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A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar Ibn Said
Paperback
Series: Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography
Historical FiguresBlack American StudiesGeneral Racism & Ethnic Studies
ISBN13: 9780299249540
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Published: Jul 20 2011
Pages: 216
Weight: 0.75
Height: 0.60 Width: 6.00 Depth: 8.90
Language: English
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.
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.
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