The life and story of Omar Ibn Said is one of detail and nuance beyond what is normally seen regarding the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In reading his autobiography, one must conclude that his captor treated him fairly and humanely, at least in one’s initial reading of the work; as thoughts process, however, the realization that he may be unwilling to go into truthful detail begins to dawn. Why does he speak so highly of the people, whom he refers to as Christians, who captured him and forced him into subservience? Why does he seem so content with his life in slavery when he was significantly older than most others (37 years old) at the time of his capture and was in captivity for 24 years at the time of writing? There were many striking details within the work, notably his mention of paying alms tax (zakat) on gold, silver, livestock, grain, etc.., performing hajj, and his tremendous Islamic knowledge and time spent in study; all key indicators of his high status and wealth as a scholar, someone whose life has never known manual labor. There are also many mentions of his feeble stature and “feminine” hands, unfit to work manually. Wholly, the piece seems to be factitious in a way; putting on a positive attitude with the fear his captors may read it. Yet one must ask the question, who among his captors could possibly be capable of reading Arabic? The original language of the work is Arabic, which Omar was fluent in (even beyond fluency, a true scholar of the language) yet his captors may have been in poor literacy in English as was common for the day. Omar mentions his inability to recall Arabic, yet writes a full autobiography in the very language (at a scholarly level) he seems to have forgotten. Ripe with questions and avenues of study, Omar Ibn Said’s autobiography presents a challenging work that is laced with messages and meaning that could illuminate his true experience.
