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Islamic Books > History > The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People
Kennedy, N. Brent with Kennedy, Robyn Vaughan
An untold story of early Muslims from Spain in America.
| Publisher: | Mercer University Press | | Suitable Age: | Adults | | Format: | Trade Paper | | Length: | 180 pp | | Dimensions: | 6 x 9 | | ISBN: | 0-86554-516-2 |
| SKU: 421-047 |
Reg: $19.95
Now: $18.00 |
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| Description |
An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America
"The Melungeons" written by Brent Kennedy and Robyn Vaughan Kennedy covers the story of the Muslims in the America prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus. It is a fascinating reading for lay readers and scholars alike.
Perhaps Nancy Hanks, the mother of Abraham Lincoln, was Melungeon. It somehow seems fitting that one of America's greatest Presidents should be of mixed race and probably Muslim heritage. But who are the Melungeons?
Historical records document that from 1492 through the early 1600's an estimated 500,000 Jews and Muslims were exiled from Spain and Portugal through a religious witch-hunt known as the Spanish Inquisition.
Hundreds of thousands of Muslim exiles escaped to their ancestral homelands of Morocco, algeria, Libya nd Tunisia. In fact, the well-known Barbary Coast Pirates of North Africa sprang from this group. They, along with their Turkish compatriots, were renowned for their seagoing exploits as they sought revenge against the Spanish and Portuguese in ferocious Mediterranean sea battles.
Of course, they didn't always win: those pirates unfortunate enough to lose at sea often ended up as galley slaves beneath the creaking decks of Spanish and Portuguese ships bound for the New World. Ironically, slaves of the Christians once again.
Other Muslims-Berber in particular-Moriscos they were called made their way to the Canary Islands, India, France and other countries. And interestingly enough wherever these exiled Berbers went, they identified themselves as 'Portuguese," even if they had originated in Spain. In fact, the term "portuguese," became almost synonymous for both the Muslims and the Jews who had been exiled during the Inquisition.
Finally, as the Inquisitions grew in Power and severity, even Christianized Moors and Jews were forced in exile. these "Conversos" the name given to both Muslim and Jewish coverts were not trusted by either the Church or the government, and probably with good reason, since most had converted Catholicism only to avoid the death sentence.
The Spanish Inquisition, horrible as it was accomplished something of great historical value for Islam. Even though Western historians have generally ignored the evidence, there is little doubt that Muslims played an early-and perhaps the earliest- role in the permanent settlement of this Nation. And there is little doubt that the Inquisition-with all it agonies-drove Spanish and Portuguese Muslims toward the New World.
While American school children learn of columbus's role in the discovery of the New World, they aren't told the entire story. For example, Columbus employed both Moorish and Spanish sailors, and himself may have been Jewish. On his fourth voyage in 1502 he records two important discoveries:
First, on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, he discovered an iron pot and an old ship's mast preserved in an Indian hut. He and his crew determined these artifacts had come from the Canary Islands. The Canaries, a Portuguese possession, had been a favorite dumping ground for Conversos of Muslim Berber origin.
Second, on July 31, 1502, came an even more extraordinary discovery. Off the island of Jamaica, Columbus encountered strange people on a strange ship that western historians have generally considered to be Mayan Indians.
This ship was forty feet ling with a diameter of eight feet, and had a shaded pavilion in the center. From a distance, Columbus thought it to be uncannily like the Moorish galleys he and so often seen the Mediterranean. There were approximately forty men and women on thie galley and unlike the Jamaican Indians, these people wore clothing: sleeveless shirts and with showy colors and designs like those Columbus had seen, in his own, in Muslim Granada.
| SKU: 421-047 |
Reg: $19.95
Now: $18.00 |
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