A Black Man's Journey in America: Glimpses of Islam, Conversations and Travels

By Muhammad Ali Salaam and Ma Salaam

One of the most progressive movements for Freedom, Justice and Equality in African American history has been Islam. Transported into America among the very first slaves,
it has survived for four centuries under the most difficult of circumstances. Yet, it has produced some of the most influential leaders among Black Americans including Elijah
Muhammad, Malcolm X, Imam Warithu Deen Mohammed, Louis Farrakhan and many others. In A Black Mans Journey in America: Glimpses of Islam, Conversations and Travels,
I have placed my familys history within the context of that Islamic heritage. Further, I have attempted to unravel the method through which African American Muslims were so often forced to embrace as a means of survival.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462874019

Muhammad Ali Salaam

Muhammad Ali Salaam is a sixth-generation descendant of Mike Carmichael. He was educated at Snow Hill Institute in Alabama, where he graduated in the class of 1968. He received a BS in political science with a double minor in American and African American history from Lincoln University, Missouri. He has done additional studies in third-world history at the University of Missouri (Kansas City), Spanish at the University of Alabama (Birmingham), and Arabic and Spanish civilization at the University of South Florida (Tampa). Salaam is a former schoolteacher in the public school system of Kansas City, Missouri. He has also taught history at Sister Clara Muhammad School, a private Muslim school in Birmingham, Alabama. He served as program director for the Boys Club of Kansas City, Missouri, where he was later promoted to the director. He later relocated to Birmingham, Alabama, and served as program director of the A. G. Gaston Boys’ Club of Birmingham, Alabama, where he implemented a tutorial and basic survival program for inner-city black youth. He is the author of an out-of-print book of poems entitled The Sayings of Cush and former editor of a monthly newsletter entitled THINK. He has made regular appearances on Atlanta cable television programs dealing with African American history, Islamic history, and the history of world religions.

Book preview

ROYALTY

Mustafa Ali Salaam

Royalty is defined by the stride in your walk

The dialect in your talk

The modesty of your clothes

And the modesty that you hold

Royalty is defined by the roads that you take

The decisions that you make

By showing love and not hate

And being real, not fake

Royalty is defined by your hopes and your dreams

Your possession of tauhid

Your aptitude to proceed

And your ability to lead

Royalty is defined by charity you give

Your power and your will

Your guidance to those who kneel

And simply the way that you live.

(Mustafa Ali Salaam is the youngest son of Muhammad Ali Salaam.)

From Africa to South Carolina

Throughout my childhood, I heard and read of the story of the beginning of my family in America—as slaves—from many different sources. Yet they all seemed to have differed from what my father, Mitchell (Mike Carmichael V), told me. When I asked him about these differences, he always responded with the same words—Those who know don’t say, and those who say don’t know. Remember, our line through my father and his fathers before him is the closest direct line of Mike and Phoebe, my great-grandfather and great—grandmother. When I later thought of it, I was soon convinced of the logic of his claim since our family was, in fact, the closest direct descendants of that family.

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According to Daddy, he received his knowledge of the family from the oral tradition handed down to him by his father, Mike IV (Caswell) Carmichael (1854-1919); which he received from his father, Mike III (1813-1893); who received it from his father, Mike II (1792-1863); who, in turn, heard it from his father, Mike I (1749-1809), who died one year after the United States forbade the importation of African slaves within its borders.

Contrary to my father’s oral account, the most conspicuous accounts I heard from others differed in their omission of the real first Mike, who came directly from Africa and was the father of the Mike II, who is most commonly spoken and written off as Mike I. The other difference was the complete omission of Islam from the family’s history. Although some accounts did acknowledge Phoebe’s mother was from West Africa where, as we know, the great Islamic states of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai were dominant from the twelfth century until the sixteenth century; however, no direct mention of Islam has been made.

It was my father, Mike Carmichael V, who corrected these omissions. Regarding the omission of Islam from the family’s history, throughout my childhood, he repeatedly told me, Son, you cannot talk about African people either in Africa or in the Diaspora without addressing Islam. Remember, son, he said, Africa is the only continent where the majority of the people are Muslims and were Muslims long before they became Christians in the areas from where our people were taken as slaves.

