WAZANZIBARI
Assalaam Alaykum:


    THE GREATEST GIFT OF AFRICAN MUSLIM SLAVES FROM MECCA TO MARYLAND
    =================================================================

                              TANBIH
                              ======
              And what will explain to you the path that is steep?
              (It is) to free a slave (Qur'an; 90:12-13).

    =========================AMMA-BA'D===============================


HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
=====================
Because thousands of Native Americans died from horrible overwork on 
plantation and in mines, Priest Bartolome de Las Casas pleaded for their 
conditions. James West and Michael B. Stoff (1998), in their book; AMERICAN 
NATION quoted him:


              The (Native) Indians were totally depressed of their
              freedom.....Even beasts enjoyed their freedom when
              they are allowed to graze in the fields. (p. 76).


Priest Bartolome de Las Casas was so horrified that he went to Spain and 
asked the king to protect the Native Indians. In 1540, the Spanish 
government passed laws stating that Native Americans should not be enslaved. 
The laws also allowed them to own cattle and grow crops. Priest Bartolome 
suggested that West Africans must be brought to America as slaves to replace 
the Native Americans because they were resistant to European diseases and 
were hard working in their countries.

Therefore, in 1619, a Dutch ship landed Jamestown with 20 Africans who were 
sold to Virginians since they needed them to work in their tobacco 
plantations. These African slaves were baptized and given Spanish names and 
two of them, Anthony and Isabella married in Virginia. In 1624, they had a 
son, William, the first child of African slaves born in the so called NEW 
WORLD, now the United States of America.


THE ORIGINS OF "BLACK" HISTORY MONTH
====================================
Among the sons of Africa slaves was Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950), who 
discovered that none of the schools taught the history of Black Americans. 
So he started the American Negro Academy to study the important things Black 
people had accomplished and on February 19, 1926, Carter G. Woodson 
established "NEGRO HISTORY WEEK" which is now called the "BLACK HISTORY 
MONTH" (OF FEBRUARY) in the United States.

We have also observed that by a sheer ignorance of Christocentric or a 
deliberate covert paradigm, the history of Muslims in Maryland is neglected 
by contemporary scholars even in the specific "BLACK HISTORY" month of 
February. It is neglected despite Maryland had the tenth largest Muslim 
population (1990) in America.

======================================================================
          THE MUSLIM POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES (1990)
======================================================================
             MUSLIM POPULATION    PERCENTAGE        PERCENTAGE OF
                   IN               TOTAL               STATE
                THOUSAND*       MUSLIM POPULATIOM    POPULATION
======================================================================
CALIFORNIA        1,000             20.0                 3.4
NEW YORK            800             16.0                 4.7
ILLINOIS            420              8.4                 3.6
NEW JERSEY          200              4.0                 2.5
INDIANA             180              3.6                 3.2
MICHIGAN            170              3.4                 1.8
VIRGINIA            150              3.0                 2.4
TEXAS               140              2.8                 0.7
OHIO                130              2.6                 1.2
MARYLAND             70              1.4                 1.4
======================================================================
*Estimates under column 2 have been rounded to the nearest even number.
======================================================================
SOURCE: Fareed H. Numan (1990) THE MUSLIM POPULATION IN THE UNITED
         STATES.

Perhaps, due to Christocentric historicity, most of the contemporary 
scholars focus on the memories and contributions of Christian activists such 
as Fredrick Douglas (1817-1895), the famous slave and Abolitionist in 
Maryland. But they fail to inform us that political activism and 
intellectualism of Fredrick Douglas can be traced to his ancestor; Bilal bin 
Muhammad (d. 1859), a Muslim slave activist.

Bilal bin Muhammad, born at Masina in Mali was a slave at Salepo Island, 
Georgia. He started his political activism during the Second American War 
with England after he was entrusted with military leadership of over 80 
armed slaves. Thus, he pledged to defend the Island of Salepo if attacked. 
In 1815, Bilal bin Muhammad told his slave master, Thomas Spalding 
(1774-1851) that he could "answer for every Negro of the true Faith (of 
Islam) but not for the Christian dogs you own." Bilal bin Muhammad was 
buried in Georgia with his Qur'an and a prayer rug.

Bilal bin Muhammad left twelve children and several Arabic manuscripts, 
including the excerpts of AL-RISLAH (The Message), composed by Abu Bakr 
Muhammad Zaid al-Qarwan, born in Morocco. This manuscript is a common 
treatise of FIQH (Islamic Jurisprudence) in West Africa from where some 
Muslims were captured, enslaved, Christinised and exported as human cargo to 
Maryland, the first Catholic State named after Mary, the mother of Jesus 
Christ, peace be upon him.


CHRISTIANIZATION OF HUMAN CARGO TO MARYLAND
===========================================
The history of Muslims in Maryland can be traced to West Africa where Islam 
reached in the eighth century. By the twelfth century, the Muslims had 
already established Islamic Empire of Mali whose king Mansa Kankan Mussa 
(1312-1337) performed his famous pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324. On his return, 
he informed Nasir Edin bin Muhammad III (1309-1340), a Muslim scholar in 
Cairo that his brother, Sultan Abu Bakr Kankan Mussa (1285-1312) had 
undertaken two important expeditions into the Atlantic Ocean. Since the 
Sultan did not return to Timbuktu from the second voyage of 1311, Mansa 
Kankan Musa became the Sultan of the Empire of Mali.

