Ieasha Prime – African Muslims in America Before Columbus Islam and the Black American

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