A Legacy of Pride

A Legacy of Pride: The History of Muslims in America

The Early Muslim Movement in America

And gradually they were able to build a strong movement and probably from that, beginning in the 30s and their efforts in the 40s, they made a village in southern New Jersey, Izz al-Din village, another village in upstate New York where brothers and sisters would migrate and establish little Muslim villages out in the wilderness, grow their own food, have their masjids, schools, and the kids, the children would usually drift back to the cities, but a lot of them are still, especially upstate New York, on these lands.

Sheikh Daoud Faisal and Mother Khadija's Contribution

But that movement merged with the movement of a couple, usually mentioned as being from Trinidad, Sheikh Daoud Faisal and his wife Khadija, so she's properly known as Mother Khadija, and they started Dawah in New York City and Brooklyn, and they were able to build a very strong community throughout the 50s and 60s, and primarily on the east coast. So there's a whole history of that, but going back to this era, that early era, before Ibrahim Abd al-Rahman came to the United States and eventually ending up in Natchez, Mississippi, and his life chronicled, there was another amazing story in colonial America, the story, and really comes back here to England, and that's the story of Ayub bin Suleiman, who's known in America as the fortunate slave, because his life illustrates so much blessing that even the non-Muslims said he was fortunate.

Ayub bin Suleiman: The Fortunate Slave

So Ayub bin Suleiman also was from the Fulani people, like Ibrahim Abd al-Rahman, he was an imam amongst his people, his father was the leader of their people from a region known as Bandu or Bundu in eastern Senegal, the northern regions of Futajalon, and a very strong Muslim people. He memorized Quran, he was trained in the traditional Maliki West African curriculum, which was predicated on the classical Greek system of the trivium and the quadrivium, trivium being grammar, rhetoric, logic, so in Arabic studies it's called Nahu, Balaga, and Mantiq, and then the quadrivium, music, geometry, music being studying the relationship between sound and time, so music not necessarily music as we know it, but the foundation of music, the relationship between sound and time, geometry, astronomy, and arithmetic, mathematics.

Capture and Enslavement in Colonial America

So he was trained in that, so he knew how to think very well, and he memorized Quran, he was a very knowledgeable young man, taken into slavery, sold, his father heard he was captured, he sent gold to the ship, but the ship had sailed for the America's landing in Annapolis, Maryland in 1731, in colonial America, he spent 18 months in bondage, he ran away because he couldn't pray, he would pray and then the master's children would find him and throw dirt on his head and insult him, so he ran away, they captured him, they identified where he was from, a man who knew another slave, knew Arabic, they were able to communicate, they brought him back, usually when slaves ran away they were punished severely, but in this case he was asked why he ran away, he couldn't pray, so he was given a Musalla, and then he said he didn't like working in the fields, his

people were pastoral people, so he was put in charge of the horses and the livestock, and so that really atypical treatment, but I believe he was a saint, he was a Wali of Allah, and eventually he wrote a letter in Arabic, dispatched it to, he heard that the ship that had brought him to America had come back to Annapolis, he wrote a letter, when the letter reached Annapolis, he was in Kent County, Maryland, in the Chesapeake Bay area, the letter reached Annapolis, the ship had sailed on to England, the letter was dispatched to England, when the letter got to England, the ship had sailed on to Africa.

The Journey to Freedom Through a Letter

The letter ended up in the hand of James Oglethorpe, Oglethorpe was one of the founders of the originally slave-free colony of Georgia, Oglethorpe couldn't read Arabic, he sent it to the Orientalists at Oxford University, they translated the letter, he was so impressed with the erudition of the writer, he himself sent a quantity of gold to America, he purchased the freedom of Ayub bin Suleiman, he sailed across the Atlantic to England, six weeks he learned English during the six-week passage, even though he was very sick for most of the trip, when he got here, he began to debate and discuss theology with the Anglican priests and bishops, they were so impressed with him, they made him a full member of the Spalding Regents Society, which at the time was the most prestigious academic fraternity in the world, whose members included Sir Isaac Newton and Alexander Pope and others, so a full, not an honorary member, and most, a lot of his life, especially here in Britain, we know from the records of the Spalding Regents Society, and his life was chronicled in the United States by a gentleman by the name of Caladet, and his story, The Fortunate Slave is, and this shows the neglect, is the oldest extant work of African-American literature, the oldest work about an African in the Americas is about a Muslim.

