Islamic-start the U.S. Coming to Columbus

By Republika Newsroom

Raleigh - An exhibition exploring the North Carolina early Islamic heritage and their contribution in building America.

Exhibition at Shaw University Mosque on Sunday (23/11) and was denied the hypothesis that the Muslims first came to the U.S. in the 1960s, or that the earliest among them was an African-American who converted to Islam as a retired boxer, or black activists.

The exhibition, "Muslims in America," shows that Muslim explorers may have preceded Christopher Columbus and that the Muslims fought in every U.S. war since the Revolutionary War. Census records show that 584 soldiers by the end of Muhammad's name (spelled 33 different ways) fought in World War I.

More than 200 visitors adults and children witnessed the letters, photographs, and gravestones as evidence of Islam before the arrival of Columbus. They also read that North Carolina is home to one of the slaves of the most famous Muslim, Omar Ibn Sayyid from Fayetteville.

"I learned about this in college but I do not know the role of North Carolina," said Jamaal Albany, a teacher at Al-Iman, a Muslim school in Raleigh, who brought some of the students in sixth grade and seventh to the exhibition. "It's incredible."

The exhibition was the idea of Amir Muhammad, a Washington historian researching his own family roots in Georgia, a dozen years ago and it found traces of the past is forgotten Muslims, who formed the West African Muslims who brought to this country as slaves.

"We're part of American society," said Muhammad. "That does not begin with the Nation of Islam, and it does not come with a wave of immigrants in the 1960s," said Muhammad.

Muhammad had brought poster board from Maine to California, stopping at every town to tour for a few hours. Original portraits and some rare artifacts form an exhibition at the Smithsonian 4 years ago.

The contribution of North Carolina in the history of American Muslims may have started with Sayyid, who was born in a country that is now called with Senegal in 1770. He is a Muslim scholar who read and write in Arabic. He made at age 37 and arrived in Charleston, SC, in 1807.

Four years later, he fled to Fayetteville and, after some time in jail, pushing James Owen, a general in the state militia, to buy it. Impressed by Sayyid, Owen bought the Qur'an translation in English so that Sayyid and learn English Bansa better. All of this Sayyid himself in his autobiography written with the Arabic language.

"This is the brothers whose history we never knew," said Ali Haji Abdul Malik from Raleigh, who was present to witness the exhibition. "Now they began to be recognized."

While historians may argue that most Muslims are not slaves, it is clear that the early leaders of the United States open to the Islamic world and treating them with respect. Features that showed a letter written by George Washington to the King of Morocco and the peace treaty signed by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson between the U.S. and Morocco. IOL / no / taq