alhamdulillah alaykum which is a
greeting of peace peace be unto you
thank you for tuning into another
episode of the dean show we are here
trying to help you understand Islam and
Muslims now my next guest who is coming
out in a minute he's been with us before
he has a special section at theen
show.com you can hear his story and how
he embraced Islam amongst other talk
topics that we've done with him now we
are going to be talking about Muslims in
America American history with Muslims
now just to note we're going to be using
the word Islam by now many viewers
who've been with us you know what this
word means simply surrender submission
obedience doing all this sincerely to
the one God the one God who created the
Sun the moon and everything in this
universe and that's easily summed up
with one word in Arabic which is Islam
and a Muslim is one who does this action
the action of submitting and
surrendering sincerely being obedient to
the one God who created everything in
this universe it's much easier summed up
one word Muslim how long have these
Muslims who Implement Islam been in
America and that's what our next guest
Dr Jerald Dirks is going to help answer
when we come back here in the dean show
you don't want to go nowhere
[Music]
Allah there's only one God and muham is
his messenger
Allah
Allah there's only one God and Jesus was
his messenger
Allah I don't know why I did that maybe
maybe it's just a break the ice assalam
alayum and peace and the mercy of God be
upon you and you too my brother how are
you good good it's good to have you with
us here on the dean show we' covered
quite a few topics with you before for
those of our viewers who don't know who
you are just take a minute and tell us a
little bit about
yourself well uh I converted to Islam in
1993 did the Hajj pilgrimage in
1999 prior to that uh I'd practiced for
a number of years as a psychotherapist I
have a doctorate in Clinical Psychology
but before that uh I was an ordained
minister of the United Methodist Church
having received a master of divinity
degree from Harvard Divinity
School did Christopher columbas discover
America or the Muslims discover America
let's talk let's talk about this history
with Muslims in America well it's kind
of ironic to say someone discovered
America when American Indians were
already
here um
but this issue of Muslims and American
history is is a very important issue and
why why is this so important well let me
illustrate it with a story uh it was a
year before 911 yes and my wife and I
were standing at our local Midwestern
Airport located right on the Buckle of
the Bible Belt waiting for our luggage
to come down the conveyor belt and a
Gentleman across the way oh maybe 20 ft
30 ft away having to glance on over and
he saw my long unruly beard and he saw
my wife wearing her scarf and her long
outer
garment and he did sort of a double take
I noticed out of the corner of my eye
and then over the course of the next
five minutes he sort of slowly meandered
across the space until he was standing
right next to me and at that point he
turned to me and he said where are you
from and I said well climb from 35 Mi
north of here and he said no no no no no
I mean where are you from
originally and I said well I was born 30
miles north of here and I that sort of a
puzzled confused look crossed his face
and he started to turn and walk away and
then you could just see the light bulb
going on over his head and he turned
back to me with this look of Triumph on
his face pointed to my wife and said
well where is she
from and I said well you know she was
born 40 miles north of year you see what
he was trying to do brother he had
correctly identified us as being Muslims
and because he had made that
identification he was going to rob us of
our American identity and our American
Heritage and in doing so he was
reflecting a myth that is very very
common amongst the American public and
that is is that
Muslims came first to America in the
latter half of the 20th century that
somehow Muslims are johnnyc lately's on
the American scene the truth of the
matter however is far far different than
that we Muslims have been here long
before the latter half of the 20th
century we Muslims help tame and settle
the American Wild West in the latter
half of the 19th century we Muslims
fought to reserve the union and the
American Civil War Between 1861 and
1865 we Muslims stood armed and ready to
defend the American Coastline from
British Invasion in the War of
1812 we Muslims fought to secure
American independence from Great Britain
during the American Revolutionary War we
Muslims built the agricultural base of
the American C South long before there
ever was a United States of
America we Muslims were here in the
early part of the 17th century in the
British colony at Jamestown we Muslims
were here in the latter part of the 16th