Muslim Literacy and Slave Narratives

And in fact, we find that out of the 10 extant slave narratives, I think eight of them were written by Muslims, because Muslims had literacy, and so they could write in Arabic, so we have Ayub bin Suleiman, we have Omar bin Saeed, we have Abu Bakr of Jamaica, and many others, whose literacy availed them, and in this case, Ayub bin Suleiman's literacy was instrumental in his freedom, while he was here in England, we mentioned he debated the Anglicans, they were so impressed, they eventually got him an audience with the Queen, the Queen was so impressed, she outfitted him with a ship filled of the latest literature, technological implements, instruments, and made him an agent for the Royal African Company, which might not be such a good thing, and sent him back to Africa as a free man, and once he, then his story is even more miraculous.

The Portrait and the Quran from Memory

Also while he was in Britain, two things happened, you can see if you go online and just do a Google image, Ayub bin Suleiman, you'll see him painted in traditional Fulani garment, a big white turban, a white boo-boo, grand boo-boo, and he wasn't wearing those clothes, because he didn't have it, so the painter, he said, I'll agree to be painted on one condition, you paint me in my traditional garment, they said, well, where is it, he said, well, just imagine it, and he said, the artist said, we've never seen it, how can we paint you in your traditional clothes, and we've never seen them, he said, well, you paint Jesus, you never saw him, that was his response, anyway, so he described it, and so the picture you see, if you search it, is a picture based on his description to

the artist of how the boo-boo and how the turban looked, so it's an incredible figure, he also wrote while he was here in England, three copies of the Quran from his memory, and unfortunately, they're all been lost, but it's documented in the records of the Spalding Regent Society, that Ayub bin Suleiman wrote three copies of the Quran from his memory while he was here in England.

Divine Justice: The Return Home

When he went back home, an amazing thing happened, he was captured by Mandinkos, and when he was on his way back to his village in Senegal, they passed the same raiding party that had captured him and sold him to Captain Pike, so he now, he has pistols, they didn't recognize him, he's all done up in this British garb, and he has pistols, and he's like, I want to kill him, and the gentleman who was with him, I don't know if it was, I think it was Gallaudet, no, or another British man, he said, no, they're too numerous, and they'll overwhelm us, so he said, okay, let's talk to them, so he asked them, he said, you remember about two years ago, you captured this Fulani guy, and you sold them to Captain Pike on such and such ship, and oh, we remember that guy, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's actually him, they said, you know, a strange thing happened, so we sold them in exchange, we got rum, and we got pistols, and muskets, and some gold, and the strangest thing happened, we gave the muskets to the guns to our king as a present, and then one day, one of the guns misfired, and killed the king, he said, call us even, I don't need to do anything, so just an incredible story, and he was one of the slaves who came back to Africa, who successfully reunited with his family.

Ibrahim Abd al-Rahman's Story

As you know, well, I haven't seen the film in a while, but I think it shows Ibrahim Abd al-Rahman did make it back to Africa after freeing himself, being freed, also based on a letter, his letter was actually Surah al-Fatihah, and a few notes that he wrote after almost 30 years in bondage, he still could write a beautiful West African Arabic script, and if you see his picture, usually it's a picture, and he wrote underneath it, Ismuhu Abd al-Rahman, so you've probably seen that picture, and anyway, he wrote a letter to the king of Morocco, so there's an incredible fraternity between all the Muslims in West Africa, asking him to petition the United States for his freedom, so the king of Morocco actually sent a letter to Andrew Jackson, the president at that time, his secretary of state, Henry Clay, sent the letter to Ibrahim Abd al-Rahman's owner at that time, asking that he be freed, and he actually complied with certain conditions, that he immediately leave and go back to Africa.

The Speaking Tour and Anti-Slavery Activism

But Ibrahim, he wanted to free his family, so he went on a speaking tour in the north, and during that speaking tour, he was very outspoken against slavery, because most of the tour was sponsored by abolitionists, when he was in Boston, and this is an interesting historical twist, when he was in Boston, he actually spoke in the church of David Walker, and there are those who say David Walker's appeals, which one of the strongest anti-slavery appeals that was written during the slavery period, was actually influenced by the exchange that took place between Ibrahim Abd al-Rahman and David Walker, while Ibrahim was in Boston, and he eventually went back to D.C. and sailed to Africa, on the ship was the first, who would become the first president of Liberia, and he made it to Africa, but he never made it back to Futa Jalon, he died shortly after his touching base in Africa, he became sick.

