Abdullah Hakim Quick – Returning to Our Roots
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the importance of education in the generation they are reaching and the deceleration of history. They also talk about the architecture of the Great Pyramid in the Middle East and the importance of being honest with oneself in a relationship. The speaker then touches on the history of slavery and the return of the Boston Black History Month.
AI: Summary ©
great pleasure and honor for me to be with you here today for a number of reasons. One is that my grandmother left Barbados in 1917.
She was a nurse, dietitian. And she went to America and she married an African American, in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. And my mother was a child. And I knew my grandmother, and she used to tell us about Barbados, and
she emphasized education. And that affected my mother and my grandmother, and my aunt, my mother, before she passed away, got a master's in education. And my aunt was the one of the first black women to graduate from Boston University. This is back in the 1950s. And so that feeling for education, that feeling for knowledge, is something that has affected me, in many parts of my life. So I wanted to share some of this information with you today.
And to talk to you not as an intellectual and high language and whatever, I want to go straight, straight to the point. Because the generation you live in is different than any other generation before. Because of digital technology, people are able to make what is true, appear to be false, and to make what is false, appear to be true.
So as a student, and when you grow up, and even as a person just living in this world, you have to become like an investigative journalist, you have to be able like Sherlock Holmes, in order to find out information. Don't accept the hype, as we say in America, don't follow things that are just given to you, even if it's in a book challenge yet. And I challenged it from when I was very young, growing up in America.
They taught me and you probably heard of this before, that Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492. This is part of the information that's been given in the history book. This is one of the main historical dates you will find in history books. Before I go into this, though, in 1926, an African American historian named Carter G. Woodson. He looked at the books, he looked at the curriculum, and he realized that African people, among others were not being mentioned very often in the history books, or a distorted image was being given. So he started what is called Black History week.
He did it in it was eventually changed into a month, and he chose February. And it may sound strange to be studying African Africa and black people in February, because it's the shortest month of the year, and it's the coldest right in the north. Why did he do that? Because Abraham Lincoln, who was the president who sign you know, the Declaration of Independence, that this special, this Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves that the enslaved Africans in America, he was born in February. Also, Frederick Douglass was born in February. So February was chosen for what is called Black History Month. And in 1976, the US government adopted this as a special time to look at
African history. And in 1995, the Canadian government dedicated this
but you would say what is the purpose of this? We already have history books. They told me, Columbus discovered America in 1492. And I traveled around to different parts of the world. I went to China.
I went deep in South America. I went to Malaysia, all over Africa said when who discovered America? And they said Christopher Columbus.
And I said when they said 1492, but my question was, as a student and to these people, how can you discover a place when the people are living there already? You understand this? This is information being put into your head. You have to learn how to take it apart. Because the reality is, is that indigenous people have been living in the Americas
For 1000s of years, we have some proof between 10 to 20,000 years and what you call Amerindians here, the Taino the Caribs, the arawak, the Luke aliens, lived in this part of the world for 1000s of years. This is a picture an aerial shot of the Inca civilization in Pedro, sin South America.
This is built long before Columbus. And when you look down on it, you see the grid of a huge city, they had one of the largest cities in the world. Could you imagine that in the Americas, and I mean, Canada, US Central America, Caribbean, South America, there was over 75 million people.
There was 2000 languages, different 2000 languages spoken by the peoples in this area. And yet, Columbus then says, and it's put into the history books, he discovered the place.
And if you think about this, it's like if I came, and I said, I discovered St. Michael's
in 2020. Like, none of you ever existed, this island never existed, nobody, because I just reached here.
And so what we are dealing with is the erasing of an entire civilization.
When Columbus, his son, Ferdinand came, he found pyramids, hanging gardens, the Mayans had calendars, he found all types of amazing things in this part of the world. Even if you say Columbus
was the first European to come, that would be a mistake. Because we have people living out who lived in the north called Vikings. You ever heard the Vikings before? Do you know which country Vikings come from?
Anybody know?
