Enslaved African Muslims Helped Build America - January 29, 2019

معنی واژه با لمس

1. 0:00In the year 1807, a wealthy scholar was captured in West Africa,
2. 0:07brought to the United States, and sold into slavery.
3. 0:13His name was Omar Ibn Said.
4. 0:17He was 37 years old at the time, and he spent the rest of his life enslaved.
5. 0:27Saeed was one of many enslaved Muslims in early U.S.
6. 0:32history. Up to 40 % of Africans captured and brought to the U.S.
7. 0:39were from mostly Muslim countries in West Africa.
8. 0:45Saeed's story might have been forgotten, written,
9. 0:48but he wrote about it in a book called The Life of Omar Ibn Said.
10. 0:56The U.S.
11. 0:57Library of Congress recently received the book, which was written in Arabic.
12. 1:05The book is one of only a few personal stories written by a slave in America.
13. 1:12It is also one of the first intimate reports of the early history of Muslims
14. 1:20in the United States.
15. 1:23The book challenges the idea that the U.S.
16. 1:27is a Christian nation, says Zahir Ali.
17. 1:32He is a historian at the Brooklyn Historical Society in New York.
18. 1:37Ali adds, The book opens us up to the understanding that people
19. 1:45who were not Christian helped build the United States.
20. 1:50Most enslaved African Muslims did not leave written records,
21. 1:57but we can learn about their lives from public evidence and the memories of their families.
22. 2:04How long Muslim slaves practiced their faith is unknown.
23. 2:12Some became Christians.
24. 2:15Others acted as if they did, to better deal with their captors.
25. 2:21But there is evidence that some remained Muslim.
26. 2:26Zahir Ali points to burial places off the U.S.
27. 2:31state of Georgia.
28. 2:33Some markers of enslaved people have Islamic signs.
29. 2:39Also there are some churches, Christian religious buildings,
30. 2:44that face east, the direction Muslims face when they pray.
31. 2:52In addition, some family members say they remember their ancestors using Islamic rugs and prayer beads.
32. 3:02Silvian Diouf is a writer and historian of the African diaspora, or movement from homeland.
33. 3:11She says enslaved Muslims also influenced American culture.
34. 3:19Diouf says slave work songs used beats like those used in Quran recitation
35. 3:27and the Islamic call to prayer.
36. 3:31She points to the song Levee camp holler.
37. 3:35It helped give birth to the musical style called the blues.
38. 3:41And Zahir Ali says the banjo
39. 3:45and guitar could have come from a traditional West African musical instrument.
40. 3:52But the most lasting evidence of Muslims
41. 3:57in the United States may be a movement among modern African Americans to join the Islamic faith.
42. 4:05Black Muslims continue to make up the biggest part of the Muslim community in the U.S.
43. 4:16Ali concludes, Islam is not new to the United States.
44. 4:21It was here before the country was founded.
45. 4:26It was present among the people who helped build this country.
46. 4:30story, and it has very much been a part of the thread of America's story.
47. 4:39I'm Katie Weaver.