Amazon:A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar Ibn Said:Omar Ibn Said (Author), Ala Alryyes (Editor) https://www.amazon.com/dp/146967467X?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback
Born to a wealthy family in West Africa around 1770, Omar Ibn Said was abducted and sold into slavery in the United States, where he came to the attention of a prominent North Carolina family after filling “the walls of his room with piteous petitions to be released, all written in the Arabic language,” as one local newspaper reported. Ibn Said soon became a local celebrity, and in 1831 he was asked to write his life story, producing the only known surviving American slave narrative written in Arabic.
In A Muslim American Slave, scholar and translator Ala Alryyes offers both a definitive translation and an authoritative edition of this singularly important work, lending new insights into the early history of Islam in America and exploring the multiple, shifting interpretations of Ibn Said’s narrative by the nineteenth-century missionaries, ethnographers, and intellectuals who championed it.
This edition presents the English translation on pages facing facsimile pages of Ibn Said’s Arabic narrative, augmented by Alryyes’s comprehensive introduction, contextual essays and historical commentary by leading literary critics and scholars of Islam and the African diaspora, photographs, maps, and other writings by Omar Ibn Said. The result is an invaluable addition to our understanding of writings by enslaved Americans and a timely reminder that “Islam” and “America” are not mutually exclusive terms.
This edition presents the English translation on pages facing facsimile pages of Ibn Said’s Arabic narrative, augmented by Alryyes’s comprehensive introduction and by photographs, maps, and other writings by Omar Ibn Said. The volume also includes contextual essays and historical commentary by literary critics and scholars of Islam and the African diaspora: Michael A. Gomez, Allan D. Austin, Robert J. Allison, Sylviane A. Diouf, Ghada Osman, and Camille F. Forbes. The result is an invaluable addition to our understanding of writings by enslaved Americans and a timely reminder that “Islam” and “America” are not mutually exclusive terms.
Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians
Review:This "autobiography of a Muslim slave is challenging an American narrative."--PBS Newshour "An indispensable introduction to the writing and world of Omar Ibn Said, whose Arabic slave narrative, masterfully translated and contextualized here, challenges our every assumption about American literature."--Keith Cartwright, University of North Florida"Expertly introduced, edited, and translated from the Arabic by Ala Alryyes, A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar Ibn Said offers the fullest historical, cultural, linguistic, and religious contexts for an understanding of this fascinating American slave narrative."--Werner Sollors, Harvard University"This critical study will enrich any undergraduate and graduate seminar on slavery, religion, literary resistance, and the development of an African American Islamic tradition under slavery."--H-Net Reviews"A rich exploration into the history of Islam and slavery in America."--Library Journal"In 'A Muslim American Slave,' Mr. Alryyes's excellent commentary is accompanied by other scholarly essays that examine Ibn Said's West African homeland and Michael Gomez's history of the antebellum influx of Muslim slaves to the United States. The reader gleans a sense not only of Omar Ibn Said but also of the historical forces that shaped him."--The Wall Street Journal
From the Publisher
Ala Alryyes is associate professor of comparative literature and English at Yale. He is author of Original Subjects: The Child, the Novel, and the Nation. He lives in Brooklyn.
YouTube Video:Conversation on the Omar Ibn Said Collection:
Library of Congress - Feb27,2019
Scholars discussed the autobiography of Omar Ibn Said, the only known autobiography by a slave written in Arabic in the United States. It is a historically unique and important primary source for those trying to understand the connections between the Muslim communities in Western Africa and the slaves who continued to practice Islamic faith after being captured during the Atlantic slave trade.
Speaker Biography: Mary Jane Deeb is chief of the African and Middle Eastern division at the Library of Congress. Speaker Biography: Ala Alryyes is a visiting associate professor of English, Queens College, CUNY. Speaker Biography: Sylviane A. Diouf is a visiting professor at Brown University. Speaker Biography: Adam Rothman is professor of history at Georgetown University.
Amazon:I Cannot Write My Life: Islam, Arabic, and Slavery in Omar ibn Said's America:
Mbaye Lo,
Carl W. Ernst
Omar ibn Said (1770–1863) was a Muslim scholar from West Africa who spent more than fifty years enslaved in the North Carolina household of James Owen, brother of Governor John Owen. In 1831 Omar composed a brief autobiography, the only known narrative written in Arabic by an enslaved person in North America, and he became famous for his Arabic writings. His enslavers also provided him with an Arabic Bible and claimed Omar as a convert to Christianity, prompting wonder and speculation among amateur scholars of Islam, white slave owners, and missionaries. But these self-proclaimed experts were unable or unwilling to understand Omar’s writings, and his voice was suppressed for two centuries.
Mbaye Lo and Carl W. Ernst here weave fresh and accurate translations of Omar’s eighteen surviving writings, for the first time identifying his quotations from Islamic theological texts, correcting many distortions, and providing the fullest possible account of his life and significance. Placing Omar at the center of a broader network of the era’s literary and religious thought, Lo and Ernst restore Omar’s voice, his sophisticated engagement with Islamic and Christian theologies, his Arabic skills, and his extraordinary efforts to express himself and exert agency despite his enslavement.
YouTube Video:What is the autobiography of Omar ibn Said?:
The Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, Stanford University -Jan 23,2023
Omar ibn Said (1770-1863), a Muslim scholar, was captured in West Africa and sold into slavery in America, where he spent over half a century enslaved to a prominent North Carolina family. He left behind a small collection of documents in Arabic that have remained poorly understood to this day. This presentation, based on the first critical edition of Omar’s Arabic writings, analyzes the longest of these documents , his 1831 “Autobiography.” Why did he announce twice, at the beginning of this document, "I cannot write my life"? What is the significance of his quotations from Islamic theological and mystical texts, which have escaped notice until now? These and other questions will be addressed, as part of a major reassessment of this important witness to the presence of Islam and Arabic at the beginning of Americas history.
Speakers:Carl Ernst: Professor Emeritus & William R. Kenan, Jr., Distinguished Professor; Co-Director, UNC Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies; Associate Professor of the Practice of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Duke University
Mbaye Lo: Associate Professor of the Practice of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Duke University
