The First Refuge FRES

The First RefugeSources

Sources and method

A reading room is only as good as its shelf. This is the shelf, and the way the pages are made.

How a page is made

Sources first. A page is drafted from the works listed on it. Each date, name and number is then checked a second time against a primary source or an institution that holds the evidence: the Library of Congress, a museum, a university library, UNESCO, the hadith collections.

Tradition is labeled. Much of early history reaches us through later writers. When a date or a founder is traditional, the page says “by tradition.” When historians disagree, both views are given.

Scripture is not paraphrased as quotation. Hadith are quoted from Sahih al-Bukhari in the English of Muhammad Muhsin Khan, with the number used at sunnah.com. Verses of the Quran are cited by chapter and verse.

AI assistance is disclosed. The drafting, the fact checking and the layout were done with the help of an AI system. The keeper reads and answers for every page.

The shelf

Each chapter lists its own sources at the foot of the page. These are the works behind the whole room.

Start here

  • Sylviane A. Diouf, Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas (New York University Press, 1998; anniversary edition 2013).
  • Ousmane Oumar Kane, Beyond Timbuktu: An Intellectual History of Muslim West Africa (Harvard University Press, 2016).
  • Nehemia Levtzion and Randall L. Pouwels, editors, The History of Islam in Africa (Ohio University Press, 2000).

The first refuge

  • Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, translated by A. Guillaume (Oxford University Press, 1955), pages 146 to 155.
  • Sahih al-Bukhari 1245 and 1333, narrated by Abu Hurayrah. sunnah.com
  • Sahih al-Bukhari 3877 and 3879, narrated by Jabir ibn Abdullah. sunnah.com
  • Sahih al-Bukhari 1149, narrated by Abu Hurayrah. sunnah.com

Egypt and Nubia

  • Al-Baladhuri, The Origins of the Islamic State, translated by Philip Khuri Hitti, volume 1 (Columbia University, 1916), pages 335 to 382, on Egypt and Nubia. archive.org
  • John, Bishop of Nikiu, The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu, translated from the Ethiopic by R. H. Charles (1916), chapters 120 and 121, with the translator’s introduction. tertullian.org
  • History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria, part 2, translated by B. Evetts, Patrologia Orientalis 1 (1904), on Benjamin I. tertullian.org
  • Włodzimierz Godlewski, “Dongola, Capital of Early Makuria: Citadel, Rock Tombs, First Churches,” in a 2014 volume in honor of Steffen Wenig (Sudanarchäologische Gesellschaft zu Berlin). sag-online.de
  • Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Egypt, The Mosque of ‘Amr ibn al-‘As. egymonuments.gov.eg

Schools and libraries

  • Beverly B. Mack and Jean Boyd, One Woman’s Jihad: Nana Asma’u, Scholar and Scribe (Indiana University Press, 2000).
  • UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Timbuktu. whc.unesco.org
  • UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Medina of Fez. whc.unesco.org
  • UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Kairouan. whc.unesco.org
  • UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Harar Jugol, the Fortified Historic Town. whc.unesco.org

The Swahili coast

  • Stephanie Wynne-Jones and Jeffrey Fleisher, “The Eastern African Coast,” in The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Archaeology (Oxford University Press, 2021), pages 377 to 394. eprints.whiterose.ac.uk
  • S. Arthur Strong, “The History of Kilwa, Edited from an Arabic MS.,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1895), beginning on page 385. archive.org
  • Ibn Battuta: Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325-1354, translated and selected by H. A. R. Gibb (London: Routledge, 1929). archive.org
  • UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Ruins of Kilwa Kisiwani and Ruins of Songo Mnara. whc.unesco.org
  • Anne K. Bang, “The Manuscript Collection of the Riyadha Mosque, Lamu, Kenya,” Tombouctou Manuscripts Project, University of Cape Town, June 15, 2011. tombouctoumanuscripts.uct.ac.za

Kingdoms and travelers

  • Michael A. Gomez, African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa (Princeton University Press, 2018).
  • Nehemia Levtzion and J. F. P. Hopkins, editors, Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (Cambridge University Press, 1981).
  • Ross E. Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century (University of California Press, revised 2012).
  • Mark Horton, Shanga: The Archaeology of a Muslim Trading Community on the Coast of East Africa (British Institute in Eastern Africa, 1996).

