Abangan

The term "abangan" literally means “brown (or red) ones”.  Abangan is a Javanese term used to describe those Javanese who are only nominally committed to Islam, the dominant religion of Indonesia.  They are generally unconcerned about the formal ritual obligations of Islam (reciting five daily prayers, keeping a month long fast, giving alms, etc.) and are culturally committed to pre-Islamic Javanese art forms, such as wayang (shadow theater), and to local religious ideas (adat). 

In the early twentieth century, the Dutch amalgamation of peasant villages often placed strict Muslims (santri) and nominal Muslims (abangan) under a single administration.  Social tensions between the two populations were heightened by the santri community’s pressures for religious orthodoxy.  These tensions were exploited by Indonesian nationalists, who embraced the abangan as a counter-balance to Islamic political pretensions.

Sukarno (1901-1970), the first president of Indonesia (1949-1967), was particularly adept as a spokesman for the abangan community.  The Indonesian Communist Party (Partai Komunis Indonesia - "PKI"), rather than emphasizing the theoretical doctrines of Marx and Lenin, drew most of its membership from among the Javanese abangan community by promising a return to a great pre-Dutch and pre-Islamic egalitarian age.

Alternative names include:

Abangan
Brown Ones
Red Ones

'Ababda

The ‘Ababda (also known as the 'Ababde or the Gebadei) are an Arabic-speaking tribe of Beja origin in Upper Egypt with branches in the northern Sudan.  The 'Ababda are nomads living in the area between the Nile and the Red Sea, in the vicinity of Aswan in Egypt.  They are a subgroup of the Beja people who are bilingual in Beja and Egyptian Arabic.

The 'Ababda extend from the Nile at Aswan to the Red Sea, and reach northward to the Qena-Quseir road, thus occupying the southern border of Egypt east of the Nile.  They call themselves "sons of the Jinns."  With some of the clans of the Bisharin and possibly the Hadendoa, they represent the Blemmyes of classic geographers, and their location today is almost identical with that assigned them in Roman times. 

The 'Ababda were constantly at war with the Romans, who eventually conquered them.  In the Middle Ages, they were known as Beja, and convoyed pilgrims from the Nile Valley to Aidhab, the port of embarkation for Jedda.  From time immemorial, they have acted as guides to caravans through the Nubian desert and up the Nile Valley as far as Sennar.

The 'Ababda intermarried with the Nubians, and settled in small colonies at Shendi and elsewhere up to Muhammad 'Ali's conquest of the region in the early 19th century of the Christian calendar. 

The 'Ababda claim Arab descent but certain wide spread customs are of Hamitic origin.  The 'Ababda venerate Shaykh Abu’l-Hasan al-Shahili, whose tomb in the Atbai desert is a place of pilgrimage. 

Alternative names include:

'Ababda
'Ababde
Gebadei

A Note to the Reader/Names Compendium

A Note to the Reader

           This compilation of The People of the Muslim Diaspora is intended to be a continual work in progress. Undoubtedly, there will be errors that will be made in the course of creating this work. That is where you, the reader, can render me a great service. If you discover any errors that require that be made, please let me know and I will endeavor to make the appropriate corrections.

Thank you.

Names Compendium

The following is a compendium of the names of The People of the Muslim Diaspora whose profiles may be found in this work along with the alternative names by which those people may be known.  The names listed in bold print are those names that have profiles.

'Ababda

'Ababde see 'Ababda


Abangan

Abazians


'Abbadids

'Abbasids

'Abdali 


'Abd al-Qays

Achakzai see 'Abdali

Alikozai see 'Abdali

Alizai see 'Abdali

Badozai see 'Abdali

Banu 'Abbad see 'Abbadids

Barakzai see 'Abdali

Brown Ones see Abangan

Durani see 'Abdali

Durrani see 'Abdali

Gebadei see 'Ababda

Ishaksai see 'Abdali



Kais see 'Abd al-Qays 


Khakwani see 'Abdali

Khogyani see 'Abdali

Maku see 'Abdali

Noorzai see 'Abdali

Panjpai see 'Abdali

Popalzai see 'Abdali



Qais see 'Abd al-Qays

Qays see 'Abd al-Qays




Red Ones see Abangan

Reyes de Taifas see 'Abbadids

Sadozai see 'Abdali

Sakzai see 'Abdali

Tareen see 'Abdali

Zirak see 'Abdali

Introduction

I am not a Muslim. I am simply a man in search of truth -- the truth about myself, my people, my country, my world and God. In my search for truth, I have discovered that there is much that I once believed to be true that is certainly not the total truth and, indeed, may not be true at all.

I once believed that I am only an African American. However, in my search for truth, I discovered that such a label is not entirely true. I discovered that, like me, most persons of African descent who live in the United States also have European and Indigenous American blood. By labeling such individuals as being only African American, society may be denying essential elements of their being.

As a so-called African American, I once believed that American slavery defined my past and impacted my present. But once I escaped the confines of the label, I learned that my triple heritage -- my African, European and Indigenous American heritage -- is far richer than I could ever have imagined. With a triple heritage, African slavery is not an overriding historical theme. With a triple heritage, the self-evident fact is that for people like me the overriding historical theme concerns the creation of a new people and the beginning of a new experiment with fascinating possibilities for the future history of man.

Another consequence of discovering the nature of a triple heritage is the realization that one of the defining labels that is currently en vogue in American society simply does not fit. On almost any day of the week, in schools, churches, and the halls of power throughout the land, one can hear pronouncements being made concerning the Judeo-Christian heritage of America. However, as a person with a triple heritage, there are other religious traditions which have obviously had some bearing on the individual that I am today. In addition to my Judeo-Christian heritage, there is also a lingering influence of the tribal religions of the African and Indigenous American peoples and, perhaps more significantly, there is the ongoing influence of Islam.

In discovering the truth about the African part of my heritage, I was frequently confronted by the role that Islam played in developing African society and in initiating the African diaspora. After all, it was the Muslim Arab merchants who took African slaves and companions with them as they traversed the then known world. China, Malaysia, India, and Spain all came to be the home of Africans because of the peripatetic Arabs. It was the Muslims who spread their religion to both the West and East coasts of Africa and through persuasion and intermarriage converted the African people to the Islamic faith. And it was African Muslims from the west coast of Africa who frequently were the slave cargo of the European ships that came to the Americas, speaking such Muslim languages as Hausa, Mandingo, and Fulfulde. It was these forefathers who played such an integral part in the bold experiment which eventually made me what I am.

Yes, Islam has, undoubtedly, had an historical role in defining what it means to be an African American. But, for me, there is even more.

For me, there are moments and times in my life which are indelibly etched in my psyche. There was the time while living in Glasgow, Montana, in the early 1960s that I became aware of the sport of boxing when a brash young boxer by the name of Cassius Clay defeated the "invincible" bear known as Sonny Liston. Cassius Clay would soon become the legendary Muhammad Ali -- a Muslim who became the dominant sports figure of my generation.

There was the time in high school in 1969 when I first began to explore my African heritage by reading a story about a small time hoodlum who underwent two Islamic conversions -- first as the Nation of Islam leader known as Malcolm X and later as the more orthodox Muslim, El Hajj Malik Shabazz.

Then there was the crucial period of my life when during my first two years of college, in 1972 and 1973, I served as the "Minister of Information" of the Amherst Afro-American Society under the leadership of Umar Zaid Muhammad.

No, I am not a Muslim. But my personal heritage, and my personal experiences, compel me to say that here too I have a triple heritage. I have not just a Judeo-Christian heritage, but rather a heritage that is a combination of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.