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>> 251 6 The Muslim Legacy With a documented presence of five hundred years, Islam was, after Catholicism, the second monotheist religion introduced into the post1492 Americas. It preceded Lutheranism, Methodism, Baptism, Calvinism , Santeria, Candomble, and Vodun to name a few. All these religions are alive today and are followed by the vast majority of the Africans’ descendants, but not one community currently practices Islam as passed on by preceding African generations. Islam brought by the enslaved West Africans has not survived. It has left traces; it has contributed to the culture and history of the continents; but its conscious practice is no more. For the religion to endure, it had to grow both vertically, through transmission to the children, and horizontally , through conversion of the “unbelievers.” Both propositions met a number of obstacles. 252 > 253 necessity, it appears that Omar ibn Said, Abu Bakr al Siddiq, and Ayuba Suleyman Diallo did not have descendants in the Americas.2 In contrast, Ibrahima abd al Rahman, John Mohamed Bath, Salih Bilali, and Bilali Mohamed did have children. There is no indication that Ibrahima’s children, who had Christian names like their mother’s, were Muslims; but one of Salih Bilali’s sons, named Bilali, apparently was a Muslim and kept alive the female West African tradition of the distribution of rice cakes as an Islamic charity (saraka). He married the daughter of a marabout, but their descendants, who grew up seeing Muslims around, nevertheless had no understanding of Islam, at least as recorded by the WPA. In general, the grandchildren of Muslims recalled the exterior manifestations of Islam, such as prayers, but do not seem to have had precise ideas about the religion and, as far as can be ascertained by the published interviews, did not mention the religion by its name. It is not impossible that they knew more about Islam and the Muslims than they revealed but did not wish to confide in white Christian strangers —some of whom were the grandchildren of former slaveholders—asking them personal questions in Jim Crow South. For the Muslims who had children, conformism on the children’s part and difficulties with literacy may have coincided to prevent the passage of Islam from generation to generation. As a minority religion, Islam was surrounded by religions with a much larger following that may have been more appealing to youngsters in search of conformity and a sense of belonging. To be a Muslim was to singularize one’s self. Moreover, it was an austere religion that manifested itself through rigorous prayers and additional privations, propositions that may have handicapped its acceptance by a second and a third generation. The lack of interest of the youngsters in the religion of their parents, who had gone to great lengths to preserve it, was deplored by the Muslim clerics of Trinidad. A religious leader regretted that their youngsters “were in danger of being drawn away by the evil practices of the Christians.”3 The laments were the same in Bahia, where the clerics complained of the ungratefulness of the children who turned to “fetishism,” Candomble, or Catholicism.4 After the repression of 1835, the malés became extremely discreet, private, 254 > 255 and write Arabic, who were knowledgeable in the religion and could interpret it for the novices, was very much reduced. With some variation in time depending on the country, by the first or second decade of the twentieth century, there were no more African Muslims who could read and write Arabic in the Americas. Barriers to the Horizontal Growth of Islam If passing on their “religion of the Book” to their progeny was an arduous task for the Muslims, then spreading the faith among their companions proved equally daunting, if the Muslims even tried. In Africa, proselytizing was mostly done through example, by the mystic Sufis, the merchants, and the teachers who settled among the “infidels.” Active recruiting was usually not part of their activities. Proselytizing in the Americas would certainly have followed the same unobtrusive pattern, only it would have met with more difficulty, because while Africans from different parts of the continent shared the same fate in the Americas, their customs, education, and culture were alien to one another. Their languages were mutually unintelligible and their mastery of the colonial languages only acquired over time. To hold religious discussions and to successfully convert under those conditions would have been improbable . The Central Africans had had no contact with Islam in Africa, and their linguistic and...

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