Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas Paperback – October 4, 2013

As an African American Imam, this work is invaluable

I bought this book when it was new long ago. It is one of the best books I have ever read. Sometimes people use this comment's section to attack people or ideas and I can't say I am innocent of doing this on occasion myself. It is very wrong that it has happened a tad here. Some of us are not very fastidious. This is a book about African American history. Now I must have missed it. Our ancestors did not come from East Africa and so they were not sold to the whites who brought us here through "Arabs." This book takes courage. I am a Muslim and I was Muslim when I read it so it was no big deal for me. But if you are not an African American Muslim, if you have spent your life clapping in church and holding on to the religion given in the slave quarters, then this book will not be a pleasant experience. It's that simple. Some of us, when confronted with the unpleasantness of how we were not free, of how we literally had a religion stolen from us and another forced on us, turn and defend master by using the old red herring. Arabs were not the traders or merchants who shipped black people from West Africa to the New World. Ms Diouf, I never researched her. I just quietly have been in awe of this name for about 20 years. She tells us our history, in a scientific factual manner. Twenty years ago, this book was the only one out there to go into the great depth she did in her research. Today there are quite a few, but I am sentimental and this is still my favorite. When you see someone on this section attacking Arabs, please remember that black American slaves learned from their masters and the main thing white American slave masters taught was racism and lumping people together. As a black man, I am tired. This group this and that group that. See people as individuals. It's what Martin Luther King died for. No, the struggle is not over, but King proved that there are good whites and good Christians...and bad weak minded ones too.When you think outside of the hood, you realize there are even good and bad Arabs. Our ancestors were literate and strong and strong minded...and bad news for the Arab haters....The black people brought here from West Africa were Muslim. Literate and by choice.

Fascinating study of African slave trade focusing on the Moslem African slaves. Servants of Allah offers excellent survey of the African cultural and geopolitical situation prior to and during the years of the slave trade. It is through this foundation that we understand the various ethnic and religious roots of the African slaves.Wisely the book has not focused on the middle passages covered in many other works but instead focused on the lives of Moslem slaves, in particular, in US, Caribbean and Brazil. The tremendous research and analysis has produced a true groundbreaking work in beginning to understand this very sad chapter of history.I learnt a great deal from this book, I had no idea of the extent of suffering Moslems and other slaves endured, I didn't know about the use of Arabic in US & rest of Americas as a way for enslaved Africans to communicate and even to keep plantation books. I had no idea of the suppression of Islam practiced as early as 1501 and the brutality of the Spanish Inquisition in the new World all they way through early 20th century. I was amazed to learn how in US the clearly well educated enslaved blacks were denied their Africaness by their masters and relabeled Arabs or Moors and in doing so the White Masters could continue to make sense of the inferior status of the black Africans.At times Diouf may have been a touch too romantic about the behavior of Moslems and it times attributed culturally narrow definitions to Islamic traditions, this does not detract from the excellent contribution of this most enlightening work on a very rarely addressed subject.

Dr. Sylviane Diouf' book was highly informative. The subject of the book has been thoroughly reseached. I have never read a book so thoroughly research on the topic of Muslims and their experience as slaves in the Americas. Prior books I have read on he subject focused on individuals such as Ibrahima Abdur Rahman, who eventually returned to Africa or Omar ibn Said, who remained in the US (North Carolina). I had not previously known about the groups of Muslim men and women who were able to return to the "Motherland" after being enslaved in Brazil then deported (for example). Then Dr. Diouf diligently reports on their achievements when they returned. The vitality of the Muslim communities in the Americas has never been covered in any of the works I have read. Dr. Diouf's narratation of these details put the reader in the minds of these individuals. She also did "justice" to the subject of "Muslim" groups such as the Moorish Science Temple and the Nation Of Islam in her summation of these movements which still have influence and effect on the current state of affairs in today's Muslim American communities. She also did not use overly intellectual words making the book an easy read. It held my interest from cover to cover. Whether you are a Muslim or non- Muslim this book is a must read for all who want to understand the impact of Islam upon the societies of the Americas.