace be upon him.
CHRISTIANIZATION OF HUMAN CARGO TO MARYLAND
===========================================
The history of Muslims in Maryland can be traced to West Africa where Islam
reached in the eighth century. By the twelfth century, the Muslims had
already established Islamic Empire of Mali whose king Mansa Kankan Mussa
(1312-1337) performed his famous pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324. On his return,
he informed Nasir Edin bin Muhammad III (1309-1340), a Muslim scholar in
Cairo that his brother, Sultan Abu Bakr Kankan Mussa (1285-1312) had
undertaken two important expeditions into the Atlantic Ocean. Since the
Sultan did not return to Timbuktu from the second voyage of 1311, Mansa
Kankan Musa became the Sultan of the Empire of Mali.
Mansa Kankan Musa, educated in Arabic brought with him to Mali, Muslim
scholars and an architect, Ishaq al-Teudjin, who constructed for him several
buildings, Islamic schools, palaces and mosques. He also started
relationship with Tunisia and Egypt for culture, economics and education. By
the fifteenth century, Mali had the Islamic University of Sankore at
Timbuktu which was attended by many scholars from different parts of the
world before Muslim slaves from West Africa were chained to Maryland in the
sixteenth century. Some of them formed a bridge of blood across the Atlantic
Ocean during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (1530-1863), the greatest
intercontinental in the world history of human cargo from Africa to
Maryland.
In such a shipment of human cargo to the largest Judeo-Christian nation, we
do not know precisely when the first Muslim slave was brought to Maryland.
But an unnamed African baptised as Mathias de Souza, was the first African
slave in Maryland. He arrived in 1634 at St. Mary's City with the ARK, the
ship sent by Lord Baltimore of England. Mathias de Souza was a slave of a
Jesuit priest in Maryland, the first Colony to develop capitalist economy
based on wheat and tobacco plantation by sweat and toil of slaves, among
them were Muslims from West Africa.
Some of these West African Muslim slaves converted to Christianity in order
to gain emancipation. This was due to the fact that after the arrival of 13
slaves from West Africa at St. Mary's City in 1642, Maryland was the first
Colony to legislate that any African slave who was baptised as a Christian
could be freed. Yet, this emancipation law was ignored in 1663, when
Maryland became the first to legislate that all the African slaves and their
children must be slaves forever.
Since other West African slaves considered Christianity a reason for
manumission, the Maryland Assembly declared in 1664 that baptism, however,
should not affect a slave's status. From 1690, a large number of West
African slaves were brought to Maryland, and the Assembly encouraged slaves
owners to convert (or enforce) their slaves into Christianity since none of
them was a Christian in West Africa.
The forceful conversion to Christianity was contrary to the American
Declaration of Independence and the Human Rights Declaration of Maryland.
This is because, the American Declaration of Independence by President
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), stipulated that all people were born equal and
therefore liberty and equality were inalienable rights of all. Also in 1867,
the Constitution of the Maryland on Human Rights Declaration states:
We the People of the State of Maryland, gratefully to
almighty God for our civil and religious liberty and
taking into our serious consideration the best means of
establishing a good consideration in this State for sure
foundation and more permanent security.
The Muslim African slaves in Maryland were not given a serious consideration
of their religious rights. Like all the Muslim Minorities, such as the
OCCUPIED KASHMIRIS under the HINDU FUNDAMENTALIST Government or the OCCUPIED
ZANZIBARIS under the CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALIST Government of TANZANIA, the
African Muslims in Maryland were oppressed with the brutalities of ethnic
annihilation, cultural assimilation and political victimization.
The Africa Muslims in America and Maryland in particular, were forced to
embrace Christianity. They were also made to forget their native languages
and Arabic, which was their lingua franca was drastically outlawed. In such
cultural genocide, they were forbidden to pray and fast but were forced to
eat pork and drink alcohol. Their families were not only separated and
dispersed across the United States to curtail genealogies (Family trees),
but they were also conditioned to adopt formication in Western Civilization
before their freedom.
FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM IN MARYLAND
===================================
Professor Allan D. Austin did an excellent job of bringing together the
available literary fragments which deal with life and experiences of some
African Muslim slaves in Maryland. Others were highly literate of the Qur'an
and fluent in Arabic language. Apart from the much celebrated Kunta Kinteh
whose saga has been well fictionalized and immortalized by his descendant,
Alex Haley, there were Muslim slaves in Maryland such as Yarrow Mamout,
which should be read Yorro Mahmud.
Yorro Mahmud was the first Muslim slave recorded in 1819 by Charles Wilson
Peale (1741-1872), a correspondent of President Thomas Jefferson
(1743-1826), one of the "Founding Fathers" of America. His first portrait
for public display hangs in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. His
second was completed in 1828, almost a decade later can be seen in the
Peabody Room at the Georgetown Public Library.
