Arab slave trade rivaled Europeans

[Pontus]

I was reading a high school text book about world history and there was an entire chapter devoted to Europeans and the slave trade. Nothing in the entire book dealt with the Muslim/Arab involvement in trading in black people for the purpose of slavery. A strange thing considering that it rivaled European exploitation of African blacks -- here's an interesting observation:

http://debate.org.uk/topics/trtracts/t12.htm

"Let me set the record straight. While Europeans were involved with the slave trade for a few hundred years, the existence of the traffic of African slaves had been well established one-thousand years before.

The Muslim position which places the entire blame for the invention and practice of black slavery at the door of Christian Europe, is simply not historically tenable. Both the Grecian and Roman societies were slave states, yet most of their slaves were Caucasian. In fact, the word slave meant a person who was of Slavic origin. Robert Hughes, in his essay on The Fraying of America in the February 3, 1992 issue of Time magazine corrects this false impression when he says:

"The African slave trade as such, the black traffic, was an Arab invention, developed by traders with the enthusiastic collaboration of black African ones, institutionalized with the most unrelenting brutality, centuries before the white man appeared on the African continent, and continuing long after the slave market in North America was finally crushed... Nothing in the writings of the Prophet forbids slavery, which is why it became such an Arab-dominated business. And the slave traffic could not have existed without the wholehearted cooperation of African tribal states, built on the supply of captives generated by their relentless wars. The image promulgated by pop-history fictions like Roots - of white slavers bursting with cutlass and musket into the settled lives of peaceful African villages - is very far from the historical truth. A marketing system had been in place for centuries, and its supply was controlled by Africans. Nor did it simply vanish with Abolition. Slave markets, supplying the Arab Emirates, were still operating in Djibouti in the 1950's; and since 1960, the slave trade has flourished in Mauritania and the Sudan. There are still reports of chattel slavery in northern Nigeria, Rwanda and Niger.""

[varun]

1. no doubts about it...

...it still continues. Thousands of "workers" in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are treated like slaves. Reports of harassment, rape and butality against filipino girls, and workers from the Indian subcontinent come out every month.

If you put things into perspective, slavery is as old as mankind. The caste system in India is a kind of slavery - where the lowest castes have been denied access to education and have been restricted to work in certain occupations only.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Look at the bottom of your article

"This pamphlet was compiled by an interdenominational group of evangelical Christians concerned with Muslim-Christian dialogue."

It's owned by the Hyde Park Christian fellowship
http://debate.org.uk/info/home.htm#purpose

Hardly objective. They have an agenda to push.

[Paschall]

3. You might also try the Bible

If I recall correctly, there's a bit of information there about Egyptian enslavement of the Jews.

[Mairead]

4. Partly true -- the site you point to doesn't seem unbiased, to me

The principal difference is that, by the 16th c. CE, there was no major market remaining for slaves in the European hegemony. Slavery in Europe had been reduced to the more 'genteel' sorts: indenturement and class-based limitations in socioeconomic choices.

But when Christian Europeans started invading and exploiting the New World, that opened a vast new market for slaves, greater than anything seen for 500 or 1000 years. So it was indeed the Europeans who drove the trade during the 16th-19th centuries. Compared to the thousands upon thousands of people forced into slavery and shipped to the New World, the Old World trade was a drop in the bucket.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. I'd have to look up the exact dates...

but a Papal decree said slavery was un-Christian, although that only applied to Christians and it was apparently OK to enslave African heathens. St. Patrick likely had something to do with that.

The Arabs had that trade locked up, so such notables as Prince Henry the Navigator got the Pope to decree that sailing into the wind was not the Devil's work after all and started exploring the east coast of Africa to find a new entry that bypassed those greedy, heathen Ay-rabs.

Columbus' dumb luck in finding a whole new continent did make it all worthwhile.

You just can't make this stuff up. Actual human depravity beats fiction every time.

[Warren Stuart]

5. And your point is?

Man's inhumanity to man has been around since humans first walked the earth. All races are guilty, so?

[angka]

7. this excuses europeans, then?

i'm not sure which jingoist direction this is headed but i'm sure i don't approve.

[Pontus]

14. No, but deal with Muslim slavery too!

Don't present the evils of western society while excusing a system that in many areas of the world still practices slavery (i.e. Mauritania, Sudan, etc.). This is what I was talking about --

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/suzannefields/sf20030220.shtml

I do hate having to quote a conservative news source, but it is telling the truth here:

"Double standards are the norm in these textbooks; Judaism and Christianity get short shrift, as do Western secular institutions. Slavery is often presented as a peculiarly European and American institution. One text does not even mention that Islamic civilizations engaged in the slave trade. In another, where slavery is acknowledged, it's treated as a "benign institution" offering slaves the opportunity for "social mobility." "

[angka]

17. as a history major, i'm not aware of anyone 'excusing' muslim society

for any of its failings or inequalities. i am aware, however, of many westerners who use use statements like this as red herring cover for a larger agenda...

[Pontus]

20. History is being distorted -- by ommission!

As another history major I have no agenda personally except that things get presented fairly.As I have seen, and the article I submitted points out, our students aren't getting all the facts.

[angka]

23. disagree.

these facts are in plain view. no history professor worth his or her shoe leather would seek to obfuscate this. there is an inherent flaw in trying to compare the relative merit of two cultures in this manner. that is not objective study, that is an exercise in nationalism.

shades of david horowitz?

[baldguy]

8. Two different markets

The Arab slave trade comprised East Africa, Arabia, and India to the East Indies. Generally, the captured slaves remained within the same culture, with the possibility of escape and returning home. Also, anybody could be subjected to enslavement.

