Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas----Sylviane Anna Diouf

A 'must-read' for anyone who wants an education in slave history.
Journal of the American Academy of Religion

Makes a major contribution by focusing on Muslim participation in the slave trade and Muslims' impact in the Americas. Diouf' s well-written and interesting book opens new avenues of inquiry and research.
The Journal of American History

A welcome and timely work on a subject of great importance By combining materials on African Islam with New World sources and thereby linking both sides of the Atlantic, the author provides a fresh angle on studies of the Diaspora.

Lamin Sanneh
Professor of History, Yale University

Off Subject---no spellcheck Irma

-- I DO NOT MIND your responses---its OK --- I too am OLD and understand

but you show at BIA Respect to the Richard Kigels, C U R T I S volk

AT LEAST show RESPECT to a FEMALE --- AFRICAN --- AWARD WINNING AUTHOR Sylviane Anna Diouf!

STOP and READ at least for a moment.....before you make such harryESQUE ghetto comments--LIKE...
"NOW ROBERT, WHER DID THE ORIGINAL ISLAMIC RELIGION COME FROM?"

Wednesday, April 23rd 2014 at 7:58PM
ROBINSON IRMA | delete | block member

there is ONLY an Islaamic Faith of AlQur'aan and the Sunnah of Mohamed(saw)
AlQur'aan was received around 610 or as far as Muslims are concerned at 1---Islaamic Calendar; by Abû AlQâasim Mohamed ibn ʿAbdalAllâah ibn ʿAbdalMuṭṭalib ibn Hâshim(saw)

AlQur'aan the Words of the Creator of Adaam(as) CONFIRMS the previous Prophets and Words of the Monotheistic Belief since Adaam(as)

why DELETE your previous comments above and then STEAL, and USE illegally at BIA, my TITLE?

lying, gossipy EVIL irmaWriter

why this?
*********************************************************************************************************
"RE: SERVANT OF ALLAH...ROBERT SINCE I BROKE YOUR RULES AS A BLOGGER BY
"I THINK IT IS SO CUTE THAT YOU HAVE SAID I AM NOT MARRIED TO A MUSLIM AND DON'T HAVE ON A HAND MADE WHITE GOLD WEDDING BAND SINCE 1992 WITH A MOON AND CRESANT"

Posted By: ROBINSON IRMA
Wednesday, April 23rd 2014 at 10:41PM
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Irma, no need to delete your comments---I have saved some and accept ALL....

"NOW ROBERT, WHER DID THE ORIGINAL ISLAMIC RELIGION COME FROM?"

Wednesday, April 23rd 2014 at 7:58PM
ROBINSON IRMA | delete | block member

there is ONLY an Islaamic Faith of AlQur'aan and the Sunnah of Mohamed(saw)

AlQur'aan was received around 610 or as far as Muslims are concerned at 1--1434+ YEARS ago-Islaamic Calendar; by Abû AlQâasim Mohamed ibn ʿAbdalAllâah ibn ʿAbdalMuṭṭalib ibn Hâshim(saw)

AlQur'aan the Words of the Creator of Adaam(as) CONFIRMS the previous Prophets and Words of the Monotheistic Belief since Adaam(as)

As always sweetIrma -- THANK YOU, I could not make up an older STEREOTYPE as you

Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas IS A History, Scholarship and Science from the award winning female author; Sylviane Anna Diouf; about the History of the African Diaspora.

not about me or you, I ask you to respect her as you do your selfProfessed 'whiteMen' at BIA, ONLY

The level of your racistIgnorance on MOST subjects, your inability to USE spellcheck; a 2014 Educated Writers tool and your use of BIA as a tvWatchers TWEET is ASTOUNDING!

again, you can comment on my BLOGS anytime

your ring----STAR and Crescent means NOTHING to the believer of AlQur'aan and the Sunnah of Mohamed(saw)

Let us Shine with AlQur'aan

Sûrat AzZumar
(The Different Groups, Communities, Families)
XXXIX
In the Name of Allâah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

1. The revelation of AlQur’âan is from Allâah, the All-Mighty, the All-Wise.

2. We have sent down AlQur'aan to you Mohamed in truth:
So worship and obey Allâah by doing righteous deeds sincerely for Allâah only.