Mansa Kankan Musa, educated in Arabic brought with him to Mali, Muslim 
scholars and an architect, Ishaq al-Teudjin, who constructed for him several 
buildings, Islamic schools, palaces and mosques. He also started 
relationship with Tunisia and Egypt for culture, economics and education. By 
the fifteenth century, Mali had the Islamic University of Sankore at 
Timbuktu which was attended by many scholars from different parts of the 
world before Muslim slaves from West Africa were chained to Maryland in the 
sixteenth century. Some of them formed a bridge of blood across the Atlantic 
Ocean during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (1530-1863), the greatest 
intercontinental in the world history of human cargo from Africa to 
Maryland.

In such a shipment of human cargo to the largest Judeo-Christian nation, we 
do not know precisely when the first Muslim slave was brought to Maryland. 
But an unnamed African baptised as Mathias de Souza, was the first African 
slave in Maryland. He arrived in 1634 at St. Mary's City with the ARK, the 
ship sent by Lord Baltimore of England. Mathias de Souza was a slave of a 
Jesuit priest in Maryland, the first Colony to develop capitalist economy 
based on wheat and tobacco plantation by sweat and toil of slaves, among 
them were Muslims from West Africa.

Some of these West African Muslim slaves converted to Christianity in order 
to gain emancipation. This was due to the fact that after the arrival of 13 
slaves from West Africa at St. Mary's City in 1642, Maryland was the first 
Colony to legislate that any African slave who was baptised as a Christian 
could be freed. Yet, this emancipation law was ignored in 1663, when 
Maryland became the first to legislate that all the African slaves and their 
children must be slaves forever.

Since other West African slaves considered Christianity a reason for 
manumission, the Maryland Assembly declared in 1664 that baptism, however, 
should not affect a slave's status. From 1690, a large number of West 
African slaves were brought to Maryland, and the Assembly encouraged slaves 
owners to convert (or enforce) their slaves into Christianity since none of 
them was a Christian in West Africa.

The forceful convertion to Christianity was contrary to the American 
Declaration of Independance and the Human Rights Declaration of Maryland. 
This is because, the American Declaration of Independence by President 
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), stipulated that all people were born equal and 
therefore liberty and equality were inalienable rights of all. Also in 1867, 
the Constitution of the Maryland on Human Rights Declaration states:


             We the People of the State of Maryland, gratefully to
             almighty God for our civil and religious liberty and
             taking into our serious consideration the best means of
             establishing a good consideration in this State for sure
             foundation and more permanent security.


The Muslim African slaves in Maryland were not given a serious consideration 
of their religious rights. Like all the Muslim Minorities, such as the 
OCCUPIED KASHMIRIS under the HINDU FUNDAMENTALIST Government or the OCCUPIED 
ZANZIBARIS under the CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALIST Government of TANZANIA, the 
African Muslims in Maryland were oppressed with the brutalities of ethnic 
annihilation, cultural assimilation and political victimization.

The Africa Muslims in America and Maryland in particular, were forced to 
embrace Christianity. They were also made to forget their native languages 
and Arabic, which was their lingua franca was drastically outlawed. In such 
cultural genocide, they were forbidden to pray and fast but were forced to 
eat pork and drink alcohol. Their families were not only seperated and 
dispersed across the United States to curtail genealogies (Family trees), 
but they were also conditioned to adopt formication in Western Civilization 
before their freedom.


FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM IN MARYLAND
===================================
Professor Allan D. Austin did an excellent job of bringing together the 
available literary fragments which deal with life and experiences of some 
African Muslim slaves in Maryland. Others were highly literate of the Qur'an 
and fluent in Arabic language. Apart from the much celebrated Kunta Kinteh 
whose saga has been well fictionalized and immortalized by his descendant, 
Alex Haley, there were Muslim slaves in Maryland such as Yarrow Mamout, 
which should be read Yorro Mahmud.

Yorro Mahmud was the first Muslim slave recorded in 1819 by Charles Wilson 
Peale (1741-1872), a correspondent of President Thomas Jefferson 
(1743-1826), one of the "Founding Fathers" of America. His first portrait 
for public display hangs in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. His 
second was completed in 1828, almost a decade later can be seen in the 
Peabody Room at the Georgetown Public Library.

We are indebted to Charles Wilson Peale for his impressive portrait of Yorro 
and his personal diary. At the time of two-day sitting for the portrait, 
Yorro was said to be more than one hundred years old. It is suggested that 
Yorro was captured in 1720 and brought into a ship of Captain Dowel to 
Maryland.

Unfortunately, nothing is known about his youth in West Africa, nor his 
early years in Maryland which was so horrible for African slaves that at 
least one out of four died before their first year ended. In 1819, Yorro 
Mahmud owned his own house in Georgtown and saved enough money and he bought 
stock in Columbia Bank, founded in 1771 by Alexandra Hamilton.

According to Professor Sulayman Nyang, the Maryland archives confirmed the 
existence of a person called Yarrow. He said that most probably our Yorro 
Mahmud who was freed on August 22, 1796 by Upton Beall but not Bell as 
stated by Professor Allan D. Austin. This document reveals that assessments 
for Georgetown (1809-1819), listed negro Yorro as a tax payer. Professor 
Sulayman lamented that an examination of the records at the National 
Archives should tell us which land in Georgetown was owned by Yorro Mahmud.

Another interesting information about Yorro is the order of manumission 
which he asked his owner to write. In the Maryland archival record entitled 
Montgomery County LRC No. 385 (1796), Yorro's master, Upton Beall, wrote:


              At the request of Yorro the following manumission is
              recorded this 22nd of August 1796 to know all men by
              these presents (sic) that I Upton Beall of Montgomery
              County and State of Maryland do manumit and set free
              negro Yorro from this day forward to act for himself
              as a free man in all things given my hand and seal
              this 22nd of August, anno domini hundred seventeen
              hundred and ninety six.

