The First Refuge FRES

The First RefugeTimeline

Timeline

67 dates across fourteen centuries, from the first emigration to the present. Dates marked “about” or “by tradition” are exactly that.

67 shown

  1. About 615The first Muslims emigrate from Makkah to Abyssinia and are given protection by the Negus.The Horn
  2. About 630The Negus dies. The Prophet, peace be upon him, prays the funeral prayer for him in Madinah.The Horn
  3. About 640Amr ibn al-As leads a Muslim army into Egypt and, by al-Baladhuri’s count, subdues it in the twentieth year after the Hijrah.North Africa
  4. About 640Bilal ibn Rabah, the first to call the adhan, dies in Syria.The Horn
  5. 641Amr founds Fustat and its mosque, the oldest surviving mosque in Egypt and Africa.North Africa
  6. About 642Amr enters Alexandria without a fight, and the Coptic patriarch Benjamin comes home after thirteen years in hiding.North Africa
  7. 652Abdallah ibn Sa’d besieges Dongola. Christian Makuria and Muslim Egypt make the treaty called the baqt.North Africa
  8. 670Uqba ibn Nafi founds Kairouan and its great mosque.North Africa
  9. About 780The first of the mosques at Shanga on the Kenya coast, rebuilt nine times by 1000, as dated by its excavator, Mark Horton.East coast
  10. 859Al-Qarawiyyin is founded in Fez, by tradition by Fatima al-Fihri.North Africa
  11. 972First Friday prayer at al-Azhar in Cairo. Lessons are recorded from 975.North Africa
  12. 996Ibn Abi Zayd of Kairouan, author of the Risala, dies.North Africa
  13. 1068Al-Bakri describes the capital of Ghana, with a Muslim town of twelve mosques.West Africa
  14. About 1085The rulers of Kanem, by Lake Chad, traditionally accept Islam.West Africa
  15. 1107The inscription at Kizimkazi on Zanzibar, dated 500 after the Hijrah.East coast
  16. 1317The throne hall of the kings of Makuria at Dongola becomes a mosque, the oldest preserved mosque in Sudan.North Africa
  17. 1324Mansa Musa of Mali makes the pilgrimage by way of Cairo.West Africa
  18. About 1330Ibn Battuta sails the east coast and praises Kilwa.East coast
  19. 1352Ibn Battuta crosses the Sahara to Mali.West Africa
  20. 1375Mansa Musa is drawn on the Catalan Atlas.West Africa
  21. 1496Askia Muhammad of Songhay sets out on the pilgrimage.West Africa
  22. 1498Vasco da Gama’s ships anchor off Mombasa and Malindi, and the king of Malindi gives them a pilot for India.East coast
  23. 1505A Portuguese fleet under Francisco de Almeida takes Kilwa by force and sacks Mombasa.East coast
  24. 1522About twenty enslaved men of Diego Colón, most of them Wolof, rise on Hispaniola, as Oviedo records.The Americas
  25. 1526A Spanish royal order forbids sending enslaved Wolof, people from the Levant, or anyone raised among Moors to the Indies.The Americas
  26. 1528Estevanico, an enslaved man from Azemmour in Morocco, lands in Florida with a Spanish expedition.The Americas
  27. 1591A Moroccan army conquers Songhay. Ahmad Baba is deported to Marrakesh three years later.West Africa
  28. 1733Ayuba Suleiman Diallo is freed in England and painted by William Hoare. He goes home in 1734.The Americas
  29. 1777Muhammad Kaba Saghanughu is taken from West Africa to Jamaica.The Americas
  30. 1777Sultan Muhammad III of Morocco recognizes the independence of the United States, the first foreign ruler to do so.North Africa
  31. 1788Abd al-Rahman Ibrahima is captured in Futa Jallon and sold to Natchez.The Americas
  32. 1790The South Carolina House hears the petition of the free Moors.The Americas
  33. 1804Usman dan Fodio’s reform movement begins. It becomes the Sokoto Caliphate.West Africa
  34. 1807Omar ibn Said arrives in Charleston.The Americas
  35. 1819Charles Willson Peale paints Yarrow Mamout in Georgetown.The Americas
