Download Servants of Allah African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas 15th Anniversary Edition Sylviane A Diouf 9781479847112 Books

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Product details Paperback 351 pages Publisher NYU Press; Anniversary edition (October 4, 2013) Language English ISBN-10 1479847119

Servants of Allah African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas 15th Anniversary Edition Sylviane A Diouf 9781479847112 Books Reviews

• First off I just wanna say that this is just my opinion and my review should obviously not be the final judgement.
  
  Anyhow, the author is a VERY good writer. I like the way she writers, and not only that she backs up everything she states with sources. What I like about this book is that it showed African Muslims enslaved were among the most rebellious, fearless, witty and had a code of honor to them. I liked the rebellion part as I found out things I never knew, especially in Bahia, Brazil. And I also liked how it was explained in great details how the Muslim slaves would preserve their faith even under hellish conditions. If you want to learn about Muslim life during enslavement ESPECIALLY in Brazil then this book is for you.
  
  However... I expected more. I wanted to learn MORE about how African Muslims influenced the culture of Diasporan Blacks, because we hear about that especially with African-Americans in the USA. We not only got that at the very end but it was short like it was a periphery. I expected stuff like how ramadan in the USA was FIRST celebrated by slaves. Or how the Black Church has SOME islamic influence(yes this is true), but we hardly got that. We did get the Islamic African influence on Blues but the author did not delve into that more. African islamic influence on diasporan culture should have not been a periphery.
  
  Next she exaggerates the Islamic influence on New World African religions should as Vodou, Santeria and others. Now I don't know about Santeria, but with Vodou there is hardly any evidence that there is a strong Islamic influence that like the West African(Dahomey, Nigeria,etc) and Catholicism. And speaking of Vodou she may have exaggerated the Islamic influence in the early Haitian rebellion. François Mackandal was definitely a Muslim. But Boukman? There is no definite evidence that he was and the Bois Caïman was a VODOU ceremony and so giving Muslims big credit for the early Haitian slave rebellion is a bit of a reach. Saying so for the Bahia rebellion would be true as most of the leaders and rebels were Muslims, and it had a Islamic theme behind it. But the Haitian rebellion? We need MORE proof than what the author has given us. Lastly I feel she focused more on Brazil. Now I know Brazil had more Muslim slave records, but like I said the African Islamic influence on AA culture anyone can see.
  
  Again just my opinion. I found the book good and will definitely check out the author's other books. But... With this one I just wanted more.
• I bought this book when it was new long ago. It is one of the best books I have ever read. Sometimes people use this comment's section to attack people or ideas and I can't say I am innocent of doing this on occasion myself. It is very wrong that it has happened a tad here. Some of us are not very fastidious. This is a book about African American history. Now I must have missed it. Our ancestors did not come from East Africa and so they were not sold to the whites who brought us here through "Arabs." This book takes courage. I am a Muslim and I was Muslim when I read it so it was no big deal for me. But if you are not an African American Muslim, if you have spent your life clapping in church and holding on to the religion given in the slave quarters, then this book will not be a pleasant experience. It's that simple. Some of us, when confronted with the unpleasantness of how we were not free, of how we literally had a religion stolen from us and another forced on us, turn and defend master by using the old red herring. Arabs were not the traders or merchants who shipped black people from West Africa to the New World. Ms Diouf, I never researched her. I just quietly have been in awe of this name for about 20 years. She tells us our history, in a scientific factual manner. Twenty years ago, this book was the only one out there to go into the great depth she did in her research. Today there are quite a few, but I am sentimental and this is still my favorite. When you see someone on this section attacking Arabs, please remember that black American slaves learned from their masters and the main thing white American slave masters taught was racism and lumping people together. As a black man, I am tired. This group this and that group that. See people as individuals. It's what Martin Luther King died for. No, the struggle is not over, but King proved that there are good whites and good Christians...and bad weak minded ones too.When you think outside of the hood, you realize there are even good and bad Arabs. Our ancestors were literate and strong and strong minded...and bad news for the Arab haters....The black people brought here from West Africa were Muslim. Literate and by choice.
• This book is a must read for anyone interested in the learning about the lives of enslaved Africans in the Americas. I appreciated the breadth of the book, which explores Islam among enslaved Africans in South America, the Caribbean, and the United States, as well as how their material and spiritual bonds with the African continent were never completely broken. Diouf’s last chapter, “The Muslim Legacy,” is especially significant as it focuses on Islam’s influence on contemporary Black American and Caribbean religion and culture.