                                      Upton Beall
                                         Clerk


From the Charles Wilson Peal diary's, we know that Yorro was a pious and 
devout Muslim who abstained from the consumption of pork and alcohol. He 
saved his money and bought property in Georgetown. Although he lost his 
first savings of $100.00 when the young merchant to whom he had entrusted it 
went bankrupt. This event did not make him despair. Rather, he opened an 
account with the Columbia Bank and managed to save up $200.00, the money he 
purchased a land in Georgetown.

His experiences show how an African Muslim slave in Maryland during 1720 and 
got his freedom 76 years later. Assuming that Yorro was a boy of 14 years 
when he landed in Maryland, he would have been 90 years old when Upton Beall 
signed his order of manumission. If Yorro Mahmoud was 34 years, as his 
owners and their friends believed, then he was 133 years old when he set for 
the portrait for Peale. He was therefore, the first oldest person in 
American, and deserved to be in the Guinnese Book of Records.


GREATEST GIFT OF AFRICA MUSLIM SLAVES TO MANKIND
================================================
While Yorro Mahmud is known as the MARYLAND MUSLIM in the Smithonim Musium 
at Washington D.C, the most fortunate Muslim slave in American history was 
Ayoub bin Sulayman bin Ibrahim Diallo (1700-1773), famous as Job Ben 
Solomon. He was the Bandu prince before being captured in 1730 and sold to 
Captain Pike at Gambia. He delivered him to Vachell Denton and worked on 
tobacco plantation in Maryland. Since he was not allowed to make his 
prayers, Ayoub used to make SAL'AT (Prayers) and DU'A (Supplication) in 
public.

This indicated that Ayoub bin Sulayman knew the Saying of the Prophet 
Muhammad (pbuh) that all earth is a mosque. But white children mocked him 
and threw dirt in his face while he was praying in the woods. He escaped to 
maintain his Islamic identity and freedom but was eventually captured and 
imprisoned until the Rev. Thomas Bluett (d. 1749) heard about his moral 
integrity and arranged a meeting with him and became good friends from 
America to England and Gambia. It seems that the Rev. Thomas Bluett was one 
among the a few good Christians to Muslims:


             Strongest among men in enmity to the believers (Muslims)
             you will find the Jews and Pagans; and nearest among
             them in love to the believers (Muslims) you will find
             those who say: "We are Christians": because amongst
             these (Christains) are men devoted to learning (From
             Muslims) and men who have renounced the world, and they
             are not arrogant. (Qur'an; 5:82).


The Rev. Thomas Bluett returned Ayoub to his slave master, who then provided 
him with a private place to pray. In their first meeting, the Rev. Thomas 
Bluett was impressed by Ayoub's ability in fluent Arabic and his devotion to 
Islam in the DAR KUFR (The Abode of Disbelievers) of Maryland. The Rev. 
Bluett who became the first official biographer of Ayoub stated that Ayoub 
could not speak English but when he communicated by making signs to him, he 
wrote about ALLAH (SWT), MUHAMMAD (SAW) and refused a glass of wine.

The Rev. Thomas Bluett also stated that Ayoub was perceived as one among the 
devout Muhammadan (sic) slaves from West Africa. This can be argued that if 
Bilal bin Rabah (570-641) was the first Africa slave emancipated through 
ISLAM and made DA'WA among the Arab pagans in Mecca, Ayoub Sulayman Ibrahim 
(1700-1773) was the first Africa slave to make DA'WA to the American pagans 
in Maryland.

And if proclamation of ADH'AN (Calling For Prayers) was the GREATEST GIFT of 
Bilal bin Rabah to all Muslims from Mecca to Maryland, ISLAM IS THE GREATEST 
GIFT of Ayoub bin Sulayman in MARYLAND where he made struggle (JIHAD) to 
maintain his Islamic identity. He did through his intelligence, oral and 
written Arabic, the language of ISLAM instead of his native dialect. His 
JIHAD became so well known that in 1733, arrangements were made to be 
emancipated by James Edward Oglethorpe (1696-1785), founder of Georgia, and 
provided him with transportation via England.

Among his acquainted in England were the Royal family and Sir Hans Sloans 
(1660-1753), founder of the British Museum and president of the Royal 
Society. Ayoub translated several Arabic materials for the Royal Society. He 
was elected to the prestigious Gentlemen's Society of Spalding whose members 
were Alexander Pope and Sir Isaac Newton, the famous scientist and Sir Hans 
Sloans. Ayoub wrote copies of the Qur'anic passages from memory before he 
obtained freedom of his native Gambian friend Lamine Yay who had came with 
him as slave to Maryland.

In 1734, the Rev. Bluett published a detailed biography of his best friend 
Ayoub, who was so fortunate that the Royal African Company founded in 1671, 
arranged the return of Ayoub to his country via England and France. This 
fortunate Muslim slave in Maryland was given a British and a French 
passports. He boarded the Dolphin on June 28, 1734 and arrived Gambia on 
August 7, 1734 where he helped Melchous De Jasper, an Arabic-speaking 
Armenia representative of the Royal African Company from 1738-1740. Ayoub 
kept in touch his friends until his death at his home.

It can be said that when Ayoub wrote ALLAH (SWT) and MUHAMMAD (pbuh) on the 
ground of MARYLAND, ALLAH accepted his DU'WA (Supplication) because ISLAM is 
the fastest growing religion in America, especially among the West African 
origins. His DU'WA was also accepted because MARYLAND HAD THE TENTH LARGEST 
MUSLIM POPULATION (1990) IN THE UNITED STATES, reminescent of the promise of 
Allah to Muslims:


              When comes the Help of Allah, and Victory. And you
              shall see the people enter Allah's Religion (ISLAM) in
              crowds. Celebrate the praises of Your Lord, and pray
              for His Forgiveness: For He is Oft-Returning (in Grace
              and Mercy). (Qur'an; 110:1-3).