century in the Spanish colonies we
Muslims were here with the Spanish
conquistadors in the early part of the
1500s we Muslims were here with Columbus
in
1492 and yes we Muslims even though this
is a little controversial we Muslims
were here long before Christopher
Columbus ever thought of coming to
America amazing tell us now I want to
just go backwards at the airport you
were doing nothing mining your own
business but was it because now we see a
lot of Muslims and we addressed this in
previous shows the beard so you had the
you said the ruly beard the long unruly
beard and now your wife wearing the
scarf which if you look back a with the
beard in any picture that is betrayed of
supposedly Jesus he has a beard doesn't
he and most of them pictures of a miss a
youth obviously do not or most of even
if you look at the Ten Commandments with
Moses he had a beard didn't he well
that's how artists how they represent
him and if you look back to some of the
modest women if you look at who
supposedly Jesus's mother what they have
portrayed of in picture you will see her
wearing the the headscarf sure many of
the righteous women you'll see them pres
preserving their modesty wearing this
and that's all that's correct you know
so this was just amazing now tell us
continue on how come most of us we don't
really get to know this this is a shock
to a lot of people that are listening
you know why is this well it's because
knowledge is so compartmentalized MH
unless you read Arabic or have access to
someone who reads Arabic and you go back
to these very early Arabic books you
won't find this information but if you
do go back and you read Arabic or have
access to someone who reads Arabic you
go back to these early books you find
that there were a number of voyages from
the Muslim world to the Americas long
before Columbus in fact the earliest of
these was kashkash iban SED iban asswad
who sailed from Muslim Andalusia which
is now Spain Portugal in the year
889
600 years before Columbus sailing west
across the Atlantic discovering a new
land apparently islands in the Caribbean
and sailing back to Andalusia about a
hundred years later ibben faruko in the
year 999 made a similar Voyage from
Muslim Andalusia to the new world you
said ibben what does that mean for Son
of son of yeah son of faruko son of
faruko that would be his father okay
yeah and then uh Al adrii famous Muslim
geographer and Scientific Advisor to the
king of Sicily uh in the uh 12th century
wrote about a group of eight Muslim
Sailors that sailed West across the
Atlantic uh from Muslim Andalusia or
Spain
Portugal arrived at two new
islands hither to unknown to them and uh
there they were captured by American
Indians and held captive for a few days
and after 2 or 3 days another Indian
came who served as translator between
the Indians and these Muslims from
Andalusia and he arranged for their
release and they went back to uh
Andalusia now the the important thing in
this story is to stop and think for a
moment wait a minute there's an American
Indian who can serve as translator
there's an American Indian who has had
enough contact with Muslims that he can
speak Arabic and serve as a translator M
uh so so we have these stories from uh
written in very early Arabic books
detailing these three voyages from
Muslim
Andalusia but it's not just for Muslim
Andalusia it's also from what today we
call Morocco for example uh shik Zay
Adin Ali iben F Al Masari sailed West
from Morocco across the Atlantic in the
year 1291 reached the new world and
perhaps the most impressive of all is
sailing from West Africa the mandinka
kingdom of
Mali uh around the year
1310 The Sultan or king of that Empire
named Abu bakari sent two Expeditions
west across the
Atlantic now Columbus sailed in 1492
with three ships the Nina the pent and
the Santa Maria
from what is documented in the ancient
Arabic books Abu bakari set two fleets
which together totaled 2,200 ships mhm
so this was a huge amount of Men Moving
west across the Atlantic and we know
they reached the Americas they never
returned but we know they reached the
Americas because there is a South
American Indian tribe which even to
today uses mandinka
idiograms as their form of written
communication there's a North American
Indian tribe whose syllabus of words was
written down by a Moravian missionary in
the mid
1700s and when modern linguists look at
that syllabus they discovered a large
number of those words are mande the
language of the mandinka of Western
Africa so they obviously made it to the
Americas explored parts of South America
and North America inter married with the
American Indian tribes and gradually
their history was lost but they were
here and they were here almost two
centuries before
Columbus so yes we Muslims were here
before Columbus you mentioned that if
you don't have access to some of the
