Islam's Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora

by Ronald Segal

Book Overview

A comprehensive study of the Eastern slave trade by an eminent British scholar A companion volume to The Black Diaspora , this groundbreaking work tells the fascinating and horrifying story of the Islamic slave trade. Islam's Black Slaves documents a centuries-old institution that still survives, and traces the business of slavery and its repercussions from Islam's inception in the seventh century, through its history in China, India, Iran, Turkey,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374527970
• ISBN13: 9780374527976
• Release Date: February 2002
• Publisher: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux-3pl
• Length: 273 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Very enlightening

This book is highly problematic. As has been noted this book seems to endorse and defend the Islamic slave trade as the author argues it was more `humane' then the western version while at the same time this book explores the roots of Islams obsession with Slavery.What's clear from this book is that Islam invented the African slave trade and introduced it to the West. The West had taken slaves in battle but had never penetrated Africa as slave traders for the purposes of money. Islam send thousands of Arabs deep into the hearts of Africa to get as many slaves as possible. This book details how most of the slaves sought were female which would be used for the sexual recreation of Muslim men. The African women that became pregnant were punished and the children were murdered. The male African slaves were frequently used as soldiers or killed and thus there is relatively little African culture in the Arab countries that imported more then 11 million or more African slaves from 500AD onwards up to this day. The author tries to argue that these slaves were more humanely treated because they were not used to work fields as the slaves in the West were. But its not clear how its more humane to treat young African women as sexual slaves for mere enjoyment, only to murder them at age 25 then it is to keep slaves for most of their natural life working on a farm and procreating. Few if any of Islams African slaves were allowed to mate with eachother and have offspring this is why little African culture is apparent in Islamic countries today throughout the former Ottoman empire.This book is essential for the west to understand that Islam was a slave loving and slave holding culture, one that in many ways mirrored the western obsession with human trade. It is an interesting book. This is essential reading for understanding the dark side of Islamic societies and the obsession that Arabs had in the slave trade. The slave trade exists to this day in the Sudan and Africa where Arab gangs raid villages, stealing women and children to be sold as slaves to rich Saudis for sexual pleasure and house work. Not much has changed in 1500 years in Saudi Arabia, and this book is a good primer on the basis for slavery in Islamic society, a basis that the author claims comes from the Koran exhorting Muslims to treat slaves well but to import them vigorously.

Interesting but not a gripping narrative

Considering the amount of ink that's been spent on the subject of the Atlantic slave trade, the lack of writing on the Islamic trade is remarkable, so this book certainly fills a gap. There's always going to be that problem though - especially since Sep 11 - about Westerners writing about Islam. We all know about the dangers of orientalism.Segal is certainly aware of this, and makes it clear that he regards the Atlantic trade as worse than the Islamic trade, citing the generally more systematic racism by the Europeans, and the greater possibilty of assimilation by the Arabs. Unfortunately the result of this determination not to be seen to be orientalist is to make the whole account rather bloodless. We're treated to a dry summation of the facts, with little to tie them together or, frankly, to make them very interesting. It's only in the concluding chapters, dealing with the trade in the nineteenth century, and particularly in the twentieth century, that Segal's account takes off, as, at last freed from looking back over his shoulder at comparable Western crimes, he manages to summon some indignation, and the true horror of slavery becomes clear.I have to confess that Segal's insistence - at regular intervals - that the Islamic trade was in some ways less horrendous than the Atlantic trade became counter-productive in my case. Was it really that much better? The numbers involved are, as far as anyone can tell, of a similar order of magnitude. The actual transportation, and the treatment of the slaves en route, was equally appalling in both cases. The major difference was to do with the eventual use of the slaves - for domestic or sexual services leading to a predominance of female slaves in the case of the Islamic trade, against the plantation slavery in the West, leading to a predominance of male slaves. In the case of Islam, of course, a significant proportion of the males were castrated, which as Segal makes all too clear as often as not involved slicing off - how shall I put this? - the whole works. Lovely. But these eunuchs could then go on to assume important positions in Islamic society. So that's alright then! I just wonder what the reaction would be if it had been the Europeans who'd done the castrating and concubinage on a regular basis: imagine the outrage, the denunciations of this institutional genital mutilation, this institutional rape, not to mention the library-loads of books there'd be on the psychosexual significance of white males castrating black males and taking black females as concubines.Ah well......I look forward to the slew of books forthcoming from Islamic scholars on the evils of slavery as practised by their societies, and how we all owe a debt of gratitude to the West for putting an end to this ghastly trade. But then again, maybe I'll have a long wait.

important book

I've been aware of Islam's role in the black slave trade for a while now and figured that Islam's Black Slaves would be a good book to find out more on the subject. It provides a lot of useful information on the subject like looking at the begining of Islam and how it dealth with racism and slavery. It deals with how Muslims used black slaves and sold them in Africa, the Middle East and a little bit in India and China. It also deals with thier treatment with comparision to black slavery in the western hemisphere. It makes comparisions between different ways muslims treted and used slaves in differnt regions. It also deals with how slavery was dealth with under colonialism and the rise of islam in black muslims.

The Hidden Slavery comes to light.

For myself, a student of history, "Islam's Black Slavery," was an eye-opening book. I already had a faint knowledge that slavery took place in the Muslim world, but I never knew to what extent. This book helped me greatly to bridge the gap of my ignorance on this subject. Starting with Islam's prophet Muhammad, Mr. Segal gives us a very adequate background to the environment from which this kind of slavery has risen. After Muhammad he talks about the factions and the different kingdoms which started to develop their own interpretations of servitude along with what was allowed by Islamic teachings. Mr. Segal goes into abundant detail on how the preference for slaves gradually turned more towards sub-Saharan Africa, what types of slaves that were in demand, for what purposes, how and what technigues they used to get them, and lastly how this abhorrent practice could continue from century to century. In the beginning he does mention that the Islamic slavery was not as brutal and dehumanizing as American slavery, but it certainly seems that he in no way sugar-coats Islamic slavery either. The incessant raids, women used as concubines, and the castrations of the male "eunuch" slaves all add to the horrors of this particular system. A system, he notes, that lasted longer than American slavery did. Towards the end he even writes about the European colonizing powers that tried to stop, or at least discourage the slavery, and why it survived despite various laws and edicts against it. The most interesting, but also the saddest chapters in the book are at the end when he writes about the legacy of slavery, how it has fed into a racist mentality that exists even to this day in countries like the Sudan and Mauritania. It really brings it home, and dispells the notion that it couldn't happen today. Overall I think that it was an excellent book, and certainly a must read if you are looking for more knowledge in this area. My only criticisms are that I wish there had been more firsthand account from slave's families, or slave raided communities; how this centuries long practice affects them today. In some chapters the author bounces back and forth between time periods, so it gets a little confusing at times, and the very last chapter he talks about the effect of slavery leading to a rise in black Muslim sects in the U.S., but I would have liked to have also seen more of his own personal conclusions. Nevertheless, it is a very beneficial addition to exploring another chapter of an aweful, neverending human tragedy in the history of our world.

Enlightening

ISLAM'S BLACK SLAVES will surprise many readers with its contents because outside of harems little is said about this slave trade that began almost a millennium earlier than the western route. Eye opening to the average reader and history buff though not as deep as expected by a tome of this sort especially when compared to Ronald Segal's companion book THE BLACK DIASPORA. Still, this is quite a good non-fiction book that highlights differences between the economic-based Atlantic slave system and the servile-based Islamic slave system. For instance, in the Islamic world, female slaves were predominant as opposed to males in the Americas. Excellently written and in a general way very enlightening.Harriet Klausner