The JIHAD (Struggle) of Ayoub in Maryland against cultural assimilation and 
political victimization, continued. After he left Maryland to his country, 
several movements emerged for equality and dignity. Fredrick Douglas 
(1817-1895) of Maryland led ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT before Al-Hajj Malik 
Shabazz (1925-1965), famous as Malcolm X visited Zanzibar at a request of 
his friend Professor Abdul Rahman Muhammed Babu, a Zanzibari veteran and 
political guru.


IMPACT OF ISLAM ON SLAVERY IN ZANZIBAR
======================================
We are not sure why Al-Hajj Malik Shabazz visited Zanzibar. But it must be 
stated that contrary to the propaganda of some Orientalists, Missionaries 
and Afro-Arabophobics in Tanzania against Islam, slavery in Zanzibar was 
more human and cordial because of Islam from Mecca. The Rev. William Hichens 
in his article; ISLAM IN EAST AFRICA (1954) explained the treatments of 
slaves in Zanzibar:


              Worked as craftsmen or in the shops and warehouses or
              as domestic servants in the mansions, where they
              shared comfort and luxury of their masters, while much
              of the public esteem their masters enjoyed was
              reflected upon them. Certainly, when slavery was
              finally abolished, the slaves protested much more
              loudly than their owners, and tearing down the public
              proclamation of their liberty which were posted in the
              streets, many hundreds of slaves rejected "freedom"
              and clamoured for the "right" which they had for so
              long enjoyed. In the houses of prominent men slaves
              could and often rise to positions of authority and
              influence, in which they enjoyed public honour and
              esteem. (p. 125).


The Rev. Lyndon Harris (1954), an American Orientalist also stated in his 
book ISLAM IN EAST AFRICA (that "much what has been written by Christian 
writers was not always fair to the Muslim slave-trade the system of slavery 
as it was practiced in East African coast by Arab-Swahilis was neither 
heartless nor brutal. The Sultan of Zanzibar Sayyid Said bin Sultan 
(1806-1856) took the first step towards the abolition of slave trade from 
his dominions."

His first two governors to Zanzibar were in fact freed slaves. These were 
Yaqoub bin al-Habshy and Ambar Sultan al-Habshy who were succeded by 
Abdullah Juma, Ali Nassor and Mohamad Nassor before Sayyid Said bin Sultan 
settled to Zanzibar.

Contrary to what some British Missionaries who claimed that they were the 
emancipators of slaves of East Africa origin, prior to the coming of the 
British to Zanzibar in 1840, Sayyid Said bin Sultan declared on September 
22, 1822 that slaves from East Africa should not be sold to any Christian 
nation, including America where slavery was as brutal as Biblical 
imperative.


BIBLICAL PROPHECY FOR BRUTAL SLAVERY
====================================
The Sultan of Zanzibar, Sayyid Said bin Sultan was not mistaken for not 
allowing slaves in East Africa to be sent to Christian nation. Because in 
America, slavery was the most cruel and brutal, such as lynchings, a 
similitude of Crucifixion, the first cardinal dogma of Christianity. To some 
Christian Fundamentalists, the brutality of African slavery in foreign 
country was a Biblical prophecy:


              (Africans) will be strangers in a country of their own,
              and they will be enslaved and mistreated (for) four
              hundred years. (Genesis [NIV]; 15:13).


According to the Bible, slaves must respect their slave masters so that the 
name of their God and the teachings of Christianity should not be slandered:


              All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider
              their (slave) masters worthy of full respect so that
              God's name and our teachings may not be slandered. (1
              Timothy [NIV]; 6:1).


It is also stated that slaves must obey their slave masters, no matter how 
considerate (kind) or harsh (brutal) to them:


              Slaves, submit yourselves to your (slave) masters with
              all respect, not only to those who are good and
              considerate, but also to those who are harsh. (1
              Peter [NIV]; 2:18).


No wonder after Al-Hajj Malik Shabazz visited Zanzibar and later perfomed 
his HAJJ (Pilgrimage) to Mecca, he wrote famous letters to African 
Americans. He indicated that ISLAM is the only PEACEFUL SOLUTION against all 
forms of discrimination:


              O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a
              male (ADAM) and a female (HAWA), and made you into
              nations and tribes, that you may know each other (not
              that you may despise each other). Verily the most
              honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is)
              the most righteous of you. And Allah has full
              knowledge and is well acquainted. (Qur'an; 49:13).


In this regard, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said: "There is no superiority 
of Arab over non-Arab or non-Arab over Arab, nor White over Black or Black 
over White but on righteousness."(Musnad Ahmad). He also said: "Hear 
(Muslims) Obey your leader even he is an Ethiopian slave with curly hair." 
(Bukhari).

In conclusion, ISLAM IS THE GIFT OF AFRICAN MUSLIM SLAVES IN AMERICA, which 
is technologically ADVANCED but morally BANKRUPT due to SECULARISM so ISLAM 
is the ANSWER since SECULARISM proves FAILURE for justice and morality. 
Unfortunately, SECULARISM is imposed in Muslim countries by Christian rulers 
in collaboration with their Muslim puppets (Qur'an; 2:14) from (A)nkarah to 
(Z)anzibar.