The Americas and the Carolinas

  • Library of Congress, Omar Ibn Said Collection, with the collection essay. loc.gov
  • Ala Alryyes, editor and translator, A Muslim American Slave: The Life of Omar Ibn Said (University of Wisconsin Press, 2011).
  • Allan D. Austin, African Muslims in Antebellum America: Transatlantic Stories and Spiritual Struggles (Routledge, 1997).
  • Michael A. Gomez, Black Crescent: The Experience and Legacy of African Muslims in the Americas (Cambridge University Press, 2005).
  • Terry Alford, Prince Among Slaves (Oxford University Press, 1977; anniversary edition 2007).
  • Joseph Alan Beatty, I Bear Witness: An African’s Quest for Faith and Community in the Atlantic World (PhD dissertation, University of Florida, 2014), chapter 6, on Bilali’s manuscript in the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia. ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu
  • Lowcountry Digital History Initiative, College of Charleston, African Muslims in the South. ldhi.library.cofc.edu
  • Georgia Writers’ Project, Drums and Shadows: Survival Studies among the Georgia Coastal Negroes (University of Georgia Press, 1940).
  • Joao Jose Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993).
  • Judith A. Carney, Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas (Harvard University Press, 2001).

The Caribbean and Brazil

  • R. R. Madden, A Twelvemonth’s Residence in the West Indies, during the Transition from Slavery to Apprenticeship, volume 2 (London, 1835), letters XXX to XXXII. archive.org
  • G. C. Renouard, “Routes in North Africa, by Abu Bekr es Siddik,” Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London 6 (1836), pages 100 to 113. archive.org
  • Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias (Madrid, 1681), libro IX, título XXVI, leyes 17 and 19, and libro VII, título V, ley 29. archive.org
  • Lidivaldo Reaiche Raimundo Britto, “O Tribunal da Relação da Bahia e a Revolta dos Malês,” Tribunal de Justiça do Estado da Bahia, May 22, 2023. tjba.jus.br
  • João José Reis, “The Malê Revolt,” translated by Molly Quinn, pages 183 to 186, as assigned by the University of Warwick, Department of History. warwick.ac.uk

After the water

  • Ahmed I. Abu Shouk, J. O. Hunwick and R. S. O’Fahey, “A Sudanese Missionary to the United States: Satti Majid, ‘Shaykh al-Islam in North America’, and his Encounter with Noble Drew Ali, Prophet of the Moorish Science Temple Movement,” Sudanic Africa 8 (1997), pages 137 to 191. Archived copy. web.archive.org
  • Clayborne Carson, “Malcolm X,” American National Biography (Oxford University Press), in the copy kept at Stanford University. web.stanford.edu
  • PBS, God in America, “People and Ideas: W. Deen Mohammed,” October 11, 2010. pbs.org
  • Ellen McLarney, “Bilalian News,” Duke Islamic Studies Center, February 8, 2026. islamicstudies.duke.edu
  • Sapelo Square, “Islamic Education: Reclaiming Our West African Islamic Legacy,” January 31, 2018, on a talk by Jamillah Karim. sapelosquare.com
  • Sylvia Chan-Malik, “Profile: Black American Women in the Ahmadiyya Movement of Islam,” Sapelo Square, February 24, 2016. sapelosquare.com
  • Besheer Mohamed and Jeff Diamant, “Black Muslims account for a fifth of all U.S. Muslims, and about half are converts to Islam,” Pew Research Center, January 17, 2019. pewresearch.org

Where the pictures come from

Every image on this site is a historical work in the public domain. None is generated. The copies here were taken from Wikimedia Commons, where each file’s history is recorded.

The portrait of Omar ibn Said is a digital restoration of the original ambrotype. It is shown here in monochrome, because the color in the restored file was added by its restorer.

