Marking the American landscape: African Muslim slave writings and the place of Islam

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper explores the role of negotiation in identity politics, focusing on the writings of the nineteenth century African Muslim slave writings in Arabic in the United States. The writing of one man in particular, Bilali Muhammad, offers insight into the role of language, religion, and resistance in relation to identity negotiation. Bilali's world was defined by a cultural context marked by violence, foreignness, and trauma; however, he found ways to negotiate and mark his identity, specifically his Muslim identity, through language in a way that is instructive to cultural and political discourse. His manuscript locates Islam and Arabic on the American religious and linguistic landscape much earlier than is often noted. Bilali's text has implications for the Muslim American experience, which must reconfigured around a changing discourse surrounding Islam that is rooted in the history of racism, beginning with slavery, in the United States.