Wakabahahu



Khatib Rajab AL-ZINJIBARWAZANZIBARI
Assalaam Alaykum:


    THE GREATEST GIFT OF AFRICAN MUSLIM SLAVES FROM MECCA TO MARYLAND
    =================================================================

                              TANBIH
                              ======
              And what will explain to you the path that is steep?
              (It is) to free a slave (Qur'an; 90:12-13).

    =========================AMMA-BA'D===============================


HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
=====================
Because thousands of Native Americans died from horrible overwork on 
plantation and in mines, Priest Bartolome de Las Casas pleaded for their 
conditions. James West and Michael B. Stoff (1998), in their book; AMERICAN 
NATION quoted him:


              The (Native) Indians were totally depressed of their
              freedom.....Even beasts enjoyed their freedom when
              they are allowed to graze in the fields. (p. 76).


Priest Bartolome de Las Casas was so horrified that he went to Spain and 
asked the king to protect the Native Indians. In 1540, the Spanish 
government passed laws stating that Native Americans should not be enslaved. 
The laws also allowed them to own cattle and grow crops. Priest Bartolome 
suggested that West Africans must be brought to America as slaves to replace 
the Native Americans because they were resistant to European diseases and 
were hard working in their countries.

Therefore, in 1619, a Dutch ship landed Jamestown with 20 Africans who were 
sold to Virginians since they needed them to work in their tobacco 
plantations. These African slaves were baptized and given Spanish names and 
two of them, Anthony and Isabella married in Virginia. In 1624, they had a 
son, William, the first child of African slaves born in the so called NEW 
WORLD, now the United States of America.


THE ORIGINS OF "BLACK" HISTORY MONTH
====================================
Among the sons of Africa slaves was Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950), who 
discovered that none of the schools taught the history of Black Americans. 
So he started the American Negro Academy to study the important things Black 
people had accomplished and on February 19, 1926, Carter G. Woodson 
established "NEGRO HISTORY WEEK" which is now called the "BLACK HISTORY 
MONTH" (OF FEBRUARY) in the United States.

We have also observed that by a sheer ignorance of Christocentric or a 
deliberate covert paradigm, the history of Muslims in Maryland is neglected 
by contemporary scholars even in the specific "BLACK HISTORY" month of 
February. It is neglected despite Maryland had the tenth largest Muslim 
population (1990) in America.

======================================================================
          THE MUSLIM POPULATION IN THE UNITED STATES (1990)
======================================================================
             MUSLIM POPULATION    PERCENTAGE        PERCENTAGE OF
                   IN               TOTAL               STATE
                THOUSAND*       MUSLIM POPULATIOM    POPULATION
======================================================================
CALIFORNIA        1,000             20.0                 3.4
NEW YORK            800             16.0                 4.7
ILLINOIS            420              8.4                 3.6
NEW JERSEY          200              4.0                 2.5
INDIANA             180              3.6                 3.2
MICHIGAN            170              3.4                 1.8
VIRGINIA            150              3.0                 2.4
TEXAS               140              2.8                 0.7
OHIO                130              2.6                 1.2
MARYLAND             70              1.4                 1.4
======================================================================
*Estimates under column 2 have been rounded to the nearest even number.
======================================================================
SOURCE: Fareed H. Numan (1990) THE MUSLIM POPULATION IN THE UNITED
         STATES.

Perhaps, due to Christocentric historicity, most of the contemporary 
scholars focus on the memories and contributions of Christian activists such 
as Fredrick Douglas (1817-1895), the famous slave and Abolitionist in 
Maryland. But they fail to inform us that political activism and 
intellectualism of Fredrick Douglas can be traced to his ancestor; Bilal bin 
Muhammad (d. 1859), a Muslim slave activist.

Bilal bin Muhammad, born at Masina in Mali was a slave at Salepo Island, 
Georgia. He started his political activism during the Second American War 
with England after he was entrusted with military leadership of over 80 
armed slaves. Thus, he pledged to defend the Island of Salepo if attacked. 
In 1815, Bilal bin Muhammad told his slave master, Thomas Spalding 
(1774-1851) that he could "answer for every Negro of the true Faith (of 
Islam) but not for the Christian dogs you own." Bilal bin Muhammad was 
buried in Georgia with his Qur'an and a prayer rug.

Bilal bin Muhammad left twelve children and several Arabic manuscripts, 
including the excerpts of AL-RISLAH (The Message), composed by Abu Bakr 
Muhammad Zaid al-Qarwan, born in Morocco. This manuscript is a common 
treatise of FIQH (Islamic Jurisprudence) in West Africa from where some 
Muslims were captured, enslaved, Christinised and exported as human cargo to 
Maryland, the first Catholic State named after Mary, the mother of Jesus 
Christ, peace be upon him.


CHRISTIANIZATION OF HUMAN CARGO TO MARYLAND
===========================================
The history of Muslims in Maryland can be traced to West Africa where Islam 
reached in the eighth century. By the twelfth century, the Muslims had 
already established Islamic Empire of Mali whose king Mansa Kankan Mussa 
(1312-1337) performed his famous pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324. On his return, 
he informed Nasir Edin bin Muhammad III (1309-1340), a Muslim scholar in 
Cairo that his brother, Sultan Abu Bakr Kankan Mussa (1285-1312) had 
undertaken two important expeditions into the Atlantic Ocean. Since the 
Sultan did not return to Timbuktu from the second voyage of 1311, Mansa 
Kankan Musa became the Sultan of the Empire of Mali.

