Correct me of I am wrong, but in recent decades African Americans have turned to Islam pretty much as a protest against Christianity which is the religion of their white enslavers/persecutors, and as a connection with Africa. But the Arabs who brought Islam to Africa were the original slave traders, so all the Muslim African Americans are doing is exchanging the religion/values of one “enemy” for another. Is there an earlier, original African religion that might one day be in vogue among African Americans?
Just a thought.
I can only speak for those I know
Those who convert to authentic Islam generally do so because they believe in the Oneness of Allah and the Prophetic Guidance of Muhammad.
Slavery is neither officially forbidden nor reccommended in Islam, but IS severely limited to a bonded servant relationship. Slaves may have their own businesses, families, and lives. One cannot refuse a slave the right to buy their freedom, nor can you deny them the means to earn the means to do so.
One of the most rightous acts is to free a slave.
That is the ideal.
The institution of Slavery in the 17th-19th century, both in the US and in Africa is much different.
Many are turning to the various expressions of West African Yoruba tradition. Voudun, Santeria, Candomble, Obeah and the like.
Martin
Thanks for your reply, but isn’t it a fact that much of the European and American slave trade was supplied by Arab/Muslim (and African) traders?
For the most part the Arab slave trade was concentrated in East Africa and to lesser extent the cross-Saharan trade into North Africa and was intended for “domestic consumption” ( i.e. non-European trade ).
It’s a little harder to quantify for African Muslims. In West Africa you had a complex trading network that linked Muslim and non-Muslim states, in which slaves were briskly traded. So it is sometimes hard to say whether the slaves traded on the coast to Europeans ( by mostly non-Muslim states, Muslims being mostly concentrated north of the coastlines, once you get south and east of Guinea ) were acquired by Muslim Dyula, animist Akan, or whoever. However an awful lot of the European slave trade came out of central Africa, were there were no Muslims at all.
- Tamerlane
As to African religions, there are a plethora of different varieties of Animism of course. Elements of some can be found in practices like Santeria and Voudon. However I doubt these will ever become as overwhelmingly popular as the Judeo-Christian religions, for both structural and cultural reasons. Just like I don’t think Neo-Paganism is likely to sweep to prominence in the western world any time soon. That is just IMHO, however.
Oh and by the way, the internal ( and even external ) slave trade in Africa, far as anyone can tell, pre-dates the introduction of Islam. Just as slave-trading everywhere likely pre-dates any of the Judeo-Christian religions. It seems it was a near-universal human practice until modern times.
- Tamerlane