By Siddeek Tawfeek - Islamonline.net_Doha 2011-03-29 13:38:10

The Centre for the Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies of Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies, Member of Qatar Foundation hosted recently Professor Michael Gomez of New York University who delivered a lecture titled “The Early Muslim Experience in Brazil”

Early Muslim Presence in Brazil

Professor Gomez started the lecture by pointing out that the first Muslims who arrived in Brazil were African Muslims who were transported to Brazil via the transatlantic slave trade in the 17^th century. They came mainly from what nowadays are known to be the modern states of Benin, Dahumi and the Swahili coasts to serve in the sugar plantations, then later in diamond and gold mines. As slave-traders were Spanish and Portuguese, they understood Muslim culture and way of thinking because the Iberian Peninsula was occupied by Muslims for over 800 years. The Portuguese especially respected Islam, so it is not surprising that African Muslims were viewed differently from non-Muslim Africans. It is no exaggeration to conclude that Brazilian society was founded on the backs of Africans, among which some were Muslims. The biography of Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua, a Moslem exported from Benin in western Africa, provides the “only known Brazilian slave narrative”. Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua came from a family in Benin that can be associated with the Wangara network of merchants; his mother was a Hausa, from Katsina and his father possibly of Arab descent. These Muslims, whatever their more precise origins, were differentiated by slaveholders from non-Muslims. The history of Islam in Brazil, nonetheless, goes beyond the confines of Salvador, reaching Rio de Janeiro and other urban centers as well as rural areas.

Muslim Revolt in Salvador

It is striking that Muslims in Brazil would later on achieve a degree of renown entirely out of proportion to their actual number. The central part of this renown was the famous 1935 revolt in the city of Salvador. The revolt centered in Bahia in Brazil whose capital and port of Salvador was surrounded by an area of fertile, well drained wetlands that made Bahia one of the leading producers of sugar. Indeed, the period between 1814 and 1835 was one of incessant upheaval and rest, often the product of African discontent. It was with the 1835 revolt; however, that Muslim involvement became central to developments in the history of Brazil. The revolt involved as many as 500 African insurgents, and this provides an important insight into the state of affairs between Muslims and non-Muslims and, more specifically, suggests the extent of African Muslim antipathies towards African-born non-Muslim and Brazilian-born blacks. Concerning the former, very few non-Muslims who were imported from regions outside of Benin participated, and the participation of Brazilian-born blacks was similarly small. While such small percentages may indicate that it was non-Muslims who rejected alliances with Muslims, anecdotal evidence affirms that it was Muslims who rejected the non-Muslims. Yoruba Carlos, a slave who witnessed a lot of events, testified that “the Nagos who can read, and who took part in the insurrection, would not shake hands with nor respect outsiders. They even called them ‘gavere’: possibly a corruption of the Arabic word kafir meaning infidel or unbeliever. Likewise, those African and their descendents who converted to Catholicism were ridiculed by Muslims for going to Masses to worship a piece of wood on the altar because images are not saints. It would therefore appear that there was a considerable distance between African Muslims and the Brazilian-born of African descent, as the dynamic of Islam added another dimension to the general tension between African-born and Brazilian-born communities.