Ibrahim's Return to Islam

But the first thing he did was he prayed, some people said he had left Islam, and there's a debate, but the first thing he did when he was free, he started writing copies of Surah al-Fatihah, and writing various things in Arabic, when he got to Africa, the first thing he did was pray two rakats, so that puts that particular historical debate to rest, so they're amazing, incredible stories, and it behooves us to study them, because it's part of the history of Muslims in the western world.

This History Belongs to All Muslims

Like I tell people in the United States, because a lot of times you go places, you show this film or related films, you introduce the literature, you talk about the issues and people, you know, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Arabs, what's it concern me, this is only concern to people of African descent, and I say to them, then you must not be a Muslim, this is part of the history of the ummah, this is the history of the ummah in the west, this is the roots of the Muslim people, so just as we study how Islam spread to Egypt and Syria, how Islam spread to India, how Islam spread to Malaysia and Indonesia, we should be concerned, and we take great pride that, oh Islam wasn't spread by the sword, there were missionaries and merchants who went to these places, and they introduced Islam through peaceful means, then shouldn't we be concerned about the roots of Islam and here in the western countries.

Muslims Built America

And especially when as Muslims, like now there's a lot of talk about, and this is more relevant probably in the United States, Muslims don't belong here, people with, can't even speak English straight, talking about Muslims don't belong here, and you know, you know, who are you, they even brought Gerd Wilders over there, the Dutch Islam, anti-Islamic racist, to give speeches, like who are you people, we've been here for 400 something years, and blood, our blood, sweat, and tears built this country, and Sylviane Diouf, her research shows that upwards, well over, but minimally 20 percent of all the slaves brought there were Muslims, one in five, and in some areas, because of the nature of the crops, where they grew crops such as rice, which is very popular in the delta areas, and so the Senegambia area, which is almost 100 percent Muslims, the rice growers would prefer slaves from those areas, because rice is a very labor intensive crop, that takes a lot of know-how, so in areas like the Mississippi Delta, where you had a lot of rice cultivation, some of those areas, over 50 percent of the slaves were Muslims.

Muslim Slaves in the Caribbean and Americas

Off the coast of Georgia, and the Carolinas, the same thing, parts of Virginia, over 50 percent of the slaves were Muslims, a lot of you might, some of you might be of Jamaican ancestry, for a period of time, about 100 years is documented, over 50 percent of all the slaves brought to Jamaica, were from most areas, that are majority Muslim areas, in West Africa, and you have people like Abu Bakr al-Siddiq and others, who were fluent in Arabic, Trinidad, some of you might be from Trinidad, Trinidad, you had the Fremandingo Society, which was a Muslim anti-slavery society, that worked to liberate all the Muslims, and then others in Trinidad, during the War of 1812, they liberated over 1,200 slaves from the American South, brought them to the Caribbean, to fight

against the British in the War of 1812, and upwards to three or four hundred of them, accepted Islam, and so they weren't just liberating Muslims, they were liberating anyone they could liberate, and so those are Muslims undertaking those efforts, so that's a great part of our history.

Claiming Our Legacy and Legitimacy

And by connecting with that history, saying that's my history, that's instant legitimacy, how can you tell me I don't belong, those are my ancestors, what do you mean, they're Muslim, all Muslims are brothers, those are my Muslim brothers and sisters, their blood, sweat, and tears built this country, and the Caribbean, there was a high percentage of Muslims, the wealth of Britain came from the Caribbean, the sugar, there was white gold, Oxford, Cambridge, they all built their endowments on sugar, they built their endowments on sugar, the British crown in the 17th, 18th century, a lot of their wealth was coming from sugar in the Caribbean, it was brutal, it was a brutal operation.

The Brutality of Caribbean Slavery

And in America, at the time of liberation, the number of slaves who were there were three to four times the number of slaves that were imported in, so the population increased, in the Caribbean, the number of slaves were less than the slaves that were imported in, there's the brutality of working sugar cane fields, getting cut up, like sometimes you cut your finger on a blade of grass, think that blade of grass being 20 times taller, and much sharper, and firmer, like as hard as this column, razor sharp, and you're in there slashing it with your hands, cutting your arms up, getting infections, you working in the presses, if your arm got caught in the press, it was economically better to just cut your arm off than to stop the press, so your hand got caught, MacKendall, who was one of the leaders of the Haitian revolution, yeah, one arm, one hand, he lost his hand in a sugar cane press.

