A diary of a slave written in arabic. Up next, a collection of documents bearing the name of omar ibn said. Ms. Deeb i am mary jane deeb, chief of the african middle east division here at the library of congress. Im here to tell you about this fantastic acquisition the library has made in 2017. It is only now available to the public digitally on our website. We would like to show you the items themselves and talk about them. The core of this collection is the omar ibn said biography. Autobiography, in fact. It is written in arabic. It was a biography written in 1831 by a man who was enslaved a couple of decades earlier. He was asked to write his autobiography, which he did. You asked me to write my life. Im not able to do this because i have much forgotten my own, as well as the arab language. Neither can i write very grammatically or according to the true idiom. So, my brother, i beg you not to blame me because i am a man of weak eyes and a weak body. Ms. Deeb this autobiography has been well known. For the last almost 200 years, its existence has been known. It is not a mystery. It has been passed on from hand to hand. It has been at certain times owned by people and disappeared from everyones of you and then it reappears. The latest owner was an africanamerican collector of africana and historic documents. He bought it at an auction in new york at the swan gallery. This was in the early 1990s. He took it around. He realized it was important in changing the image that people have of who the people were that they had brought in as slaves. He realized its importance, and he wanted that autobiography to get greater attention. In 2002, we at the library of congress organized a conference on globalization. One of the conferences was on islam and america. Basically, we were trying to find out who were the first muslims who came to america . What were the different ways of muslims who came to america . The first wave was the african slaves who were brought in who were muslims. So, there is probably Something Like perhaps 10 to 15 , it is a guess, of the people brought in from west africa were muslim. In 2002, when we made the conference on islam and america, he was one of the people who was invited. He brought with him this autobiography and he showed it to us. It was the first time with the library saw it and most of the people in the audience had never seen it or heard about it. They had no idea about it. So, he brought it to the front and his was the first talk. Mr. Beard one of the most important islamic artifacts is a manuscript written by omar ibn said. This is a frontage slide of the manuscript which you can take a look at after the conference. It is in the display case here. Ms. Deeb this was in and of itself a revelation. We all admired the manuscript. He said then in 2002, the manuscript should be at the library of congress because it should belong to all of america. I should be available for all americans to see and to read. We all agreed and said yes, of course. But he was not ready yet to sell it and we were not ready to buy it yet. We did not have the funds. From 2002 through 2017, the manuscript was on the road. It went to various universities, institutions, it has been on the road for a long of a long time. Then, derrick beard fell sick. He thought he was going to die and he wanted this manuscript to be here. So, he got in touch with us and he said, this manuscript, it is up for sale. Our africa specialist on west africa said to me, we have to get it. I said i agree, but where will you find the money . She said oh, we are going to find the money. For several months, we went around and the library a great with us but it was an important manuscript. They thought we should get the money toward the end of the year when we have end of year funding. So our Acquisition Office came up with the money. Also negotiated with sotheby and eventually we purchased it. Now, omar ibn said was a scholar. He was born in what is now senegal, between the rivers of senegal. This is one of the most important tribes of west africa. Today, the number is about 14 million people. He was born in this region. He grew up, and went to school, we have to assume it was one of the mosques where he learned to read and write in arabic. But, in his autobiography, he talks about having spent over 25 years studying. My name is omar ibn said. My birthplace is futor, between the two rivers. I sought knowledge under my own brother and others. I continued my studies for 25 years, then returned to my home where i remained six years. Ms. Deeb were not quite sure what he was studying, but we do know he was studying with mentors. This is quite the traditional way of studying in both the middle east and in africa at that time. You had mentors. You went on and studied with scholars. His knowledge was expansive. He must have spoken at least two or three languages. But, he was in a region in which there was war, tribal warfare. This is not uncommon. At a certain point, at the age of 37, he was caught during a tribal conflict. He speaks about a large army having come in. They came to our place a large army who killed many men and took me and brought me to the great sea and sold me into the hands of the christians who bound me and sent me on board a great ship. We sailed upon the great sea a month at a half. We came to a place called charleston in the christian language. There, they sold me to a small, weak, and wicked man called johnson, a complete infidel who had no fear of god at all. Ms. Deeb we know from our scholars that he probably went out on the part of st. Louis on the ship and sailed across to south carolina, to charleston. He was obliged to do hard work. He says, i am a small man, a weak man. It is not the work for me. So, he runs away. Again, this is what he writes in his biography. I am a small man and unable to do hard work so, i fled from the hand of johnson and after a month came to a place called fayetteville. I saw some great houses, churches too. On the new moon into a church to pray. A lad saw me and rode off to the place of his father and informed him that he had seen a black man in the church. A man named hunter and another with him on horseback came, attended by a troupe of dogs. They