Norway, Sweden, Denmark, right? So they went over the northern route. And they came into Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Canada, long before Columbus. So he was not even the first European
to discover America. Okay, so what we're talking about now is deconstruction of history. You take it apart, and then you put it back together.
Columbus thought he was in India, some islands off the coast of India.
But the people are not Indians here. And up until now, the name Indian still sticks to the people. But this is not India. So this is wrong information, which we have been accepting over hundreds of years accepting this information as the truth. And this is just the beginning of it. But in actuality, and I want to show you, I want to show you some hard evidence, I'm not just going to talk to you, if you look at this picture, see the size of this building.
This is in Mexico,
in Guatemala, Belize, Mexico, these huge pyramids are there.
It was an amazing civilization. So when you deconstruct information, and you put it back together, then if I had the chance to write the book, I would say, Columbus was discovered in 1490. To see the difference in those two sentences. He was lost, and he bumped into the Americas, on his way to India. Right? This is deconstruction. And what this does, it gives us another understanding. Because true history helps to erase the mystery. You get this, it will erase the mystery. And people who do not know that history. Right? They're going to be lost, totally lost in the present. If you don't know your roots. If you don't know your background, you don't understand your history, then you
don't really know who you are as a person. And so this is the challenge that I want to put to you. And to open up this door today through some basic information.
This is what I call not his story. It's our story. See it history, his story.
What we want is you get it. We want our story, right? The story of everybody not? You've been studying his story.
How many of you like history?
Most of you will say no. Isn't it a boring subject? All these dates and these old men fighting in castles in England?
Why is it boring? Why is it a boring subject to most people? If I took a picture of this room right now, who is the first person you'd look at
You look at yourself, right? You know, if your eyes are closed, are you pretty? You know, are you handsome? Right? You look at yourself first. So if you open up the history book, and you don't see yourself,
then you're bored about this. You don't like this subject. And so, I want to do a little test with you though. This is a type of a psychological test. It's a word test. That if you raise up to corporations, this is how they check people out. It's it's a psychological thing. But you got to be honest with me, right? Just tell the truth. what you're thinking. If I say the word sugar, what comes in your mind?
Sweet spice. Okay, sugar and spice, right? And everything nice. Okay, that's honest, right? If I say faia what comes in your mind?
If I say ice,
if I say Africa,
one of the time black, what else?
Be honest. Now what comes in your mind?
Paul, what else? poverty. What else?
Fighting.
And then most people start talking about animals, Hippo elephants, lions. This is your image of Africa. And in the history books. They depicted Africa as a backwoods dark place. Savage savages. You ever heard of Tarzan before.
And Tarzan, he becomes the king of the jungle, right? This is the image that we're given up Africa savage back with people. I wanted to challenge this.
Number one.
When you study geography, you're going to see some major distortions that happen. This is a map of Africa. And most of the maps that you have in your book is the grid hot Mercator map. And the Mercator map, which is written a few centuries ago.
This map distorts the world. It makes your big and it makes Africa smaller. But the reality is if you go to what is called Peters projection, which is taken by an actual picture of the Earth itself, you will see that Africa is a huge continent, Africa is so large, you can put India and China into Africa, and you still have space. See how big that is? You understand how big that is? Then you can take all of the European countries who conquered Africa, and you can put them inside too, and you still got space.
So it's a distortion because if in your mind, your country is small. They want to make you think small and the other country is big. Europe is bigger. So they're bigger than you. It's a psychological thing. So the penis projection is the proper map to get the proper map of Africa itself. What about the history of Africa, I traveled to Africa, I traveled throughout Africa to 20 African countries. And when I traveled into Egypt, I found some amazing information. This is what is called the number plate or the many's plate. Okay, this is the leader of ancient Egypt.
And what you got to realize, if you look back, this here is Egypt. Can you see my pointer? That's the Sudan. And you would think if you look at the map that the Nile, the Nile River, see the Nile River here.
You think it flows from north to south, but it actually flows from South north.
Because the mountains are in Uganda and Ethiopia and Kenya. So the mountain is actually south, and it's flowing north, right. And the civilization also went from south to north.