3. AdDeen of worship and obedience is for Allâah only.
Those who take Auliyâ’ (idols, lords, gods, intermediators) besides Him say:
"We worship them so that they may bring us near to Allâah."
Allâah will judge between them concerning their differences.
Allâah does NOT guide a Liar, and a disbeliever.

4. Had Allâah willed to take a son or offspring, He could have chosen whom He willed out of those whom He created.
Glory be to Him! He is above such things. He is Allâah, the One, the Irresistible.

5. He has created the heavens and the earth with Truth. He makes the night to go in the day and makes the day to go in the night.
He has commanded the sun and the moon to run on a fixed course for an appointed term.
He is the All-Mighty, the Oft-Forgiving.

32. Then, who does more wrong than one who utters a lie against Allâah, and denies the truth of AlQur’âan, the Prophet Mohamed and Monotheism!

Is there not in Hell an abode for the disbelievers?

33. Mohamed; who has received AlQur’âan and Monotheism and the true believers of Monotheism, those are AlMuttaqûn (the pious)

34. They shall have all that they will desire with their Lord.
That is the reward of Muhsinûn (doers of good deeds).

35. So that Allâah may take from them the evil of what they did and give them the reward, according to the best of what they have done.

36. Is not Allâah Sufficient for His slave?

Yet they try to frighten you with those whom they worship besides Him!
Who Allâah sends astray, for him there will be no guide.

37. Whom Allâah guides, for him there will be no misleader.
Is not Allâah All-Mighty, Possessor of Retribution?

38. And if you ask them: "Who created the heavens and the earth?"
They will say: "Allâah has created them."
Say: "Tell me then, the things that you invoke besides Allâah - if Allâah intended some harm for me, could they remove His harm?

Or if Allâah intended some mercy for me, could they withhold His Mercy?" Say:
"Sufficient for me is Allâah; in Him those who Believe, must put their trust."

39. Say: Mohamed, "O My people! Work according to your way, I am working according to my way. Then you will come to know -

40. "To whom comes a disgracing torment, and on whom descends an everlasting torment."

41. We have sent down to Mohamed Õáì Çááå Úáíå æÓáã) AlQur’âan for Mankind in Truth.
So who ever accepts the guidance, it is only for his ownself, and who ever goes astray, he goes astray only for his loss.

You Mohamed Õáì Çááå Úáíå æÓáã are not a Wakîl (trustee, disposer of affairs, judge, guardian) over them.[1]

Sûrat AlGhâfir or AlMû’min
(The Forgiving or The Believer) XL
In the Name of Allâah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

57. The creation of the heavens and the earth is indeed greater than the creation of mankind; yet, most of mankind does not understand.
Narrated Abu Hurairah ÑÖí Çááå Úäå : One day while the Prophet Õáì Çááå Úáíå æÓáã was sitting in the company of some people, Jibraeel (Gabriel) Úáíå ÇáÓáÇã came and asked, "What is Faith?" Allâah’s Messenger Õáì Çááå Úáíå æÓáã replied, "Faith is to believe in Allâah, His angels, the meeting with Him, His messengers, and to believe in recompense at Death."

* Then he further asked, "What is Islâam?" Allâah’s Messenger Õáì Çááå Úáíå æÓáã replied, "To worship Allâah Alone and none else, to perform AsSalât (Iqamât-AsSalât), to give the Zakât and to observe Saum (fasts) during the month of Ramadhâan

READ something, and learn something sometime

BACK to my Blog Subject:

I thank my sister Sylviane Anna Diouf for her tremendous research with this CLASSIC and her other Historical Works.

