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.