Omar ibn Said Materials at Wilson Special Collections Library: Other Resources
Archival Omar ibn Said materials held at other repositories
Photographs
- Ambrotype of Omar ibn Said, circa 1850. In the Randolph Linsly Simpson African-American Collection at Yale University. Digitized.
- Carte-de-visite/cabinet card held in the Owen and Barry Family Papers, New Hanover County Public Library. In pencil: "slave about 80 years," and if correct, the sitting was circa 1850. Digitized.
Archival material
- Documents and an Arabic Bible belonging to Omar ibn Said, 1811, held at Davidson College Archives & Special Collections. Digitized.
- Letter from Omar ibn Said to John Owen, brother of James Owen, 1819. Held at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Digitized.
- Accompanying correspondence related to contemporary efforts at translation facilitated by John Lewis Taylor**, also held by Yale University.
- Scholarly analysis in Hunwick, John. "'I Wish to be Seen in our Land Called Āfrikā': Umar B. Sayyid's Appeal to be Released from Slavery (1819)." Journal of Arabic & Islamic Studies, vol. 5, 2003-2004, pp. 62-77.
- Accompanying correspondence related to contemporary efforts at translation facilitated by John Lewis Taylor**, also held by Yale University.
- Letter from Omar ibn Said to John Allan Taylor, of Wilmington, 1853. Held at the Spartanburg County Historical Association.
- Translation and annotation by Jeffrey Einboden here.
- Manuscript contemporaneously translated by William W. Williams as "The Chapter of the Elephant" in the Charles Sumner scrapbook, Box: 1 Identifier: MS Am 1.68, Page 47, Houghton Library, Harvard University. Digitized.
- Photograph and manuscripts in Arabic in the John Owen (1787-1841) Papers, PC.812, State Archives, State of North Carolina
- "Lord's Prayer" (mismarked "23rd Psalm"), 1828?
- List of Owen family names (mismarked "The Lord's Prayer")
- Writings in the Eliza Owen journal, Owen and Barry Family Papers, New Hanover County Public Library.
- Finding Aid for the collection.
- Digitized materials from the Owen and Barry Family Papers.
- Post by David Cecelski with photographs.
The State Archives of North Carolina has graciously allowed us to show thumbnails of the Omar Ibn Said manuscripts in their holdings of the John Owen Papers. For more information please contact the library.
**Who was John Taylor?
John Lewis Taylor was born on March 1, 1769 in London, England. He attended William & Mary College in Williamsburg, VA. Admitted to the NC bar in 1788, he began practicing law in Fayetteville.
In 1792, Taylor was elected to represent the town of Fayetteville in the NC House of Commons. In 1798, he was elected a Judge of the NC Superior Court, and January 1, 1819 he became the first Chief Justice of the newly-formed state Supreme Court. He died in 1829.
Article in the North Carolina University Magazine
Short article "Uncle Moreau" published in The North Carolina University Magazine in 1854 (v. 3, no. 7) by the Presbyterian Reverend Mathew Blackburne Grier of Wilmington:
Secondary sources
Scholarly articles
Hambuch, Doris, and Muna Al-Badaai. "Authorship in Muslim Slave Narratives: Job Ben Solomon, Omar Ibn Said, and Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua." Forum for World Literature Studies, vol. 12, no. 2, June 2020, pp. 314-330.
Horn, Patrick E. "Coercions, Conversions, Subversions: The Nineteenth-Century Slave Narratives of Omar ibn Said, Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua, and Nicholas Said." a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, vol. 27, no. 1, 2012, pp. 45-66.
Hunwick, John. "'I Wish to be Seen in our Land Called Āfrikā': Umar B. Sayyid's Appeal to be Released from Slavery (1819)." Journal of Arabic & Islamic Studies, vol. 5, 2003-2004, pp. 62-77.
Kahera, Akel. “God’s Dominion: Omar ibn Said’s use of Arabic Literacy as Opposition to Slavery.” The South Carolina Review, vol. 46, no. 2, 2014, pp. 126- 34.
Lo, Mbaye, and Carl W. Ernst. "The 1850’s Photographic Portrait of Omar Ibn Said: The Eloquence of Resilience." The Muslim World 110, no. 3 (2020): 428-450.
Osman, Ghada and Camille F. Forbes. "Representing the West in the Arabic Language: The Slave Narrative of Omar Ibn Said." Journal of Islamic Studies, vol. 15, no. 3, 2004, pp. 331-343.
Parramore, Thomas C. "Muslim Slave Aristocrats in North Carolina." North Carolina Historical Review, vol. 77, no. 2, 2000, pp. 127-150.
Books
African Muslims in Antebellum America by ISBN: 0415912695Publication Date: 1997-04-30A condensation and updating of his African Muslims in Antebellum America: A Sourcebook(1984), noted scholar of antebellum black writing and history Dr. Allan D. Austin explores, via portraits, documents, maps, and texts, the lives of 50 sub-Saharan non-peasant Muslim Africans caught in the slave trade between 1730 and 1860. Also includes five maps.
