I Cannot Write My Life: Islam, Arabic, and Slavery in Omar ibn Said's America - Mbaye Lo and Carl Ernst
When:
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM CT
Where: 620 Library Place, 620 Library Place , Evanston, IL 60208 map it
Audience: Faculty/Staff - Student - Public - Post Docs/Docs - Graduate Students
Contact:
Rebecca Shereikis
(847) 491-2598
Group: Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA)
Co-Sponsor:
Program of African Studies
Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities
Category: Academic, Lectures & Meetings, Religious, Multicultural & Diversity, Global & Civic Engagement
Description:
A talk by Mbaye Lo and Carl Ernst about their recent book, I Cannot Write My Life: Islam, Arabic, and Slavery in Omar ibn Said's America (University of North Carolina Press, 2023).
You may join the talk in person (lunch will be served) or by Zoom at https://tinyurl.com/yz63k5sh. Please register in advance if participating on Zoom.
About the book: Omar ibn Said (1770–1863) was a Muslim scholar from West Africa who spent more than fifty years enslaved in the North Carolina household of James Owen, brother of Governor John Owen. In 1831 Omar composed a brief autobiography, the only known narrative written in Arabic by an enslaved person in North America, and he became famous for his Arabic writings. His enslavers also provided him with an Arabic Bible and claimed Omar as a convert to Christianity, prompting wonder and speculation among amateur scholars of Islam, white slave owners, and missionaries. But these self-proclaimed experts were unable or unwilling to understand Omar's writings, and his voice was suppressed for two centuries.
In this book, Mbaye Lo and Carl W. Ernst weave fresh and accurate translations of Omar's eighteen surviving writings, for the first time identifying his quotations from Islamic theological texts, correcting many distortions, and providing the fullest possible account of his life and significance. Placing Omar at the center of a broader network of the era's literary and religious thought, Lo and Ernst restore Omar's voice, his sophisticated engagement with Islamic and Christian theologies, his Arabic skills, and his extraordinary efforts to express himself and exert agency despite his enslavement.
Mbaye Lo is associate professor of the practice of Asian and Middle Eastern studies and international comparative studies at Duke University. Carl W. Ernst is William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Co-sponsored by the Program of African Studies and by the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities as part of its SOVEREIGNTIES Dialogue.