The Malê Revolt of 1835
from Part I - Transacting
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 August 2025
Set during the Muslim slave uprising of 1835 in Bahia, Brazil, this chapter tells part of the story of the Muslim Atlantic. It offers a close reading of two talismans that Bahian authorities confiscated from the bodies of the slain rebels and the homes of the arrested rebels. This chapter approaches these talismans, which were composed in Arabic by Muslim clerics in Bahia, as Arabic documents and posits that they signify the endurance of Muslim letters in the New World and the Muslim Atlantic. More than offering protection for the wearers, these talismans also provide insights into the spiritual, political, and even existential wonderings of those involved in the rebellion. More broadly, these talismans both elucidate the African Muslims’ faith and disrupt our understanding of what constitutes a text in general, and specifically as part of Luso-Brazilian literature. In doing so, this chapter disrupts the Catholic hegemony of the Latinx religious imaginary by expanding the religious and racial connotations of “Latinidad” to include Islam and African Muslims.
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