# Was it common for slaves to be Muslims? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 3, 2005, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-common-for-slaves-to-be-muslims/333837 "2005-12-03T00:09:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![VegaBean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ee7513/32.png) [@VegaBean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VegaBean)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2005, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-common-for-slaves-to-be-muslims/333837/1 "2005-12-03T00:09:44Z")
I thought the muslim black were all on the east coast, near Zanzibar and other arab trading centers. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2005, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-common-for-slaves-to-be-muslims/333837/2 "2005-12-03T00:33:55Z")
There were large Muslim empires in the west of Africa, like the Empires of Mali and Songhai, which spread Islam throughout Western Africa, so there would have been Muslim slaves. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2005, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-common-for-slaves-to-be-muslims/333837/3 "2005-12-03T02:16:15Z")
> [@VegaBean](#): > > I thought the muslim black were all on the east coast, near Zanzibar … You do know that Zanzibar was a major slave-trade center? ([Link](http://zanzibar.net/zanzibar/history/slave_trade)). ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2005, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-common-for-slaves-to-be-muslims/333837/4 "2005-12-03T02:31:16Z")
There are examples of Islamic scholars being sold into slavery, and I have seen fac-simile reproductions of Arabic manuscripts written by them in places like Maryland. In the USA there were isolated Arabic scholars, but in the state of Bahía, Brazil, there were whole communities of them. The Arabic literature of Brazilian slaves is famous. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-common-for-slaves-to-be-muslims/333837/5 "2005-12-04T04:47:35Z")
For example, if you google up “Yarrow Mamout”, you will probably find along with him more examples of Africans who had been highly educated or even royalty before being sold into slavery. Islam in West Africa ever since the time of the Almoravids had been associated with advancing literacy. So literacy and Islam tended to correlate throughout much of West Africa. The city of Timbuktu, noted in medieval times for its Muslim university, was a good example of the two thing co-occurring. That means a literate African slave in America was more likely to be Muslim. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-common-for-slaves-to-be-muslims/333837/6 "2005-12-04T05:42:24Z")
Please see the information in this link: [http://www.journeytoislam.com/history/AMERICAN%20MUSLIM%20HISTORY.htm](http://www.journeytoislam.com/history/AMERICAN%20MUSLIM%20HISTORY.htm) Abdulrahman Ibrahim Ibn Sori was the name of an African prince who had been sold into slavery in America. He was freed in 1828 by order of Secretary of State Henry Clay and President John Quincy Adams and returned home. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-common-for-slaves-to-be-muslims/333837/7 "2005-12-04T05:53:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Please see the information in this link: > [http://www.journeytoislam.com/histo...M%20HISTORY.htm](http://www.journeytoislam.com/histo...M%20HISTORY.htm) I have to question the credibility of any website that presents as an established fact that Malians were sailing up the Mississippi River in 1312. ---
**Author:** ![Lynwood\_Slim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Lynwood\_Slim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynwood_Slim)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-common-for-slaves-to-be-muslims/333837/8 "2005-12-04T06:01:45Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Please see the information in this link: > [JourneyToIslam.com is for sale | HugeDomains](http://www.journeytoislam.com/history/AMERICAN%20MUSLIM%20HISTORY.htm) > > Abdulrahman Ibrahim Ibn Sori was the name of an African prince who had been sold into slavery in America. He was freed in 1828 by order of Secretary of State Henry Clay and President John Quincy Adams and returned home. Sold into slavery in America, or sold into slavery in Africa and transported to America? ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-common-for-slaves-to-be-muslims/333837/9 "2005-12-04T06:46:18Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > I have to question the credibility of any website that presents as an established fact that Malians were sailing up the Mississippi River in 1312. I’m afraid I must agree. While I’m sure some of those better established anecdotes are true ( definitely some Muslim slaves were brought to the New World, though less so to North America where the religion seems not to have sunk strong roots until much later ), that particular claim is pretty weak. Mali ( or any of the West African states for that matter ) was never any kind of seapower, witness the fact that virtually all trade traveled along inland caravan routes. The story is based on claims by Mansa Musa that his predecessor had financed huge expeditions ( first of 200 ships, then of 2000! ) into the Atlantic that had discovered a navigable river ( at its mouth, which would cover plenty of African rivers ) with a powerful current. A modest expedition _somewhere_ is perhaps remotely possible, but I’d a lot sooner believe that at best they ended up heading south and found the Congo or even at a much more fantastical stretch the much, much closer Amazon, than the Mississippi. - Tamerlane ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2005, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-it-common-for-slaves-to-be-muslims/333837/10 "2005-12-04T14:56:19Z")
> [@VegaBean](#): > > I thought the muslim black were all on the east coast, near Zanzibar and other arab trading centers. Large parts of the West African Atlantic coast are majority Muslim, in some cases such as Senegal and Mali over 90% of the population is. Some provinces in northern Nigeria have even incorporated sharia into the locxal legal code, which makes the news sometimes in reference to some unfortunate woman or another who gets victimized once by other members of her society and a second time by the legal system. Incidentally less than 10% of the world’s Muslims are Arabs.