Posted on 08/10/2007 7:14:02 PM PDT by Pharmboy
United States Department of State (Washington, DC)
Washington, DC
Some years ago, Amir Muhammad began researching his family's roots without any thought that it might lead him to America's little-known Islamic heritage. Until then, he assumed that most American Muslims arrived in the 20th century, and he was unaware of any Islamic connection in his own family prior to his personal acceptance of Islam 35 years ago.
But Muhammad discovered he does have Muslim ancestors, as do many African Americans and Native Americans, and that the story of Islam in America reaches back much further than most people imagine.
In 1996, he established the nonprofit organization Collections & Stories of American Muslims (CSAM), of which he is president and curator. His goal is to uncover and preserve America's Islamic heritage and to create a greater awareness of the Islamic experience in America.
CSAM exhibitions have been displayed at universities, public libraries and community centers in the United States and abroad, including the Smithsonian Institution's Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture, located in Washington. Muhammad is seeking a building to house his collection.
Muhammad begins his account of America's Islamic heritage with Moors fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. One of them was Estevanico, a Moor born in North Africa, who accompanied Spanish explorers in 1527 to what would become the Southwestern United States.
Slavery enters the story of Islam in America with the early European settlement. One of the myths Muhammad seeks to dispel is that enslaved Africans brought by the settlers had no organized religion and could not read or write.
He cites the story of Ayuba (Job) Suleiman Diallo, who was captured in 1730 in The Gambia and brought to Annapolis, Maryland, where he was sold into slavery. Diallo wrote a letter in Arabic to his father, according to Muhammad. The letter came to the attention of James Oglethorpe, the founder of the U.S. state Georgia, who helped buy Diallo's freedom. Oglethorpe sent him to London and then back to his homeland to work for the Royal African Company of London. While in London, Diallo wrote down in Arabic three copies of the Quran from memory.
The CSAM exhibition includes four Quranic suras written in Arabic by a man named Charno in 1768, petitions written in Arabic by South Carolina Muslims seeking their freedom in 1753 and 1790, and photos of a diary in Arabic kept by a man named Ben Ali around 1829. Sources from the 17th and 18th centuries often refer to African Americans as Muslims, or as bearing Muslim names, or as practicing the Islamic faith. Muhammad notes that many early American Muslims had engraved on their tombstones a hand with one finger pointing up as the Islamic symbol of God's oneness, and their tombstones were facing toward Makkah.
In every war the United States has fought, Muslims have played a role. Two Muslims who fought with distinction in the American Revolutionary War, Peter Salem and Salem Poor, have been honored on U.S. postage stamps.
Muhammad also has found records of 292 U.S. Civil War veterans with Islamic names who fought for the Union and more than 5,200 American Muslims who served in World War I.
By the later 19th century and early 20th century, Muslim immigrants were arriving in America from Yemen, Albania, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, India and Poland. In 1899, Syrian immigrants in Ross, North Dakota, established what may have been the first Muslim place of worship in America. But the "first effective mosque in North America" was built by Albanian Muslims in Biddeford, Maine, in 1915, according to Muhammad.
He says that as a Muslim, he has found the stories that he uncovered inspiring. American Muslims from various backgrounds "kept their faith no matter how bad things were," he said during a presentation at the State Department August 9.
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"Muslims and Islam have been a part of the American fabric for centuries," he said. "It is part of the many threads of culture, colors, religions and lifestyles that make up the American pluralistic quilt."
Muhammad has written several books, including America's Masajid and Islamic Centers: A Pictorial Account, Muslims in America: 7 Centuries of History, People of Color in Pre-Islamic and Islamic History and Contributions of Muslims to the World.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
While I am certain that Islamo-Americans have contributed to this great country in times of war and in times of peace, I would like to hear the greater Islamic-American community condemn the nutcases who are attempting to destroy this country. Otherwise, all you Islamists can STFU. Thank yew...
Have a gander at this, won’t ya...
Instead of culturally growing, they’ve regressed back to the 12th Century.
Are there any books which HONESTLY portray the history of Islam in the United States?
