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The Eastern Islamic Slave Trade is the longest yet least discussed of the two major trades. Much like the Christian Crusades & Islamic Conquests, you only hear of the one and not the other. Many people don't even know that the Arab slave trade ever existed, even though it began around 650 AD (pre-dating the European slave trade by over a thousand years) However, It was only officially abolished in the 1960's (due largely to pressure from the West and not their own conscience) and the slave trade still exists and there are many people living in slavery to this day in the East.
Many people are under the misconception that Whites have always been the ones who have oppressed other races and never vice-versa, but lets not forget the 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans who were captured and sold into the Muslim Arab slave trade between the 16th and 19th century. This (just like the trade of Africans by Muslims) is an atrocity that many want to erase from our history books and have largely suceeded in doing so. Here is an edited extract from an article that discusses the issue of White Christian slaves and their treatment at the hands of Islam:
White Slaves, African Masters
An Anthology of American Barbary Captivity Narratives is a book that illuminates a subject once well-known in the history of the West but which is now somewhat neglected: the enslavement, over several centuries, of tens of thousands of white Christian Europeans and (later) Americans in Muslim North Africa (a very conservative number as it has been estimated by some to be between 1 million and 1.25 million) or the so-called Barbary states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli. Over the course of 10 centuries, tens of thousands of these unfortunates became the possessions of Muslims in North Africa courtesy of the feared Barbary pirates. These pirates cruised the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean in search of European and, later, American ships to pillage and plunder.
Christian slaves of European ancestry were hardly an uncommon phenomenon in the Barbary States. The Barbary pirates were excellent seafarers and, from the Coasts of North Africa, sailed as far north as Iceland (where they went ashore and captured 800 slaves during one incident) and as far West as Newfoundland, Canada, where they pillaged more than 40 vessels at one time. By 1620, reports Baepler, there were more than 20,000 white Christian slaves in Algiers alone.
The first-person narratives reproduced in this book do not support the often-repeated contention that slavery was somehow a more human institution in the Islamic world than it was in the European colonies of the New World.
By and large, the Christian slaves were poorly fed and housed, existing, by one account, on a meager ration of two slices of bread and a small quantity of beans per day. Clothing and medical care was provided by sympathetic free Europeans living in North Africa; slave-owners provided nothing. Spanish Catholic priests even built a large hospital in Algeria to look after ill and dying Christian slaves.
The most popular punishment was the bastinado; hundreds of blows on the soles of the feet with a thick wooden truncheon. For more severe offenses, such as attempting to escape or ridiculing the Muslim religion or prophet, slaves were executed in particularly cruel ways: by crucifixion, burning at the stake or impalement on huge iron hooks until death. The narrators of these slave accounts witnessed many acts of brutality toward the Christian slaves, as well as toward the general North African populace ruled over by the elite: the beys, deys and bashaws of the Barbary States.
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Racism may not have been the motivating factor behind Islamic slavery (which was and is monetary gain and sexual exploitation, of anyone non-Muslim), but it was a factor nonetheless:
"The only people who accept slavery are the Negroes, owing to their low degree of humanity and their proximity to the animal stage,"
14th Century Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun
"The children of a stinking Nubian black---God put no light in their complexion!"
Arab Poet, late 600's AD
and another Arab writer, of the 14th Century, asked "Is there anything more vile than black slaves, of less good and more evil than they?"
Although It matters little which was worse because slavery is slavery, some people seem to think that if Christian or Western history can be shown as more barbaric or much worse than Islamic or Eastern history then it's somehow more "acceptable" so here are a few extracts from articles detailing some of the differences between the Eastern and Western slave trades, followed by some links for further reading:
Contrasts In Captivity
A comparison of the Islamic slave trade to the American slave trade reveals some interesting contrasts. While two out of every three slaves shipped across the Atlantic were men, the proportions were reversed in the Islamic slave trade. Two women for every man were enslaved by the Muslims.
While the mortality rate for slaves being transported across the Atlantic was as high as 10%, the percentage of slaves dying in transit in the Trans Sahara and East African slave trade was between 80 and 90%!
While almost all the slaves shipped across the Atlantic were for agricultural work, most of the slaves destined for the Muslim Middle East were for sexual exploitation as concubines, in harems, and for military service.
While many children were born to slaves in the Americas, and millions of their descendants are citizens in Brazil and the USA to this day, very few descendants of the slaves that ended up in the Middle East survive.
While most slaves who went to the Americas could marry and have families, most of the male slaves destined for the Middle East were castrated, and most of the children born to the women were killed at birth.
It is estimated that possibly as many as 11 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic (95% of which went to South and Central America, mainly to Portuguese, Spanish and French possessions. Only 5% of the slaves went to the United States).
However, at least 28 million Africans were enslaved in the Muslim Middle East. As at least 80% of those captured by Muslim slave traders were calculated to have died before reaching the slave markets, it is believed that the death toll from the 14 centuries of Muslim slave raids into Africa could have been over 112 million. When added to the number of those sold in the slave markets, the total number of African victims of the Trans Saharan and East African slave trade could be significantly higher than 140 million people.
The Abolition of Slavery
The institution of slavery regretably existed both in the old, classical Christian and Islamic civilizations. Yet it is to the credit of Christianity that the abolition movement took root in Great Britain, Western Europe, and the United States and brought an end to this buying and selling of human beings.
The way in which slavery was practiced in Islamic countries had both bright and dark sides. What is regretable now is that this practice among Muslims is seldom openly discussed - as if slavery was exclusively a Western phenomenon. This deliberate silence enables Islamic propagandists in America to represent Muslims as liberators of the people of African origin, contrary to historical fact.
Every nation and every race has an ugly past.
