在南北戰爭之前，估計15%-30%的黑人奴隸是穆斯林。那時已經有齋戒的記錄，但卻違背白人規定的法律。
This
weekend marks the beginning of Ramadan. Nearly one-fourth of the world will
observe the annual fast and eight million Muslims in
the United States will abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset
during the holy month. A gruelling task at any time of the year, Ramadan
this year will be especially daunting during the long and hot summer days.
Islam
in America is rapidly expanding. It is the fastest-growing religion in the
nation, and the second most
practiced faith in twenty states. These demographic shifts prompted a prominent Los
Angeles-based imam to comment, "Ramadan is a new
American tradition." The cleric's forward-looking pronouncement
marks Islam's recent arrival in the US. However, this statement reveals a
pathology afflicting a lot of Muslim Americans today - an inability to look
back and embrace the opening chapters of Muslim American history written by
enslaved African Muslims.
Social scientists estimate
that 15 to 30 percent, or, "[a]s many as 600,000 to 1.2 million slaves"
in antebellum America (南北戰爭前) were Muslims. 46 percent of the slaves in the antebellum South were kidnapped
from Africa's western regions, which boasted "significant numbers of
Muslims".
These enslaved Muslims strove to meet the demands of their faith,
most notably the Ramadan fast, prayers, and community meals, in the face of comprehensive slave
codes that linked religious activity to insubordination and rebellion. Marking
Ramadan as a "new American tradition" not only overlooks the holy
month observed by enslaved Muslims many years ago, but also perpetuates their
erasure from Muslim-American history.
Between
Sunnah and slave codes
Although
the Quran "[a]llows a believer to abstain from fasting if he or she is far
from home or involved in strenuous work," many enslaved Muslims
demonstrated transcendent piety by choosing to fast while bonded. In addition
to abstaining from food and drink, enslaved Muslims
held holy month prayers in slave quarters, and put together iftars
- meals at sundown to break the fast - that brought observing Muslims together.
These prayers and iftars violated slave codes restricting assembly of
any kind.
For
instance, the Virginia Slave Code of 1723 considered the assembly of five
slaves as an "unlawful and tumultuous meeting", convened to plot
rebellion attempts. Every state in the south codified similar laws barring
slave assemblages, which disparately impacted enslaved African Muslims
observing the Holy Month.
Therefore, practicing Islam and observing Ramadan and its
fundamental rituals, for enslaved Muslims in antebellum America, necessitated
the violation of slave codes. This exposed them to barbaric punishment, injury, and oftentimes, even
death. However, the courage to observe the holy month
while bonded, and in the face of grave risk, highlights the supreme piety of
many enslaved Muslims.
Ramadan was widely observed by enslaved Muslims. Yet, this history
is largely ignored by Muslim American leaders and laypeople alike - and erased
from the modern Muslim American narrative.
Rewriting
the history of Ramadan in the US
Muslim America was almost entirely black during the antebellum Era. Today, it stands as the most
diverse Muslim community in the world. Today African Americans comprise a
significant part of the community
along with Muslims of South Asian and Arab descent. Latin Americans are a rapidly growing
demographic in the community, ensuring that Muslims in America
are a microcosm of their home nation's overall multiculturalism.
In
the US today, Ramadan dinner tables are sure to include staple Arab or
Pakistani dishes. Yet, many Muslim Americans will break the fast with tortas
and tamales, halal meatloaf and greens. Muslim
diversity in the US has reshaped Ramadan into a multicultural American
tradition. The breadth of Muslim America's racial and cultural diversity
today is unprecedented, making this year's Ramadan - and the Ramadans to follow
- new in terms of how transcultural and multiracial the tradition has become.
This Muslim American multiculturalism comes with many challenges:
Namely, intra-racism, Arab supremacy, and anti-black racism prevents cohesion
inside and outside of American mosques. These deplorable trends perpetuate the erasure of the
Muslim slave narrative. Integrating this history will not only mitigate racism
and facilitate Muslim American cohesion, but also reveal the deep-rootedness of
the faith, and its holiest month, on US soil.
This
Ramadan honouring the memory of the first Muslim Americans and their struggle
for freedom and sharing their story with loved ones at the iftar table,
seems an ideal step towards rewriting this missing chapter of Muslim American
history into our collective consciousness.
Khaled
A Beydoun is the Critical Race Studies Teaching Fellow at the UCLA School of
Law.
Follow
him on Twitter: @KhaledBeydoun
The
views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily
reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
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