Mansa Kankan Musa, educated in Arabic brought with him to Mali, Muslim 
scholars and an architect, Ishaq al-Teudjin, who constructed for him several 
buildings, Islamic schools, palaces and mosques. He also started 
relationship with Tunisia and Egypt for culture, economics and education. By 
the fifteenth century, Mali had the Islamic University of Sankore at 
Timbuktu which was attended by many scholars from different parts of the 
world before Muslim slaves from West Africa were chained to Maryland in the 
sixteenth century. Some of them formed a bridge of blood across the Atlantic 
Ocean during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (1530-1863), the greatest 
intercontinental in the world history of human cargo from Africa to 
Maryland.

In such a shipment of human cargo to the largest Judeo-Christian nation, we 
do not know precisely when the first Muslim slave was brought to Maryland. 
But an unnamed African baptised as Mathias de Souza, was the first African 
slave in Maryland. He arrived in 1634 at St. Mary's City with the ARK, the 
ship sent by Lord Baltimore of England. Mathias de Souza was a slave of a 
Jesuit priest in Maryland, the first Colony to develop capitalist economy 
based on wheat and tobacco plantation by sweat and toil of slaves, among 
them were Muslims from West Africa.

Some of these West African Muslim slaves converted to Christianity in order 
to gain emancipation. This was due to the fact that after the arrival of 13 
slaves from West Africa at St. Mary's City in 1642, Maryland was the first 
Colony to legislate that any African slave who was baptised as a Christian 
could be freed. Yet, this emancipation law was ignored in 1663, when 
Maryland became the first to legislate that all the African slaves and their 
children must be slaves forever.

Since other West African slaves considered Christianity a reason for 
manumission, the Maryland Assembly declared in 1664 that baptism, however, 
should not affect a slave's status. From 1690, a large number of West 
African slaves were brought to Maryland, and the Assembly encouraged slaves 
owners to convert (or enforce) their slaves into Christianity since none of 
them was a Christian in West Africa.

The forceful convertion to Christianity was contrary to the American 
Declaration of Independance and the Human Rights Declaration of Maryland. 
This is because, the American Declaration of Independence by President 
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), stipulated that all people were born equal and 
therefore liberty and equality were inalienable rights of all. Also in 1867, 
the Constitution of the Maryland on Human Rights Declaration states:


             We the People of the State of Maryland, gratefully to
             almighty God for our civil and religious liberty and
             taking into our serious consideration the best means of
             establishing a good consideration in this State for sure
             foundation and more permanent security.


The Muslim African slaves in Maryland were not given a serious consideration 
of their religious rights. Like all the Muslim Minorities, such as the 
OCCUPIED KASHMIRIS under the HINDU FUNDAMENTALIST Government or the OCCUPIED 
ZANZIBARIS under the CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALIST Government of TANZANIA, the 
African Muslims in Maryland were oppressed with the brutalities of ethnic 
annihilation, cultural assimilation and political victimization.

The Africa Muslims in America and Maryland in particular, were forced to 
embrace Christianity. They were also made to forget their native languages 
and Arabic, which was their lingua franca was drastically outlawed. In such 
cultural genocide, they were forbidden to pray and fast but were forced to 
eat pork and drink alcohol. Their families were not only seperated and 
dispersed across the United States to curtail genealogies (Family trees), 
but they were also conditioned to adopt formication in Western Civilization 
before their freedom.


FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM IN MARYLAND
===================================
Professor Allan D. Austin did an excellent job of bringing together the 
available literary fragments which deal with life and experiences of some 
African Muslim slaves in Maryland. Others were highly literate of the Qur'an 
and fluent in Arabic language. Apart from the much celebrated Kunta Kinteh 
whose saga has been well fictionalized and immortalized by his descendant, 
Alex Haley, there were Muslim slaves in Maryland such as Yarrow Mamout, 
which should be read Yorro Mahmud.

Yorro Mahmud was the first Muslim slave recorded in 1819 by Charles Wilson 
Peale (1741-1872), a correspondent of President Thomas Jefferson 
(1743-1826), one of the "Founding Fathers" of America. His first portrait 
for public display hangs in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. His 
second was completed in 1828, almost a decade later can be seen in the 
Peabody Room at the Georgetown Public Library.

We are indebted to Charles Wilson Peale for his impressive portrait of Yorro 
and his personal diary. At the time of two-day sitting for the portrait, 
Yorro was said to be more than one hundred years old. It is suggested that 
Yorro was captured in 1720 and brought into a ship of Captain Dowel to 
Maryland.

Unfortunately, nothing is known about his youth in West Africa, nor his 
early years in Maryland which was so horrible for African slaves that at 
least one out of four died before their first year ended. In 1819, Yorro 
Mahmud owned his own house in Georgtown and saved enough money and he bought 
stock in Columbia Bank, founded in 1771 by Alexandra Hamilton.

According to Professor Sulayman Nyang, the Maryland archives confirmed the 
existence of a person called Yarrow. He said that most probably our Yorro 
Mahmud who was freed on August 22, 1796 by Upton Beall but not Bell as 
stated by Professor Allan D. Austin. This document reveals that assessments 
for Georgetown (1809-1819), listed negro Yorro as a tax payer. Professor 
Sulayman lamented that an examination of the records at the National 
Archives should tell us which land in Georgetown was owned by Yorro Mahmud.

Another interesting information about Yorro is the order of manumission 
which he asked his owner to write. In the Maryland archival record entitled 
Montgomery County LRC No. 385 (1796), Yorro's master, Upton Beall, wrote:


              At the request of Yorro the following manumission is
              recorded this 22nd of August 1796 to know all men by
              these presents (sic) that I Upton Beall of Montgomery
              County and State of Maryland do manumit and set free
              negro Yorro from this day forward to act for himself
              as a free man in all things given my hand and seal
              this 22nd of August, anno domini hundred seventeen
              hundred and ninety six.

