# Khaled Esseissah on Enslaved Muslim Sufi Saints in the 19th Century Sahara

An episode of [The Journal of African History Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1572350849), 28 Jan 2022, 30 min.

Audio: https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/2mj7hq/Esseissah_-_092121afa78.mp3

Khaled Esseissah (Georgetown) speaks with Moses Ochonu about the life of Bilad Ould Mahmud, a 19th century enslaved Saharan Muslim whose renowned miracles, poetry, and Qur’an recitation enabled him to acquire Sufi sainthood without belonging to a Sufi order. Esseissah’s scholarship unsettles longstanding historical narratives about the interplay between spiritual authority, race, and slavery in Saharan-Mauritanian society. Esseissah’s article ‘Enslaved Muslim Sufi Saints in the Nineteenth-Century Sahara: The Life of Bilal Ould Mahmoud’ appears in the November 2021 issue of the Journal of African History.

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