Omar ibn Said

Born around 1770 in Futa Toro, in what is now Senegal, Omar ibn Said was a Muslim scholar before he was captured and forced into the transatlantic slave trade. Sources agree that he was brought to the United States in 1807 and spent the rest of his life in slavery, much of it in North Carolina.

What makes his legacy so extraordinary is his writing. Omar ibn Said produced a number of works in Arabic, including a short autobiography written in 1831. The Library of Congress describes that manuscript as the centerpiece of its Omar Ibn Said Collection, and it is widely noted as the only known surviving American slave narrative written in Arabic.

His life has drawn lasting attention because it preserves a personal record of faith, learning, and endurance under slavery. Even where scholars differ on some details of his later religious life and exact death year, his story remains a rare window into the presence of educated West African Muslims in early America.