In 3200, bc
minase.
United Upper and Lower Egypt, United what is now the Sudan and Egypt 3200 bc now fix your minds. Now, we're in AD, right.
You got to go back to zero and you got to start counting backwards. So 3200
BC,
he made a united country.
And this is an actual bus, an actual sculpture of Manny's himself. This is the ancient Egyptians. The ancient Egyptians were African people. Look at minase face closely
take his cap off.
Put a base
ballcap on him. And he looks like he's from Christ Church.
Am I telling a lie Look at his face.
You notice brother?
This is the Pharaoh of Egypt, you understand? Now what is important about this? Remember what the historian European historian said Africa's never did anything.
It's a backward place. In 3100.
They had the first writing system, it's called hieroglyphics. They had a writing system 3100 BC. Then they built the Step Pyramid 2650 BC, they built this building here.
Now, okay, it's just a building. But it's still standing up until today.
And I went underneath this pyramid. And I found, see how it looks underneath. You go underneath, and you will see passageways. This is 2650 BC. If you add 2022, that you talking over 4000s, maybe six 600 plus years, if you have a building in Barbados, 100 years old. It's a national monument. Right? It's a historical building. This is 4000 years old.
And it's still there. The ancient Egyptians were doing brain surgery. Right? We found this down at below the pyramids.
They had an amazing civilization.
But I said I want to take it a step further.
So I left the area of sakata. And I went to another area of Egypt called Giza.
And as you're walking in Giza, see the town, then you see this huge structure in the back. This is called the Great Pyramid of Giza.
And what is important about this pyramid, and this is a this is how it looks when people going through the desert. What's important about this pyramid here
is this. Number one, it was built for this Pharaoh whose name was Khufu. Look at his face closely.
Put a baseball cap on him.
Where'd he come from? St. Thomas.
Where did he come from? Look at his face closely. Seriously.
What is important about this,
what is important about the fact that this is an African person. It's important because this pyramid was the largest building in the world until the 19th century. tallest, right. It was the tallest building on Earth. tried to understand this till the 1800s. Right. No human being ever built a building of this size. In one structure, it has 2,300,000 blocks of granite. Granite is a tough stone. Some of these blocks weigh two and a half times. Look at this building closely. The corner of the building is perfect right angles.
The corners face north, south, east and west. The difference between the length of one side
and the length of another side.
They measure this, you know, you know what the difference was between one side and another
eight inches.
Only eight inches.
Huge stones Look at the size of these stones.
And some of them weighed 2.1 tonnes. This stone here see the size of the stone? That person by the way is me. That's me.
You see? So now you get a real live scale model. Right? That's me. Okay, like look at the size of this.
See? How do they do this?
There's no slaves, put a slave put it on the head and carry it. You can't carry a stone like this. You have to understand physics and math. You have to have an unbelievable understanding. But you know, what's the strange thing about this? We were taught that math modern math started with the Greeks.
Right The Greeks right? Then the Romans, but Greek civilization did not start until 800 BC.
Which means that's almost 1500 years or more after this was built. And the original Greeks they will not race this people
The Greeks were honest. And they said, We got our civilization from the Egyptians, they were dark skinned people with curly here. They had no problem.
Okay, look at the size of that building. You know what's interesting. Also, there's no cement in between the blocks,
itself cut out perfectly and put into place. I went down into the pyramids, there's tunnels inside, you go down inside and found different rooms and different things inside of the pyramid things that they were doing. Then I went south, and I found a place called Dibs, or carnac. And they had a university there. This is ancient time a university. They were studying all of these sciences in this university. Look at the size of the column, see the man there? Look at the columns.
Now, remember, the Greeks. That's the Greeks and the Romans. See the difference between that column and the other column?
This was 1000 years after 2000 years after, because the Great Pyramid of Giza, this was built around 2500 BC.
