Omar ibn Said: The Scholar Who Refused to Be Forgotten
In the haunting portrait of Omar ibn Said, photographer Laylah Amatullah Barrayn found a profound connection that transcended time. The image shows an elderly Black man with gray hair and a beard, wrapped in traditional West African garments, his dignified gaze piercing through nearly two centuries. This remarkable visual document, believed to be the only surviving photograph of an enslaved Muslim scholar in America, captivated Barrayn immediately. “I felt like he was speaking to me,” she recalls. The portrait reveals a man of extraordinary resilience—an Islamic scholar born in present-day Senegal around 1770, who was captured and enslaved in 1807 before being transported to Charleston, South Carolina. Despite the brutal erasure of his identity, Said maintained his faith and intellectual pursuits, leaving behind fifteen manuscripts in Arabic, including an autobiography that stands as the only known surviving slave narrative written in Arabic by an enslaved person in the Americas.
Omar ibn Said’s story represents just one thread in the rich tapestry of African Muslims whose presence shaped American history from its earliest days. Historians estimate that between 15 and 30 percent of Africans enslaved in the Americas practiced Islam, bringing with them sophisticated intellectual traditions, literacy, and cultural practices that persisted despite systematic attempts to obliterate their identities. Many, like Said, were scholars, merchants, and community leaders before their capture. Their struggle to maintain religious practices and cultural connections formed a powerful act of resistance against the dehumanizing forces of slavery. Contemporary photographers like Barrayn are now working to illuminate these hidden histories, creating visual narratives that connect present-day Muslim American communities with their deep historical roots on this continent. Through careful research and creative vision, these artists are challenging the persistent myth that Islam is somehow “foreign” to America, revealing instead its central place in the nation’s complex heritage.
The erasure of African Muslims from American historical consciousness was no accident. While Said’s own writings demonstrate his continued adherence to Islamic practice throughout his life in captivity, Christian missionaries attempted to claim him as a convert, even publishing manipulated translations of his Arabic manuscripts. This pattern of erasure and appropriation extended well beyond individual cases, becoming a systematic aspect of how enslaved people’s identities were suppressed. The deliberate destruction of cultural connections served the ideological purposes of the slave system, making it easier to portray enslaved Africans as lacking civilization or religious sophistication. Yet despite these efforts, evidence of Muslim presence and practice persisted—in Arabic writings hidden away, in prayer practices maintained in secret, in names and linguistic patterns that survived through generations, and in cultural traditions that blended with other influences but retained their essential character.
Today, artists and scholars are engaged in a vital act of historical recovery, using both traditional research methods and creative interpretation to bring these hidden histories into public consciousness. Photographers like Barrayn create portraits of contemporary Muslim Americans in ways that visually echo historical figures like Said, drawing threads of connection between past and present. Writers and historians examine archival materials with fresh eyes, finding evidence of Muslim presence where previous generations of scholars overlooked or misinterpreted the signs. Community organizations work to preserve oral histories and family memories that contain fragments of this legacy. Together, these efforts constitute a powerful challenge to simplified narratives about American religious history that have traditionally centered European Christian traditions while marginalizing others. By recovering the stories of African Muslims in early America, this work reveals a more complex and multicultural foundation to American society than is typically acknowledged.
The significance of this historical recovery extends far beyond academic interest. For contemporary Muslim Americans—particularly those who are Black—connecting with figures like Omar ibn Said provides a profound sense of belonging and historical continuity in a society that often questions their place. These histories disrupt the false dichotomy that positions Islam and American identity as somehow incompatible, revealing instead how Muslim presence and practice have been woven into the American experience from its earliest days. The portrait of Omar ibn Said becomes not just a historical artifact but a powerful symbol of resilience and cultural persistence against overwhelming odds. His ability to maintain his religious identity and intellectual pursuits while enslaved speaks to the profound strength of spiritual conviction and cultural attachment. His gaze across the centuries challenges viewers to recognize the full humanity of those whom history has too often reduced to statistics or stereotypes.
As America continues to grapple with questions of belonging, identity, and historical truth, the recovery of figures like Omar ibn Said offers valuable lessons about the diverse foundations of American society. His story reminds us that America has always been a place of religious plurality, even when dominant narratives attempted to impose uniformity. It demonstrates how marginalized people maintained dignity and identity even within systems designed to strip them of both. And it reveals how historical erasure serves specific power interests—while historical recovery can be an act of justice and healing. The portrait that so moved Barrayn continues to speak across time, not just as a record of one remarkable man, but as a testament to the countless others whose names and faces were not preserved, but whose contributions and resistance shaped the nation in ways we are only beginning to fully understand. In reclaiming these histories, we create the possibility of an American identity capacious enough to recognize and honor all the traditions that have formed it.