We are indebted to Charles Wilson Peale for his impressive portrait of Yorro
and his personal diary. At the time of two-day sitting for the portrait,
Yorro was said to be more than one hundred years old. It is suggested that
Yorro was captured in 1720 and brought into a ship of Captain Dowel to
Maryland.
Unfortunately, nothing is known about his youth in West Africa, nor his
early years in Maryland which was so horrible for African slaves that at
least one out of four died before their first year ended. In 1819, Yorro
Mahmud owned his own house in Georgtown and saved enough money and he bought
stock in Columbia Bank, founded in 1771 by Alexandra Hamilton.
According to Professor Sulayman Nyang, the Maryland archives confirmed the
existence of a person called Yarrow. He said that most probably our Yorro
Mahmud who was freed on August 22, 1796 by Upton Beall but not Bell as
stated by Professor Allan D. Austin. This document reveals that assessments
for Georgetown (1809-1819), listed negro Yorro as a tax payer. Professor
Sulayman lamented that an examination of the records at the National
Archives should tell us which land in Georgetown was owned by Yorro Mahmud.
Another interesting information about Yorro is the order of manumission
which he asked his owner to write. In the Maryland archival record entitled
Montgomery County LRC No. 385 (1796), Yorro's master, Upton Beall, wrote:
At the request of Yorro the following manumission is
recorded this 22nd of August 1796 to know all men by
these presents (sic) that I Upton Beall of Montgomery
County and State of Maryland do manumit and set free
negro Yorro from this day forward to act for himself
as a free man in all things given my hand and seal
this 22nd of August, anno domini hundred seventeen
hundred and ninety six.
Upton Beall
Clerk
>From the Charles Wilson Peal diary's, we know that Yorro was a pious and
devout Muslim who abstained from the consumption of pork and alcohol. He
saved his money and bought property in Georgetown. Although he lost his
first savings of $100.00 when the young merchant to whom he had entrusted it
went bankrupt. This event did not make him despair. Rather, he opened an
account with the Columbia Bank and managed to save up $200.00, the money he
purchased a land in Georgetown.
His experiences show how an African Muslim slave in Maryland during 1720 and
got his freedom 76 years later. Assuming that Yorro was a boy of 14 years
when he landed in Maryland, he would have been 90 years old when Upton Beall
signed his order of manumission. If Yorro Mahmoud was 34 years, as his
owners and their friends believed, then he was 133 years old when he set for
the portrait for Peale. He was therefore, the first oldest person in
American, and deserved to be in the Guinnese Book of Records.
GREATEST GIFT OF AFRICA MUSLIM SLAVES TO MARYLAND
=================================================
While Yorro Mahmud is known as the MARYLAND MUSLIM in the Smithonim Museum
at Washington D.C, the most fortunate Muslim slave in American history was
Ayoub bin Sulayman bin Ibrahim Diallo (1700-1773), famous as Job Ben
Solomon. He was the Bandu prince before being captured in 1730 and sold to
Captain Pike at Gambia. He delivered him to Vachell Denton and worked on
tobacco plantation in Maryland. Since he was not allowed to make his
prayers, Ayoub used to make SAL'AT (Prayers) and DU'A (Supplication) in
public.
This indicated that Ayoub bin Sulayman knew the Saying of the Prophet
Muhammad (pbuh) that all earth is a mosque. But white children mocked him
and threw dirt in his face while he was praying in the woods. He escaped to
maintain his Islamic identity and freedom but was eventually captured and
imprisoned until the Rev. Thomas Bluett (d. 1749) heard about his moral
integrity and arranged a meeting with him and became good friends from
America to England and Gambia. It seems that the Rev. Thomas Bluett was one
among the a few good Christians to Muslims:
Strongest among men in enmity to the believers (Muslims)
you will find the Jews and Pagans; and nearest among
them in love to the believers (Muslims) you will find
those who say: "We are Christians": because amongst
these (Christians) are men devoted to learning (From
Muslims) and men who have renounced the world, and they
are not arrogant. (Qur'an; 5:82).
The Rev. Thomas Bluett returned Ayoub to his slave master, who then provided
him with a private place to pray. In their first meeting, the Rev. Thomas
Bluett was impressed by Ayoub's ability in fluent Arabic and his devotion to
Islam in the DAR KUFR (The Abode of Disbelievers) of Maryland. The Rev.
Bluett who became the first official biographer of Ayoub stated that Ayoub
could not speak English but when he communicated by making signs to him, he
wrote about ALLAH (SWT), MUHAMMAD (SAW) and refused a glass of wine.
The Rev. Thomas Bluett also stated that Ayoub was perceived as one among the
devout Muhammadan (sic) slaves from West Africa. This can be argued that if
Bilal bin Rabbah (570-641) was the first African slave emancipated through
ISLAM and made DA'WA among the Arab pagans in Mecca, Ayoub Sulayman Ibrahim
(1700-1773) was the first Africa slave to make DA'WA to the American pagans
in Maryland.