took me and made me go with them 12 miles where they put me into a great house from which i could not go out. I continued in the great house, which in the christian language they called jail 16 days and nights. Ms. Deeb apparently, he starts writing on the walls. What was he writing, we are not sure. It might have been a prayer asking god to help him. But, whatever it was, it drew the attention of the jailer, who then eventually calls on the governor of North Carolina to come and see this person who is in jail, but seems to be writing on the walls and seems to be a respectable man. So, the governor and his governor come to the jail and they meet with him and eventually they take on omar ibn said to the house of the brother of the governor of North Carolina, where he eventually spends the rest of his life. It is this story that he tells in his book. It is very brief. His autobiography is brief, but it is written in a way that humanizes the experience of being caught, of being enslaved. And then of finding people who, although he is enslaved and in the house, who respect him. So, he is highly admiring of the family he has been put in. Ye people of North Carolina, ye people of south carolina, ye people of america, all of you, have you among you to such men as jim owens and john owens . These men are good. What food they eat, they give to me to be. As they clothe themselves, they clothe me. They permit me to read the gospel of god, our lord, savior, and king. Ms. Deeb he is offered at a certain point to go back to senegal, or to west africa, and chooses to remain in america. He converts to christianity and there are records of him going to church, reading the bible, but he also impresses everyone around him. Omar ibn said becomes famous in his own lifetime. There are articles written about him. There are people coming to meet with him, who praise him. There are people interested in what he is thinking, asking him to write this autobiography. So, it is a new way of looking at really what happens to some of the people who are brought into the United States. Its sort of tells us that the story that we usually hear about slavery is much more complex in terms of the people who are brought in, and in terms of the people who are here. Now, with respect to the rest of the collection, this autobiography then becomes part of a larger collection. We have an abolitionist, the founder of the american society, Theodore Dwight, who decides he wants this autobiography to be made known to others in america. He is challenging the conceptual framework, if you want, of people at that time about who they were enslaving, who they were civilizing. He is basically saying you better find out about islam, about west africa. This is an introduction, if you want, to the study of islamowest africa. He really wanted people to know about the history of the region. So, he sends this autobiography to a number of missionaries who were in the near east at that time, one of whom is very well known, daniel bliss, founder of what is now the American University of beirut. At that time, it was a college. He knew arabic, he spent years in lebanon, in fact there is a whole street in lebanon called daniel bliss. He also purchase another colored missionary, somehow or other related to yale university, who is also an arabist in a sense that he knew arabic, studied islam, and he was a missionary in the near east as well. Those two men begin translating, if you want, the autobiography. Some of the documents that we at the library acquired are part of their correspondents between Theodore Dwight and people like daniel bliss and isaac bird, who are there, fascinated by the manuscript, wanting to translate it. Theodore dwight also writes to the president s of library is president s of liberia what they think of this miniskirt. They say yes, we are very familiar with arabic writing, in fact, in liberia some of the Indigenous People are also writing in arabic. Some of the people who are freed from the United States and who went back to west africa are writing and they are writing in arabic as well. And so, this unique collection brings to the library a whole array of things, the core of which is the autobiography of omar ibn said. For example, we have a fascinating document here which is on the origin of men, written by one Mohammed Decker who describes a history of the way the world was created. This is an example of the manuscript in arabic, and this is a an example of the translation of this manuscript. It is an absolutely original, unique item. He writes a book about how the world evolved. It is a mixture, if you want, of islamic conventions, of christian, biblical stories, and of some african stories as well. It is he speaks about seven heavens, he talks about one god, but also brings some women, important women who dont appear either in the bible or in islam and seem to be more part of african beliefs. So, you find an absolutely fabulous description of origins of the world. As you know, every country, every nation and the world has these original ideas of how the world was created and who were the major figures in it. So, we have here a document which is completely unique. I have never seen a document that describes the origin of men in the same way. It combines muslim believes, christian beliefs, and also indigenous african beliefs. It is translated too and it is a product of this omar ibn said, because with his autobiography, a lot of people got interested and started saying, there are others who are writing. The others are either in west africa, or left the United States and went to west africa. Among the items that we acquired are standalones, items written by people who spoke arabic and they are part of this collection. We are not quite sure how they came to be part of this collection. My guess again is that it probably came from liberia, written by muslim scholars as well. But, this particular item is an example of a common practice. Whereas this one, the one on the origin of men is quite a unique document, this one come on the other hand, is a magic square. It is more a talisman. It is written in arabic and it is a square. Really, it is a prayer of so is god, so it begins, in the name of god, the merciful and