                                      Upton Beall
                                         Clerk


From the Charles Wilson Peal diary's, we know that Yorro was a pious and 
devout Muslim who abstained from the consumption of pork and alcohol. He 
saved his money and bought property in Georgetown. Although he lost his 
first savings of $100.00 when the young merchant to whom he had entrusted it 
went bankrupt. This event did not make him despair. Rather, he opened an 
account with the Columbia Bank and managed to save up $200.00, the money he 
purchased a land in Georgetown.

His experiences show how an African Muslim slave in Maryland during 1720 and 
got his freedom 76 years later. Assuming that Yorro was a boy of 14 years 
when he landed in Maryland, he would have been 90 years old when Upton Beall 
signed his order of manumission. If Yorro Mahmoud was 34 years, as his 
owners and their friends believed, then he was 133 years old when he set for 
the portrait for Peale. He was therefore, the first oldest person in 
American, and deserved to be in the Guinnese Book of Records.


GREATEST GIFT OF AFRICA MUSLIM SLAVES TO MANKIND
================================================
While Yorro Mahmud is known as the MARYLAND MUSLIM in the Smithonim Musium 
at Washington D.C, the most fortunate Muslim slave in American history was 
Ayoub bin Sulayman bin Ibrahim Diallo (1700-1773), famous as Job Ben 
Solomon. He was the Bandu prince before being captured in 1730 and sold to 
Captain Pike at Gambia. He delivered him to Vachell Denton and worked on 
tobacco plantation in Maryland. Since he was not allowed to make his 
prayers, Ayoub used to make SAL'AT (Prayers) and DU'A (Supplication) in 
public.

This indicated that Ayoub bin Sulayman knew the Saying of the Prophet 
Muhammad (pbuh) that all earth is a mosque. But white children mocked him 
and threw dirt in his face while he was praying in the woods. He escaped to 
maintain his Islamic identity and freedom but was eventually captured and 
imprisoned until the Rev. Thomas Bluett (d. 1749) heard about his moral 
integrity and arranged a meeting with him and became good friends from 
America to England and Gambia. It seems that the Rev. Thomas Bluett was one 
among the a few good Christians to Muslims:


             Strongest among men in enmity to the believers (Muslims)
             you will find the Jews and Pagans; and nearest among
             them in love to the believers (Muslims) you will find
             those who say: "We are Christians": because amongst
             these (Christains) are men devoted to learning (From
             Muslims) and men who have renounced the world, and they
             are not arrogant. (Qur'an; 5:82).


The Rev. Thomas Bluett returned Ayoub to his slave master, who then provided 
him with a private place to pray. In their first meeting, the Rev. Thomas 
Bluett was impressed by Ayoub's ability in fluent Arabic and his devotion to 
Islam in the DAR KUFR (The Abode of Disbelievers) of Maryland. The Rev. 
Bluett who became the first official biographer of Ayoub stated that Ayoub 
could not speak English but when he communicated by making signs to him, he 
wrote about ALLAH (SWT), MUHAMMAD (SAW) and refused a glass of wine.

The Rev. Thomas Bluett also stated that Ayoub was perceived as one among the 
devout Muhammadan (sic) slaves from West Africa. This can be argued that if 
Bilal bin Rabah (570-641) was the first Africa slave emancipated through 
ISLAM and made DA'WA among the Arab pagans in Mecca, Ayoub Sulayman Ibrahim 
(1700-1773) was the first Africa slave to make DA'WA to the American pagans 
in Maryland.

And if proclamation of ADH'AN (Calling For Prayers) was the GREATEST GIFT of 
Bilal bin Rabah to all Muslims from Mecca to Maryland, ISLAM IS THE GREATEST 
GIFT of Ayoub bin Sulayman in MARYLAND where he made struggle (JIHAD) to 
maintain his Islamic identity. He did through his intelligence, oral and 
written Arabic, the language of ISLAM instead of his native dialect. His 
JIHAD became so well known that in 1733, arrangements were made to be 
emancipated by James Edward Oglethorpe (1696-1785), founder of Georgia, and 
provided him with transportation via England.

Among his acquainted in England were the Royal family and Sir Hans Sloans 
(1660-1753), founder of the British Museum and president of the Royal 
Society. Ayoub translated several Arabic materials for the Royal Society. He 
was elected to the prestigious Gentlemen's Society of Spalding whose members 
were Alexander Pope and Sir Isaac Newton, the famous scientist and Sir Hans 
Sloans. Ayoub wrote copies of the Qur'anic passages from memory before he 
obtained freedom of his native Gambian friend Lamine Yay who had came with 
him as slave to Maryland.

In 1734, the Rev. Bluett published a detailed biography of his best friend 
Ayoub, who was so fortunate that the Royal African Company founded in 1671, 
arranged the return of Ayoub to his country via England and France. This 
fortunate Muslim slave in Maryland was given a British and a French 
passports. He boarded the Dolphin on June 28, 1734 and arrived Gambia on 
August 7, 1734 where he helped Melchous De Jasper, an Arabic-speaking 
Armenia representative of the Royal African Company from 1738-1740. Ayoub 
kept in touch his friends until his death at his home.

It can be said that when Ayoub wrote ALLAH (SWT) and MUHAMMAD (pbuh) on the 
ground of MARYLAND, ALLAH accepted his DU'WA (Supplication) because ISLAM is 
the fastest growing religion in America, especially among the West African 
origins. His DU'WA was also accepted because MARYLAND HAD THE TENTH LARGEST 
MUSLIM POPULATION (1990) IN THE UNITED STATES, reminescent of the promise of 
Allah to Muslims:


              When comes the Help of Allah, and Victory. And you
              shall see the people enter Allah's Religion (ISLAM) in
              crowds. Celebrate the praises of Your Lord, and pray
              for His Forgiveness: For He is Oft-Returning (in Grace
              and Mercy). (Qur'an; 110:1-3).


