Leading up to the 2026 midterm elections, racist politicians peddled an Islamophobic narrative that Muslims are newcomers to the United States, “invaders who would rather pillage our generosity than assimilate,” as described by Greg Dolezal, a since-defeated candidate for Georgia’s lieutenant governor.
In reality, the earliest known records of a Muslim person in what is now known as the United States date back to the sixteenth century, long before this country was formed.
Some scholars estimate that around 15% of all enslaved people forcibly brought to the United States were Muslim. This translates to tens of thousands of enslaved Muslim Africans. They spoke various languages: Soninke, Fula, Wolof, and Bambara, among others. Many of them, especially those who received formalized Islamic education, would have spoken and written in Arabic.
Some enslaved people recorded their experiences with the Atlantic human trade through autobiographies. Narratives written by enslaved and formerly enslaved people were critical in fighting slavery. The majority of these texts, however, were written in English. Today, there exists only one autobiography written in Arabic by an enslaved person in the United States, The life of Omar ben Saeed.
Omar Ibn Said wrote his autobiography – The life of Omar ben Saeed, called Morro, a Fullah Slave in Fayetteville, N.C. Owned by Governor Owen – in 1831.
Ibn Said was born around 1770 in Futa Toro in present-day Senegal. He was a devout Muslim and studied the Quran for twenty-five years. He writes, “I prayed at noon, prayed in the afternoon, prayed at sun-set, prayed in the evening. I gave alms every year, gold, silver, seeds.”
In 1807, at thirty-seven years old, invading forces captured and sold Ibn Said into slavery. He describes how the army “brought me to the great sea, & sold me into the hands of the Christians who bound me.” He spent a month and half on board a ship destined for Charleston, South Carolina. Upon arriving, he writes that “they sold me to a small, weak, & wicked man, called Johnson, a complete infidel, who had no fear of God at all.”
In 1810, Ibn Said ran away. He recounts how two authorities with “a troop of dogs” put him in a jail in Fayetteville, North Carolina. While imprisoned, he wrote Arabic on his cell walls. Scholars presume that this script fascinated James Owen, the brother of John Owen, a future governor of North Carolina. He then enslaved Ibn Said.
Enslaver James Owen and Protestant missionaries were invested in Ibn Said’s religious conversion. In 1820, he was baptized at the First Presbyterian Church in Fayetteville, NC. In 1825, The Christian Advocate celebrated that Ibn Said “was instructed in the principles of the Christian religion, which he received with great pleasure.” In fact, Ibn Said continued secretly practicing his faith by writing Quranic verses and surahs.
By 1831, he was approached by a Mr. Hunter to pen his life story. Ibn Said referred to the man as “Sheikh” in Arabic which is an honorific title. Some scholars theorize that this man could have been a confidante of the Owen Family, possibly a Methodist priest or a reverend connected to the American Colonization Society (ACS).
The result was a 15-page handwritten manuscript in Arabic.
In 1836, the text was sent to Lahmen Kebby, a formerly enslaved Muslim scholar who then presented it to Theodore Dwight, founder of the American Ethnological Society. Nevertheless, Ibn Said’s autobiography remained in general obscurity throughout his life. It was thought to have been lost to the world in the 1920s.
In 1995, descendants of Howland Wood, an authoritative voice on Islamic coinage, found the physical copy of it stowed in a trunk in Alexandria, Virginia.
Much of Ibn Said’s life remains obscure. What is known is that he wanted freedom. In 1819, he wrote a letter to John Owen. In between Quranic verses, he pleaded: “I wish to be seen in our land called Africa, in a place on the river called Kaba.”
James Owen continued to enslave Ibn Said until the latter’s death at 94 years old in 1863. Ibn Said died just two years before the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in North Carolina. He never returned to his homeland.
Enslaved for more than fifty years, we know that Omar Ibn Said understood death as a test of one’s actions in life. Right after expressing his desire to return home, he prayed, “Blessed be he in whose hand is the kingdom, for he has power over all, / who created death and life, to test which of you is best in deed, for he is the glorious, the forgiving”
حيَاةَ ل ْ َمْو َت َوا ل ْ َق ا ِذي َخلَ َّ ِدي ٌر ﴿١﴾ ال ّل َش ْيٍء قَ ى ُك ِ ٰ ل ُك َو ُهَو َعلَ ُمْ ل ْ ِيَ ِدِه ا ِذي ب َّ َر َك ال
Two centuries later, his prayers have found their home.