Is there evidence Muslim soldiers fought in the Continental Army?

Question

It is said that Muslims fought for the American Revolution, by serving in the Continental Army. Wikipedia cites a few names:

Records from the American Revolutionary War indicate that at least a few Muslims fought on the American side. Among the recorded names of American soldiers are "Peter Salem","Yusuf ben Ali" and "Bampett Muhamed"

_{- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_States#Earliest_records}

However, Wikipedia appears to say this solely based on their recorded names.As far as I can tell, they seemed to be ex slaves who changed their names to the above after being freed. It is of course quite possible that they were descenedents of Muslim slaves who kept their faith, and therefore chose to retain their real names upon freedom; but Wikipedia doesn't seem to offer any corroborating evidence.

Peter Salem, a freed slave who reputedly shot Major JohnPitcairn during the war, has his own article but it made no mention of his faith. One Google result suggests he was Muslim on account of his chosen surname, which may have been taken from Arabic. I couldn't really find anything of substance on the other two, although their names indicate they did likely have Islamic heritages.

I guess my question is, how reliable an indicator of Muslim faith is having an Arabic or Islamic name in Colonial America?

Or more generally, are there any real evidence of Revolutionary War soldiers practising Islam?

Answer 1

Salem Poor and Peter Salem were both freed slaves born in Massachusetts (don't be so surprised, New England prohibitions against slavery weren't always followed), which explains the Salem in their names more than an Islamic background. The name Salem has a strong symbolic significance in colonial Massachusetts:

In recognition of this peaceful transition to the new government, the name of the settlement was changed to Salem, a hellenized form of the word for "peace" in Hebrew שלום (shalom), and the name mentioned several times in the Bible and traditionally associated with Jerusalem.

If anything, their choice in names indicates they were good New England protestants. When you see hoofprints, think horses, not zebras.

Likewise, Bampett Muhamed and Yusuf ben Ali (formerly Joseph Benhaley) are also freed slaves, and while they undoubtedly indicate an Islamic heritage, without firm evidence it's unknown if they were practicing Muslims or simply Christians or agnostics who took back their family names upon emancipation. The historical record of Islam in Colonial America indicates only captured slaves were (sometimes) permitted to practice Islam, and they were usually subject to attempts at conversion by the slaveholders, as was the case with the famed author, scholar and theologian Omar Ibn Said.

So, while it's plausible, there isn't enough of a record to say for certain.

Answer 2

Wikipedia does manage sometimes to serve up the silliest nonsense. As others have noted, Salem is in the English Bible. It is a transcription of one of the Hebrew names for Jerusalem. “Peter” is a Christian name (St Peter in the New Testament). No Muslim would ever be called “Peter Salem”: it is 100% Christian name. بطرس سالم is in fact a very typical Arab Christian name.

“Bampett” is definitely not a Muslim name; it looks like the sort of made-up name that a slave-owner would give his slave.

Answer 3

Assuming Mr. Salem was a Muslim based only on his last name being derived from the Arabic word “Salaam” (various versions of which mean peace in modern Arabic and Hebrew) is very weak tea. The words origins are proto-Semitic meaning it predates Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic languages and the Jewish, Islamic, and Christian faiths).

This, therefore, would hardly be sufficient evidence to determine his faith (or even the native faith of his parents’ birthplace).

Long before Islam was created, and spread to parts of Africa, Christianity was present, and Aramaic/Arabic speaking people were among the world’s very first Christians — and many resided in Africa. One need only reference St Augustine specifically or the Egyptian Coptic or Ethiopian Orthodox churches generally to establish this.

Even today, Mexico’s wealthiest man Carlos Slim whose parents were immigrants to Mexico from Lebanon, bears a last name that his father shortened from “Salim” or “Saleem.” Like the vast majority of other Lebanese immigrants to the Western Hemisphere over the last century, they were Maronite Christians. The Maronite faith predates the British colonization of America by over 1,000 years.

While I’m sure there were Muslims among African Slaves brought to America, the vast vast majority of slaves sold to slave traders were captured by African Muslims. It would NOT have been proper for them to enslave fellow Muslims, it is HARAM. But it was acceptable in Islam (and warfare at the time) for them to capture, enslave, and sell the Christian and Animist populations.

Answer 4

Peter, a non Muslim name? The name Peter IS used by Arabs, it's Boutros, it is usually used by Christian Arabs, but I personally know of Arab and West African Muslims using the name Boutros. Muslims believe in Jesus, his sanctity, his miraculous conception and the virgin birth, his place as the Messiah, and revere his Apostles like Peter/Simon (I'm a Muslim, and my name is the Arabic Version of Simon, which was Peter's original Name) as well as St. John the Baptist. So it is not beyond reason an Anglicized version would be used. Also my Paternal Great-Grandmother's maiden Surname was Salem/Salem (it means peace, the traditional Arabic greeting is Salem'Aleikum, meaning peace be upon you), also one of my other Paternal Great-Grandfathers had the given name of Salem/Salam. So, while the name Peter Salem does not definitively prove he was a Muslim, it by no means discounts it either. So do not listen to the half cocked idea of someone saying Peter is a "100% only Christian Arab name" or that "Salem is of a Hebrew only origin" as the basis of their argument, Aramaic is the parent language of Arabic, and yes Hebrew words did find their way into Aramaic, but Hebrew also took from and developed from Sinaitic, Assyrian, Greek, and Phoenician languages. Hell, nearly all modern Alphabets and writing systems, outside of Far-Eastern Asian one's, were developed from the Phoenician one. Like the word Salem/Salam and Shalom, the origins of the Arabic word for God, Allah, can be traced back to the Hebrew word for God: El, which itself has even older origins. (Note: Allah is the Arabic word for God, the same word is used by Arabic speaking Jews and Christians as well, IT IS NOT the "name" of a separate deity, like the Hindu gods "Shiva", "Ganesh", or "Kali", as is the common misconception among many uneducated Americans)

Answer 5

If you do a quick Google search on those two names, you get directed to Ancestry.com and can quickly find that Yusef Ben Ali (later York) was from Mali, and Bampett Mohammed was from Turkey. And in fact, Bampett Muhammed was born Joseph Benhaley. And Youssef Ben Ali went by Joseph, probably because Americans had problems with pronunciation. Peter Salem was indeed a freed slave, but Salem is a quite common name in Arabic nations. And since a lot of Muslims in the colonies (and later the US) were Muslim, they ended up having Anglicized names. Just thought I'd put my two cents in.