Exhibit explores Muslim life in 18th century America
Faris Jawad
8/6/2005 8:25:00 AM GMT
Source: usinfo.state.gov - US Department of State
By Mercedes L. Suarez and Aviva Altmann
Washington File Staff Writers
Washington -- The Clara Mohammad School sits in a shabby storefront in
Anacostia, a predominantly African-American neighborhood on the southern
edge of the nation's capital. Its windows advertising Quran classes are a
testament to the legacy of Islam among African Americans in the United
States. Just up the road is the Smithsonian's Anacostia Museum for
African-American History and Culture, which has opened the exhibit
"Forgotten Roots: African-American Muslims in Early America."
"Small paper documents like letters, pages from diaries, and deeds of sale
come together to create vignettes of Muslim individuals - enslaved and
free - who were known for their passion for freedom, their pioneering
spirit, and their steadfast faith," curator Amir Muhammad said of the show.
The exhibit is the first part of a multiyear initiative to document family
and community life among African-American Muslims, beginning with the first
Muslims in the United States and moving to the present.
Some of the first Muslims came to America as enslaved Africans, and the
exhibit profiles several of them through drawings, texts, books and
documents. The exhibit focuses on the presence and contributions of
African-American Muslims in the 18th and 19th centuries with pieces gathered
from university collections, census records, newspaper archives, state
historical societies and private collections.
An 1828 sketch depicts Abdur Rahman Ibrahima ibn Sori, an African enslaved
in Guinea and brought to Natchez, Mississippi, whose story was later told in
Terry Alford's Prince of the Slaves. Sori wrote a letter to his family
describing his enslavement, and that letter eventually found its way to
Mississippi Senator Thomas Reed and then to the U.S. consulate in Morocco.
The sultan of Morocco petitioned then-Secretary of State Henry Clay and
President John Quincy Adams to free Sori, a request that eventually was
granted. Sori later traveled to Washington where he was able to meet
President Adams. One display case contains an 1853 edition of the Quran that
bears the inscription "only book saved from the University of Alabama
Library which was destroyed by fire during the Civil War." Another display
case contains a Bible written in Arabic dating from 1811. The Bible was a
gift to slave Omar Ibn Sayyid (1770-1864) from his master, James Owens of
Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Sayyid, an Islamic scholar from what is now Senegal, is prominently featured
in the exhibit. As a literate man, he was one of the few educated slaves
when he was imprisoned in North and South Carolina. He wrote many texts to
educate other Muslims in the area. Fourteen of his writings still exist. On
display in Anacostia is an ambrotype image of Sayyid from 1850 and a copy of
Bismillah, This is How You Pray, his guide for Muslim ritual prayer, which
he observed devoutly. Sayyid also wrote an autobiography in Arabic in 1831
that depicts early Muslim life in America.
Yarrow Marmood (1736-1844), a Muslim slave who gained his freedom and became
a profitable landowner and businessman in Washington, and Muhammad Ali bin
Said (1833-1882), a Muslim who came to the United States of his own free
will and settled in Detroit in 1861, are two other individuals profiled in
the exhibit.
The exhibit also looks at the contributions of early Muslim women like
Margaret Mohammit Hagan, originally from Madagascar, who established a
dress-making business on F Street in Washington and practiced medical
electricity, an early health science. On August 11, the museum will host a
discussion on "Muslim American Women," with several guest speakers.
In conjunction with the exhibit, curator Muhammad and a group of historians
will host an "Islamic Heritage Day" at the Anacostia Museum on July 30. The
all-day celebration will feature music, painting, poetry, calligraphy and a
marketplace with crafts and foods.
Muhammad, who is founder of Collections and Stories of American Muslims
Inc., said he hopes the exhibit will "paint the big picture and the little
details of this fascinating tale of America's first black Muslims." The
exhibit continues through October 16, and subsequent exhibitions in the
museum's program will examine what it means to be of African descent, Muslim
and American.
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http://usinfo.state.gov/mena/Archive/2005/Jul/26-702181.html