Arabic uh books on history or do you
find this in some of the uh history
writings here in America like when you
were attending University at Harvard
will you see this information there no
no this sort of information again is too
compartmentalized uh people who are
writing about American history typically
don't read Arabic yeah um the person who
did the pioneering work on uh Muslims in
America before Columbus was uh Dr
Abdullah Hakim quick yeah who is fluent
in Arabic uh and who has a PHD in
history by the way so he he went and
looked at this authentic information and
this was documented and now anybody who
is a a sincere historian now he can take
from this work that he's done yeah it's
uh it's beginning to receive some notice
okay so let's go back to what we said
why is it so important to say for the
Muslim youth to know this history
crucial for the Muslim youth to know
this history or not even just a Muslim
youth for Americans in general well
crucial for them to realize that Muslims
have been here all along and that
Muslims have made contributions to
America all along but especially for the
second generation of Muslims in America
this is a most important piece of
information because as they hit
adolescence they're struggling to
develop their own sense of
identity establishing their National
cultural identity As Americans and
establishing their religious identity as
Muslims and when you meet or confronted
by this sort of bias that says well if
you're a Muslim you obviously can't be
an American yeah that creates Conflict
for them that creates identity Conflict
for them so it's important that they
have this grounding and understanding
their own unique Heritage in America
that uh Muslims centuries before them uh
were contributing to
America tell us some more uh interesting
things that we probably didn't hear
before about some of the other
contributions that Muslims have made to
America well as I mention Muslims were
here with Columbus in his epic Voyage in
19 in
1492 amongst them uh we can point to uh
at least one Muslim who was uh Pedro
Alonzo Nino he was a Muslim from Africa
sailed with Columbus uh and helped
Charter and navigate much of the
Atlantic Ocean but three very important
people we need to point out are the
pinzone brothers and the pinzone
brothers were Mariscos now that's a term
that needs some definition most people
probably are not familiar with that term
in 1492 the Spanish Inquisition was
going on full blast and the Spanish
Inquisition targeted both Jews and
Muslims for their persecution let's stop
for there and and digress what was this
about this Spanish Inquisition just in
short Ferdinand and Isabella their
Catholic majesties of Spain had
reconquered Spain from the Muslims with
the fall of Granada in
1492 and they had received a special
bull that's the technical term from the
pope to launched the Spanish Inquisition
to force people to convert to
Christianity both Jews and Muslims a lot
of torture went on a lot of uh people
were killed in the process of doing this
both Jews and Muslims
MH at that time the Muslims in Andalusia
or Spain received a religious verdict
from scholars in North Africa that said
look if your life is threatened go ahead
and undergo a shame am conversion to
Christianity mhm and on the outward side
appear to be Christian just continue to
practice your Islam and PR this is if
you're at the sword yeah it's your neck
and your if your life is
threatened so a number of Muslims did
this MH uh and these Muslims who did
this and their descendants were known as
Mariscos so we have the three Penzone
Brothers with Columbus they're
Mariscos um now the three brothers had
very important positions in Columbus's
Expedition Martin Penzone was the
captain of the penta one of the three
ships his brother viente was captain of
the nenina the second of the three ships
and Francisco was the pilot of the penta
so three key positions in Columbus's
staff were held by Mariscos people who
had either undergone a sham conversion
or were the descendants of people who
had under on the Sham conversion to
Christianity but continued to maintain
their Islam and private in addition one
sailor that sailed with Columbus in 1492
Rodrigo di Triana who was a Christian
when he made the voyage as soon as he
got back to Spain he actually converted
to Islam which took a tremendous amount
of Courage because the Spanish
Inquisition like I say was going Full
Tilt and persecuting uh Muslims and Jews
so these are the people we know of that
sailed with Columbus uh and helped
Columbus quote unquote discover America
mhm please keep keep on going we're
really intrigued by information well and
after Columbus we had Muslims coming
with the Spanish conquistadors because
again that Spanish Inquisition was still
going on and many many Muslims
volunteered to go to the new world as a
way of escaping the Spanish