That's the Great Pyramid. Okay. So put your mind together, try to get your facts together now, about history, right? 3200 Egypt is united 3100 writing system 2650 Step Pyramid. 2500. Approximately Great Pyramid. Okay, now go down closer to zero, right? 2500 2000 1800. Now the Greeks begin this civilization.
Before that time, there was no major civilization in Greece, Rome, anywhere in Europe at that time.
Okay, so now, if you're a racist, you got a problem with this. You got a problem? Because these are the Greek columns. And England itself. What is the greatest ancient structure? It's called stonehedge.
Compare this to the pyramids. See, this is what you don't get in the history books. compare the two. And the one that was built by the black African people had the large, tallest building until the 19th century. They didn't put that in the history book. But you know, one historian came along and he said, I'll solve the problem.
The aliens built it. And they flew down from Mars outer space, landed on Earth, built a pyramid and then flew back in space. You ever heard of that before? There's a movie called Stargate?
Right Stargate, right? Because black people couldn't have done this. Because if you have a racist theory that nothing comes out of Africa that Europe taught Africa, you got a problem now? Because it's the opposite, right? It's the opposite.
So you can't use a racist theory. And so what is known by many people, this Pharaoh his name was Ramsay's.
And his grandson was the pharaoh around the time of Moses. Remember the Prophet Moses? Remember the pharaoh chasing Moses and the water, he raised the staff on the water open write the story of Moses. When did that happen? 1525 BC, that's 2000 years after it began. You see, so the pyramids were already there in the time of Moses. And Pharaoh is only a title like president, Prime Minister. There were hundreds of Pharaohs, literally hundreds of them. But ramseys had a problem. He wanted his face everywhere. So he put his face all over Egypt and his ego problem. His grandson by the time it reaches grand son, he thought he was God. And he wanted to be worshipped in the place of God. And
that's where Moses opposed him.
And he was saved by the Creator. When you raise the staff, and the water opens and Favre was destroyed. But what is important, this large structure here it's called obelisk, obelisk.
Everyone in the world wants to obelisk. The Americans they stole the obelisk, one of the Egyptian when they put it in, in America. Everybody wants an obelisk. Do you have an herbalist in Barbados?
Go down by by the Lord Nelson statue. You know downtown. You see across the Lord Nelson. It's an obelisk. It's not a big one. It's a little one right?
But you have an obelisk. The largest obelisk in the world was not an Egypt isn't a place called x.
Assume, which is Ethiopia.
Now, what is it that you know about Ethiopia?
Okay. JOHN Ross to fly One love, right? That's what you know, right? I and I, this is what you know about Ethiopia. But there's other things about Ethiopia as well. One important point is that Ethiopia, Aksum was one of the most powerful empires in the ancient world. They had elephants in their armies. That's the largest obelisk in the world.
This is technology. It's a sundial.
Right? They use it for mathematics. They use it for astronomy. Okay. And it's right around this time, that Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. He appeared in the Arabian Peninsula. He was teaching the belief in one God.
He was teaching no racism. His followers were light skin, dark skin, Arab, African, Persian, European, they will all with the Prophet.
And after five years of teaching, Prophet Mohammed den said to his followers, you have to leave. They're killing us. They were torturing the Muslims killing them. So he said, leave Makkah, which was their base, where did they go? They did not go to Syria, they did not go to India. They did not go to Malaysia, they went to Africa.
This is a very important historical understanding, the first place that the followers of what we believe is the last prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, after Abraham, Moses, Jesus.
They went to Africa. And what did he say to them?
This is an actual saying of the Prophet. He said, If you go to India, it would be better for you for it, there is a king who will not tolerate oppression, it is a land of truth.
Go there, until such time as a last sell shall relieve your distress alarm means God. He said go to India, or have a shot that was now present day Ethiopia, and Eritrea. So they went there. And the Prophet wrote a letter to the king of Ethiopia. The King's name was as Hama is titled was the negus. In Arabic, you say under Joshua, he was a great Ethiopian ruler of the aksumite Empire.