And if proclamation of ADH'AN (Calling For Prayers) was the GREATEST GIFT of
Bilal bin Rabbah to all Muslims from Mecca to Maryland, ISLAM IS THE
GREATEST GIFT of Ayoub bin Sulayman in MARYLAND where he made struggle
(JIHAD) to maintain his Islamic identity. He did through his intelligence,
oral and written Arabic, the language of ISLAM instead of his native
dialect. His JIHAD became so well known that in 1733, arrangements were made
to be emancipated by James Edward Oglethorpe (1696-1785), founder of
Georgia, and provided him with transportation via England.
Among his acquainted in England were the Royal family and Sir Hans Sloans
(1660-1753), founder of the British Museum and president of the Royal
Society. Ayoub translated several Arabic materials for the Royal Society. He
was elected to the prestigious Gentlemen's Society of Spalding whose members
were Alexander Pope and Sir Isaac Newton, the famous scientist and Sir Hans
Sloans. Ayoub wrote copies of the Qur'anic passages from memory before he
obtained freedom of his native Gambian friend Lamine Yay who had came with
him as slave to Maryland.
In 1734, the Rev. Bluett published a detailed biography of his best friend
Ayoub, who was so fortunate that the Royal African Company founded in 1671,
arranged the return of Ayoub to his country via England and France. This
fortunate Muslim slave in Maryland was given a British and a French
passports. He boarded the Dolphin on June 28, 1734 and arrived Gambia on
August 7, 1734 where he helped Melchous De Jasper, an Arabic-speaking
Armenia representative of the Royal African Company from 1738-1740. Ayoub
kept in touch his friends until his death at his home.
It can be said that when Ayoub wrote ALLAH (SWT) and MUHAMMAD (pbuh) on the
ground of MARYLAND, ALLAH accepted his DU'WA (Supplication) because ISLAM is
the fastest growing religion in America, especially among the West African
origins. His DU'WA was also accepted because MARYLAND HAD THE TENTH LARGEST
MUSLIM POPULATION (1990) IN THE UNITED STATES, reminiscent of the promise of
Allah to Muslims:
When comes the Help of Allah, and Victory. And you
shall see the people enter Allah's Religion (ISLAM) in
crowds. Celebrate the praises of Your Lord, and pray
for His Forgiveness: For He is Oft-Returning (in Grace
and Mercy). (Qur'an; 110:1-3).
The JIHAD (Struggle) of Ayoub in Maryland against cultural assimilation and
political victimization, continued. After he left Maryland to his country,
several movements emerged for equality and dignity. Fredrick Douglas
(1817-1895) of Maryland led ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT before Al-Hajj Malik
Shabazz (1925-1965), famous as Malcolm X visited Zanzibar at a request of
his friend Professor Abdul Rahman Muhammed Babu, a Zanzibari veteran and
political guru.
IMPACT OF ISLAM ON SLAVERY IN ZANZIBAR
======================================
We are not sure why Al-Hajj Malik Shabazz visited Zanzibar. But it must be
stated that contrary to the propaganda of some Orientalists, Missionaries
and Afro-Arabophobics in Tanzania against Islam, slavery in Zanzibar was
more human and cordial because of Islam from Mecca. The Rev. William Hichens
in his article; ISLAM IN EAST AFRICA (1954) explained the treatments of
slaves in Zanzibar:
Worked as craftsmen or in the shops and warehouses or
as domestic servants in the mansions, where they
shared comfort and luxury of their masters, while much
of the public esteem their masters enjoyed was
reflected upon them. Certainly, when slavery was
finally abolished, the slaves protested much more
loudly than their owners, and tearing down the public
proclamation of their liberty which were posted in the
streets, many hundreds of slaves rejected "freedom"
and clamoured for the "right" which they had for so
long enjoyed. In the houses of prominent men slaves
could and often rise to positions of authority and
influence, in which they enjoyed public honour and
esteem. (p. 125).
The Rev. Lyndon Harris (1954), an American Orientalist also stated in his
book ISLAM IN EAST AFRICA (that "much what has been written by Christian
writers was not always fair to the Muslim slave-trade the system of slavery
as it was practiced in East African coast by Arab-Swahilis was neither
heartless nor brutal. The Sultan of Zanzibar Sayyid Said bin Sultan
(1806-1856) took the first step towards the abolition of slave trade from
his dominions."
His first two governors to Zanzibar were in fact freed slaves. These were
Yaqoub bin al-Habshy and Ambar Sultan al-Habshy who were succeeded by
Abdullah Juma, Ali Nassor and Mohammad Nassor before Sayyid Said bin Sultan
settled to Zanzibar.
Contrary to what some British Missionaries who claimed that they were the
emancipators of slaves of East Africa, prior to the coming of the British to
Zanzibar in 1840, Sayyid Said bin Sultan declared on September 22, 1822 that
slaves from East Africa should not be sold to any Christian nation,
including America where slavery was as brutal as Biblical imperative.
