A compelling and illuminating call for recognizing America’s earliest Muslims.
A work of historical criticism advocates a thorough investigation of Islam’s impact on U.S. slavery.
Most people probably don’t associate American slaves with Islam. But as Karim explains in his debut book, Islam was an influential force within Africa and a continuing presence in the lives of many African American slaves. “The study of African Muslim slaves and their impact upon the various aspects of slave culture, African-American and American culture in general, has remained wanting,” writes the author in his introduction, arguing that ignoring this area of history simplifies African American identity and reinforces Orientalist notions of a clear divide between East and West. After offering an account of the way that various figures within academia have been receptive or hostile to investigating the Islamic faith among some American slaves, Karim goes into a history of the religion in Africa and its state at the time of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. He then profiles three known Muslim slaves in America: Job Ben Solomon (Ayyub bin Suleiman), who was born in Senegal and ended up in Maryland; ’Abd al-Rahman Ibrahima, a nobleman from Guinea who was known as “the Prince of Natchez” during his time in Mississippi; and Ben Ali (Salih Bilali), born in Mali and transported to Georgia. By examining their narratives and highlighting their relationships to their faith, the author sheds light on a long-overlooked corner of the American experience. Karim concludes the book by examining the complex place Islam holds in American life today, within the black community and outside of it. Islam continues to be depicted as a boogeyman by Donald Trump and his political allies even as opponents of the president who wish to counter that narrative hold up Muslims as increasingly valued participants in American life. The author’s prose is scholarly without being dry, and during the slave narratives, in particular, he reveals himself to be an adept storyteller: “We also know that he wore a fez and long coat in the style of Muslims in Africa and fasted in Ramadan. He had at least twelve sons and seven daughters, all of whom bore Islamic names. He was a powerful and inspiring man, whose capabilities were recognised by his owner, Thomas Spalding.” Karim successfully weaves a number of historical trends together, from Yarrow Mamout to Muhammad Ali to 9/11 to Khizr Khan, showing how often Islam has been seen by its practitioners and opponents as something at odds with the American status quo. The author’s perspective is fairly Islamocentric, and he is perhaps more interested in establishing the existence of a Muslim tradition within the U.S. than in, say, resurrecting the backgrounds of these slaves for the mere sake of accuracy or multiculturalism. While Karim makes no pretense of objectivity, his arguments are persuasive and expose a significant hole in the mainstream view of American slavery. History fans of all backgrounds should be intrigued to learn of the surprises and complexities still hidden in this nation’s past.
A compelling and illuminating call for recognizing America’s earliest Muslims.Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-912892-23-5
Page Count: 258
Publisher: Diptote Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Problematic structure aside, a comprehensive history of Latin America's largest country.
A thoroughly documented scholarly treatise on Brazilian history.
In the first of two volumes spanning 500 years of Brazilian history, Hufferd focuses on the first 300 years of colonization in the northeast region. Portugal was seeking to build maritime trade to compete successfully with archrival Spain and to retain its national identity. The colony expanded westward from a number of large tracts of lands called captaincies, granted by Portuguese monarchs to wealthy royal favorites in return for profits gained through trade, breeding cattle and other ventures. These captaincies eventually gained the status of states, including São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Mato Grasso, Manaus and Amazonia. Over subsequent decades, enterprising adventurers and explorers from these captaincies ventured inland, establishing sugar mills, cultivating grazing land and extracting gold, silver and precious gems. All ventures were highly labor-intensive, requiring massive amounts of manpower driven by slaves from Africa and native tribes. In the second volume, Hufferd focuses on the final 200 years of Brazil's rapid industrialization. After the Portuguese monarchy was forced to relocate its base from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, it became the fulcrum of a delicate political system within the new country. The social and political structure favored privileged hereditary landowners, even after the last reigning Emperor Pedro II was deposed amidst strong republican sentiment. Continuing the narrative through 2000, Hufferd chronicles upheavals most often caused by the chronic underdevelopment of existing resources, as the landowners maintained authority over the land, to the detriment of the black, mulatto and tribal segments of Brazilian society, who remained disenfranchised until recent years. In each volume, the author illustrates his vast knowledge of the topic, and he weaves political, economic, social and biographical threads throughout the panoramic narrative. While the expansive footnotes demonstrate impeccable research, they eventually hinder the narrative flow, requiring endless paging back and forth–the dissertation-style format ultimately detracts from the book's impact.
Problematic structure aside, a comprehensive history of Latin America's largest country.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2006
ISBN: 1-4208-0278-X, Vol.
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
At 91, Spock (Dr. Spock on Parenting, 1988, etc.) offers his twilight thoughts on American society—and they're not happy ones. Although Spock's jabs come from the political left, his diagnosis is not unlike that of social conservatives like William Bennett. Among his points: The unraveling of family cohesiveness is a major cause of the country's social ills; there is a ``progressive coarsening of the society's attitude toward love and sexuality, which is further cheapened and exploited by television, films and popular music.'' But Spock also argues for better day-care facilities so that single motherhood needn't sentence both parent and child to poverty. He also discusses racial and gender discrimination. At heart, the old doctor is battling against a bottom-line, instrumental valuation of human life, an obsession with material riches rather than an appreciation of emotional richness.
Pub Date: Sept. 19, 1994
ISBN: 1-882605-12-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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