They believe they were Christians, but they believed in one God,
powerful believers, because one of the disciples mark of Jesus, He died on the Nile. And the teachings went up tonight. So they were Christians from way back, believing in in the original religion. So this is a letter, which is still available, a copy of it on the left side. The Prophet dictated it to one of his followers, you can find it in the top capital Museum in Istanbul, Turkey. This letter is still there today. What did the prophet of Islam, the last prophet, say to the Christian Emperor?
Okay, this is the kind of history that you'll never get in your main books. But this is hard facts. He said, in the name of a lot of beneficence, the Merciful from Muhammad, the Messenger of a lot of the great nuggets of epithelia. Peace be upon he follows the guidance as to what follows. Verily, I praise Allah, the one whom there is no deity except Him, the soul King, the holy, the source of peace, the protector and the guardian. Then what did he say this is important. He said, I bear witness that Jesus the son of Miriam, meaning Mary, is the spirit belonging to Allah, and his word which he cast into the chase that excellent virgin.
She just became pregnant by means of his spirit and his inspiration with Jesus in the same manner that he created Adam with his hand. So what does that mean? You can't be a Muslim, unless you accept that Mary was a virgin, and that Jesus was born in a divine conception.
Who believes in this outside of Christians, nobody.
But people didn't understand. It is a key point in Islamic belief. This is the letter that he wrote to the Emperor. Then he said, verily, I invite you to our law, the one who has no partner and to friendship, continuity and government in obedience to Him.
I invite you to follow me and have absolute certainty with what I have come with verily, I am the messenger of Allah.
I invite you in your government forces to Allah the mighty the majestic dust, I have delivered the message and given you counsel, therefore accept my counsel. Peace be upon
He who follows the guidance.
Then the joshy as Hama, he accepted the letter. And he gave sanctuary to the Muslims who are running away from
the idol worshippers who are killing them in Mecca. So it was a unity between Christian and Muslim. You see complete unity. And as Hamas said, there's no difference between our religion, actually, according to our
what we're taught us, Hamas, Natasha, he became a Muslim before he died. And this is where he's buried in the gash in Ethiopia. There are 15 of the companions of Prophet Mohammed buried with him there in Ethiopia. Okay, so now, Africa itself. What happens to the followers of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon this green here is the spread of Islam within 100 years, they found a place in the north.
Today you call Tunisia they called it a free tea. Yeah.
This is Arabic If free tea Yeah. And it meant in ancient times, a sunny place. That is the first modern use of the word Africa. That's where a European mapmaker took this word if reapir. He said, the whole continent is Africa. Okay, that's something that you wouldn't learn in most history books.
Then they started spreading their teachings not by armies, but they spread it by migration, by trade, by by wandering scholars, and people started to embrace Islam. But you know, what they found?
They found that below the Sahara Desert, see this desert here, below there is what is called the Niger River. Here you have Senegal, Gambia, then you have Mali, right present day, this Niger River, below the river was the largest active gold mine in the world.
The people were shipping the gold. So the Muslims made trade routes.
This is how this is one of the ancient towns. This is Ghana, ancient Ghana.
They cover their face in the desert because of the Sahara Desert, Sahara Desert, the sand. So the men cover their face as they move to the desert.
The scholars were their cities were built cities of countries of takraw of God of Ghana of Gow, later of Timbuktu. This is something from the from the fabled city of Timbuktu today, and I visited this area here, I'm bringing you information from this area, you see this picture with these scholars here.
See that? See that person there? That's me.
That's me sitting with the scholars.
Okay, all of the scholars speak the Arabic language. It's an international language.
The trade route going across the desert.
It is the largest gold mine in the world. And because of this, the people were fabulously rich. Remember what we said about Africa? What was in our minds? Poor, right? I want you to Google some information. Not right now. When you go when you go back, who was the richest man who ever lived?
Google it. Rothschild, Rockefeller.
Bill Gates. The richest person who ever lived was a person named Mansa Musa.
I didn't write this go into Google and look. He was a black African Muslim king.
He was the richest person who ever lived. They have so much gold. This is a map drawn by a European matte makeup. He probably didn't look like this, but they drew the map. You see his crown, it's all gold. You see the piece of gold is like a grapefruit.
