Abstract
While it is well established now that the middle passage did not entirely separate Africans who were forcibly brought to the Americas from their home cultures and traditions, these connections are often studied and understood in the form of survivals or ancestral memory. This paper argues that in major urban centers in Brazil until around the time of World War I, West Africans not only managed to recreate Islamic communities and intellectual traditions, but maintained important contacts with their homelands. In much the same way that scholars have argued that the Sahara constituted an avenue of exchange and connection between North Africa and Bilad al-Sudan, I argue here that the Atlantic Ocean was not an insurmountable barrier but provided opportunities for African Muslims to extend the traditions of Bilad al-Sudan into Brazil—albeit to a much lesser extent.
Highlights
Imagine traveling to Brazil in the nineteenth century and encountering a seventyyear-old man, fluent in at least three languages, literate in both Arabic and Portuguese who has won his freedom, undergone traditional Islamic education over three periods of his life in two different places in West Africa, and supports himself and his family entirely on his practice and teaching of Islam
It is clear that as a result of the wars in Hausaland at the end of the eighteenth century and in Yorubaland at the beginning of the nineteenth century, a large number of Muslims were forcibly brought to Brazil, Bahia, and the community reached its peak around the mid-nineteenth century at which point some began returning to West Africa
As those who came from Africa with a high degree of Islamic education got older and began to die, the level of Arabic literacy likely declined with their numbers, but as we will see, the successful recreation of educational institutions did ensure that subsequent generations were given access to this type of education as well
Summary
Imagine traveling to Brazil in the nineteenth century and encountering a seventyyear-old man, fluent in at least three languages, literate in both Arabic and Portuguese who has won his freedom, undergone traditional Islamic education over three periods of his life in two different places in West Africa, and supports himself and his family entirely on his practice and teaching of Islam While all of these characteristics together are remarkable and describe a Yoruba man named Abuncare, they are not nearly as unique as one might think. Both men are ethnically Yoruba, and managed to leverage trans-national religious networks in unique and creative ways Through their history of a high level of Islamic education combined with important knowledge of and experience with West African ways of life, these scholars and religious leaders have been able to lead very successful careers in which they have exported West African Islamic traditions and helped them take root in Brazil
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