islamic-jihad-legacy-of-forced-conversion-imperialism-slavery

Islamic SlaveryThis is only an account of the early few days of sufferings. It will not be difficult to guess howterribly the captives suffered when they had to travel thousands of miles over months to reach foreigncapitals: those of Sultan Mahmud, Muhammad Ghauri and Amir Timur. Similar was the case with the blackslaves of Africa, who had to travel long distance in such agonizing condition to reach the markets in theMiddle East and even India. The terrible sufferings that European captives, caught in the sea by Barbarypirates, endured will give a general idea of their horrifying treatments and sufferings. When Sultan MoulayIsmail captured the fortified town of Taroudant, a French outpost, in 1687 and put the inhabitants to thesword, 120 French citizens found there were enslaved, a treasured gift for the sultan. Upon their capture, theywere poked and prodded and declared overfed and denied food for a week. When they started crying for food,the sultan ordered them on a long march to his capital at Meknes. One of the slaves, Jean Ladire, laterrecounted the dreadful 300-mile journey to French padre, Dominique Busnot. Chained and shackled as theywere herded along, they suffered from debilitating sickness and fatigue; several of them dropped dead. Theheads of the dead were cut off and the survivors had to carry those heads, because their guards feared that thedreaded sultan will accuse them of having sold the missing captives or let them escape. 774Upon their capture, slaves were accommodated in miserable conditions in infamous undergrounddungeons, called matamores in Africa. Each matamore accommodated fifteen to twenty slaves; into these, theonly light and ventilation came through a small iron-grate in the roof. In winter, rain poured through the grateflooding the floor. On weekly market-days, they were put on auction. The captives had to climb through thisgrate with the help of a suspended rope. They often had to spend weeks in these dungeons. Captive GermainMouette wrote of the horrifying living conditions in matamores that ‘the water and sewage frequentlybubbled up from the mud floor in the wet winter months.’ There used to be knee-deep water on the floor forsix month of the year, making sleeping difficult. For sleeping, they used to make some sort of hammocks orbeds of ropes hanged by nails, one above another, the lowest ones almost touching the water. Often times, theuppermost hammock would come down crashing bringing all others below down into the water; they wouldspend the rest of the night standing in the chilly water.The dungeons used to be so small and crammed that they were forced to lie in a circle with feetmeeting in the middle. ‘‘There is no more space left than to hold an earthen vessel to ease themselves in,’’wrote Mouette. During humid summer days, the matamores, with so many people crammed inside, became‘‘filthy, stinking and full of vermin’’ and ‘‘the place becomes intolerable when all the slaves are in and itgrows warm,’’ continued Mouette, adding that death was a blessed relief for the inmates. 775 This was ageneral living condition of slaves in North Africa over the ages. About a century earlier, British captiveRobert Adams, captured in the 1620s, was able to relay a letter to his parent in England, narrating the livingcondition in the slave-pen of Sultan Moulay Zidan (1603–27); it was ‘‘a dungeon underground, where some150 to 200 of us lay altogether, having no comfort of the light, but a little hole.’’ His hair and rugged clothes,added Adams, ‘‘were full of vermin and not being allowed time to pick myself… I am almost eaten up bythem.’’ 776 The captives, shut up in over-crowed matamores, received very little food, often ‘‘nothing but breadand water.’’ On the auction day, they were driven like wild beasts, whipped and put through their paces, tothe market. At the auction bazaar, they were jostled through the crowd from one dealer to another. They weremade to jump and skip to demonstrate their strength and agility, and fingers were poked into their ears andmouths causing a humiliating spectacle to the wretched captives, 777 who were honorable free men a few daysearlier.774. Milton, p. 34775. Ibid, p. 66–67776. Ibid, p. 20777. Ibid, p. 68–69224