Arabic literacy so confounded Southerners that they denied Ibrahima al Rahman was African

Evidence

Al Rahman retained his knowledge of Arabic by tracing the letters in the sand of the plantation. His regal behavior, literacy in Arabic, and fluency in five languages eventually led a southern journalist to name him “Prince” and to conclude that al Rahman could not be an African but rather was a Moor. After being freed, al Rahman returned to Africa, where he reverted to his Muslim identity. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 575

Categorization

• SEED: The image of tracing Arabic letters in plantation sand — literacy as a covert practice of self-preservation under enslavement — is a strong visual for a longer essay on cognitive resistance.
• SHARE: Worth sending to anyone working on the history of literacy or on Black Muslim heritage in the Americas — the sand-tracing detail is striking and little known.
• XREF: Echoes how identity categories (‘Moor’ vs ‘African’) in the white American imagination track the same imposed distinctions found in the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ material on how outsiders get classified by appearance.