I Cannot Write My Life by ISBN: 9781469674667Publication Date: 2023-08-29Omar ibn Said (1770-1863) was a Muslim scholar from West Africa who spent more than fifty years enslaved in the North Carolina household of James Owen, brother of Governor John Owen. In 1831 Omar composed a brief autobiography, the only known narrative written in Arabic by an enslaved person in North America, and he became famous for his Arabic writings. His enslavers also provided him with an Arabic Bible and claimed Omar as a convert to Christianity, prompting wonder and speculation among amateur scholars of Islam, white slave owners, and missionaries. But these self-proclaimed experts were unable or unwilling to understand Omar's writings, and his voice was suppressed for two centuries. Mbaye Lo and Carl W. Ernst here weave fresh and accurate translations of Omar's eighteen surviving writings, for the first time identifying his quotations from Islamic theological texts, correcting many distortions, and providing the fullest possible account of his life and significance. Placing Omar at the center of a broader network of the era's literary and religious thought, Lo and Ernst restore Omar's voice, his sophisticated engagement with Islamic and Christian theologies, his Arabic skills, and his extraordinary efforts to express himself and exert agency despite his enslavement.
Servants of Allah by ISBN: 9781479847112Publication Date: 2013-10-04Servants of Allah presents a history of African Muslims, following them from West Africa to the Americas. Although many assume that what Muslim faith they brought with them to the Americas was quickly absorbed into the new Christian milieu, as Sylviane A. Diouf demonstrates in this meticulously-researched, groundbreaking volume, Islam flourished during slavery on a large scale. She details how, even while enslaved, many Muslims managed to follow most of the precepts of their religion. Literate, urban, and well-traveled, they drew on their organization, solidarity and the strength of their beliefs to play a major part in the most well-known slave uprisings. But for all their accomplishments and contributions to the history and cultures of the African Diaspora, the Muslims have been largely ignored. Servants of Allah--a Choice 1999 Outstanding Academic Title--illuminates the role of Islam in the lives of both individual practitioners and communities, and shows that though the religion did not survive in the Americas in its orthodox form, its mark can be found in certain religions, traditions, and artistic creations of people of African descent. This 15th anniversary edition has been updated to include new materials and analysis, a review of developments in the field, prospects for new research, and new illustrations.
Other resources
Newspapers
Utilize search function to find newspaper articles about Omar ibn Said. Note that he was also called "Uncle Moro, "Moreau," "Omeroh" and other variations.
- Chronicling America free to access
- Newspapers.com requires affiliation with UNC-Chapel Hill or searching on campus. Free access to North Carolina newspaper content through 1922.
- NC Digital Heritage Center: utilize the newspaper search to find articles.
clipping from The Greensboro Patriot, Saturday, May 14, 1853
clipping from The Wilmington Messenger, Thursday, September 5, 1889
The Autobiography of Omar ibn Said
The Autobiography of Omar ibn Said was written in 1831 and published in The American Historical Review, July 1925, vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 787-795. Alexander Cotheal, treasurer of the American Ethnological Society, translated the autobiography in 1848. J.F. Jameson, editor of The American Historical Review, oversaw the retranslation for publication in 1925. The original manuscript was acquired by the Library of Congress in 2017 and is now digitized - see their Omar ibn Said collection of documents.
Transcriptions:
A Muslim American Slave by ISBN: 9780299249540Publication Date: 2011-07-20Born to a wealthy family in West Africa around 1770, Omar Ibn Said was abducted and sold into slavery in the United States, where he came to the attention of a prominent North Carolina family after filling "the walls of his room with piteous petitions to be released, all written in the Arabic language," as one local newspaper reported. Ibn Said soon became a local celebrity, and in 1831 he was asked to write his life story, producing the only known surviving American slave narrative written in Arabic. In A Muslim American Slave, scholar and translator Ala Alryyes offers both a definitive translation and an authoritative edition of this singularly important work, lending new insights into the early history of Islam in America and exploring the multiple, shifting interpretations of Ibn Said's narrative by the nineteenth-century missionaries, ethnographers, and intellectuals who championed it. This edition presents the English translation on pages facing facsimile pages of Ibn Said's Arabic narrative, augmented by Alryyes's comprehensive introduction, contextual essays and historical commentary by leading literary critics and scholars of Islam and the African diaspora, photographs, maps, and other writings by Omar Ibn Said. The result is an invaluable addition to our understanding of writings by enslaved Americans and a timely reminder that "Islam" and "America" are not mutually exclusive terms. This edition presents the English translation on pages facing facsimile pages of Ibn Said's Arabic narrative, augmented by Alryyes's comprehensive introduction and by photographs, maps, and other writings by Omar Ibn Said. The volume also includes contextual essays and historical commentary by literary critics and scholars of Islam and the African diaspora: Michael A. Gomez, Allan D. Austin, Robert J. Allison, Sylviane A. Diouf, Ghada Osman, and Camille F. Forbes. The result is an invaluable addition to our understanding of writings by enslaved Americans and a timely reminder that "Islam" and "America" are not mutually exclusive terms. Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians
Translations
Enslaved Scholars: A Website Repository for Editions of Arabic Texts and English Translations, available via the Carolina Digital Repository, UNC-CH. Edited by Dr. Mbaye Lo and Dr. Carl Ernst.
Biographical Entries
Documenting the American South
Other writings about Omar ibn Said, including newspaper articles contemporary to his lifetime, also listed at Documenting the American South.