While they resisted conversion, whether overtly or secretly, Muslims continued to follow the precepts of their religion, including abstinence from pork and alcohol and observing the fast for Ramadan, the fourth pillar of Islam. In the French Caribbean, the refusal of pork was so widespread that in 1672, the governor wrote, 'This people cannot see any longer how to feed the slaves for bacon is their aversion and they eat it only through force'. In the United States of America, Salih Bilali was described by his owner as 'a strict Mahometan; [he] abstains from spirituous liquors, and keeps the various fasts, particularly that of the Rhamadam [Ramadan]'. In Jamaica, Muhammad Kaba from Guinea acknowledged that 'whenever he wished to observe one of the Mahometan fasts, he pretended to be sick'. After the failed 1835 Muslim uprising in Bahia, police carrying out a search of a secret Qur'anic school found a calendar showing the days of Ramadan (Diouf, 2013, pp. 94-95, pp. 119-123).  
The third pillar of Islam, the giving of charity, was also observed by a number of Muslims, as was making freewill offerings known as sadaqah in Arabic, or saraka or sara in the Sea Islands of the United States, in Trinidad, Carriacou, Grenada and Brazil. In the United States, this practice consisted of Muslim women handing out rice balls, while in other areas they handed out various food offerings; this Islamic tradition was one adopted by non-Muslims in the Caribbean (Diouf, 2013, pp. 91-93).