I asked her sometime ago to help me with research -- and I understand she is too busy with her own great works-----SO I am in search of someone to help me with --- MY THEORY

FACTS:

1. as the slaverAMericana(1492-1864) plantation slaves were UNEDUCATED in european'Knowledge' and could not; under threat of DEATH, learn how to read/write ' europeanLanguages '

2. could NOT Read the kingJames Version of the Bible or any(under threat of DEATH)
--- as seen on ROOTS to 12 Years a Slave --THE MASTER that raped, tortured and sold his children was the 'christianSpiritualist on the plantation!

3. the slave then got his belief of creator ONLY from that 'spiritual MASTER' of whuppins and stokkins

VS

4. --- on many plantations the only Educated were the Muslims--they could read, write and maintain with memory AlQur'aan and many subjects of Hadeeth and Science.

Muslims will maintain their Belief and as seen 'sugarCoated' with ROOTS pass his belief to Family

THEORY:

1. I maintain that the Arabic Language was used MORE than has ever been RECORDED in American(1492-1864)

2. The Arabic Language -- written right to left --- would have seemed: to the racistly EVIL Ignorant europeanAmerican paganChristians as chicken scratch, and not a communication form.

3. ANY and ALL slaves that could and would escape BEFORE and AFTER HarrietTubman; KNEW and COMMUNICATED their way to Freedom with the Aid of the Muslims that lived in every plantation from texas to florida to Mississippi to Virginia...............

Just as the soCalled selfProfessed 'whiteAmericans' DO NOT want to Understand their Founding American Fathers of racistlyIgnorant rape, torture and murder of the African Asian 1492-1864(1964)

the soCalled selfProfessed 'blackAmericans' DO NOT want to UNDERSTAND the Communication of many slaves that led them to Freedom BACK to Africa

the 'blackChristian' was not accepted by the 'whiteChristian' -- they could escape anywhere but to 2014 -- teaParty, bundy, sterling, trayvon, affirmative action etc.

The Muslim African slave COULD escape to the beauty of Africa Asia and Dignity.

Let us explore this Greatest Story of slaverAmericana 1492-1864(1964)-2014: that of the Servants of Allaah

From Chapter 4:

A large proportion of the Muslims arrived in the New World already literate, reading and writing Arabic and their own languages transcribed in the Arabic alphabet.
As other Africans came from exclusively oral cultures, and as learning to read and write was either illegal or actively discouraged for all slaves in the Americas, literacy became one of the most distinguishing marks of the Muslims.

The Muslims' literacy clearly set them apart from the rest of the slaves and became as distinctive as a physical trait. A slaveholder was so impressed with his literate slave, for example, that he mentioned only this characteristic when he put a notice in the Charleston Courier of February 7, 1805, to advertise him as a fugitive. Thirty-year-old Sambo was a "new negro" who had absconded with another African and a native-born woman.

He was, reported his owner, a man "of grave countenance who writes the Arabic language." It would be interesting to know how the slaveholder came to learn about his new slave's literacy, as well as what, and under which circumstances, Sambo - a common name among Hausa - had been writing.

Illiteracy among men and women was not restricted to the slave quarters.

Many male colonists and most women could neither read nor write, because literacy in European cultures was reserved for the wealthy males. The furthest some societies went was to allow the poor and women to read for religious reasons - so that the Bible could be accessible - but not to write. As a result, a large number of American colonists who came from what were considered the lower European classes were illiterate or barely literate. In the colonies themselves, education was reserved for the privileged few; the movement toward mass literacy started only in the nineteenth century. Prior to that, in Brazil for instance, "the simplest rudiments were so little diffused that not infrequently wealth ranchers of the interior would charge their friends of the seaboard to secure for them a son-in-law who, in place of any other dower, should be able to read and write."

Because the literacy rate was high in Muslim Africa, and because of a concentration of learned Muslims in America, as discussed in chapter I, the literacy rate among Muslim slaves was in all probability higher than it was among slaveholders.

