An eighteenth century Qur’an written from memory by freed African slave Ayuba Suleiman Diallo is a highlight of the El-Nimer Collection and Midad. This talk attempts to answer questions about Diallo’s life, examining his time and circumstances as a slave in the United States, reasons for his travel to England, and his interaction with both societies. His journey is examined here based on clues from the manuscript, as well as newly-surfaced traces of his life, hidden for the past 250 years.

Ian Foster is an independent scholar