BIBLICAL PROPHECY FOR BRUTAL SLAVERY
====================================
The Sultan of Zanzibar, Sayyid Said bin Sultan was not mistaken for not
allowing slaves in East Africa to be sent to Christian nation. Because in
America, slavery was the most cruel and brutal, such as lynchings, a
similitude of Crucifixion, the first cardinal dogma of Christianity. To some
Christian Fundamentalists, the brutality of African slavery in foreign
country was a Biblical prophecy:
(Africans) will be strangers in a country of their own,
and they will be enslaved and mistreated (for) four
hundred years. (Genesis [NIV]; 15:13).
According to the Bible, slaves must respect their slave masters so that the
name of their God and the teachings of Christianity should not be slandered:
All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider
their (slave) masters worthy of full respect so that
God's name and our teachings may not be slandered. (1
Timothy [NIV]; 6:1).
It is also stated that slaves must obey their slave masters, no matter how
considerate (kind) or harsh (brutal) to them:
Slaves, submit yourselves to your (slave) masters with
all respect, not only to those who are good and
considerate, but also to those who are harsh. (1
Peter [NIV]; 2:18).
No wonder after Al-Hajj Malik Shabazz visited Zanzibar and later performed
his HAJJ (Pilgrimage) to Mecca, he wrote famous letters to African
Americans. He indicated that ISLAM is the only PEACEFUL SOLUTION against all
forms of discrimination:
O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a
male (ADAM) and a female (HAWA), and made you into
nations and tribes, that you may know each other (not
that you may despise each other). Verily the most
honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is)
the most righteous of you. And Allah has full
knowledge and is well acquainted. (Qur'an; 49:13).
In this regard, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said: "There is no superiority
of Arab over non-Arab or non-Arab over Arab, nor White over Black or Black
over White but on righteousness."(Musnad Ahmad). He also said: "Hear
(Muslims) Obey your leader even he is an Ethiopian slave with curly hair."
(Bukhari).
In conclusion, ISLAM IS THE GIFT OF AFRICAN MUSLIM SLAVES IN AMERICA, which
is technologically ADVANCED but morally BANKRUPT due to SECULARISM so ISLAM
is the ANSWER since SECULARISM proves FAILURE for justice and morality.
Unfortunately, SECULARISM is imposed in Muslim countries by Christian rulers
in collaboration with their Muslim puppets (Qur'an; 2:14) from (A)nkarah to
(Z)anzibar.
Wakatabahu
Khatib Rajab AL-ZINJIBARI
From: Khatib Rajab <[email protected]>
Thhe author is originally from Zanzibar [now part of Tanzania] and now lives in
New York City. If you want to re-print this article please write to brother
Khatib directly. He has also written other articles on the history of Islam in
Zanzibar.
THE GREATEST GIFT OF AFRICAN MUSLIM SLAVES FROM MECCA TO MARYLAND
================================================== ===============
TANBIH
======
And what will explain to you the path that is steep?
(It is) to free a slave (Qur'an; 90:12-13).
=========================AMMA-BA'D===============================
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
=====================
Because thousands of Native Americans died from horrible overwork on
plantation and in mines, Priest Bartolome de Las Casas pleaded for their
conditions. James West and Michael B. Stoff (1998), in their book; AMERICAN
NATION quoted him:
The (Native) Indians were totally depressed of their
freedom.....Even beasts enjoyed their freedom when
they are allowed to graze in the fields. (p. 76).
Priest Bartolome de Las Casas was so horrified that he went to Spain and
asked the king to protect the Native Indians. In 1540, the Spanish
government passed laws stating that Native Americans should not be enslaved.
The laws also allowed them to own cattle and grow crops. Priest Bartolome
suggested that West Africans must be brought to America as slaves to replace
the Native Americans because they were resistant to European diseases and
were hard working in their countries.
Therefore, in 1619, a Dutch ship landed Jamestown with 20 Africans who were
sold to Virginians since they needed them to work in their tobacco
plantations. These African slaves were baptized and given Spanish names and
two of them, Anthony and Isabella married in Virginia. In 1624, they had a
son, William, the first child of African slaves born in the so called NEW
WORLD, now the United States of America.
THE ORIGINS OF "BLACK" HISTORY MONTH
====================================
Among the sons of Africa slaves was Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950), who
discovered that none of the schools taught the history of Black Americans.
So he started the American Negro Academy to study the important things Black
people had accomplished and on February 19, 1926, Carter G. Woodson
established "NEGRO HISTORY WEEK" which is now called the "BLACK HISTORY
MONTH" (OF FEBRUARY) in the United States.
We have also observed that by a sheer ignorance of Christocentric or a
deliberate covert paradigm, the history of Muslims in Maryland is neglected
by contemporary scholars even in the specific "BLACK HISTORY" month of
February. It is neglected despite Maryland had the tenth largest Muslim
population (1990) in America.