According to my father, Mike Carmichael V (1897-1969), long ago, around the eighth century, Islam was spread along the east coast of Africa where its dominance was particularly felt in the Horn of Africa or the biblical land of Put(Punt). Many of these Africans believed their conversion to Islam was a result of the proselytizing efforts of those Ethiopians who accepted Islam as a result of the first Hijra (flight) of Muslims from Mecca to Ethiopia in the year AD 614.

He went on to tell me that long before the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the Arabs had been carrying African slaves across the Sahara Desert from the coast of the Red Sea and from East Africa across the Indian Ocean into the Middle East, India, and Persia. Later, I learned from Dr. Lorenzo Johnston Greene’s text, Negro in Colonial New England, that during the seventeenth century, the colony of Massachusetts entered the European-dominated slave trade but chose, as her area of preference, these East African areas over the more favored areas of West Africa which were dominated by the Dutch West India Company and the English Royal African Company.³

One of these East African slaves, according to Daddy, was a Muslim named Mikha’il. He was first carried to the Barbados, then to Massachusetts, and later to South Carolina. Both a skilled craftsman and a descendant of a family of Islamic scholars, his intelligence soon attracted the attention of his slave masters in the Barbados, Massachusetts, and later in South Carolina where he was employed in areas best suited for his masters’ economic benefit.⁴ He was also permitted to marry; and his wife, Fatima, later bore a son whose name was also Mikha’il. But like his father, his name was Anglicized to simply Mike. Fatima was also a Muslim from East Africa. Little has been preserved of her past, but according to what Daddy told me, her name was, as mentioned above, Fatima, which was Anglicized to Fanny by her slave master.

As Daddy explained it to me, as Mike moved with unusual freedom around the slave plantations, his master allowed him to take his son with him in hopes that the son would become as useful as the father upon the child’s maturation. But in addition to teaching his son these skills, Mike taught him far more. Most important to him was the duty of ensuring that his little son knew and believed in the religion of Islam, which had been in his family for approximately a thousand years. By teaching Islam to his son, he hoped that he would pass this knowledge on to his descendants in a clandestine method amid the hostile environment of slavery in America. Often, they would steal away from public view and perform the Islamic daily prayers. Of course, this was quite difficult in that most whites hated what they referred to as Mohammedanism, coupled with an equal resentment on the part of some slaves, particularly those who had chosen to forget their African roots and had even become resentful of those African slaves who often spoke fondly of Mother Africa and constantly sought subtle means of preserving their culture.

Young Mike II grew into a strong and intelligent young man. Yet as time passed, he often thought sadly of the approaching demise of his father, now old and badly torn by years of slavery. Thus, Mike II prepared himself for the inevitable. However, to his delight, the father and son bonded even closer in these final days of the father. The son, knowing the father was thinking deeply about the son’s assignment, went out of his way to convince the father of both his understanding of and sincerity towards his mission. However, young Mike II would have to practice his religion in a most secret manner; and it was, indeed, this latter issue which mostly concerned the father during his last days.

Soon, the fateful day came; and with the passing of his father, young Mike II seemed to have been thrown into a state of melancholy. Then a seemingly insignificant incident restored his spirit. It was on one day while he was journeying to an adjoining plantation to perform some carpentry duties, he noticed a beautiful young slave girl. Mike’s first glance at this young slave girl put in him a strong desire to see her during his weekly journeys to her plantation until eventually he was able to sneak a word to her. He was quite delighted to learn that she was a Muslim from West Africa whose original name was Habeebee. His father had long told him about the great Islamic empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai that ruled that area from around the tenth century up to the Moroccan conquest of Songhai in 1591 and the subsequent Atlantic Slave Trade. Like Mike’s parents, her parents had instructed her as best they could about the religion of Islam amid the awful conditions of slavery.

In accordance with the tenets of Islam, Mike II refused to engage in any courtship with this Muslim girl but began a plan to seek permission from both masters to marry her. Fortunately, because of the great respect Mike’s master had for his father before him and which now extended to him, he was able to secure his master’s permission who, in turn, urged Habeebee’s master for his permission. Her master answered in the affirmative, and they were soon wed. Mike was even granted permission to construct a little cabin as their home, which but added to this happy union.

Like her husband, Habeebee’s name had also been Anglicized. She was given the Greek name Phoebe by her master, which my father said was as close as the English language could get to the West African Muslims’ use of the phrase Yaum Habeebee, the beloved day of Jumah (the Islamic day of congregational prayer). In English, this day corresponds with Friday. Thus, the West African Muslims had been, quite fond of naming their girls Habeebee who were born on the day of Friday (Jumah).

