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

Islamic SlaveryAkbar were men of foreign origin. Of the remaining 30 percent, more than half were Muslims and the restHindus. 866 About the expanse and diversity of the slave-trade in the Muslim world, writes Lewis: 867The slave population of the Islamic world was recruited from many lands. In the earliest days,slaves came principally from the newly conquered countries—from the Fertile Crescent andEgypt, from Iran and North Africa, from Central Asia, India, and Spain… As the supply ofslaves by conquest and capture diminished, the needs of the slave market were met, more andmore, by importation from beyond the frontier. Small numbers of slaves were brought fromIndia, China, Southeast Asia, and the Byzantine Empire, most of them specialists and techniciansof one kind or another. The vast majority of unskilled slaves, however, came from the landsimmediately north and south of the Islamic world—whites from Europe and the Eurasiansteppes, blacks from Africa south of the Sahara.Black slaves were brought into the Islamic world by a number of routes—from West Africaacross the Sahara to Morocco and Tunisia, from Chad across the desert to Libya, from EastAfrica down the Nile to Egypt, and across the Red Sea and Indian Ocean to Arabia and thePersian Gulf. Turkish slaves from the steppe-lands were marketed in Samarkand and otherMuslim Central Asian cities and from there exported to Iran, the Fertile Crescent, and beyond.Caucasians, of increasing importance in the later centuries, were brought from the land bridgebetween the Black Sea and the Caspian and were marketed mainly in Aleppo and Mosul.According to Segal, Muslim traders brought slaves from the Red Sea Coast to the Middle East across theSahara Desert along six major routes. Slaves from East Africa were herded across the Indian Ocean. Asalready cited, in the nineteenth century alone, some 1,200,000 slaves came across the Sahara to the MiddleEast markets, while 450,000 down the Red Sea and 442,000 from the East African coastal ports. Segal recordsa number of eyewitness accounts of slave-trading in African markets as follows:In the 1570s, a Frenchman visiting Egypt found many thousands of blacks on sale in Cairo onmarket days. In 1665–66, Father Antonios Gonzalis, a Spanish/Belgian traveler, reported 800 to1,000 slaves on sale in the Cairo market on a single day. In 1796, a British traveler reported acaravan of 5,000 slaves departing from Darfur. In 1849, the British vice consul reported thearrival of 2,384 slaves at Murzuq in the Fezzan (Northwest Africa). 868EUROPEAN SLAVESAbout slaves coming from Europe to the Muslim world, Lewis adds:In Europe there was also an important trade in slaves, Muslim, Jewish, pagan, and evenOrthodox Christian… Central and East European slaves, generally known as Saqaliba (i.e.Slavs), were imported by three main routes: overland via France and Spain, from Eastern Europevia the Crimea, and by sea across the Mediterranean. They were mostly but not exclusivelySlavs. Some were captured by Muslim naval raids on European coasts, particularly theDalmatian. Most were supplied by European, especially Venetian, slave merchants, whodelivered cargoes of them to the Muslim markets in Spain and North Africa.866. Moreland (1995), p. 69–70867. Lewis (1994), op cit868. Segal, p. 59244