As Gilberto Freyre, the Brazilian scholar, remarked, "in the slaves' sheds of Bahia in 1835, there were perhaps more persons who knew how to read and write than up above in the Big Houses."

This situation was sometimes used to the advantage of the owners, who relied on their slaves' skills.

Such was the case with Abu bakr al Siddiq's owner in Jamaica, who had him keep his property' s records in Arabic. But the disparity in education of master and slave also created animosity. To some illiterate or barely literate masters, having slaves who could read and write was vexing. In that regard, Theodore Dwight, the secretary of the American Ethnological Society, observed that "several other Africans have been known at different periods, in different parts of America, somewhat resembling Job-ben-Solomon in acquirements [e.g., of literacy and education] ; but, unfortunately, no full account of any of them has ever been published.

The writer has made many efforts to remedy this defect, and has obtained some information from a few individuals. But there are insuperable difficulties in the way in slave countries, arising from the jealousy of masters, and other causes." Further, Dwight mentioned that writer and ethnologist William Hodgson, who had resided in North Africa, tried to make inquiries about the literate Muslims in the American South but had to abandon the undertaking "in despair," due to the hostility of their masters.

The hostility toward the literate Africans that many slaveholders expressed did not arise from the fear that their property would somehow trick them by forging passes or getting access to useful news.

Even though Brazilian slaveholders discovered that the Africans' literacy in Arabic could indeed by hazardous to their safety, the animosity described by Dwight had another origin. In the eyes of the slaveholders, the Muslims' literacy was dangerous because it represented a threat to the whites' intellectual domination and a refutation of the widely-held belief that Africans were inherently inferior and incapable of intellectual pursuits.

The Africans' skills constituted a proof of humanity and civilization that did not owe anything to the Christians' supposed civilizing influence. If these men and women could read and write, if they were not the bland slates or the primitive savages they had been portrayed to be in order to justify their enslavement, then the very foundation of the system had to be questioned.

.... as discussed in the previous chapter, North Americans felt compelled to deny the Africanness of the "outstanding" Muslims and to portray them as Arabs.

Some of the Prayers of the Muslims in BONDAGE; spoken, recited and WRITTEN in American 1492-1864 from Canada, USA to South America: before christianMasters allowed the African to learn English/Spanish.

Sûrat AlInfitâr
(The Cleaving, The Separating) LXXXII
In the Name of Allâah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

1. When the heaven is Opened.

2. When the stars have fallen and scattered.

3. When the seas overwhelm.

4. And when the graves are forced to bring out their contents,

5. Then a person will know what he has set forward and what he has left behind of good or bad deeds.

6. Mankind!
What has made you careless about your Rabbee, the Most Generous?

7. Who created you, fashioned you perfectly, and gave you due proportion.

8. In whatever form He willed, He put you together.

9. Yet you deny AdDîn (AlIslaam, Monotheism the Day of Recompense).

10. Over you are appointed angels in charge of Mankind to watch you,

11. Kirâman (Honourable) Kâtibîn writing down (your deeds),

12. They know all that you do.

13. The Abrâr (the pious Believers of Monotheism) will be in Delight (Paradise);

14. The Fujjâr (the wicked, disbelievers, polytheists, pagans and evil-doers) will be in the blazing Fire (Hell),

15. There they will enter, and taste its burning flame on the Day of Recompense,

16. AlFujjâr will be there.

17. And what will make you know what the Day of Recompense is?

18. Again, what will make you know what the Day of Recompense is?

19. It will be the Day when no person shall have power to do anything for another, and the Decision, that Day, will be only with Allâah.