================================================== ====================
THE MUSLIM POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES (1990)
================================================== ====================
MUSLIM POPULATION PERCENTAGE PERCENTAGE OF
IN TOTAL STATE
THOUSAND* MUSLIM POPULATION POPULATION
================================================== ====================
CALIFORNIA 1,000 20.0 3.4
NEW YORK 800 16.0 4.7
ILLINOIS 420 8.4 3.6
NEW JERSEY 200 4.0 2.5
INDIANA 180 3.6 3.2
MICHIGAN 170 3.4 1.8
VIRGINIA 150 3.0 2.4
TEXAS 140 2.8 0.7
OHIO 130 2.6 1.2
MARYLAND 70 1.4 1.4
================================================== ====================
*Estimates under column 2 have been rounded to the nearest even number.
================================================== ====================
SOURCE: Fareed H. Numan (1990) THE MUSLIM POPULATION IN THE UNITED
STATES.
Perhaps, due to Christocentric historicity, most of the contemporary
scholars focus on the memories and contributions of Christian activists such
as Fredrick Douglas (1817-1895), the famous slave and Abolitionist in
Maryland. But they fail to inform us that political activism and
intellectualism of Fredrick Douglas can be traced to his ancestor; Bilal bin
Muhammad (d. 1859), a Muslim slave activist.
Bilal bin Muhammad, born at Masina in Mali was a slave at Salepo Island,
Georgia. He started his political activism during the Second American War
with England after he was entrusted with military leadership of over 80
armed slaves. Thus, he pledged to defend the Island of Salepo if attacked.
In 1815, Bilal bin Muhammad told his slave master, Thomas Spalding
(1774-1851) that he could "answer for every Negro of the true Faith (of
Islam) but not for the Christian dogs you own." Bilal bin Muhammad was
buried in Georgia with his Qur'an and a prayer rug.
Bilal bin Muhammad left twelve children and several Arabic manuscripts,
including the excerpts of AL-RISLAH (The Message), composed by Abu Bakr
Muhammad Zaid al-Qarwan, born in Morocco. This manuscript is a common
treatise of FIQH (Islamic Jurisprudence) in West Africa from where some
Muslims were captured, enslaved, Christinized and exported as human cargo to
Maryland, the first Catholic State named after Mary, the mother of Jesus
Christ, peace be upon him.
CHRISTIANIZATION OF HUMAN CARGO TO MARYLAND
===========================================
The history of Muslims in Maryland can be traced to West Africa where Islam
reached in the eighth century. By the twelfth century, the Muslims had
already established Islamic Empire of Mali whose king Mansa Kankan Mussa
(1312-1337) performed his famous pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324. On his return,
he informed Nasir Edin bin Muhammad III (1309-1340), a Muslim scholar in
Cairo that his brother, Sultan Abu Bakr Kankan Mussa (1285-1312) had
undertaken two important expeditions into the Atlantic Ocean. Since the
Sultan did not return to Timbuktu from the second voyage of 1311, Mansa
Kankan Musa became the Sultan of the Empire of Mali.
Mansa Kankan Musa, educated in Arabic brought with him to Mali, Muslim
scholars and an architect, Ishaq al-Teudjin, who constructed for him several
buildings, Islamic schools, palaces and mosques. He also started
relationship with Tunisia and Egypt for culture, economics and education. By
the fifteenth century, Mali had the Islamic University of Sankore at
Timbuktu which was attended by many scholars from different parts of the
world before Muslim slaves from West Africa were chained to Maryland in the
sixteenth century. Some of them formed a bridge of blood across the Atlantic
Ocean during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (1530-1863), the greatest
intercontinental in the world history of human cargo from Africa to
Maryland.
In such a shipment of human cargo to the largest Judeo-Christian nation, we
do not know precisely when the first Muslim slave was brought to Maryland.
But an unnamed African baptised as Mathias de Souza, was the first African
slave in Maryland. He arrived in 1634 at St. Mary's City with the ARK, the
ship sent by Lord Baltimore of England. Mathias de Souza was a slave of a
Jesuit priest in Maryland, the first Colony to develop capitalist economy
based on wheat and tobacco plantation by sweat and toil of slaves, among
them were Muslims from West Africa.
Some of these West African Muslim slaves converted to Christianity in order
to gain emancipation. This was due to the fact that after the arrival of 13
slaves from West Africa at St. Mary's City in 1642, Maryland was the first
Colony to legislate that any African slave who was baptised as a Christian
could be freed. Yet, this emancipation law was ignored in 1663, when
Maryland became the first to legislate that all the African slaves and their
children must be slaves forever.
Since other West African slaves considered Christianity a reason for
manumission, the Maryland Assembly declared in 1664 that baptism, however,
should not affect a slave's status. From 1690, a large number of West
African slaves were brought to Maryland, and the Assembly encouraged slaves
owners to convert (or enforce) their slaves into Christianity since none of
them was a Christian in West Africa.
