Omar ibn Said Materials at Wilson Special Collections Library: Other Resources
Omar ibn Said materials held at other repositories
Photographs
- Ambrotype of Omar ibn Said. In the Randolph Linsly Simpson African-American Collection at Yale University. 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 Major John Owen, 1819. Held at Andover Newton Theological School.
- 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.
- Letter from Omar ibn Said to John Taylor, 1853. Held at the Spartanburg County Historical Association.
- Translation and annotation by Jeffrey Einboden here.
- 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")
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:
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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
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
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.
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.
Tamplin, William Costel. "Who Was ‛Umar ibn Sayyid? A Critical Reevaluation of the Translations and Interpretations of the Life." Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, vol. 16, 2016, pp.125-147.
Books
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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. -
African Muslims in Antebellum America by ISBN: 0415912695Publication Date: 1997-04-30A condensation and updating of his African Muslims inAntebellum 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.
Other resources
Biographical entries
- NCpedia
- Documenting the American South
- Other writings about Omar ibn Said, including newspaper articles contemporary to his lifetime, also listed at Documenting the American South.
Newspapers
Utilize search function to find newspaper articles about Omar ibn Said. Note that he was also called "Uncle Moro, "Moreau," and other variations.
- Chronicling America
- Newspapers.com
- Requires affiliation with UNC-Chapel Hill or searching on campus. Free access to North Carolina newspaper content through 1922.
- Last Updated: Aug 25, 2020 9:42 AM
- URL: https://guides.lib.unc.edu/omar-ibn-said