compassionate. Basically, it asks gods protection for camels. Why camels . Well, because west africa is very close to the sahara desert. Apart from the shore, you move from west africa in turn of the come inside, and you are in the sahara. Great that went on between the north and the south of west africa, but between west africa and east africa, and certainly the middle east, and more particularly the Arabian Peninsula, there was trade. The trade was by caravan. The caravans were driven by the camels. So, the caravans had to be protected. They were the lifeline between different regions of west africa. Those caravans carried goods. Africa was always very wealthy, very rich in terms of gold, materials, cotton materials, foodstuffs, and they traded with the Arabian Peninsula and drove goods from there, such as coffee and other goods. Of course, with the goods came the books, medicine, ideas, came islam. What was important in the travels across the desert was the camel. Without the camel, people would die. Because, it is a camel that carried, transported the merchandise. It was a camel that provided milk, meat that provided even shade during long travels. People who traveled long distances in the sahara could be attacked by other wandering tribes, by thieves, and robbers. They could there could be sand storms. The livelihood of the people in that region who were traders depended very much on the camels. In arabic, there are 75 or 80 words for the camel. Baby camel, mother camel, camel sitting, camel sitting, camel sleeping, there are a huge number of fords because the camel was essential to the people in the desert. This is actually a prayer and it shows the square with the middle of it is a station where all the camels made and that they go off in Different Directions to the trade posts. So, you have the prayers around sending them good travels, may god help you and protect you, but rather than focus on individuals, this is a talisman to protect the animal itself. Again, this is not unusual, but it is a wonderful representation that we have here. Giving us a sense of where omar ibn said came from. That is the important thing. These documents all provide a framework for the autobiography. It gives us a sense that he came from an area of scholarship. You have scholars writing. It also came from an area where there was business and trading. He does speak about being himself a wealthy man. Before i came to the christian country, my religion was the religion of mohammed, the apostle of god, may god have mercy upon him and give him peace. I walked to the mosque before daybreak, washed my face, head, hands, and feet. I prayed at noon, prayed in the afternoon, prayed at sunset, prayed and the evening. I gave alms every year. Gold, silver, seeds, milk, rice, wheat, barley. I gave tithes. I went on pilgrimage to mecca as all did who were able. Ms. Deeb you realize he was a man of wealth. He was probably a merchant. It gives a sense of the people who lived in west africa. Those who were eventually caught and brought into the United States as slaves. They had a whole civilization behind them. Went back hundreds of years. It is not difficult to understand it because, after all, they belong to a monotheistic faith, they did business. By translating the works, making those works available, you in a way begin to rewrite history. They were not what was often described as people that were taken in who had no religion, they were pagan, no civilized nation, etc. That is not the case. Therefore, omar ibn said, this little biography is able to make us think in a different way. To make us realize history. The history of that period. So i was very excited to see that when we brought in students, high school students, they looked at that and said i didnt know that. For us, it was just a whole journey of learning about something we had no background knowledge about omar ibn said. I was very surprised to hear a lot of the things i heard including how there was such a Large Population of muslims who were brought to this country. Id never heard a voice from that population before. Ms. Deeb but this is what history is about. Rediscovering a history that has not really been written fully. We have some scholars who have written about it and we actually had a program on february 5 and one of the scholars has written extensively on that. Her own greatgrandfather is from senegal and was a great scholar of that region who himself had been a major scholarly institution to teach about islam, but also about astronomy. You also had and the United States this idea that the muslims who are not african, that they were arabs who had been taken by mistake. That those muslims, those arabs despised the rest of the africans. And so, there were sometimes these attempts at putting people one against the other. Ms. Deeb there was we did a podcast, and someone asked the lady from senegal, originally, a scholar, what she saw in the picture, and she said, i saw a muslim scholar from senegal. And what i can say is that i see a man with great dignity, a man very sure of himself, very confident. Very confident in a way almost as if he had a mission to tell people about his past and to inform others about who he is, not only for himself, but for all the people who are behind. I mean there are a number of intriguing things in this autobiography. And if you would let me say a few words about why think its intriguing, one thing is, he never gives us his full name. Omar ibn said simply means omar , the son of said. Now, said had, from his own autobiography, a number of sons. But said what . Said who . He never gives us his family name. He also, although he talks about his father and mother, he never talks about a personal family, wife, children. Again, the question is why. I think, again, its a personal opinion, that he was protecting his family. By not giving a family name, he was protecting them. By not speaking about his wife, children, whatever, he was protecting them. He didnt want probably that they suffered the fate that he suffered himself. He comes to the United States and never gets married. He has no progeny. Again, the question is why. Others did. He did not. Then his autobiography has a number of interesting parts to