He made his pilgrimage to Mecca like a Muslim does. He carried 72,000 people across the Sahara Desert. Look at this story here. This is an amazing story. You realize what a desert is 72,000 people cross the desert 15,000 camels laden with gold. He changed the economy of every country that he reached. See this? This is an amazing story. That's the part of history that we should be studying.
That's the knowledge a movie should be made about this. But what are the movies we get now? x men,
aliens mutant creatures. Those are our heroes now Right.
And the real history is taking
Get away from us.
When Mansa Musa came back from his pilgrimage, he used this gold and he brought scholars with him. Architects, they built buildings structures all over Central and West Africa. And he found a mysterious city, which was called Timbuktu.
Has anybody ever heard the name Timbuktu before?
Usually when they say Timbuktu, they say, oh, get lost go to Timbuktu.
Timbuktu means you're lost somewhere, right?
Why is that? Because Timbuktu was considered the Shangri La. It was a place where gold was all over the place. The people were fabulously rich, and they use their gold for book education. They were heavily into education. Timbuktu just for those who want to really study history. You know who founded Timbuktu, it's a woman Her name was buck to.
And Tim in the in the Temasek language, that's the language of the verb is the toward x will cover the their face. Timbuktu means the well of back to
because when the twigs were coming out the desert down by the river, they were getting sick with malaria, right? The mosquitoes biting them. So she went about 12 kilometres eight miles north, and she dug a well this is a reenactment of her. Well in Timbuktu right now today.
she dug well, where the mosquitoes could not come. So that became a business town. And eventually it became a town of scholars, scholars from all over Africa. We're going to Timbuktu to the point where Timbuktu.
This is a present a picture which I took myself in Timbuktu.
And by the 16th century, remember 1500s right. Timbuktu had 150 schools
in the same Kota University, there was 25,000 students. Could you imagine this? And I studied some African history books tariqa, Sudan by a Saudi, and he said, My uncle went for cataract operation in a place called Jenny, which is close to Timbuktu. And it was successful.
So they were doing complicated AI operations, studying astronomy, studying chemistry, studying religious sciences, 25,000 black African students. You see now is it right to say Africa has never done anything for the onward flow of history? It's a lie.
And this is what cottagey Woodson was searching for with this month, Timbuktu became produced books, and sent these beautiful books. All they reached all over the world. Eventually, the trade, stopped in the desert and went to the oceans. And after Timbuktu became deserts coming in, but there are still 1000s of books in Timbuktu up until today, and they are putting them in libraries 1000s of books written by black African scholars, okay, this is what is left of the second coat, a mosque, where the university was, now you know what one of the books said in Timbuktu It was written by a person by the name of Allah Almighty.
Allah Almighty was writing about the journey of Mansa Musa
and Aloma he said when Mansa Musa reached Egypt, remember Mansa Musa with the with the gold, right? They said, Where did you get this money from? And he said, I am part of the lineage of the Malian kings and my older brother, Abu Bakar.
He went into the sea of darkness, the Atlantic Ocean, that would be somewhere around Senegal. He went into the ocean with 2000 ships, and he never returned.
Right? This is now 1324 is when he said this. His older brother never returned to Mali
2000 ships, what happened to the ships? Now we look and we see on the ocean. There is what is called currents. The current will take you right in. It'll take you from North Africa or West Africa, right into Brazil or will take you right into Barbados. And to prove it, a Norwegian scientist named Thor Heyerdahl. He left he This is his boat rather second. He left from Sofie Morocco. And where did he land 50 years ago Barbados
He landed here. This is the 50th anniversary of Ohio das journey. And God Willing in July, we want to have a celebration. The Norwegians are coming. We invited the Norwegians through. Hopefully they'll come to Barbados. They're going to go to Morocco, and they're going to talk about Ohio das journey. I visited Norway, and there's a museum, his boats there. He also crossed the Pacific to in another boat called Contiki. He's a very famous historian from Norway. What did he prove? He proved 2000 ships, months Mansa, Abu Bakar monster means king. He never went back. What happened to these people? we traced it. And I've given a book to St. Michael's to show you these actual reports. And
the words of the people. We traced it along Brazil, the Amazon River. So these Mandingo men day, most Muslims, okay, here we say Mandingo, they would say Monday or mandinka they traveled along the Amazon River. They went into Pedro into Central America into the United States long before Columbus. And when
these are their writings, inscriptions that are there in Brazil,
and
when the when the Spanish came, they found black people already here.
