Challenging the Master’s Narrative: Decoloniality in Selected 19th-Century African Muslim Slave Narratives

This dissertation explores the narratives and writings of four enslaved African Muslims: Omar ibn Said, Bilali Muhammad, Abdulrahman Ibrahima Sori, and Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq. Employing a decolonial framework informed by the works of Walter Mignolo and Aníbal Quijano, it analyzes how these individuals navigated and resisted the dominant "master narrative" that permeated their lives through colonial structures of power and exclusion.

The dissertation examines how processes such as cultural erasure, “de-negrofication,” “de-Islamicization,” mistranslation, and narrative obfuscation, alongside the forced silencing or taming of their voices, actively contributed to the production and perpetuation of this master narrative.

Shifting focus to the agency of these enslaved Muslims, the dissertation explores their acts of resistance through the lens of decolonial concepts like "delinking" and "epistemic disobedience." Their resistance manifested in the creation of counter-narratives that challenged the colonial archive and its silencing mechanisms. By delinking from the master narrative and engaging in forms of epistemic disobedience, these individuals contested established power structures and their own marginalization within them.

Furthermore, the dissertation argues that the enslaved Muslims under examination utilized the Arabic language, translation, and Islamic references to produce coded messages that reveal their stances toward slavery. By doing so, they resisted the silencing mechanisms of the archive and ensured that their voices reached future generations unfiltered.

Mohrah Abdullah Alotaibi

Challenging the Master’s Narrative: Decoloniality in Selected 19th-Century African Muslim Slave Narratives