Ieasha Prime – African Muslims in America Before Columbus Islam and the Black American
AI: Summary ©
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AI: Summary ©
This series is called Islam in early America. It is to discuss
the rich and vibrant history of African American Muslims from West
Africa and their journey into America, into present day. It is a
story that is rich with unique, interesting people with lots of
talents, courage, determination, hard work and a great influence on
the American culture and American society.
When we look at Islam in early America, we have to begin to look
at how they arrived. How did Islam arrive to the shores of North
America as early as the 12th century, we find stories of the
great Mensa Abu wakar, the second who was the second son of Shek and
to job. And Shek and to Job was a great historian and a great
scholar of his time. So he would it would be interesting that he
would have a son, one of them being Mansa Abu Bakr and the other
one, Mansa Musa, as we're all familiar with, the great wealthy
king who traveled from Mali all the way to Mecca and returned upon
his way. But how did he become king was actually because of his
brother, Abu Bakr renounced his throne in order to be a great
Voyager. He initially heard about a land across the ocean, and so he
sent out 200 ships with enough resources for several years when
those ships didn't respond, and only one ship returned back to
him. There was a sailor who gave and gave him an account of a great
storm that actually began to soak in all of the ships into a hole,
but this one ship began to back up, and he was able to turn his
ship around and arrive back to West Africa to tell the tale. But
that didn't stop the curiosity nor the determination of Mansa Abu
Bakr. He then decided that there was something beyond the storm,
something worth going after. And so then he sent 2000 ships, 1000
for himself and his other sailors, and another 1000 filled with
resources and food for years to come, there are great historians.
Khadija Jay in Egypt tells an account of Al umari in 1325,
that begins to tell the story of the expeditions of Abu Bakr. But
was there any evidence? Did anything suggest that he had
actually arrived to the coast of America? It turns out that
historians, years later, found several accounts of his arrival to
the Americas. One is that one of the things that he carried along
in his ship, where they were actually spears, and more than 60%
of the head of those Spears were coated with gold mixed with silver
and then some copper. When Columbus arrived, he actually
discovered some of the the arrows that were left from the tips of
these spears, and when he saw them, they were the native people
called them guanine. And guanine was actually a West African term
that was used to describe gold. And so that was the beginning of a
little bit of the evidence of the expedition of Abu Bakr. Later on,
we find that there in the 14th century, there is a map called the
Pierre's rays map that is discovered in Turkey. And this map
is was originally used by a Turkish Voyager who decided that
he also wanted to explore the Newfoundland. But this map that he
had, that he that he was using, was something very unique about
it. What was unique about the map is that it had the interior rivers
as well as some of the mountains of America, something that had not
been documented before that. And it was said that this was actually
a map that not only those who had traveled with Mansa Abubakar, but
other Moors had come together to collaborate on this particular
map. So these are some of the clues in Brazil, as well. As it
said that Abu Bakr reached there have been found.
Coins that actually have Mandinka script inside of them. And yet,
one other wonderful thing that happens as a discovery to his
expedition, as proof of his arrival, is that in a cave in
Arizona, there was found written on the walls the elephants are
sick. Now, one might wonder, what's the significance of the
elephants being sick? The significance of the cave writing
is that number one, it's in mendinkin script. The other thing
is that elephants are not unique to America. The elephants that are
painted in this cave in Arizona are African elephants. So this was
also proof of the expedition of Mensah abuakr. This, as we know,
is some of the earliest accounts of African Muslims arriving to the
coast of America. Later on, we find Native Americans actually
having documents of Sharia, documents that are about property
management, about marriage agreements between not only
individuals, but also nations, showing further proof of the
relationship of West Africans and Native Americans and their
interrelationship with each other, and particularly their
relationship with Islam. Now, many historians have began as they're
searching for Islam on the shores of America, particularly within
African history, and they find that there is a gap, right and
slowly, slowly as we have more historians who were searching on
this topic, that gap is getting smaller and smaller. We know that
there were also Moors who traveled with Columbus. It's actually
Ferdinand, Columbus, the son of Columbus, who actually documents
where his father not only found a mosque on the hilltop in Cuba. But
in addition to he commented on how the clothing of many Native
Americans in the area matched the clothing of many of the Moors that
he had seen inside of Spain, in terms of its fabrication as well
as in its design, there are other accounts of Ferdinand Columbus
giving more details of even watching how some of the Native
Americans conducted worship, and they commented on the similarity
of that worship between the Moors that they had seen and some of the
Native American worship that they were witnessing. This was further
proof of an of an ongoing relationship between Moors and
West African Muslims and their relationship with Native Americans
here on American soil, you