A Digital History of Muslims & Jews in Early America

Uncovering Narratives explores the largely untold histories of early Muslims and Jews in the Americas. Using a global framework, our curriculum ties together the history of the Iberian Peninsula with Muslim and Jewish communities in the Americas between 1492 and 1893. How do these histories help us understand debates around religious identity, race, and  justice in America today?

More on our Uncovering Narratives: A Digital History project coming soon! 

The Founders on Islam & Judaism 

Early Muslims in America

African Muslims first arrived in America in the 1500s. Historians estimate that 10- 30% of all Africans enslaved in the colonies were Muslim. To learn more about this history, visit the National Museum of African American History & Culture's page on African Muslims in America here. 

Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, Ibrahim Abd al-Rahman and Omar ibn Sayid are just a few of the Muslims who lived in early America. Learn about their stories below. ​

Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (1701 — 1773)

Ibrahim Abd al-Rahman (1762 — 1829)

Omar ibn Sayid (1770–1864)

​Literacy and Early American Literature by Muslims in the Colonies 
​Information from Sylviane Diouf's Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas. 

Literacy was widespread in Muslim West Africa and, unlike the norm in Europe at the time, education was available across class and gender. Visiting Timbo (Guinea) in the early 1800s, French slave dealer, Theophilus Conneu, observed “many elderly females...soon in the morning and late at evening, reading the Koran.” Girls usually made up 20% of students in Qur’anic schools. Lamine Kebe, a Qur’anic teacher enslaved in the United States noted several girls among the students at his school in Futa Jallon (Guinea). He praised his aunt as “much more learned than himself and eminent for her superior acquirements and for her skills in  teaching” and spoke of other “women who have been devoted teachers for life, and have rivaled some of the most celebrated of the other sex in success and reputation for talent and extraordinary acquisitions."

The autobiography of Omar ibn Sayid is just one example of early American literature filled with Qur'anic verses and written in Arabic by early Muslims in the country. 

Early Jews in America

The first communities of Jews arrived in the 1600s. In September 1654, twenty-three  Jews fleeing Brazil landed in New Amsterdam (New York). These refugees were Sephardi, ​spanish-speaking descendants of those expelled from the Spain and Portugal during the Inquisition. In 1658, fifteen Sephardi  Jews formed a community Newport, Rhode Island where the Touro Synagogue, America's first Jewish house of worship. Learn more below.

Sources

"African Muslims in Early America." National Museum of African American History and Culture. November 17, 2017. Accessed November 26, 2017. https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/collection/african-muslims-early-america.
 
Austin, Allan D. African Muslims in Antebellum America: A Sourcebook. New York: Garland Pub., 1984.
 
Diouf, Sylviane A. Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas. New York: New York University Press, 2013.
                                                           
Hoberman, Michael. How Strange It Seems: The Cultural Life of Jews in Small-town New England. Amherst: Univ. of Massachusetts Press, 2008.
 
Reiss, Oscar. The Jews in Colonial America. Jefferson, NC: McFarland &, 2004.
 
Spellberg, Denise A. Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an Islam and the Founders. New York, NY: Vintage, 2014.