  36. 1828Abd al-Rahman Ibrahima is freed after about forty years.The Americas
  37. About 1830Nana Asma’u organizes the jajis, traveling women teachers, in Sokoto.West Africa
  38. 1831Omar ibn Said writes his autobiography in Arabic in North Carolina.The Americas
  39. 1834In Kingston, Jamaica, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq of Timbuktu is freed and writes his life in Arabic.The Americas
  40. 1835African Muslims lead the Male revolt in Bahia, Brazil, during Ramadan. Lamine Kebe sails for Liberia.The Americas
  41. 1838Twelve Mandingo men in Trinidad petition to be sent home to Africa, and Muhammad Kaba writes an Arabic-script address for emancipation in Jamaica.The Americas
  42. 1840Seyyid Said moves his court from Muscat to Zanzibar, which becomes one of the main slave-trading ports of East Africa.East coast
  43. 1854Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua publishes his biography in Detroit.The Americas
  44. 1863Omar ibn Said dies in Bladen County, North Carolina.The Americas
  45. 1865 or 1866An Ottoman imam, Abd al-Rahman al-Baghdadi, is brought to Brazil by a storm and meets its African Muslims.The Americas
  46. 1873Sultan Barghash of Zanzibar signs a treaty with Britain to end the export of slaves from the mainland coast and close the public slave markets.East coast
  47. 1889Habib Swaleh founds the Riyadha Mosque in Lamu, which soon becomes a center of learning.East coast
  48. About 1904Satti Majid, a Sudanese scholar from Dongola, seems to reach the United States.The Americas
  49. 1913Noble Drew Ali opens his first temple in Newark, New Jersey.The Americas
  50. 1922The Ahmadiyya mission moves its American headquarters to Bronzeville, on the South Side of Chicago.The Americas
  51. 1927Noble Drew Ali gives the Moorish Science Temple of America a Holy Koran of his own.The Americas
  52. 1929Satti Majid sails from New York to put the book before the scholars of al-Azhar. Noble Drew Ali dies.The Americas
  53. 1930Wallace Fard begins preaching in Detroit. The Nation of Islam dates its founding to this year.The Americas
  54. 1934Fard disappears, and Elijah Muhammad takes his place.The Americas
  55. 1940Drums and Shadows records Sapelo Islanders’ memories of ancestors who prayed on mats and made saraka.The Americas
  56. 1964Malcolm X leaves the Nation of Islam, makes the pilgrimage to Makkah and travels through Africa. He comes home as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz.The Americas
  57. 1965Malcolm X is killed in New York. A new immigration law overhauls the old quota system.The Americas
  58. 1975Elijah Muhammad dies. His son, later W. Deen Mohammed, turns the community toward Sunni Islam, and Muhammad Speaks becomes Bilalian News.The Americas
  59. 1980sShaykh Hassan Cisse opens a Quran school in Senegal for Black American children, the African American Islamic Institute.West Africa
  60. 1988Timbuktu is placed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.West Africa
  61. 1991A masjid in Fayetteville, North Carolina, is renamed for Omar ibn Said.The Americas
  62. 1992W. Deen Mohammed becomes the first Muslim to deliver an invocation in the United States Senate.The Americas
  63. 2010North Carolina sets its historical marker for Omar ibn Said at the edge of the masjid’s lawn in Fayetteville.The Americas
  64. 2012Timbuktu’s librarians begin moving hundreds of thousands of manuscripts to safety in Bamako.West Africa
  65. 2017A Pew survey finds that Black Americans are about a fifth of the country’s Muslims.The Americas
  66. 2019The Library of Congress puts the Omar Ibn Said Collection online.The Americas
  67. 2023The opera Omar wins the Pulitzer Prize for Music, and the International African American Museum opens in Charleston.The Americas

Start reading at chapter IThe lives