The forceful conversion to Christianity was contrary to the American
Declaration of Independence and the Human Rights Declaration of Maryland.
This is because, the American Declaration of Independence by President
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), stipulated that all people were born equal and
therefore liberty and equality were inalienable rights of all. Also in 1867,
the Constitution of the Maryland on Human Rights Declaration states:
We the People of the State of Maryland, gratefully to
almighty God for our civil and religious liberty and
taking into our serious consideration the best means of
establishing a good consideration in this State for sure
foundation and more permanent security.
The Muslim African slaves in Maryland were not given a serious consideration
of their religious rights. Like all the Muslim Minorities, such as the
OCCUPIED KASHMIRIS under the HINDU FUNDAMENTALIST Government or the OCCUPIED
ZANZIBARIS under the CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALIST Government of TANZANIA, the
African Muslims in Maryland were oppressed with the brutalities of ethnic
annihilation, cultural assimilation and political victimization.
The Africa Muslims in America and Maryland in particular, were forced to
embrace Christianity. They were also made to forget their native languages
and Arabic, which was their lingua franca was drastically outlawed. In such
cultural genocide, they were forbidden to pray and fast but were forced to
eat pork and drink alcohol. Their families were not only separated and
dispersed across the United States to curtail genealogies (Family trees),
but they were also conditioned to adopt formication in Western Civilization
before their freedom.
FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM IN MARYLAND
===================================
Professor Allan D. Austin did an excellent job of bringing together the
available literary fragments which deal with life and experiences of some
African Muslim slaves in Maryland. Others were highly literate of the Qur'an
and fluent in Arabic language. Apart from the much celebrated Kunta Kinteh
whose saga has been well fictionalized and immortalized by his descendant,
Alex Haley, there were Muslim slaves in Maryland such as Yarrow Mamout,
which should be read Yorro Mahmud.
Yorro Mahmud was the first Muslim slave recorded in 1819 by Charles Wilson
Peale (1741-1872), a correspondent of President Thomas Jefferson
(1743-1826), one of the "Founding Fathers" of America. His first portrait
for public display hangs in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. His
second was completed in 1828, almost a decade later can be seen in the
Peabody Room at the Georgetown Public Library.
We are indebted to Charles Wilson Peale for his impressive portrait of Yorro
and his personal diary. At the time of two-day sitting for the portrait,
Yorro was said to be more than one hundred years old. It is suggested that
Yorro was captured in 1720 and brought into a ship of Captain Dowel to
Maryland.
Unfortunately, nothing is known about his youth in West Africa, nor his
early years in Maryland which was so horrible for African slaves that at
least one out of four died before their first year ended. In 1819, Yorro
Mahmud owned his own house in Georgtown and saved enough money and he bought
stock in Columbia Bank, founded in 1771 by Alexandra Hamilton.
According to Professor Sulayman Nyang, the Maryland archives confirmed the
existence of a person called Yarrow. He said that most probably our Yorro
Mahmud who was freed on August 22, 1796 by Upton Beall but not Bell as
stated by Professor Allan D. Austin. This document reveals that assessments
for Georgetown (1809-1819), listed negro Yorro as a tax payer. Professor
Sulayman lamented that an examination of the records at the National
Archives should tell us which land in Georgetown was owned by Yorro Mahmud.
Another interesting information about Yorro is the order of manumission
which he asked his owner to write. In the Maryland archival record entitled
Montgomery County LRC No. 385 (1796), Yorro's master, Upton Beall, wrote:
At the request of Yorro the following manumission is
recorded this 22nd of August 1796 to know all men by
these presents (sic) that I Upton Beall of Montgomery
County and State of Maryland do manumit and set free
negro Yorro from this day forward to act for himself
as a free man in all things given my hand and seal
this 22nd of August, anno domini hundred seventeen
hundred and ninety six.
Upton Beall
Clerk
>From the Charles Wilson Peal diary's, we know that Yorro was a pious and
devout Muslim who abstained from the consumption of pork and alcohol. He
saved his money and bought property in Georgetown. Although he lost his
first savings of $100.00 when the young merchant to whom he had entrusted it
went bankrupt. This event did not make him despair. Rather, he opened an
account with the Columbia Bank and managed to save up $200.00, the money he
purchased a land in Georgetown.
His experiences show how an African Muslim slave in Maryland during 1720 and
got his freedom 76 years later. Assuming that Yorro was a boy of 14 years
when he landed in Maryland, he would have been 90 years old when Upton Beall
signed his order of manumission. If Yorro Mahmoud was 34 years, as his
owners and their friends believed, then he was 133 years old when he set for
the portrait for Peale. He was therefore, the first oldest person in
American, and deserved to be in the Guinnese Book of Records.
