Look at the Omar Ibn Said collection at the Library of Congress, and watch the film Prince Among Slaves about another enslaved African Muslim in America. I would like you to post a reflection of about 2 pages on what you have learned from the film.You can write in first person (“I think that…”), and discuss issues you found interesting or surprising in the film. Do not summarize the film. Instead, you could talk about what you thought of the film. What did you learn from it? Was there anything in the Omar Ibn Said collection or the course readings to date that you could connect to the film? Did it change your thinking at all about Islam and Muslims, or about the history of Muslims in America? Please upload this as a word document
Omar Ibn Said Collection: https://www.loc.gov/resource/amedsaid1831.dw027/?sp=1&r=-0.69,-0.026,2.38,1.39,0
Omar ibn Said was born in present-day Senegal in Futa Toro, a region along the Middle Senegal River in West Africa, to a wealthy family. He was an Islamic scholar and a Fula who spent 25 years of his life studying with prominent Muslim scholars, learning subjects ranging from arithmetic to theology in Africa. In 1807, he was captured during a military conflict, enslaved and taken across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States. He escaped from a cruel master in Charleston, South Carolina, and journeyed to Fayetteville, North Carolina. There he was recaptured and later sold to James Owen. Said lived into his mid-nineties and was still enslaved at the time of his death in 1864. He was buried in Bladen County, North Carolina. Omar ibn Sa’id was also known as Uncle Moreau and Prince Omeroh.
Omar ibn Said describing his two slave masters
Although Omar was converted to Christianity on December 3, 1820, there are dedications to Muhammad written in his Bible, and a card dated 1857 on which he wrote Surat An-Nasr, a short sura which refers to the conversion of non-Muslims to Islam ‘in multitudes.’ The back of this card contains another person’s handwriting in English misidentifying the sura as the Lord’s Prayer and attesting to Omar’s status as a good Christian. Additionally, while others writing on Omar’s behalf identified him as a Christian, his own autobiography and other writings offer more of an ambiguous position.