BEFORE MECCA

Before the minarets. Before the caliphates. Before Mecca itself - there was Africa. In this sweeping work of restorative history, Ajarn Shaman Shu (Oluwo Jolaoso Osainbola) dismantles centuries of erasure to reveal what the record has always held: Islam and the Arabic language did not arrive in Africa from outside - they arose from African soil, African tongues, and African sacred tradition. Written in the scholarly lineage of Dr.
Yosef ben-Jochannan - "Dr. Ben, " to whom the author pays personal tribute from their years of connection - this book traces the current back to its source: Arabic as an African language - its roots in the Afro-Asiatic family born on African soil Neter, El, Allah - one divine name, one African source The First Hijra - why Islam's first sanctuary was Ethiopia Bilal ibn Rabah, the African voice of Islam, and Hagar, the African mother of the Abrahamic line The Kaaba before Islam - an African sacred site The Moors - the African Muslims who civilized Europe Sufism's African-Dravidian mystical heart Dr.
Ben and the African origins of the major Western religions Malcolm X and the Black American rediscovery of African Islam The Restoration - giving Islam back its African name For readers of Afrocentric history, students of Islam, and everyone who has sensed that the story they were taught was missing its first chapter , this is the book that restores it.