When Belle Boa came to Central America, he found he went to the what was now the the Taino indigenous Latino people. He met them. This is Bell Boa, the Spanish and they said on the Caribbean side, on that side, there is black people with beards don't go there.
Right, so Balboa went north, all over Panama Central America. They recognize African people before the Europeans came living in this region. The British called them black Caribs.
The name they use is Garifuna. You need to know Caribbean culture. Garifuna, the Garifuna, you find them in St. Vincent, I visited them in Belize, the British made a
treaty with them and sent them to Belize. All along the Caribbean coast, you'll find people of African descent, Belize, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, all along that side are African people.
And they trace their lineage and history before Columbus.
So this is an amazing study that we are opening up and bringing to you
another area which will bring it home now to what happened here. This is what is called the Atlantic slave trade.
And it is this slave trade where political prisoners and African people were brought here to this part of the world in order to work on the plantations, these are the ports of call. And the Middle Passage was a terrible time. But I want to report to you today that the people did not submit to this. There was resistance, there was resistance in Africa, there was resistance on the boats. And there was resistance here. People fought back in any way they possibly could against this wicked system. There now what we found out to some extra information, because we're searching for roots, right? How do you find your roots?
Because the people who were enslaved, they were not allowed to keep language, you couldn't keep your names.
You couldn't keep your religion. You couldn't keep anything like this. But the Muslims were writing Arabic. And they wrote it down in different places. And now it's coming to the surface. So we are studying documents written by African enslaved Africans during this period. So now we know about one third of the of the enslaved Africans were Muslims. Now, how do we get this information? There are documents like this.
I witness reports. autobiographies written here by the people.
The first slaves that were brought were brought from
Senegal sent in Gambians, but it was a mistake because they're well off the wall of a really proud strong people. They made a rebellion in 1522, in Hispaniola, which is now Dominican Republic and Haiti.
They made a rebellion in Puerto Rico, they made a rebellion in Panama. And so the rebellion started all over the region. And this is how we study this, to show you some hard evidence, if any, you ever want to be a historical researcher, this here, this document is saying it's written in 1774. It said it's a runaway, it's a slave who ran away from the plantation, right? It said, run away from the subscribers plantation and Augustine Creek three years ago, a short well made * fellow called Muhammad. Now, Muhammad is another way of writing Mohammed. So this was a Muslim here.
So this is how we are identifying the names. It's a lot of it's coming to the surface. Now, just to show you, this is a prince Abdul Rahman was his name.
And he was a scholar, he spoke about seven languages. The written language was an Arabic.
And when the United States began, it was only 13 colonies, right, fighting the British. You study this in your history about loyalists and whatnot, right? The 13 colonies needed to be recognized. the only country that would recognize America was Morocco.
There's a letter between George Washington President of the United States, and the Sultan Abdullah he of Morocco. And within their correspondence, George Washington said any more when he said more, he meant Muslims. Any Muslim
who is captured as a slave should be free. That's an agreement. So when they found they saw him writing Arabic, and the word got back to the United States government, and they freed him, and he returned to his home.
In Timbo, which is in Guinea, West Africa. I you even saw a man,
a great scholar. He wrote the core and the book of Scripture of the Muslim five times from his memory. When they saw him writing Arabic, remember the agreement with the government, they freed him, and he went back to his home. Yato Mohamad. This is an actual picture. It's a painting drawn in 1819 of Yarrow, Mohamad. That's his actual face, right?
He's relaxed and calm. He died at 128 years old.
