Joseph Pitts (author) facts for kids

Joseph Pitts (1663–1735?) was an Englishman who was taken into slavery by Barbary pirates in Algiers, Algeria in 1678 at the age of fourteen or fifteen. During his time in captivity, Pitts went through three masters over the course of more than fifteen years, with whom he travelled to Cairo and Alexandria. Though he escaped between the years 1693 and 1694, it was not until 1704 that Pitts first published his account. Pitts's A True and Faithful Account of the Religion and Manners of the Mohammetans, includes descriptions of his capture and captivity, including some of the first English descriptions of Islamic rituals. Converting to Islam while a slave, Pitts was the first Englishman to record the proceedings of the hajj. Pitts also describes the people of seventeenth-century North Africa in detail, providing particulars on their manner of eating and dressing, the customs of their religion and marriage, and their economic and slave systems. Pitts's narrative was the first and most detailed description of Islam and the manners of Muslims written by a European during the seventeenth century.

Pilgrimage to Mecca

During Pitts's time with his last master that he made his journey to Mecca to complete the hajj. Having converted to Islam under his second master, Ibrahim, Pitts departed for the hajj with his third master around 1685. His account described many aspects of the Islamic pilgrimage including the hajj caravans, the rites at Mecca, and the customary visit to Medina.

Initial rites

As a pilgrim, Pitts participated in the initial rites upon arriving in Mecca. This time is filled with the pilgrims' first tawaf, cleansing and drinking at the Zamzam Well, and completion of the sa'i. Today the sa'i is completed within the mosque in Mecca called Masjid al-Haram. During Pitts's time, and up until the 1950s, this was completed on the street.

Mount Arafat

In chapter 7, Pitts says that they leave Mecca to visit “a certain hill called Gibbel el orphat (or el-Arafat), i.e., the Mountain of Knowledge.” Here he witnesses the pilgrims perform wuquf at Arafat. It is the “how, when, and where [pilgrims] receive this honorable title of hajji for which they are at all this pains and expense," Pitts states. He describes the times that the pilgrims perform their preparations for the prayers and rites to be completed while at the hill, and how "they [beg] earnestly for the remission of their sins and [promise] newness of life using a form of penitential expressions and thus continuing for the space of four or five hours."

Relationship with masters

Pitts served a total of three masters, with varying degrees of treatment. While little insight is given into Pitts's first master, his second master, Ibrahim, treated him very poorly. At the beginning of Pitts' capture, he mentions the poor diet that he and the other slaves were fed. Many slaves watched as other slaves were beaten and tortured.

Pitts’ narrative then turns to forced conversions to Islam. He states: ‘It hath been affirmed by some that the slaves that are sold in this country are never compelled to turn to the Mohammetan religion.’ Even after changing religions, Ibrahim treated Pitts just as maliciously as he had before, beating Pitts until he bleed.

Pitts describes his third and final as master treating him like a son, seeing as he had no children or relatives and after given freedom, he continued to stay with him. From an Islamic context, freeing a slave was looked at as a great act of piety, and the act could allow the slave master to be forgiven of his sins. When Pitts made the decision to leave, escaping back to his native homeland, he became conflicted as to whether or not he should leave his fatherlike master who had made promises of leaving all of his belongings to Pitts after his death.