Inquisition so for example we have
Muslims in almost everyone uh of the
Spanish Expeditions uh to the New World
by The Conquistadors NLO Deano was a
Muslim who accompanied baloa in his
expedition of the Americas but probably
the most famous of these Muslims with
the Spanish conquistadors was estan of
azamor that's how you'll find his name
written in the history books and he is
famous Spanish language films have been
made about esto of Muslim he was a
Muslim his real name was Mustafa zamori
uhhuh uh estano of aimore was a slave
name mhm he had been captured in Morocco
and enslaved and in uh the year
1527 he uh sailed with his owner from
Spain to the Caribbean and landed in
Hispaniola and there he and his owner
joined the dinares expedition that
sailed from Hispaniola in the Caribbean
to Florida mhm and this Expedition
consisted of five ships and about 500 to
600 men while along Route they were hit
by a hurricane some of the ships sank
the survivors when they made it to
Florida were immediately attacked by
Indians many of them
perishing those survivors
including
Mustafa began a
5,000 mile Westward and then Southern
Track on foot from Florida to Mexico
City mhm and they were the first people
from the old world to go through you
know Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi
and Louisiana and then down into Texas
and finally down into Mexico and Mexico
City and when they finally arrived there
there was only Mustafa and three others
still left alive out of those 500 to 600
who had begun that exped Edition history
books talk about him MH but they'll talk
about him as estano of aimore they won't
mention that isra name was Mustafa
zamori and they won't mention the fact
that he was a Muslim yeah what about K
kin well this is later yeah uh he he
obviously wasn't there with the
Conquistadors but before we get to the
Conquistadors or get to con kente you
know Muslims were here with with the
early colonies M the uh Spanish
establish a colony uh early on at Santa
Alina back in the year
1566 and many of the colonists that they
took uh were from the Galician Mountain
areas of Spain and Portugal which was an
area that was very very densely
populated by Muslims so it's a very safe
assumption we had a number of Muslims in
the Santa Elina colony which was located
in the Southeastern what is now the
United States we also know that Spain
settled Turkish Muslims both in uh Cuba
and Mexico and in the southwestern
United States these were primarily
Turkish Muslims who were silk and
textile workers uhuh and in Jamestown
Colony that the British established
again we had Turkish Muslims who were
brought into the colony again primarily
silk and textile workers and in fact
they became so numerous in Jamestown
Colony that Virginia actually passed a
law prohibiting any more Turks and
Muslims from entering the Jamestown
Colony and the first written record we
have of those Muslims being there is
from the year
1631 so again very substantial
contributions you mentioned K kente yes
very famous when Alex Haley's book Roots
yeah they actually have a new revised uh
DVD or movie that one can see and I
watched it it was really and and the the
miniseries that was broadcast years ago
really doesn't mention the fact that
he's was a
Muslim um if you are a Muslim and you
know what to look for you can deduce it
but the book makes very very clear that
K kin was a
Muslim in the Americas both North and
South
America during this unforgivable period
of human slavery there were
approximately 20 million
enslaved Africans that were brought to
the
Americas of these current historians are
now estimating between 20 and 30% were
Muslims mhm so between 4 and 6 million
enslaved African Muslims were brought to
the Americas many of them Highly
Educated some with the equivalent of PhD
degrees from the University of Timbuktu
mhm and historians are now finding in
little County museums in in the American
South entire books written in Arabic by
these enslaved African Muslims wow the
entire Quran written from memory in
Arabic entire books of Islamic jurist
Prudence written from memory in Arabic
so a very educated group of people and
some Modern historians are now positing
that the percentage of literacy among
the enslaved Africans in the American
South was actually higher than the
percentage of literacy among the slave
owners mhm it's just that the slaves
literacy was in Arabic not in English
yeah so who were some of these Muslim
slaves one was K kente yes and K kente
uh grew up in uh he was born around 1750
in jaur and West Africa and what is now
Gambia when he was a teenager he went
out to into the jungle to get some wood
to make a drum and at that point he was
captured and
enslaved taken to the coast and put on
board a ship the Lord
lioner and transported to the
Americas and and how horrible these
conditions were on the ship these people
were chained in a uh uh reclining
