A TikToker named Sabrina Allam is claiming Muslims have been in Australia preceding the European settlement of the country from 1788:
@sabrinaallam_ A part of history that deserves to be told. The Aussie bush is home to a story of Muslim connections that began long before European colonisation. Makassan Muslims from Sulawesi had deep connections with the Yolŋu people of Arnhem Land. They traded goods, shared languages, and even built families together, forming bonds based on respect and trust. Some studies suggest these relationships began as early as the 1500s, while others place their origins in the mid-1600s. Either way, this history predates European arrival and highlights a rich, interconnected past that isn’t talked about enough. I want to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of this land, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and their enduring connection to it. Let’s honour their stories, celebrate this shared history, and leave the ignorance behind. I’d also highly recommend watching the film Before 1770 – it sheds light on these incredible relationships.
♬ original sound – sabrina allam
My first reaction was to dismiss this like their other wild claims, including palestinian Arabs being around since Prehistoric times, and claiming Big Ben was palestinian.
And I was not alone in this thought:
Now obviously the narrative that Muslims in Australia have always been peaceful, while the “White man” hasn’t – which is what she is implying – is ridiculous. And right now, some of the worst antisemitism, terror support, and generally shitty behavior is coming from members of the Muslim community in Australia.
But I want to address the specific historical point to do with Muslims being in Australia preceding British colonization.
I dug around a bit and discovered that there is a view that traditional Indonesian boats known as praus brought Muslim fishermen from the trading city of Makassar either in the 1750s, or even perhaps as early as the 1500s. And while at first it seemed those espousing this view were solely Islamic organizations and websites citing Muslim authors, I did find other sources – like this BBC article citing a non-Muslim historian – saying something similar:
Few Australians are aware that the country’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples had regular contact with foreign Muslims long before the arrival of Christian colonisers. And Islam continues to exercise an appeal for some Aboriginal peoples today, writes Janak Rogers.
The white lines are faint but unmistakable. Small sailing boats, picked out in white and yellow pigment on the red rocks of the Wellington Range in Arnhem Land, northern Australia, tell a different story from the one most Australians accept as the history of their nation.
They are traditional Indonesian boats known as praus and they brought Muslim fishermen from the flourishing trading city of Makassar in search of trepang, or sea cucumbers.
Exactly when the Makassans first arrived is uncertain.
Some historians say it was in the 1750s, but radiocarbon dating of beeswax figures superimposed on the cave paintings suggests that it was much earlier – one of the figures appears to have been made before 1664, perhaps as early as the 1500s.
They apparently made annual trips to gather the sea cucumbers, which fetched a high price because of their important role in Chinese medicine and cuisine.
The Makasssans represent Australia’s first attempt at international relations, according to anthropologist John Bradley from Melbourne’s Monash University – and it was a success. “They traded together. It was fair – there was no racial judgement, no race policy,” he says.
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Some Makassan cucumber traders stayed, married Aboriginal women and left a lasting religious and cultural legacy in Australia. Alongside the cave paintings and other Aboriginal art, Islamic beliefs influenced Aboriginal mythology.
So it seems this TikToker is not completely off her meds as was first thought.
However….there are some inconvenient facts she left out. You see, even though there was clearly some respect and relations between these Makassans and Indigenous Australians..
“I’m a historian and I know that the Makassans, when they came to Arnhem Land, they had cannons, they were armed, there were violent incidents,” says Regina Ganter at Griffith University in Brisbane.
She does, though, go on to explain:
But many in the Yolngu community are wedded to a view of the sea cucumber trade as an alternative to colonialism, she says, and even consider the Makassans long-lost relatives. When she mentioned the Makassans’ cannons to one elder in the tribe, he dismissed it. “He really wanted to tell this story as a story of successful cultural contact, which is so different to people coming and taking your land and taking your women and establishing themselves as superior.”
But even if we accept this narrative, it is clear this Sabrina Allam is trying to paint Muslims and Indigenous Australians as natural allies against the “colonizers” – namely White Australians but also Jews in Israel.
So I would tackle her narrative in a different way.
Say Indigenous Australians were killed, or fled or were deported from Australia when the British colonized (with some remaining), and as a result were living scattered elsewhere throughout the world for centuries. But despite living in the diaspora, the Indigenous Australians never forgot their homeland, telling stories of their ancestors, facing Australia when praying, and performing other religious rites connected to the land.
Now say the Makassans subsequently came and defeated the British and took over Australia and lived there for a while. Later on, Indigenous Australians made their way back to Australia, their homeland, and because of their ingenuity, especially with farming techniques, were able to increase productivity and living conditions for all. This, in turn, led to even more Makassans coming to live in Australia.
Continuing the story, say the Indigenous Australians were willing to live side-by-side with the Makassans and split the country, taking the mostly desert regions and leaving the more fertile, coastal areas for the Makassans according to a UN resolution on the subject. Yet the Makassans refused to share, and launched a war on the Indigenous Australians, with help from their Muslim brethren elsewhere.
This is essentially what happened in Israel, with the Jews being the Indigenous people of the land, and the palestinian Arabs being the Makassans in the above analogy (but behaving more like colonizers than the Makassans did).
In the analogy, just because the Indigenous Australians returned from overseas, this does not make them colonizers, and just because the Makassans were inhabiting the land at the time of the return of the Indigenous, this does not make them not colonizers.
In other words, Sabrina Allam does not really care about respect for the Indigenous. She cares about creating an alliance between Muslims and Indigenous Australians with a clear agenda.