GREATEST GIFT OF AFRICA MUSLIM SLAVES TO MARYLAND
=================================================
While Yorro Mahmud is known as the MARYLAND MUSLIM in the Smithonim Museum
at Washington D.C, the most fortunate Muslim slave in American history was
Ayoub bin Sulayman bin Ibrahim Diallo (1700-1773), famous as Job Ben
Solomon. He was the Bandu prince before being captured in 1730 and sold to
Captain Pike at Gambia. He delivered him to Vachell Denton and worked on
tobacco plantation in Maryland. Since he was not allowed to make his
prayers, Ayoub used to make SAL'AT (Prayers) and DU'A (Supplication) in
public.
This indicated that Ayoub bin Sulayman knew the Saying of the Prophet
Muhammad (pbuh) that all earth is a mosque. But white children mocked him
and threw dirt in his face while he was praying in the woods. He escaped to
maintain his Islamic identity and freedom but was eventually captured and
imprisoned until the Rev. Thomas Bluett (d. 1749) heard about his moral
integrity and arranged a meeting with him and became good friends from
America to England and Gambia. It seems that the Rev. Thomas Bluett was one
among the a few good Christians to Muslims:
Strongest among men in enmity to the believers (Muslims)
you will find the Jews and Pagans; and nearest among
them in love to the believers (Muslims) you will find
those who say: "We are Christians": because amongst
these (Christians) are men devoted to learning (From
Muslims) and men who have renounced the world, and they
are not arrogant. (Qur'an; 5:82).
The Rev. Thomas Bluett returned Ayoub to his slave master, who then provided
him with a private place to pray. In their first meeting, the Rev. Thomas
Bluett was impressed by Ayoub's ability in fluent Arabic and his devotion to
Islam in the DAR KUFR (The Abode of Disbelievers) of Maryland. The Rev.
Bluett who became the first official biographer of Ayoub stated that Ayoub
could not speak English but when he communicated by making signs to him, he
wrote about ALLAH (SWT), MUHAMMAD (SAW) and refused a glass of wine.
The Rev. Thomas Bluett also stated that Ayoub was perceived as one among the
devout Muhammadan (sic) slaves from West Africa. This can be argued that if
Bilal bin Rabbah (570-641) was the first African slave emancipated through
ISLAM and made DA'WA among the Arab pagans in Mecca, Ayoub Sulayman Ibrahim
(1700-1773) was the first Africa slave to make DA'WA to the American pagans
in Maryland.
And if proclamation of ADH'AN (Calling For Prayers) was the GREATEST GIFT of
Bilal bin Rabbah to all Muslims from Mecca to Maryland, ISLAM IS THE
GREATEST GIFT of Ayoub bin Sulayman in MARYLAND where he made struggle
(JIHAD) to maintain his Islamic identity. He did through his intelligence,
oral and written Arabic, the language of ISLAM instead of his native
dialect. His JIHAD became so well known that in 1733, arrangements were made
to be emancipated by James Edward Oglethorpe (1696-1785), founder of
Georgia, and provided him with transportation via England.
Among his acquainted in England were the Royal family and Sir Hans Sloans
(1660-1753), founder of the British Museum and president of the Royal
Society. Ayoub translated several Arabic materials for the Royal Society. He
was elected to the prestigious Gentlemen's Society of Spalding whose members
were Alexander Pope and Sir Isaac Newton, the famous scientist and Sir Hans
Sloans. Ayoub wrote copies of the Qur'anic passages from memory before he
obtained freedom of his native Gambian friend Lamine Yay who had came with
him as slave to Maryland.
In 1734, the Rev. Bluett published a detailed biography of his best friend
Ayoub, who was so fortunate that the Royal African Company founded in 1671,
arranged the return of Ayoub to his country via England and France. This
fortunate Muslim slave in Maryland was given a British and a French
passports. He boarded the Dolphin on June 28, 1734 and arrived Gambia on
August 7, 1734 where he helped Melchous De Jasper, an Arabic-speaking
Armenia representative of the Royal African Company from 1738-1740. Ayoub
kept in touch his friends until his death at his home.
It can be said that when Ayoub wrote ALLAH (SWT) and MUHAMMAD (pbuh) on the
ground of MARYLAND, ALLAH accepted his DU'WA (Supplication) because ISLAM is
the fastest growing religion in America, especially among the West African
origins. His DU'WA was also accepted because MARYLAND HAD THE TENTH LARGEST
MUSLIM POPULATION (1990) IN THE UNITED STATES, reminiscent of the promise of
Allah to Muslims:
When comes the Help of Allah, and Victory. And you
shall see the people enter Allah's Religion (ISLAM) in
crowds. Celebrate the praises of Your Lord, and pray
for His Forgiveness: For He is Oft-Returning (in Grace
and Mercy). (Qur'an; 110:1-3).