position where they were lying down body
next to body and kept in this position
throughout almost the entire Voyage how
long would a voyage take oh it could
take a couple months wow uh and they
were given you know a bare minimum of
food and water the conditions sanitary
conditions as you can imagine were
horrible there were no bathroom breaks
you know you just stayed in that
position how bad was it well on the ship
that k k came over on we're told that
approximately
30% of those enslaved Africans died
during The Voyage to the
Americas well K kente reached the
Americas and was sold at auction
uh to John Walker or Waller of
Spotsylvania County and could kente uh
could not adjust to being a slave mhm
and so he repeatedly tried to escape and
finally to prevent him from escaping
anymore uh Waller had one of his feet
amputated mhm and at that point then he
was sold to Waller's brother who was a a
more somewhat more compassionate slave
owner he later married
a fathered a daughter named KY MH who
was sold away from the family to another
owner that owner raped KY producing his
son called Chicken George and there's a
photograph of Chicken George taken late
in his life as an old man that shows him
sitting down and he's wearing the kfy
the skull cap associated with the Muslim
and the thob or or long gown associated
with Muslim men so we know K kente was
able to pass along at least some of his
Islam to his daughter and Sheed some of
it to her son mhm so k k probably the
most famous of the enslaved uh African
Muslims in America though in my book
Muslims and American history I give the
biographies I think of about 30 of these
enslaved African Muslims that made it to
the United States so which one of your
books is this the one that people now
who really want to know more about
Muslims in America they can find that
history here in your book Muslim in
American history of Forgotten forgot
Legacy okay yeah so and they can see
this book at Dirk's online books Dirks
online books.com yes okay and amongst
other books you have written how many
books total uh six and then I wrote five
chapters in a seventh book yeah if you
can give some uh the audience some
closing remarks regarding the conclusion
of this topic and some advices and they
can also learn more yeah there there's a
lot more to be said about America
Muslims and American history we've only
just started scratching the history of
the earliest part of that history yet to
be said is the the Muslims who fought in
the American Revolutionary War the War
of 1812 the American Civil War um and
those who helped tame and settle the
American Wild West so there's a very
rich rich history here of Muslims in
America yeah contributing to America and
that goes back centuries so there there
is a
longstanding Muslim American Heritage
that people do need to be aware of we
didn't just arrive yesterday we didn't
we've been here all along and I'm sure
there's many others who maybe had
interaction with Muslims who because
like we said a Muslim is one who makes a
conscious decision to surrender and
submit to the one God and agree that
Muhammad was the last and final
messenger sent to mankind that's correct
then confirming Jesus as a messenger
Abra Abraham Moses and all the other
Messengers that's right it's something
very simple thank you for being with
pleasure like thank you for tuning in to
another episode of the dean show you can
learn
more Muslims in America the history
forgotten Legacy and you can go to our
brother's website that's Dirk's online
books to read more on this topic I hope
that you got to benefit and learn
something new and we will hopefully see
you again next week here on the dean
show until then assalam alaykum peace be
unto you the DVDs for da is Allah has
said in the Quran inah
16125 invite all to the way of your Lord
with wisdom beautiful preaching and
reason with them in ways that are best
and this is a great opportunity for you
to take up the obligation take up the
call as Allah has told you to do and
share this beautiful message with the
world Islam submission to the one God
come and see whatever everyone's talking
about if you find one contradiction it
can't be from
God but the rational idea the rational
explanation is you do your best give up
worshiping God as one I will never give
up spreading this message I hope that
you take that necessary step you don't
know if you're going to live till
tomorrow so you got to find that urgency
to do the right thing right
now if you say that you do not believe
in Jesus you have stepped outside of
Islam you cannot be a Muslim is tended
our faith
to it's cold it's
lame everybody
sleeping I
arise and ask a lot to forgive
me oh a you
see oh you
know all the sins I
do I turn to you to forgive my sins in
my
[Music]
heart I'm your sinful
slave you're my love and
Lord I'm the one who runs
away oh guide
be