Muslims in the Haitian Revolution

Bookman, one of the leaders of the Haitian revolution was a Muslim, a lot of the Muslims called Bookman, because they had their Qurans, and they were always reading it, now this is our history, and the famous Haitian voodoo ceremony, it might have been a mawlid, and they just didn't know what was going on, this is a voodoo ceremony, now they look into all these things, that's our history, and so it behooves us to know it.

Maintaining Connection with Family and Community

And new Muslims, people coming into Islam, should hold on to that history, you have Muslims become Muslim, and they're taught by some crazy people, your family are kuffar, you have to divorce yourself, it's like, you know, you have to disavow them, how about making dawah to them, how about just treating them like decent people, that's your family, so we lose all the capital we have, we have friends that we went to school with, they're ministers now, we can't go and like, listen, we're having a problem, you're a minister, yo, what's up, let's have some tea, then I gotta ask a favor from you, so I know the kuffar, break off relations, a lot of us went through that phase, myself included, where we don't have relations with our family, friends, we don't have relations, then we problemize even relations, like how do we make dawah to these people, we're having dawah seminars, which is basically, how do we talk to people we grew up with, like sitting around intellectualizing, like how do we talk, man, this is tough, man, we need to bring a big shake for this one, you need to bring a

milkshake, just go, just go and reintroduce yourself, like, yeah, I've been gone for a while, and I know y'all miss me, I miss you too, and I was tripping for a few years, it's all right now, they like looking at you, got a baggy shirt on, they look and see if something's ticking up under there, no, it's cool.

Being People of Service

So really, I mean, we have to, we have to connect with our people, these are our people, we have to connect with our people, we have to be people of service, the best people raised up for humanity to serve humanity, to serve humanity, so inshallah Allah ta'ala make it easy, and it makes it easier when we connect with our history, because it's a common history, so if we're studying and connecting with the history of Muslim slaves, that connects us with the history of all slaves, and we connect with the history of all slaves, we connect it with the history of all of those people descended from all of those slaves, and so we start to realize we have common struggles, we have common issues, we have common pathologies that we have to work through sometimes, and we can share each other's experiences in terms of how we work through those pathologies, how do we re-humanize ourselves.

The Dignity of Muslim Slaves

One point that Dr. Diouf makes in her book is that for a lot of the Muslim slaves, they never surrendered their humanity, they never surrendered their dignity, and you can see in the portraits of them, portraits of people like Ayub bin Suleiman, Ibrahim Abd al-Rahman, so you see him, and his big fro, and he's dignified after 30 years of slavery, he hasn't been broken, Ayub bin Suleiman was never broken, Omar bin Said, we have portraits of him, he was never broken, and many others, they weren't broken, they maintained their dignity.

Muhammad Ali: The People's Champion

Muhammad Ali, one of the most illustrious Muslims in the western world, once the most popular person on earth, when they did the story of his life, what was the theme song, no matter what you take from me, you can't take away my dignity, you could take my title, they took Ali's title, they took Ali's money, they took Ali's wealth, they took his fame, they took his boxing career, right at the height of his career, you can't box anymore in America, they took everything, but they didn't take his dignity, and because they didn't take his dignity, he's known as the people's champ, and he inspired a whole generation, and he didn't just inspire Muslims, he inspired oppressed people, everything, everywhere, because he stood up to the mighty American war machine, and said I'm not killing anybody for you, especially people who never did anything to me, and people were inspired.

Our Role as Muslims: Inspiration Not Fear

So we have a role as Muslims to go out there and inspire people, with our courage and our dignity, and not create fear in people, I was riding down here, and just talking with brother Daoud, and some of the things that are happening are just ludicrous, like people afraid of Muslims, because of what Muslims are doing, and what Muslims are saying, and the attitudes that Muslims have, this is insanity, we're supposed to be a source of inspiration for people, motivation for people, and things are going to get worse before they get better, people are going to need some people who can reach out, and give a helping hand, and help uplift people.

Closing Supplications

So we'll stop there, perhaps you have some questions, that's just rambling on, please forgive me, may Allah bless you all, give you much much tawfiq, may Allah make your path to paradise a smooth one, remove all the obstacles in your path, may Allah put wind in your sails, may Allah put light in your hearts, may Allah bring us all together for common causes, may Allah help us to break down the barriers that we build between each other, so we can come together, and do great things together, wassalamu alaikum.