The Eastern Islamic Slave Trade is the longest yet least discussed of the two major trades. Much like the Christian Crusades & Islamic Conquests, you only hear of the one and not the other. Many people don't even know that the Arab slave trade ever existed, even though it began around 650 AD (pre-dating the European slave trade by over a thousand years) However, It was only officially abolished in the 1960's (due largely to pressure from the West and not their own conscience) and the slave trade still exists and there are many people living in slavery to this day in the East.
Many people are under the misconception that Whites have always been the ones who have oppressed other races and never vice-versa, but lets not forget the 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans who were captured and sold into the Muslim Arab slave trade between the 16th and 19th century. This (just like the trade of Africans by Muslims) is an atrocity that many want to erase from our history books and have largely suceeded in doing so. Here is an edited extract from an article that discusses the issue of White Christian slaves and their treatment at the hands of Islam:
White Slaves, African Masters
An Anthology of American Barbary Captivity Narratives is a book that illuminates a subject once well-known in the history of the West but which is now somewhat neglected: the enslavement, over several centuries, of tens of thousands of white Christian Europeans and (later) Americans in Muslim North Africa (a very conservative number as it has been estimated by some to be between 1 million and 1.25 million) or the so-called Barbary states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli. Over the course of 10 centuries, tens of thousands of these unfortunates became the possessions of Muslims in North Africa courtesy of the feared Barbary pirates. These pirates cruised the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean in search of European and, later, American ships to pillage and plunder.
Christian slaves of European ancestry were hardly an uncommon phenomenon in the Barbary States. The Barbary pirates were excellent seafarers and, from the Coasts of North Africa, sailed as far north as Iceland (where they went ashore and captured 800 slaves during one incident) and as far West as Newfoundland, Canada, where they pillaged more than 40 vessels at one time. By 1620, reports Baepler, there were more than 20,000 white Christian slaves in Algiers alone.
The first-person narratives reproduced in this book do not support the often-repeated contention that slavery was somehow a more human institution in the Islamic world than it was in the European colonies of the New World.
By and large, the Christian slaves were poorly fed and housed, existing, by one account, on a meager ration of two slices of bread and a small quantity of beans per day. Clothing and medical care was provided by sympathetic free Europeans living in North Africa; slave-owners provided nothing. Spanish Catholic priests even built a large hospital in Algeria to look after ill and dying Christian slaves.
The most popular punishment was the bastinado; hundreds of blows on the soles of the feet with a thick wooden truncheon. For more severe offenses, such as attempting to escape or ridiculing the Muslim religion or prophet, slaves were executed in particularly cruel ways: by crucifixion, burning at the stake or impalement on huge iron hooks until death. The narrators of these slave accounts witnessed many acts of brutality toward the Christian slaves, as well as toward the general North African populace ruled over by the elite: the beys, deys and bashaws of the Barbary States.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Racism may not have been the motivating factor behind Islamic slavery (which was and is monetary gain and sexual exploitation, of anyone non-Muslim), but it was a factor nonetheless:
"The only people who accept slavery are the Negroes, owing to their low degree of humanity and their proximity to the animal stage,"
14th Century Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun
"The children of a stinking Nubian black---God put no light in their complexion!"
Arab Poet, late 600's AD
and another Arab writer, of the 14th Century, asked "Is there anything more vile than black slaves, of less good and more evil than they?"
Although It matters little which was worse because slavery is slavery, some people seem to think that if Christian or Western history can be shown as more barbaric or much worse than Islamic or Eastern history then it's somehow more "acceptable" so here are a few extracts from articles detailing some of the differences between the Eastern and Western slave trades, followed by some links for further reading:
Contrasts In Captivity
A comparison of the Islamic slave trade to the American slave trade reveals some interesting contrasts. While two out of every three slaves shipped across the Atlantic were men, the proportions were reversed in the Islamic slave trade. Two women for every man were enslaved by the Muslims.
While the mortality rate for slaves being transported across the Atlantic was as high as 10%, the percentage of slaves dying in transit in the Trans Sahara and East African slave trade was between 80 and 90%!
While almost all the slaves shipped across the Atlantic were for agricultural work, most of the slaves destined for the Muslim Middle East were for sexual exploitation as concubines, in harems, and for military service.
While many children were born to slaves in the Americas, and millions of their descendants are citizens in Brazil and the USA to this day, very few descendants of the slaves that ended up in the Middle East survive.
While most slaves who went to the Americas could marry and have families, most of the male slaves destined for the Middle East were castrated, and most of the children born to the women were killed at birth.
It is estimated that possibly as many as 11 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic (95% of which went to South and Central America, mainly to Portuguese, Spanish and French possessions. Only 5% of the slaves went to the United States).
However, at least 28 million Africans were enslaved in the Muslim Middle East. As at least 80% of those captured by Muslim slave traders were calculated to have died before reaching the slave markets, it is believed that the death toll from the 14 centuries of Muslim slave raids into Africa could have been over 112 million. When added to the number of those sold in the slave markets, the total number of African victims of the Trans Saharan and East African slave trade could be significantly higher than 140 million people.
The Abolition of Slavery
The institution of slavery regretably existed both in the old, classical Christian and Islamic civilizations. Yet it is to the credit of Christianity that the abolition movement took root in Great Britain, Western Europe, and the United States and brought an end to this buying and selling of human beings.
The way in which slavery was practiced in Islamic countries had both bright and dark sides. What is regretable now is that this practice among Muslims is seldom openly discussed - as if slavery was exclusively a Western phenomenon. This deliberate silence enables Islamic propagandists in America to represent Muslims as liberators of the people of African origin, contrary to historical fact.
Every nation and every race has an ugly past.
