The Diasporic Ummah: Identity, Resistance, and Diversity

Abstract

This article discusses the concepts of identity, resistance, and diversity under a religious and autonomous practice within the Muslim communities found in the Brazilian Empire and in the lives of some enslaved Muslims in Jamaica and the United States, during the XIX century. Through the sources presented here, it aims at presenting a set of practices, done by the Muslim society and its members that evidence these three concepts in action, connecting them as well to the Muslim idea of the ummah and with the theory of habitus, pursuing to understand how action and choice served as a tool to engender agency and potency in the lives of thousands of enslaved Muslims throughout the African diaspora.

Keywords: Practice, Identity, Resistance, Diversity, Community