The map is drawn by this site’s own code from Natural Earth, a public domain map dataset. Places and routes are positioned by their coordinates. The routes are schematic. The atlas adds US state outlines from the Census Bureau’s cartographic boundary files.

Colophon

The text is set in Alegreya, by Juan Pablo del Peral. Arabic is set in Harmattan, a typeface by SIL International designed for the languages of West Africa that are written in Arabic script, and named for the winter wind of the Sahel. The site is built on WordPress by Ameen Systems and holds no advertising and no tracking.

Corrections

Write to corrections@ferrand.africa with the page and the source. Changes of fact are listed here with their date.

October 2026
The reading room opens with four chapters, seventeen lives and a timeline.
October 19, 2026
After the Water (then chapter VI) is added, with three new lives, sixteen new dates, five new places on the atlas and a study pack.
October 19, 2026
Along the Nile, on Egypt and Nubia, becomes chapter II, and the later chapters are renumbered III to VI. The State Department source in Kingdoms and Roads is replaced, and the sentence corrected to it.
October 19, 2026
A French edition opens at /fr/: the home page, the six chapters, Lives, Timeline, About, Sources and method, and the privacy policy.
October 19, 2026
The Atlas and the six study packs open in French, at /fr/carte/ and /fr/dossiers/. In the first pack, the role play is for groups of six, not five.
October 20, 2026
The Faith They Carried and its five guides open in French, at /fr/la-foi/. On the English prayer page, three recitations named the wrong translator (Quran 1:2 and 1:7, and the tashahhud), and the line under Ameen, our own description, was credited to one; both are corrected.
October 21, 2026
The Carolina trail opens in French, at /fr/le-circuit-des-carolines/. Bilali Muhammad’s manuscript is now described as its translators describe it, a thirteen-page primer of Islamic practice built on the Risala and quoting from it, not pages drawn mainly from the Risala and written from memory; its source is now Joseph Beatty’s 2014 dissertation, since the University of Georgia catalog page fails with an expired security certificate.
October 21, 2026
In their own words opens in French, at /fr/dans-leurs-propres-mots/, in our own translation of the printed English, labeled as such; the Quran and Bible verses inside the two texts are quoted from published French translations. The content note on Baquaqua’s page now says the slur is used by a slave owner and by a sailor: it appears three times, not once.
October 22, 2026
The Monsoon Coast, on Islam on the Swahili coast of East Africa, becomes chapter IV, in English and French, with two new lives, five new dates, three new places and a view of the coast on the atlas, and a study pack; the later chapters are renumbered. Kingdoms and Roads, its study pack and the atlas no longer call the Kizimkazi inscription the earliest dated inscription on the coast, a claim we could not source, and Kilwa’s Great Mosque is now dated as UNESCO dates it: built in the eleventh century and greatly enlarged in the thirteenth.
October 22, 2026
A Spanish edition opens at /es/, El Primer Refugio: every room, translated from the English with the help of an AI system and revised. The Quran is quoted in Isa García’s Spanish translation and the hadith in HadeethEnc’s; where no verified Spanish exists, the page gives the Arabic and a summary marked as ours.
October 23, 2026
A second reader compared every French and Spanish page with the English, string by string; 134 corrections were made, among them two French study packs that still called the Carolina trail and In their own words English only, and a line on the Spanish sources page that named the English hadith translation. An accessibility audit of all 99 pages, on a desktop and a phone, now finds no failures: the language links, the trail map, the headings on two index pages and the prayer table were corrected.
October 23, 2026
Other Shores, on African Muslims in the Caribbean and Brazil, becomes chapter VIII, in English, French and Spanish: Wolof captives on Hispaniola and Spain’s order of 1526, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq and Muhammad Kaba in Jamaica, the Mandingos of Trinidad, the Malê revolt of 1835 in Bahia, and an Ottoman imam in Brazil. With it come five new lives, six new dates, three new places and a Caribbean view on the atlas, and a study pack.
October 23, 2026
Our mailing address is added to the privacy policy.