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5 Hidden Black Muslim History Facts!

5 Hidden Black Muslim History Facts!

Last updated on: February 1, 2017 at 12:28 pm by Hakeem Muhammad

5 Hidden Black Muslim History Facts! 2017-02-01T12:28:52-05:00 Hakeem Muhammad

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Fact 1: A secret in the life of the pioneer of African-American Literature!

philiswheatly

Wikimedia Commons.

Having been kidnapped from West Africa and taken to the Americas at the tender age of seven, Phillis Wheatley became world renowned for being the first published African-American poet.

As the forebear of African-American literature, her literary works were read worldwide even by heads of states such as George Washington and eminent philosophers such as Voltaire.

In the Emergence of African-American Literacy Traditions: Family and Community, Phyllis M. Belt-Beyan notes a rarely mentioned fact about Phillis Wheatley: “About two weeks after she was brought to work for the Wheatley household, Wheatley peters was writing Arabic symbols on chalk slate and on walls” Though it was illegal for slaves to learn to read and write, Wheatley’s constant writing was observed by her owners and motivated them to educate her more.

From her geographic origins emanating from Gambia, to her ability to write Arabic as a young kid, to her most likely ethnic background being Fulani, Professor Will Harris indicates that this could very well mean the “progenitor of African-American literature probably was Muslim.” The story of Phillis Wheatley presents a major critique of the “white male savior complex” by which western governments feign concern for Muslim women. While positing itself as the savior of Muslim women, at the foundation of the United States, we have a Black Muslim woman subjected to immense violence in the Middle Passages and forcibly converted to Christianity.

Fact 2: How Enslaved Africans Reproduced Qu’ranic Manuscripts.

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