Servants of Allah by Sylviane Diouf - Essay Example

The central idea of the book is the African Muslims that were enslaved and shipped to the land constituted a significant number and they were educated, civilized, and had a strong moral foundation in the tenets of the Islamic Religion. Because of their distinction as educated and capable of analyzing their own predicament their resistance to slavery was somewhat fiercer. Apart from this central theme that runs through the length and breadth of Diouf’s work, the book gives us the story of the slaves in their homeland, the astonishing struggles of the Muslim slaves to keep their faith, and their rich contribution to the fabric of American life. According to the author, the Islamic faith of the African slaves gave mooring to their harsh life, away from the homeland, and motivated them to resist forcefully the tyranny of slavery.
 Diouf draws convincing evidence of the heroic struggle of the enslaved Muslims by strewing her works from revealing quotes that the reader is brought to admire the faith of the Muslim Africans in their Diaspora. Spanish royal edict of 1543 ordained, “in a new land like this one where (the Catholic) faith is only recently being sowed, it is necessary not to allow to spread there the sect of Mahomet or any other.” The royal command is motivated more by military considerations than by reasons of faith. The Spanish feared that the native Indians might learn horsemanship from the Muslim Africans and this would destroy the Spanish military advantage. In spite of these attempts the Muslim religion took root in the Americas and as Diouf notices Islam is the second taste of monotheism of the Native Americans. The author asserts that Islam was functioning in hostile conditions in the new land. According to her slavery,” far from making the Africans’ religious fervor disappear, deepened it.”  “Servants of Allah”, contains a comprehensive account of the Muslim slave attempts to hold on to the Islamic way of life, their unwillingness to accept Christianity, their attempts to maintain the mosque-centered life with five fixed times for prayer, the dress code, and the desire to keep away from non-Muslims.

 Diouf uses evidence from historical writings, from the higher culture of the African Muslims in their homeland, and the social organization of the tiny Islamic community. The Muslim slaves included a large number of learned and aristocratic elite of West African men who were well adapted to hold to their faith and ways of living than an average bushman from Africa;” There is ample evidence that the Muslims actively used their cultural and social background and the formation they had received in Africa as tools to improve their condition in the Americas.” The author shows us the contradictory nature of man’s actions by pointing out an interesting phenomenon. While the Muslims resisted slavery many tried to rise on the ladder of the slave hierarchy. Sometimes some bought their freedom and returned to Africa. It is interesting that the slaves themselves sometimes kept plantation records in Arabic. Many of the slave rebellions are planned by the Moslems because of their skills in an organization that had already been acquired. The communal solidarity of the Muslims leading a life, centered on the mosque made organizing easy and the Arabic often served as a common language that bound the community and served as a secret language for revolt.

While the work is well documented, it would have been more reliable to give evidence through the eyes of the slave drivers also. Diouf often romanticizes Islam and uses anachronistic terminology. She lauds Islam as “democratic and progressive in a society that was despotic, repressive, tyrannical and racist.” The author has not sufficiently discounted the emotional and prejudiced vision of the Africans in their slave condition. Documents from neutral sources would have given the work more objectivity and hence would have given more credibility. But for this blemish, Diouf’s work is an excellent contribution to the history of slavery. The book is worth reading a number of times.

History has many strands and only if all the strands are known we get a complete picture of the past. This book has corrected the general notion of enslaved African-American, as “bush niggers”. This is a prejudice that has blighted even scholarly circles. The study of history is to enable us to plan for the future. The book forcefully argues that religious faith and education are two forceful elements that help communities to survive in hostile circumstances. If the African-American Muslims could retain their faith, manners, language, and culture it is because of the tenacity that their faith gave and the skills their education provided to steer through hard times.

In conclusion, we do well to remember that slavery is as old as man. Races that have survived the onslaughts of the conquerors did so by certain special bonds among them. The Jews were under Egyptian and Babylonian captivity. During the period of slavery, they survived the ordeal of servilities by their faith in the liberation that Yahweh will work out in His own good time. The Jewish language united them during the long period of Diaspora. Many scholars argue that the Jews freed themselves from the Egyptians through their faith as well as by using the military tactics learned during captivity. So faith in God, a unifying language, and skills and tactics are the essential ingredients that help people survive as a group.