He was 70 years in slavery. Could you imagine that? But he wanted his freedom. And he freed hundreds of other people. He's a very famous person. to us. They're in our history. Omar bin Zayed. He wrote his own life story in Arabic, and the whole book is there. In Washington.
Bill Ali Mohammed, who is in a place the halo islands off the coast of Georgia. Solid Billa. Lee, captured at 14 in Gen ne and Kiana right 60 years and slavery in Georgia.
All Lizzie gray, they called her she was a Muslim woman who died in South Carolina. Okay, the Gullah people in South Carolina. And you know what's interesting, many of these Gullah people we're finding out now came from Barbados.
There's a connection between South Carolina Gullah people, and Barbados. Now, what we're realizing many of these people were Muslim. Look how they dress up until today, up until recent times, Fatima or Phoebe, the wife of Bill Ali Mohammed well known on the Apollo islands. Okay. Let's go to the Caribbean. You know, the great rebellion of the Haiti of Haiti to short Lovejoy. The rebellion was begun by a person named Mark Candela. He was what is called Mata boo, which means a traveling scholar and a man named Bookman to salt low mature, organized the small rebellions and he made a great army and they defeated the French. Okay, that's makhanda he was a Muslim scholar, Mohammed
Kava from buka in malenky, Guinea, he was studying to be a judge, he was captured that and he was taken to Jamaica. Look at his writings,
Abu Bakr Siddiq. He was a scholar from where Timbuktu
he was brought to Jamaica. And when the British magistrate Robert Madden came to Jamaica, to to oversee the change from slavery to indentured labor ship, he found people speaking Arabic and Kingston, and they were writing to the countryside.
And he said, What is this? He learned to speak Arabic because he was in he was in Turkey and Syria.
He said What is this? And they said, We have our own societies here. Okay? So they were resisting and revolts were coming up all over the region. They were revolts in Brazil.
look up the word Bahia. Bahia, Brazil, the revolt, you can get a book on this. It was such a huge slave revolt so organized that the Portuguese said to them here are some boats go back home.
And they took the boats and they went back to Nigeria. And when I visited Nigeria I visited the Oba of the Yoruba, who is the leading religious figure. And he said, there is a mosque in Legos built by Brazilian ex slaves. It's still here today. It's an amazing thing. So there's so many amazing stories of resistance. But the unfortunate thing is that the system of slavery was a brutal system. It took away name. It took away language, religion, it destroyed people's culture, forced another religion on us, changed our names to other names. Something which was one of the most brutal forms of slavery in the history of humanity.
But there was a legacy that happened. The legacy is coming to us that amongst us, the enslaved Africans, there were scholars.
They were leaders look at their writings of john Malin,
Yarrow, Mohamad
Omar bin Zayed these writings are coming up from Brazil in Suriname, there was a big revolt. In Jamaica, the Maroons
conquered the center of Jamaica and they were never defeated by anybody. They have their freedom up until now. This is from the time of the Spanish
these documents are coming forward all over the place.
This is part of our legacy here.
It is a legacy of monotheism these are the Muslim slaves. They will also Ashanti
Europa Cora Manti Mandingo Wolof so many nations. But amongst the Muslims, they were known for tawheed which means oneness of God, to hada, which means purity of mind, body and spirit and calling to righteousness and forbidding evil. That legacy still continues today.
It still continues in a very famous African American Muslim, who is recognized today. His name is Malcolm X. You ever heard of Malcolm X before? usually see him in a bow tie. But this is Malcolm X. Before he died.
He's wearing the clothes of scholar. What does he have in his hand? A book. I want to give you a couple quotes of Malcolm. He said education is our passport to the future. For tomorrow belongs to people who prepare for it today.
He said if you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything. Yeah, what he said, You got to stand for something. He said if you have no critics, you'll have no success.
He said people don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book. So this is the legacy of Malcolm X. And these are some beginning thoughts in Black History Month. prepared for you as part of our returning to Barbados. I leave you in peace Assalamu alaikum