Sûrat AnNaba’
(The Great News) LXXVIII
In the Name of Allâah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

1. What are they asking each other about?

2. About the great news, of Monotheism, AlQur’âan, which Prophet Mohamed brought and the Day of Resurrection

3. About which they are in disagreement.

4. They will come to know!

5. Again, they will come to know!

6. Have We not made the earth as a resting place,

7. And the mountains as pegs?

8. And We have created you in pairs, male and female, tall and short, good and bad.

9. And We have made your sleep as a thing for rest.

10. And We have made the night as a covering through its darkness,

11. And We have made the day for livelihood.

12. And We have built above you seven strong heavens,

13. And We have made a shining sun,

14. And We have sent down from the rainy clouds abundant water.

15. That We may produce there, corn and vegetations,

16. And gardens of thick growth.

17. The Day of Decision is a fixed time,

18. The Day when the Trumpet will be blown, and you come forth in groups after groups,

19. And the heaven shall be opened, and it will become as gates,

20. And the mountains are moved, and they will be as if they were a mirage.

21. Truly, Hell is a place of ambush -

22. A dwelling place for AtTâghûn (transgressors of the Order of Allâah, disbelievers of Oneness of Allâah, polytheists, pagans, hyprocrites, criminals),

23. They will abide there for ages.

24. Nothing cool shall they taste there, nor any drink.

25. Except boiling water, and dirty wound discharges -

26. An exact recompense, according to their evil crimes.

27. For verily, they had not looked for a reckoning.

28. But they ignored Ayâteehee(proofs, evidence, verses, lessons, signs, revelations, and that which Our Prophet brought) completely,

29. And all things We have recorded in a Book.

A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar Ibn Said

Born to a wealthy family in West Africa around 1770, Omar Ibn Said was abducted and sold into slavery in the United States, where he came to the attention of a prominent North Carolina family after filling “the walls of his room with piteous petitions to be released, all written in the Arabic language,” as one local newspaper reported.

Ibn Said soon became a local celebrity, and in 1831 he was asked to write his life story, producing the only known surviving American slave narrative written in Arabic.

“Everyone falsifies history even if it is only his own personal history. Sometimes the falsification

is deliberate, sometimes unconscious; put always the past is altered to suit the needs of the present.

The best we can say of any account is not that it is the real truth at last, but that this is how the story

appears now.”

~ Joseph Freeman

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We are able in 2020

.. to research in the nations and languages of Africa Asia a "CLOSER to the TRUTH" account of American History

.. to research in the nations and languages of Africa Asia recorded Histories

.. We still though can NEVER record the words of the raped, tortured and uneducated slaves

LET us Love and Use the African and French Research of Sylviane Anna Diouf

Slavery's Exiles: The Story of the American Maroons

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....ANOTHER Masterpiece from my sister...........Sylviane Anna Diouf

Sylviane A. Diouf has made an enormous contribution to our understanding of enslaved people's lives

with her study....

Slavery's Exiles dispels the myth that maroon communities only existed in places such as the Caribbean

and Brazil, firmly placing maroons of mainland North America within larger of slave resistance....

Readers interested in comparative slavery studies, the geography of enslavement, borderlands,

and the social lives of enslaved people will find something of interest in Diouf's study. Slavery's

Exiles will undoubtedly inspire a new generation of scholarship that places enslavement in the

United States within a brader global framework.

"Diouf persuasively captures the quiet heroism of North American maroons. Less dramatic and long-lived
than many of the maroon communities in Suriname, Jamaica, or Brazil, those in the southern

United States were nonetheless ever present. Diouf demonstrates how much freedom mattered to the

enslaved and how, within the limited possibilities open to them, those that set off into the inhospitable

swamps and forests managed to forge a new life beyond the authority of whitefolks."-

Although well-known, feared, celebrated or demonized at the time, the maroons whose stories are

the subject of this book have been forgotten, overlooked by academic research that has focused on

the Caribbean and Latin America. Who the American maroons were, what led them to choose this way

of life over alternatives, what forms of marronage they created, what their individual and collective

lives were like, how they organized themselves to survive, and how their particular story fits into the

larger narrative of slave resistance are questions that this book seeks to answer.