The European slave trade was White people preying exclusivly on Black people. Skin color was a prerequisite to slavery. Blacks were slaves, and slaves were black. The trade was centered on West Africa, they were removed from thier home, shipped across an ocean to an alien land where they were expected to die within a few years - creating a market for even more slaves.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. Also

in the Qur'an it states that if a slave converts to Islam, their children are free. Don't think many white Southerners did that if their African slaves turned Christian.

[varun]

10. so the Quran...

...still justifies slavery?

[Terwilliger]

13. Did our Constitution allow for the slavery that lasted for 90 more years?

Let's talk about the present.

Besides, if the Bible doesn't "justify" slavery...does that make the Christians who participated in such actions any less guilty of blatant hypocrisy? Or those who might excuse such transgressions?

[_Jumper_]

15. Yes it does

So does the Bible I believe.

[Yupster]

19. Check out this site...

WWW.askimam.com

It's a site where Muslims can ask religious questions or seek clarifications from religious scholars. It's very interesting. A lot of the questions come from Muslims currently living in the West and trying to balance their society and their religion.

Here's the shortest answer on the topic of slavery.


"What does the Islam say regarding intercourse with slave girls? In my opinion Zina or sex with any women is forbidden in Islam


Answer 4821 2002-02-02

A man may have intimate relations with his wife or slave girl. This applies no matter how many slave girls one may possess. He may not have intimate relations with his servant. A slave is one whom one physically owns. Since slavery is not in vogue nowadays, this does not apply today.

and Allah Ta'ala Knows Best

Mufti Ebrahim Desai"

[PsychoDad]

11. Auctally

The slave becomes free also, as does the family.

[varun]

12. but is this freedom

..contingent on the conversion of the slave?

[AP]

16. Question: were the repercussions of slavery as intensely felt any-

where other than the US as late as the 20th and 21st century?

And, man, that is pretty unsubtle anit-arab propaganda.

I wonder what Malcolm X, Muhammed Ali, and hundreds of other black muslims would say about the relative culpability of Europeans and Arabs in the slave trade.

[JVS]

18. Yes. Slavery still persists in Mauritania despite official ban.

http://www.hrw.org/reports/pdfs/M/MAURITAN/MAURITAN906.PDF

that link was a bit old, so I got this one too
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/2002/mauritania11072002.html

[slaveplanet]

21. Imagine That

widespread slavery

here's one for ya- It is quite possibly illegal to send troops of color to Saudi Arabia/kuwait.....It is against the law/constitution to send troops of color for the protection of lands that use chattle slaves

this never has stopped the powers that be from doing it in the past and it wont in the future

snip-
Point by point, I discussed the findings of a unit of the United Nations which had documented a terrible truth. Here it was, late in the 20th Century, I told the crowd, that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, according to undisputed details of the U.N. unit, each had huge numbers of BLACK CHATTEL SLAVES. Saudi, according to the findings, had about one hundred thousand such slaves and Kuwait about fifty thousand of the same. I emphasized that this was done by the Saudi Royal Family and by the Emir of Kuwait, bot h unelected dictators. snip-

-snip
I thought to myself that these supposed black civil rights promoters must be on some big, secret corporate/espionage payroll, and they are afraid to touch the black chattel slavery issue as to the U.S. Military. One of the other speakers, I knew from my long-time sources, was installed as the head of an important black activist group, by the secret political police, the American CIA, to steer matters away from such topics.
I went on to point out that the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the 14th Amendment, outlawed slavery in the United States. (The 13th Amendment, ratified December 6, 1865, after the close of the British promoted War Between the States and Bri tish-instigated murder of President Lincoln, and the 14th Amendment, ratified, July 9, 1868.)
Thus, it was unconstitutional for Daddy Bush, as then President, to have ordered Black U.S. Military personnel to aid and protect owners of BLACK CHATTEL SLAVES. A sizeable per centage of our troops in the Persian Gulf at that time were blacks. Further, of those, a sizeable number were Black Muslims. Iraq is part of the Southern Hemisphere. Some consider Iraqis as "people of color". Why and how were U.S. black military ordered to protect and aid BLACK CHATTEL SLAVE owners and to soon slaughter a great number of fellow moslems in Iraq? -snip-

full story
http://www.skolnicksreport.com/ootar30.html

[Character Assassin]

22. The author of that piece is a loon

Thus, it was unconstitutional for Daddy Bush, as then President, to have ordered Black U.S. Military personnel to aid and protect owners of BLACK CHATTEL SLAVES.

Baloney. The 13th Amendment reads as follows:

Amendment XIII

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

There is nothing in there about sending troops of any color overseas to do anything.

A sizeable per centage of our troops in the Persian Gulf at that time were blacks. Further, of those, a sizeable number were Black Muslims.

Black Muslims or Muslims?

Iraq is part of the Southern Hemisphere. Some consider Iraqis as "people of color". Why and how were U.S. black military ordered to protect and aid BLACK CHATTEL SLAVE owners and to soon slaughter a great number of fellow moslems in Iraq?

That's a rather narrow view.

[slaveplanet]

24. I give ya that

//That's a rather narrow view.//

he's a little out there....and I definetly don't agree with everything he writes....Our military is still volunteer

maybe on moral grounds he has a point......I think he writes this stuff to drive home the hypocracy, and make people think a little.
he's definitly got a sore spot with both Bush and Clinton.

[Yupster]

25. Iraq = Southern Hemishere?

That's a new one to me. I always went by the equator when looking at north and south. Iraq is way north of the equator. So is Saudi Arabis and Sri Lanka for that matter.