During their precious few moments alone, in their own little cabin, Mike often insisted that Phoebe further enlighten him on the great history of Islam in West Africa, or—as it became known by the Arabs—Bilad As Sudan, land of the blacks. His father had given him some secondhand knowledge of it, but being that Phoebe’s parents had been Muslims in that area, he knew she possessed superior knowledge on the subject. She told him of how Islam arrived there through North African Muslims and how the indigenous West African converts soon took up the banner of teaching Islam themselves, which eventually led to the development of some of the most intellectual and commercial centers in the world.⁵

Continuing, Daddy said that "although Mike knew of the great University of Sankore at Timbuktu, ⁶ I can but imagine the delight Mike must have felt as Phoebe intimated the great Hajj (Pilgrimage) of Mansa Musa from Mali in 1324 to Mecca. Laden with gold from the bounteous gold mines of his kingdom, his gifts of gold devalued the currency of every nation he passed, especially Egypt.

As she continued to talk in the late hours of the night, she told him about the great Islamic city-states of Timbuktu, Goa, Jenne, Walata, and the seven Hausa city-states that comprised the great lands of the blacks. But what amazed Mike II even more was when she told him that of all the wealth there which was derived from the Trans-Sahara trade route in salt from North Africa and gold from West Africa, books eventually became the greatest source of trade. Daddy’s face seemed to have gleamed with light as he repeated this very important point. That’s right, son. According to Phoebe, during the golden age of West Africa (twelfth through the sixteenth centuries), the regard for knowledge was so great that books actually became the most valuable commodity of Bilad As Sudan, (land of the blacks).⁷

Phoebe was elated at how Mike II listened to her and how he seemed so respectful and protective. His deep love and devotion resonated into action and gave her a great sense of security in an otherwise hostile environment.

Though Mike and Phoebe had their own cabin, they were still slaves on different plantations with daily slave duties on their respective plantations. Admittedly difficult, they nonetheless were happy and even more so now that their children were coming to birth. The first child, a beautiful girl named Eliza was born in 1812, followed by the second child, Mike, in 1813, ⁸ their first boy child. This boy, Mike III, was particularly important to his father in that he would be the direct heir apparent to his father, who would inherit the awesome duty of preserving the Islamic religion within the family.

Strong, alert, and quite intelligent, Mike III, under his father’s tutelage, soon became literate in the English language, like his fathers before him. Of course, they had brought a high level of erudition with them from Africa, where—as mentioned earlier—their family had been some of the chief Islamic scholars on both the paternal and maternal sides in both the Horn of Africa and in West Africa. In line with such an intellectual background, it was no surprise that they would soon learn reading and writing in the language of their new land. In this regard, I remember my father saying that if they had been scholars in their native languages, it holds that in time they would rise to that same level in the lingua franca of their new environment. Besides, a change in language does not eradicate the burning desire for learning which had for hundreds of years characterized our family. Later, William J. Edwards lent credence to this characterization of the Carmichael family in his description of his grandfather, James Carmichael, the brother of Mike III. Thus, in Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt, Edwards wrote, My grandfather could read and write. I know not where he learned such.⁹

Like his father before him, Mike II would sneak off with his young son, Mike III, from public view to perform the daily prayers. The elder Mike had been instructed by his father to diligently seek to keep his elder son with him during his daily activities. Ordinarily, in cases of slaves living on different plantations, the children lived on and worked the plantation of the mother’s master. As a persuasive communicator and firm believer in Allah, Mike II, like his father before him, approached his master on how beneficial it would be for both masters if he was allowed to train his son in the various trades he performed on both plantations. After Mike convinced both masters of the prudence of his proposal, they both consented, thus opening the door for Mike II to teach his heir apparent the religion of Islam as his father before him had done. Thus, he continued the clandestine method of the transmission of Islam within the Carmichael family as established by Mike I.

