Ibn Said Narrative and Religion
This narrative uses Christianity as a mask to the African-Muslim impulses of Ibn Said’s theoretical framework. Life references Quranic verses and Arabic rhetorical traditions to undermine his captors. Further, he circumvents the Christian-centric tenants the people around him that control him. Ibn Said is not necessarily preoccupied with using Christianity as an ethical appeal to the hypocrisy of slavery or asserting himself as an American Man. The concern of the narrative is in asserting himself as an African Muslim. Scholarship calls into question the validity of Ibn Said’s supposed historical conversion to Christianity by suggesting his superficial engagement with the religion was far more of a survival tactic, or attempt to integrate into a Black community than a legitimate conversion. While he did indeed join a Presbyterian church community, the language in Life suggests Islamic loyalties.