In 1899, Leon Richlieu established the Moorish Zionist Temple in Harlem.



In 1835, Lamen Kebe known as (Old Paul) was liberated after having been in servitude in South Carolina and Alabama. Lamen Kebe was captured in battle and arrived in America in the early 1800s. He was from an elite class of Serahule who were trained to rule, advise, teach, protect, trade, translate, collect taxes, and travel. His family were the founders of ancient Ghana, and they were among the earliest converts to Islam south of the Sahara. His mother was a Mandinga. In Senegambia, he was a schoolmaster in the land of the Fulah before his capture. Lamen and Omar Sayyid corresponded with each other in 1835 in Arabic. Lamen (Old Paul) through Omar, provided Theodore Dwight, a member of the American Ethnological Society, with information of his native land and school system. Lamen returned back to Africa at the age of sixty in 1835.

In 1807, Hajj Omar Ibn Sayyid was captured at the age of 37. Omar was a Fula born in Fur Tur in present day Senegal. He was born from a Serahule family. Omar lived from 1770-1864. He had studied in Bundu, Senegal where he learned how to read, write, arabic, Islamic studies, and made Hajj in Mecca before his capture. Omar was enslaved in Charleston, SC where he labored for a short period of time before he escaped in 1810 to Fayetteville, NC where was caught and imprisoned. While in prison Omar persuaded James Owen, a general in the state militia and brother of John Owen (who later became Governor of North Carolina), to purchase him, which he did for $900.00. Omar was also known as Uncle Moreau.

Omar ibn Sayyid wrote many items in Arabic while enslaved. He wrote the Lords Prayer, the Bismillah, this is How You Pray, Quranic phases, the 23rd Psalm, and Omars latest known writing was in 1857 Surah 110 of the Holy Quran.

Omar was given an Arabic written Bible and a Quran by his slave master. The Bible is housed today at Davidson College in North Carolina.



On February 25, 1530, another law was issued to punish, primarly through a fine of one thousand pesos, those who transported slaves to America,
without obtaining a license, particularly if such slaves was Berbers, Moors, Jews, or mulattoes.

1535 After Charles V and his Spanish troops capture Tunis, all the local Jews are sold into slavery into Christian New World.

Historical records document that from 1492 through the early 1600's an estimated 500,000 Jews and Muslims were exiled from Spain and Portugal through a religious witch-hunt known as -- the Spanish Inquisition. Hundreds of thousands of Muslim exiles escaped to their ancestral homelands of Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia. In fact, the well-known Barbary Coast Pirates (that is, Berber Coast Pirates) of North Africa sprang from this group. They, along with their Turkish compatriots, were renowned for their seagoing exploits as they sought revenge against the Spanish and Portuguese in ferocious Mediterranean sea battles.

Of course, they didn't always win: those pirates unfortunate enough to lose at sea often ended up as galley slaves beneath the creaking decks of Spanish and Portuguese ships bound for the New World. Ironically, slaves of the Christians once again

Other Muslims----Berber in particular---Moriscos they were called made their way to the Canary Islands, India, France and other countries. And interestingly enough wherever these exiled Berbers went, they identified themselves as 'Portuguese," even if they had originated in Spain. In fact, the term "Portuguese," became almost synonymous for both the Muslims and the Jews who had been exiled during the Inquisition.

Finally, as the Inquisitions grew in Power and severity, even Christianized Moors and Jews were forced in exile. these "Conversos"-----the name given to both Muslim and Jewish coverts----were not trusted by either the Church or the government, and probably with good reason, since most had converted Catholicism only to avoid the death sentence


In the 1690's, French explorers reported finding "Christianized Moors" in the Carolina mountains. When the first English arrived in the mid- 1700's, large colonies of so called "Melungeons" were already well established in the Tennessee and Carolina Mountains. And, in broken Elizabethan English they called themselves "Portyghee," or by the more mysterious term "Melungeon

Tennessee Governor John Sevier records a 1784 encounter in what is now Western North Carolina with a dark-skinned, reddish-brown complexioned people supposed to be of Moorish descent who claim to be Portuguese.

In east Tennessee in late 1700's, Jonathan Swift, an Englishman married to a Melungeon woman, utilized Melungeon men in his own silver mining operations. His dark-skinned companions were known as "Mecca Indians

12 Tribes Of Yahsarahla

Judah (Yahawahdah) = The Most High (YHWH) Thanks So-called Negros

Benjamin (Banyamyan) = Son Of The Right Hand So-called West Indians

Levi (Laway) = Attached (Joined To Me) So-called Haitians

Simeon (Shamiwan) = Affliction Heard So-called Dominican Republicans

Zebulon (Zabalawan) = Dwelling So-called Guatamaula to Panama

Ephraim (Ahparayam) = I Am Fruitful So-Called Puerto Ricans

Manasseh (Manashah) = Made To Forget So-called Cubans

Gad (Gad) = Troop (Fortune) So-called Northen Native Americans

Reuben (Raahwban) = See It's A Son So-called Seminole Indians

Asher (Ahshar) = Happy So-called Columbia to Uraugray

Napthali (Napathalay) = My Wrestling So-called Argentine to Chile

Issachar (Yahshakar) = He Is Hired So-called Mexicans