African Muslims in Antebellum America: Transatlantic Stories and Spiritual Struggles [Paperback]

Allan D. Austin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415912709 | ISBN-13: 978-0415912709 | Publication Date: April 25, 1997 | Edition: Rev Upd

A condensation and updating of his African Muslims in Antebellum America: A Sourcebook (1984), noted scholar of antebellum black writing and history Dr. Allan D. Austin explores, via portraits, documents, maps, and texts, the lives of 50 sub-Saharan non-peasant Muslim Africans caught in the slave trade between 1730 and 1860. Also includes five maps.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A condensation and updating of the author's African Muslims in Antebellum America: A Sourcebook, this book features the stories of nearly 80 Africans brought to America as slaves between 1730 and 1860. What was unusual about these slaves is that they were Muslims and that they left some sort of documentary record of their presence. Many came from elite classes--one was a military officer, several were schoolteachers, and another was studying to become a religious leader. Using the fragments of evidence still available, Allan D. Austin tells a compelling story that illuminates aspects of American history that are too little known.

From Library Journal

In this updated condensation of his African Muslims in Antebellum America: A Sourcebook (1984), Austin sketches the experiences of some 75 Muslims seized in sub-Saharan Africa and enslaved in North America between 1730 and 1860. Expanding his commentary and condensing his excerpts from autobiographical or biographical narratives, Austin develops the character of individual Muslims more than in his sourcebook. He illuminates their lives and thoughts in ways that reveal the embarrassing limits imposed by race and religion on general historical understanding of first-generation Africans in America. A complement to Richard Brent Turner's Islam in the African-American Experience (LJ 6/1/97), this work is essential for collections on early America, African Americans, and U.S. history or religion or Islam in the United States.?Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., Tempe
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; Rev Upd edition (April 25, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415912709
• ISBN-13: 978-0415912709
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #665,053 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very important work, August 9, 1999

By 

J. Reynolds (Far From Inner Asia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: African Muslims in Antebellum America: Transatlantic Stories and Spiritual Struggles (Paperback)

Austin's book brings to light an under-examined aspect of African Islam's role in early North America. The short biographical stories of African Muslims have never failed to capture students' imaginations in my classes. A good read and an excellent addition to reading lists for American and African-American History surveys.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Account, September 2, 2004

By 

Hanif Yazdi - See all my reviews

This review is from: African Muslims in Antebellum America: Transatlantic Stories and Spiritual Struggles (Paperback)

The book is certainly an excellent source of knowledge about a unique facet of the transatlantic slave trade that is frequently overlooked and marginalized. This account, describing the lives of dozens of African Muslims in North America and elsewhere in the New World should serve as a catalyst for further study into the roots of the Muslim American experience. The less than perfect score is due less to the author's compilation, and more to the dearth of extant sources available for analysis. A more in depth study into the lives of existing Muslim communities in places like British Guyana and in Trinidad would likely yield a more comprehensive picture. The account is excellent, but it is by no means definitive, and much research remains to be conducted and codified.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A strange tale, December 25, 2003

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: African Muslims in Antebellum America: Transatlantic Stories and Spiritual Struggles (Paperback)

This is one of those books whose contents might be a total surprise. While it is known that fragments of Africana culture survived the terrible Middle Passage to America, surely nothing of organised religion? Indeed, were not the European slavers successful in eradicating almost any trace of a pre-existing culture?

But, wonder! A few slaves were Muslim, and managed to preserve this after a fashion in colonial America, whereas the Christianity for most came from the slavers.

Perhaps a simple look at a map and history might make this not a surprise. Islam had moved into central and west Africa by the 1600s. Those areas, after all, are continguous to Arabia. And given that by 1000, Islam had reached across North Africa, by another 500 years, it had penetrated south past the Sahara. By contrast, in those years, there were negligible numbers of Christians in Africa. Such existed mainly in the Portuguese colonies of what are nowadays Angola and Mozambique.

From what partial records survive, the author has done remarkable job of reconstructing something that has languished in the shadows for centuries.