a984: Nekita siding with Benson (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Nlbo@aol.com

LeGrace,

Your comments on Islam in Haiti seem to go along with several conversations I
had with a Haitian woman who converted to Islam two years ago. She told me
the slaves who were captured during  the first two hundred years of the Trans
Atlantic voyage were from present day Mali, Senegal areas. It wasn't until
the last century of the slave trading that slaves from Dahomey came to St.
Domingue and this is why the vodoo religion remained in Haiti.
She told me of a dialect in Morocco that has similar words in Creole. I don't
recall all of them, except" bacha' which means a rich guy. She related the
wearing of the color white indicating purity during some voodoo ceremonies is
also seen in Islam.

I tend to agree with you regarding  reading the Qur'an including women. As I
said before, Islam is a book based religion. Knowledge and intellectual life
is an integral part of their belief.  It could be that Islam may have been
suppressed because the slave owners did not want the slaves to read Qur'an.
That may have lead to reading other books.

That same lady who converted to Islam two years ago related the Spaniards
Arabs, and Jews who settled in Hispaniola. She said to me Haitians have been
so preocuppied with politics in the last two hundred years that we never
think about other historical aspects of the country. She mentioned that there
isn't a lot of documentation on the life of the free slaves. Arabs who
settled in Hispaniola had slaves, but not in the same extent as the
Europeans.Freeing some slaves was/is a Ramadan ritual. What happened to those
slaves that were freed.
She said to me that we need to talk to the elderlies in the country side.
They have a lot to share.
I am happy that this conversation is happening. There is more in Haiti than
those two hundred years of violence and political rivalry and unstability.
Nekita