Disgusting.
Innerestin’
Nothing tells us so eloquently that we should fire EVERYONE at State and start ALL OVER AGAIN.
Have a look at this, friend...
> Nothing tells us so eloquently that we should fire
> EVERYONE at State and start ALL OVER AGAIN.
Right after 9-11, when Condi was still NSA director, she held a press conference where one featherbrained reporter asked her how she could say we were at war.
She told the squishy drooler that maybe he needed to watch the videos of the planes crashing into the buildings again.
Methinks Condi should take her own advice.
Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, I ever needed to know about Islam, I learned on 9-11.
Well, after all, we must appease these cretins; otherwise, they might get upset and attack us (Twin Towers not withstanding). /s
He cites the story of Ayuba (Job) Suleiman Diallo, who was captured in 1730 in The Gambia and brought to Annapolis, Maryland, where he was sold into slavery. Diallo wrote a letter in Arabic to his father, according to Muhammad. The letter came to the attention of James Oglethorpe, the founder of the U.S. state Georgia, who helped buy Diallo's freedom. Oglethorpe sent him to London and then back to his homeland to work for the Royal African Company of London. While in London, Diallo wrote down in Arabic three copies of the Quran from memory.
The plain truth is that most were illiterate by no fault of their own. This guy claims to dispel a myth by citing one example. This just another example of a positive stereotype being perpetrated without any real supporting evidence.
Who treated the Indians so badly they finally killed him.
But wait. I read that Estavan was born in Spain. He also sent back crosses to Frey Marcos de Niza, a small one for “not much ahead” or a large one for “A great find ahead.”
After Estevan’s death Marcos came back to Mexico with the tale of the LOST GOLD CITIES OF CIBOLA he had seen shining way ahead. Liar.
Those muslims in Africa who were brought to the US probably owned slaves of their own in Africa.
The great geographer Ibn Batuta was himself a slave dealer,
which is how he financed his travels. When he returned from North Africa, he brought 700 male slaves with him.
Slavery—perpetrated by muslims—still exists in parts of North Africa, Arabia, and the Gulf.
When someone writes the history of slavery, he should include ALL of the slave traders and dealers, not just
the European ones.
“While I am certain that Islamo-Americans have contributed to this great country in times of war and in times of peace, I would like to hear the greater Islamic-American community condemn the nutcases who are attempting to destroy this country. Otherwise, all you Islamists can STFU. Thank yew...”
Thanks : )
Quel Shi’ite!
> When someone writes the history of slavery, he should
> include ALL of the slave traders and dealers, not just
> the European ones.
Yes, and it’s important that they include the treatment of the slaves by the respective civilizations.
The Europeans didn’t make their slaves eunuchs, neither did they take them so as to be part of their harim, nor did they saw their heads off for disobedience and rebellion.
As savage as the early Europeans could be, they could not match the mindless cruelty, the barbaric inhumanity, exhibited by Mahomet’s spawn.
And while the Christian Faith, once it’s source book The Bible became available to the common man, fostered the Reformation and the Enlightenment, from which we obtain our civilized and humane value system today, those who adhere most closely to the demonic babblings of the pedophilic pirate Mahomet, become all the more determined only to grow in their violence and cruelty.
In a few more years, we’ll have school history books telling us how everything that’s successful about America is due to it’s Muslim heritage.
When I first read this I thought the CSAM was pretty accurate, because I mitakenly read it as SCAM. Now I’ve adopted the theory they just misnamed the effort and I was much closer to the truth on my first pass.
There seems to be some kind of whacked out effort to convince Blacks and others in this nation, that all slaves brought to the US were from Moslem areas of Africa. It’s my understanding that most of the slaves came from parts of Africa where Santeria (or percursors of it) and other tribal forms of beliefs were in practice. As I understand it witch doctors were about as close to a religious experience most of the slaves came to before being caputured and shipped out.
Does anyone have anything to offer along these lines? Is my understanding of this incorrect?
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
We’re not that far away...
ISLAM IS AMERICA
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