The JIHAD (Struggle) of Ayoub in Maryland against cultural assimilation and 
political victimization, continued. After he left Maryland to his country, 
several movements emerged for equality and dignity. Fredrick Douglas 
(1817-1895) of Maryland led ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT before Al-Hajj Malik 
Shabazz (1925-1965), famous as Malcolm X visited Zanzibar at a request of 
his friend Professor Abdul Rahman Muhammed Babu, a Zanzibari veteran and 
political guru.


IMPACT OF ISLAM ON SLAVERY IN ZANZIBAR
======================================
We are not sure why Al-Hajj Malik Shabazz visited Zanzibar. But it must be 
stated that contrary to the propaganda of some Orientalists, Missionaries 
and Afro-Arabophobics in Tanzania against Islam, slavery in Zanzibar was 
more human and cordial because of Islam from Mecca. The Rev. William Hichens 
in his article; ISLAM IN EAST AFRICA (1954) explained the treatments of 
slaves in Zanzibar:


              Worked as craftsmen or in the shops and warehouses or
              as domestic servants in the mansions, where they
              shared comfort and luxury of their masters, while much
              of the public esteem their masters enjoyed was
              reflected upon them. Certainly, when slavery was
              finally abolished, the slaves protested much more
              loudly than their owners, and tearing down the public
              proclamation of their liberty which were posted in the
              streets, many hundreds of slaves rejected "freedom"
              and clamoured for the "right" which they had for so
              long enjoyed. In the houses of prominent men slaves
              could and often rise to positions of authority and
              influence, in which they enjoyed public honour and
              esteem. (p. 125).


The Rev. Lyndon Harris (1954), an American Orientalist also stated in his 
book ISLAM IN EAST AFRICA (that "much what has been written by Christian 
writers was not always fair to the Muslim slave-trade the system of slavery 
as it was practiced in East African coast by Arab-Swahilis was neither 
heartless nor brutal. The Sultan of Zanzibar Sayyid Said bin Sultan 
(1806-1856) took the first step towards the abolition of slave trade from 
his dominions."

His first two governors to Zanzibar were in fact freed slaves. These were 
Yaqoub bin al-Habshy and Ambar Sultan al-Habshy who were succeded by 
Abdullah Juma, Ali Nassor and Mohamad Nassor before Sayyid Said bin Sultan 
settled to Zanzibar.

Contrary to what some British Missionaries who claimed that they were the 
emancipators of slaves of East Africa origin, prior to the coming of the 
British to Zanzibar in 1840, Sayyid Said bin Sultan declared on September 
22, 1822 that slaves from East Africa should not be sold to any Christian 
nation, including America where slavery was as brutal as Biblical 
imperative.


BIBLICAL PROPHECY FOR BRUTAL SLAVERY
====================================
The Sultan of Zanzibar, Sayyid Said bin Sultan was not mistaken for not 
allowing slaves in East Africa to be sent to Christian nation. Because in 
America, slavery was the most cruel and brutal, such as lynchings, a 
similitude of Crucifixion, the first cardinal dogma of Christianity. To some 
Christian Fundamentalists, the brutality of African slavery in foreign 
country was a Biblical prophecy:


              (Africans) will be strangers in a country of their own,
              and they will be enslaved and mistreated (for) four
              hundred years. (Genesis [NIV]; 15:13).


According to the Bible, slaves must respect their slave masters so that the 
name of their God and the teachings of Christianity should not be slandered:


              All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider
              their (slave) masters worthy of full respect so that
              God's name and our teachings may not be slandered. (1
              Timothy [NIV]; 6:1).


It is also stated that slaves must obey their slave masters, no matter how 
considerate (kind) or harsh (brutal) to them:


              Slaves, submit yourselves to your (slave) masters with
              all respect, not only to those who are good and
              considerate, but also to those who are harsh. (1
              Peter [NIV]; 2:18).


No wonder after Al-Hajj Malik Shabazz visited Zanzibar and later perfomed 
his HAJJ (Pilgrimage) to Mecca, he wrote famous letters to African 
Americans. He indicated that ISLAM is the only PEACEFUL SOLUTION against all 
forms of discrimination:


              O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a
              male (ADAM) and a female (HAWA), and made you into
              nations and tribes, that you may know each other (not
              that you may despise each other). Verily the most
              honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is)
              the most righteous of you. And Allah has full
              knowledge and is well acquainted. (Qur'an; 49:13).


In this regard, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said: "There is no superiority 
of Arab over non-Arab or non-Arab over Arab, nor White over Black or Black 
over White but on righteousness."(Musnad Ahmad). He also said: "Hear 
(Muslims) Obey your leader even he is an Ethiopian slave with curly hair." 
(Bukhari).

In conclusion, ISLAM IS THE GIFT OF AFRICAN MUSLIM SLAVES IN AMERICA, which 
is technologically ADVANCED but morally BANKRUPT due to SECULARISM so ISLAM 
is the ANSWER since SECULARISM proves FAILURE for justice and morality. 
Unfortunately, SECULARISM is imposed in Muslim countries by Christian rulers 
in collaboration with their Muslim puppets (Qur'an; 2:14) from (A)nkarah to 
(Z)anzibar.



Wakabahahu



Khatib Rajab AL-ZINJIBARI