When Mike II was at home with Phoebe and the children, they would perform the night prayers, often combining Maghrib (after sunset prayer) with Isha (night prayer). They would also combine the Dhur prayer (midday) and Asr (afternoon) prayers together, or when they were unable to perform them on time, they would perform them as Kaza (make up) prayers. Then as Phoebe and the children slept at night, in addition to these obligatory prayers, Mike II would often awaken to perform the Tahajjud (non-obligatory prayer between midnight and daybreak) and Witr prayer (nonobligatory night prayer). Of course, at dawn, before their day began, they would perform the Fajr prayer, (first prayer of the day, at daybreak). These commands of the religion of Islam were extremely arduous under slavery, but they never forgot and always made the very best effort possible to stay within the boundaries of Islam.

Perhaps the most difficult religious obligation for them, besides Hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca, was the fast of Ramadan and the general Islamic diet. But since Mike had been granted a small lot to grow his own garden, he was able to provide his family with fresh vegetables and avoided the eating of pork and all meats since there existed no way of securing halal meats. Of course, this became very difficult because most slave masters seemed to have insisted the slaves eat pork, a refusal of which, like alcohol consumption on holidays, ¹⁰ seemed to suggest such Africans were Mohammedans, a way of life that had to be eliminated among all slaves, in the minds of their white slave owners.

When young Mike III was seven years old, something sad took place that would change his life in regards to his father. It was a sadness that all slaves feared and an eventuality far more likely than not under the cruel bayonets of American slavery. As John Hope Franklin wrote, Most slaves were sold one time or another during their lifetime. And as he further explained, Seldom were they sold together in family units… Thus, in the year of 1820, Phoebe’s master decided to sell his plantation and move to the state of Alabama, a state that entered the union just one year earlier in 1819. Further, such territory, with its suitability to cotton cultivation and the prior invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793, all combined to invigorate the demand for slaves west of the Atlantic seaboard states. This was, indeed, according to my father, the beginning of that great westward expansion of the United States, with the desired expansion of slavery at its very core.

Mike II tried everything possible to convince Phoebe’s master to buy him in that he might remain with his family. His efforts failed, mostly because Mike’s master was reluctant to sell a slave as proficient as Mike, who had distinguished himself as a master of most leading trades at the time, combined with a great knowledge of the then-modern concepts of farming. He had further gained a high degree of respect from both blacks and whites in the area, who frequently sought his advice on many matters.

Thus, Mike, like so many other slaves, was separated from his family. However, he did not give up and promised his wife that he would find some way to come to her and the children.¹¹ As the history of the Carmichael family would later reveal, he fulfilled his promise to his wife.¹² An articulate man, he persuaded his master to allow him to hire himself out to different plantations for pay after he had completed his daily labor on his master’s plantation so that he could purchase his freedom. In fact, a price of $1,900 was agreed upon, and Mike II set out to accomplish his task in that he could eventually reunite with his family.¹³

Holding on to the Faith

My father often talked about those early days when Mike was separated from his family. He explained how he worked both day and night to purchase his freedom so that he could begin the journey of finding them. Foremost in his thoughts, however, was how could he practice his religion (Islam) and ensure its preservation within the family through his children, especially Mike III. Yet with no Islamic precedence for a condition such as slavery in America, he often pondered on, the proper course for a Muslim under such circumstances.

According to Daddy, "Mike II seriously questioned himself as to how he was to adjust to these new conditions without exceeding the boundaries of Allah. As a scholar of Islam, he was aware of the concept of ijtihad, ¹⁴ or serious intellectual deduction by the Ulama (Islamic scholars) to determine the proper course of action in cases not clearly expounded upon by the Quran and Sunnah (practices of Prophet Muhammad).

Similarly, he was familiar with the concept of Taqiyah, common among Shiites, whereas one hides his religion if, by exposing it, he places himself in grave danger. Suicide, as he understood from the Quran and Sunnah, was haram (forbidden), and that was exactly what he would have been doing had he openly confessed his faith. He had also read in Islamic history about the case of a Muslim of the first generation, named Ammar ibn Yasir, whose mother and father lost their lives at the hands of the Quraish because they would not deny Islam. Later, when the same demand was put upon Ammar by the Quraish, to save his life, he verbally renounced Islam. However, after he was able to flee to Medina, he went to Prophet Muhammad in a penitent mood and described his plight. He asked the prophet if he was still a Muslim if he had outwardly rejected Islam under such duress, yet clinging inwardly to faith. The prophet answered in the affirmative and welcomed Ammar into the Muslim family.¹⁵

