ENSLAVED AFRICAN MUSLIMS WERE THE FIRST TO OBSERVE RAMADAN IN THE U.S.
In fact, 15-30% of enslaved Africans were Muslims -- and fasted, prayed, and observed the Holy Month while in bondage Ramadan is hardly "new in America" but a deeply rooted tradition. And a Black one 1st.
Social scientists estimate that 15 to 30 percent, or, “ many as 600,000 to 1.2 million slaves” in antebellum America were Muslims. 46 percent of the enslaved people in the antebellum South were kidnapped from Africa’s western regions, which boasted “significant numbers of Muslims”.
These enslaved Muslims strove to meet the demands of their faith, most notably the Ramadan fast, prayers, and community meals, in the face of comprehensive slave codes that linked religious activity to insubordination and rebellion. Marking Ramadan as a “new American tradition” not only overlooks the holy month observed by enslaved Muslims many years ago, but also perpetuates their erasure from Muslim-American history.
This Ramadan honouring the memory of the first Muslim Americans and their struggle for freedom and sharing their story with loved ones at the iftar table, seems an ideal step towards rewriting this missing chapter of Muslim American history into our collective consciousness.
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