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

Islamic SlaveryThe most famous European Christian to serve as a slave in Barbary Muslim Africa was Miguel deCervantes, the famous Spanish author of the Don Quixote epic. He was taken captive in 1575 by Barbarypirates and was later released upon payment of ransom.The Ottoman penetration into Europe in the 1350s and their capture of Constantinople later in 1453opened new floodgates for slave-trade from the European front. In their last attempt to overrun Europe in1683, the Ottoman army, although defeated, returned from the Gates of Vienna with 80,000 captives. 874 Animmense number of slaves flowed from the Crimea, the Balkans and the steppes of West Asia to Islamicmarkets. BD Davis laments that the ‘‘Tartars and other Black Sea peoples had sold millions of Ukrainians,Georgians, Circassians, Armenians, Bulgarians, Slavs and Turks,’’ which received little notice. 875 CrimeanTatars enslaved and sold some 1,750,000 Ukrainians, Poles and Russian between 1468 and 1694. 876According to another estimate, between 1450 and 1700, the Crimean Tatars exported some 10,000 slaves,including some Circassians, annually—that is, some 2,500,000 slaves in all, to the Ottoman Empire. 877 TheTatar slave-raiding Khans returned with 18,000 slaves from Poland (1463), 100,000 from Lvov (1498),60,000 from South Russia (1515), 50,000–100,000 from Galicia (1516), 800,000 from Moscow (1521),200,000 from South Russia (1555), 100,000 from Moscow (1571), 50,000 from Poland (1612), 60,000 fromSouth Russia (1646), 100,000 from Poland (1648), 300,000 from Ukraine (1654), 400,000 from Valynia(1676) and thousands from Poland (1694). Besides these major catches, they made countless more Jihad raidsduring the same period, which yielded a few to tens of thousands of slaves. 878 These figures of enslavementmust be considered in the context that the population of the Tatar Khanate was only about 400,000 at thetime. 879THE VIKING SLAVE-TRADE & MUSLIM CONNECTIONIn the seventh and eighth centuries after Islam’s birth, Muslim invaders and rulers enslaved the infidels inimmense numbers, promoting slave-trade into a flourishing business venture in the Muslim world. Late in theeighth century, there arose a band of non-Muslim slave hunters, the Vikings, in Europe. Vikings were a NorthEuropean people, originating in Scandinavia (Sweden, Denmark), who turned brutal raiding brigands betweenthe eighth and eleventh centuries. Belonging to the so-called barbarian Germanic race, they engaged inraiding and pirate attacks along the coasts of the British Isles and mainland Europe as far east as the VolgaRiver in Russia. ‘Famed for their long ships—the Vikings had established settlements along the coasts andrivers of mainland Europe, Ireland, Normandy, the Shetland, Orkney, and Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland,and Newfoundland over three centuries. They reached south to North Africa and east to Russia andConstantinople as looters, traders, or mercenaries. Vikings under Leif Ericson, heir to Erik the Red, reachedNorth America, with putative expeditions to present-day Canada in the 10 th century. Viking raiding voyagesdecreased with the introduction of Christianity to Scandinavia in the late 10 th and 11 th century.’ 880 The periodof the rise and domance of the Vikings between 793 and 1066 CE became known as the Viking Age.874. Erdem YH (1996) Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and Its Demise, 1800-1909, Macmillan, London, p. 30875. Lal (1994), p. 132876. Fisher AW (1972) Muscovy and the Black Sea Slave Trade, in Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 6(4), p577–83,592–93877. Inalcik H (1997) An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman empire, 1300-1600, Cambridge UniversityPress, Vol. 1, p. 285; Fisher, p. 583–84878. Bostom, p. 679-81879. Williams BG (2001) The Crimean Tatars: The Diaspora Experience and the Forging of a Nation, E J Brill,Lieden, p. 69–72880. Viking, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings246