CAIRO – Dusting off the annals of history, an exhibition in North Carolina is exploring the heritage of early Muslims and their contributions in building America.
"It’s amazing," Jamaal Albany, a teacher at Al-Iman Muslim school in Raleigh, told the News Observer on Monday, November 23.
Albany accompanied his sixth- and seventh-grade students to the "Muslims in America" exhibition at the Shaw University mosque to see contributions of early Muslims in building the country.
The event features portraits, letters and tombstones showing that Muslims arrived in America even before Christopher Columbus in 1492.
It also shows that Muslims fought in every US war since the American War of Independence (1775-1783).
Census records indicate that 584 soldiers with the last name Muhammad (spelled 33 different ways) fought in World War I.
"We're part of American society," organizer Amir Muhammad, a Washington history buff, said.
Muhammad initiated the exhibition during his search for his own family roots in the southern state of Georgia.
He found out that many West African Muslims were brought as slaves even before America’s discovery by Columbus.
"It didn't start with the Nation of Islam, and it didn't come with the wave of immigrants in the 1960s."
Though there are no official figures, the United States is believed to be home to nearly seven million Muslims.
* Muslim heritage
The exhibition shows that the south-eastern state of North Carolina was home to one of the most learned Muslim slaves, Omar Ibn Sayyid of Fayetteville.
"I studied this in college but I didn't know North Carolina's role," said Albany, the teacher.
Born in present-day Senegal in 1770, Sayyid was a Muslim scholar, who read and wrote in Arabic.
When he was 37, he was enslaved and taken to Charleston, a historic city in South Carolina.
Four years later, he escaped to Fayetteville, a city located in Cumberland County, North Carolina, where he was jailed.
Sayyid was later purchased by James Owen, a general in the state militia.
Impressed by the educated slave, Owen bought a translated version of the Noble Qur’an to Sayyid to improve his English.
Sayyid wrote his biography in Arabic, the first autobiography written by a slave.
"These are brothers we never knew the history of," said Ali Abdul Malik, who came out to see the exhibit.
"Now they are coming to light."
Source: IslamOnline
"It’s amazing," Jamaal Albany, a teacher at Al-Iman Muslim school in Raleigh, told the News Observer on Monday, November 23.
Albany accompanied his sixth- and seventh-grade students to the "Muslims in America" exhibition at the Shaw University mosque to see contributions of early Muslims in building the country.
The event features portraits, letters and tombstones showing that Muslims arrived in America even before Christopher Columbus in 1492.
It also shows that Muslims fought in every US war since the American War of Independence (1775-1783).
Census records indicate that 584 soldiers with the last name Muhammad (spelled 33 different ways) fought in World War I.
"We're part of American society," organizer Amir Muhammad, a Washington history buff, said.
Muhammad initiated the exhibition during his search for his own family roots in the southern state of Georgia.
He found out that many West African Muslims were brought as slaves even before America’s discovery by Columbus.
"It didn't start with the Nation of Islam, and it didn't come with the wave of immigrants in the 1960s."
Though there are no official figures, the United States is believed to be home to nearly seven million Muslims.
* Muslim heritage
The exhibition shows that the south-eastern state of North Carolina was home to one of the most learned Muslim slaves, Omar Ibn Sayyid of Fayetteville.
"I studied this in college but I didn't know North Carolina's role," said Albany, the teacher.
Born in present-day Senegal in 1770, Sayyid was a Muslim scholar, who read and wrote in Arabic.
When he was 37, he was enslaved and taken to Charleston, a historic city in South Carolina.
Four years later, he escaped to Fayetteville, a city located in Cumberland County, North Carolina, where he was jailed.
Sayyid was later purchased by James Owen, a general in the state militia.
Impressed by the educated slave, Owen bought a translated version of the Noble Qur’an to Sayyid to improve his English.
Sayyid wrote his biography in Arabic, the first autobiography written by a slave.
"These are brothers we never knew the history of," said Ali Abdul Malik, who came out to see the exhibit.
"Now they are coming to light."
Source: IslamOnline
| Home | Daily News | We Are On... |