Mike was not a Shiite but, under such circumstances, he had to find an Islamic basis for his actions. He reflected upon and even found other Quranic sources upon which he based the legality of Taqiyah, ¹⁶ including the following verse of the Holy Quran, which was actually revealed to the prophet after Ammar’s plight: "Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in preference to believers. Whoso does that has no connection with Allah unless it be that ye guard yourselves against them (tattaqu, from the same root as Taqiyah) taking as it were security. Allah bids you beware only of Himself. Unto Allah is the journeying (Quran 3:27). In another place, Allah says, Whoso disbelieves in Allah after his belief—save him who is forced thereto and whose heart is still content with Faith—but who finds ease in disbelief. On them is wrath from Allah. Theirs will be an awful doom" (Quran, 16:106).¹⁷

On the other hand, Mike recalled the situation of the Ethiopian convert named Bilal ibn Rabah (may Allah be pleased with him), who was a slave in Mecca during the time of the advent of Muhammad’s prophet-hood. Bilal was severely tortured by the disbelievers for his conversion to Islam. In fact, it has been recorded that hot stones were placed upon his chest, yet he still refused to denounce Islam. Instead, as his torture intensified, he continued to say in Arabic, There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger, which is the testimony of faith in Islam. When the persecution became almost unbearable, instead of denouncing Islam, in a near-completely exhausted voice, he simply said, Ahad, which is the attribute of Allah, meaning one god.

Amid such perplexities, Mike further recalled that Islamic history, and indeed, human history in general provided no precedent for such a situation as that of slavery in America. For, never had such a large number of people been uprooted from their native lands, subjected to as severe physical oppression as African slaves in America, nor the victims of such a system, as it was, aimed at the very dehumanization of the slaves. Such efforts to achieve the denial of the black man’s humanity, as Mike saw it, went hand and hand with the oppressor’s attempt to de-Islamicize the African slaves. For, as we will see later, many of the slave masters had come to view Islam as the only testimony to these African slaves’ humanity.¹⁸

Thus, Mike did not just want a physical survival but one with his culture, Islam, intact. Therefore, he reasoned that the application of ijtihad rested upon his shoulders. He further knew that if the white man knew what was in his mind, Mike—as Father said—would have certainly lost his life. Hence, as his father before him had practiced, he likewise assessed that Taqiyah was indispensable to the survival of Islam among the African Muslim slaves. For, it was our Islamic background in Spain and Portugal and West Africa that made Caucasians clearly aware of the superiority of black civilizations to that of their own. Indeed, they further knew that it was us who taught them science, mathematics, agriculture, government, music, and all the necessary knowledge to build a civilization. But most important, they and their forebears had experienced fierce African Muslim warriors in the Crusades, throughout Europe during the Middle Ages, and even as leaders of some of the most successful slave revolts in the Americas.¹⁹

Although an adherent of the Shafi School of Islamic jurisprudence, Mike II had very high regards for the Hanafi school of thought. Founded by Abu Hanafi (d. AD 767), Hanafi had been greatly influenced by the views of Imam Ali Ibn Abu Talib through Hanafi’s association with two of Imam Ali’s great-grandsons. Father listed these men as Imam Jafar Saddiq and Imam Musa Kazim.²⁰ I remember Daddy telling me that Mike’s appreciation for the Hanafi school also seemed to have been somewhat rooted in the long established influence of Persian civilization upon East Africa, but he never went into detail on that matter.²¹

Mike was not alone regarding his practical approach and application of Islam to his newfound circumstances in the west. As I later learned, many other Muslim slaves found themselves in a similar situation. Men like Ibrahima Abdur Rahman of the Natchez area of Mississippi, known as the Prince; Lamine Kebe, the first Sub-Sahara African to be quoted in an American professional journal, who had also been a slave in South Carolina and Alabama; Omar ibn Said of Fayetteville, North Carolina, and many others.

Many of these African Muslim slaves, I later learned, had feigned conversion to Christianity while secretly holding on to Islam. As Charles Jones has discerned, The religion of the descendants of the Africans who were brought to the western world as slaves has been something less and something more than what is generally regarded as Christianity. The eyewitness accounts provided by Presbyterian Reverend Charles Jones, a prominent missionary during the first part of the nineteenth century, is especially revealing in this regard. According to Jones, As far as Christ is concerned, some of the slaves had heard of someone by that name but did not know who he was or were inclined to identify him with Muhammad, the prophet of Allah. Then