This Sunday, November 14 at 7p.m., historian Allan Austin will be speaking on “African Muslims in Antebellum America: The Life and Times of Omar ibn Said.” The lecture will be in the college union and an exhibit accompanying the lecture is on display in the library’s Rare Book Room.
Featured in the display is the Bible in Arabic translation owned by Omar ibn Said while he was a slave. For more information on Omar ibn Said, check out our Davidson Encyclopedia article.
Also on display is a small card from the donor, a Mrs. Guion of Charlotte, NC. Mrs. Guion’s family owned Omar and the Bible came to her after his death in 1864.
She donated the Bible to a student organization at Davidson College in 1871. Few people today have heard of The Williams Association of Inquiry. Organized in 1855, it operated until 1884. As described in the 1861 catalog, the society was founded by
“the Rev. Edwin Williams, a missionary to Africa. The design of the Association is to inquire into the spread of the gospel, and especially to seek information in regard to missionary operations in heathen lands. In carrying out this design, monthly meetings are held, at which an essay is read. Reports are likewise made on foreign missions, the state of religion in North American, operations of Bible and Tract Societies, and the state of religion in Europe. The reading room of the Association, supplied with the leading religious papers and periodicals of this country and several missionary periodicals of Great Britain, is opened every Sabbath to all the students.”
A decade later, the purpose had shifted to assisting ‘in benevolent and religious labours at and around Davidson, and to maintain a special interest in the spread of the Gospel throughout the world.” It was also noted that “among the annual attractions of Commencement week is a sermon before this association.”
By 1884, the YMCA which was founded in 1879 had assumed the work of the Williams Association and the Williams Association ended its tenure on campus but left the college with an important artifact of North Carolina history.