How enslaved African Muslims kept faith and resisted bondage

Muslims in the United States often face negative stereotyping and suspicion. Especially in the years following 9/11, Muslims have been frequently cast as outsiders.

What many may not know is that Muslims have been part of the American story since its founding. Scholars estimate that as many as 30% of Africans who were enslaved and brought to the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries were Muslim.

The rise of Islam in West Africa, from as early as the eighth century, brought with it the spread of literacy as Muslims learned to read and write in Arabic, the language of the Quran.

Historian Sylviane A Diouf, in her 1998 book Servants of Allah delves into the history of enslaved Muslims. She writes that among the hundreds of thousands of enslaved African Muslims, there were “clerics, teachers, students, rulers, and traders”.

Some of those enslaved people were able to create their own written records, in a language that their slave masters could not understand. Diouf also argues that these African Muslims held on to their Islamic faith as a source of “hope, moral comfort, and mental escape” from the grueling circumstances forced on them.

As scholars of Islam in America, we have studied the writings of many of these enslaved African Muslims. These accounts offer glimpses into their lives, as well as the cultural traditions they...

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