A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar Ibn Said

240 Pages·2011·2.319 MB·English

by  Omar Ibn Said, Ala Alryyes

A Muslim American Slave
Ambrotype of Omar ibn Said (North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
A Muslim American Slave
The Life of Omar Ibn Said
j
Translated from the Arabic,
edited,
and with an introduction by
 
A A
j
The University of Wisconsin Press
Publication of this volume has been made possible, in part, through support from the
FW. HFof Yale University.
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Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Said, Omar ibn, 1770?–1863 or 4.
A Muslim American slave : the life of Omar ibn Said / translated from the Arabic,
edited, and with an introduction by Ala Alryyes.
p. : ill, facsim., maps; cm.—(Wisconsin studies in autobiography)
English translations on pages facing facsim. pages of Arabic text.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-299-24954-0 (pbk.: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-299-24953-3 (e-book)
1. Said, Omar ibn, 1770?–1863 or 4. 2. Slave narratives—North Carolina. 3. Slaves’ writings, American.
4. Slaves—North Carolina—Biography. 5. African American Muslims—North Carolina—History—Sources.
6. Slavery—United States—History—Sources.
I. Alryyes, Ala A., 1963– II. Title. III. Series: Wisconsin studies in autobiography.
E444.S25 2011
306.3´62092—dc22
[B]
2010044625
“Autobiography of Omar Ibn Said, Slave in North Carolina, 1831,” translated by Isaac Bird, first appeared in American
Historical Review30, no. 4 (July 1925): 787–95. Copyright © 1925 by the American Historical Review. Used by
permission of the University of Chicago Press.
“Muslims in Early America,” by Michael A. Gomez, first appeared in Journal of Southern History60, no. 4 (November
1994): 671–710. Copyright © 1994 by the Southern Historical Association. Used by permission of the Editor.
“Representing the West in the Arabic Language: The Slave Narrative of Omar Ibn Said,” by Ghada Osman and
CamilleF.Forbes,firstappearedintheJournalofIslamicStudies15,no.3(September2004):331–43.Usedby
permission of Oxford University Press.
Appendix 1 is used by permission of Charles E. Merrill Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Franklin
Trask Library, Andover Newton Theological School. John Hunwick’s translation first appeared in “‘I Wish to Be Seen
in Our Land Called Afrika’: ‘Umarb. Sayyid’s Appeal to Be Released from Slavery (1819),” Journal of Arabic and Islamic
Studies5 (2003): 62–77. Used by permission of Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies.
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Chronology xi
Introduction: “Arabic Work,” Islam, and American Literature 3
A A
The Life
The Life of Omar Ibn Said, Written by Himself 47
Translated byA A
Autobiography of Omar Ibn Said, Slave in North Carolina, 1831 81
Translated byI B,
with an introduction and notes byJ.F J
Contextual Essays
Muslims in Early America 95
M A. G
Contemporary Contexts for Omar’s Lifeand Life 133
A D. A
The United States and Barbary Coast Slavery 152
R J. A
“God Does Not Allow Kings to Enslave Their People”:
Islamic Reformists and the Transatlantic Slave Trade 162
S A. D
Representing the West in the Arabic Language:
The Slave Narrative of Omar Ibn Said 182
G O andC F. F
Appendix 1. Omar’s Earliest Known Manuscript (1819) 195
Translated byJ H
v
Contents
Appendix 2. Letter from Reverend Isaac Bird, of Hartford, Connecticut,
to Theodore Dwight, of Brooklyn, New York (April 1, 1862) 203
Appendix 3. “Uncle Moreau,” from North Carolina University Magazine
(September 1854) 207
Appendix 4. Ralph Gurley’s “Secretary’s Report,” from African Repository
and Colonial Journal (July 1837) 213
Contributors 221
vi
Illustrations
Ambrotype of Omar ibn Said frontispiece
Map of Western Africa 5
Detail from page of Omar’s Life 7
Daguerreotype of Isaac Bird 10
Isaac Bird’s certification by the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions 11
Omar’s latest known extant writing: a copy of Surat al-Nasr 24
African supply zones for the transatlantic slave trade 99
vii

Acknowledgments
I amindebted to many people for their help with this book. My project had
its seed in a conference on Omar ibn Said held at Houghton Library, Harvard
University, under the auspices of the Longfellow Institute, which supports the
study of non-English writings in what is now the United States. I am deeply grateful
to Werner Sollors and Marc Shell, who organized that conference, for their in-
valuable interest and encouragement during the beginning stages of this project.
Early parts of the book were published with the support of the Longfellow Institute.
I warmly thank Yota Batsaki for her help in that process. I am very grateful to
Derrick Beard, the owner of the manuscript, for generously providing full access
to it and for allowing it to be reproduced here. Special thanks are due to the
contributors of this volume.
For their insights and comments, I thank Anthony K. Appiah, Srinivas
Aravamudan, Ian Baucom, Natalie Zemon Davis, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Muhsin
al-Musawi, Gregory Nagy, Allen F. Roberts, and Jan Ziolkowski. I am also grateful
to Jonathan Curiel, John Hunwick, Sulayman Nyang, Muhammed al-Ahari, and
the late Thomas C. Parramore.
My book benefited from questions and comments at invited talks and
conferences. I particularly thank the Instituto de Filosofía de Ciências Sociais,
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Wellesley College; the organizers
of the Textual Culture Conference, the University of Stirling, Scotland; and
participants in the “Non-English Literatures of the United States” seminar at the
American Comparative Literature Association conference in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico,
especially Alicia Borinsky, Dan Duffy, Peter Fenves, Melinda Gray, Gönül Pultar,
Steven Rowan, and Ted Widmer.
A Morse fellowship at Yale University provided financial assistance and time
off, which helped in the development of the project. I am grateful to the members
of the Yale’s Working Group in Cross-Lingual Poetics and the Yale Arabic
Colloquium for helpful comments, and thank Wai Chee Dimock and Beatrice
Gruendler,respectively,forinvitationstospeaktothesetwocolloquia.Forvaluable
discussions and suggestions, I also thank my colleagues Rolena Adorno, Nigel
ix