The JIHAD (Struggle) of Ayoub in Maryland against cultural assimilation and
political victimization, continued. After he left Maryland to his country,
several movements emerged for equality and dignity. Fredrick Douglas
(1817-1895) of Maryland led ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT before Al-Hajj Malik
Shabazz (1925-1965), famous as Malcolm X visited Zanzibar at a request of
his friend Professor Abdul Rahman Muhammed Babu, a Zanzibari veteran and
political guru.
IMPACT OF ISLAM ON SLAVERY IN ZANZIBAR
======================================
We are not sure why Al-Hajj Malik Shabazz visited Zanzibar. But it must be
stated that contrary to the propaganda of some Orientalists, Missionaries
and Afro-Arabophobics in Tanzania against Islam, slavery in Zanzibar was
more human and cordial because of Islam from Mecca. The Rev. William Hichens
in his article; ISLAM IN EAST AFRICA (1954) explained the treatments of
slaves in Zanzibar:
Worked as craftsmen or in the shops and warehouses or
as domestic servants in the mansions, where they
shared comfort and luxury of their masters, while much
of the public esteem their masters enjoyed was
reflected upon them. Certainly, when slavery was
finally abolished, the slaves protested much more
loudly than their owners, and tearing down the public
proclamation of their liberty which were posted in the
streets, many hundreds of slaves rejected "freedom"
and clamoured for the "right" which they had for so
long enjoyed. In the houses of prominent men slaves
could and often rise to positions of authority and
influence, in which they enjoyed public honour and
esteem. (p. 125).
The Rev. Lyndon Harris (1954), an American Orientalist also stated in his
book ISLAM IN EAST AFRICA (that "much what has been written by Christian
writers was not always fair to the Muslim slave-trade the system of slavery
as it was practiced in East African coast by Arab-Swahilis was neither
heartless nor brutal. The Sultan of Zanzibar Sayyid Said bin Sultan
(1806-1856) took the first step towards the abolition of slave trade from
his dominions."
His first two governors to Zanzibar were in fact freed slaves. These were
Yaqoub bin al-Habshy and Ambar Sultan al-Habshy who were succeeded by
Abdullah Juma, Ali Nassor and Mohammad Nassor before Sayyid Said bin Sultan
settled to Zanzibar.
Contrary to what some British Missionaries who claimed that they were the
emancipators of slaves of East Africa, prior to the coming of the British to
Zanzibar in 1840, Sayyid Said bin Sultan declared on September 22, 1822 that
slaves from East Africa should not be sold to any Christian nation,
including America where slavery was as brutal as Biblical imperative.
BIBLICAL PROPHECY FOR BRUTAL SLAVERY
====================================
The Sultan of Zanzibar, Sayyid Said bin Sultan was not mistaken for not
allowing slaves in East Africa to be sent to Christian nation. Because in
America, slavery was the most cruel and brutal, such as lynchings, a
similitude of Crucifixion, the first cardinal dogma of Christianity. To some
Christian Fundamentalists, the brutality of African slavery in foreign
country was a Biblical prophecy:
(Africans) will be strangers in a country of their own,
and they will be enslaved and mistreated (for) four
hundred years. (Genesis [NIV]; 15:13).
According to the Bible, slaves must respect their slave masters so that the
name of their God and the teachings of Christianity should not be slandered:
All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider
their (slave) masters worthy of full respect so that
God's name and our teachings may not be slandered. (1
Timothy [NIV]; 6:1).
It is also stated that slaves must obey their slave masters, no matter how
considerate (kind) or harsh (brutal) to them:
Slaves, submit yourselves to your (slave) masters with
all respect, not only to those who are good and
considerate, but also to those who are harsh. (1
Peter [NIV]; 2:18).
No wonder after Al-Hajj Malik Shabazz visited Zanzibar and later performed
his HAJJ (Pilgrimage) to Mecca, he wrote famous letters to African
Americans. He indicated that ISLAM is the only PEACEFUL SOLUTION against all
forms of discrimination:
O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a
male (ADAM) and a female (HAWA), and made you into
nations and tribes, that you may know each other (not
that you may despise each other). Verily the most
honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is)
the most righteous of you. And Allah has full
knowledge and is well acquainted. (Qur'an; 49:13).
In this regard, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said: "There is no superiority
of Arab over non-Arab or non-Arab over Arab, nor White over Black or Black
over White but on righteousness."(Musnad Ahmad). He also said: "Hear
(Muslims) Obey your leader even he is an Ethiopian slave with curly hair."
(Bukhari).
In conclusion, ISLAM IS THE GIFT OF AFRICAN MUSLIM SLAVES IN AMERICA, which
is technologically ADVANCED but morally BANKRUPT due to SECULARISM so ISLAM
is the ANSWER since SECULARISM proves FAILURE for justice and morality.
Unfortunately, SECULARISM is imposed in Muslim countries by Christian rulers
in collaboration with their Muslim puppets (Qur'an; 2:14) from (A)nkarah to
(Z)anzibar.
Wakatabahu
Khatib Rajab AL-ZINJIBARI