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

Islamic JihadFollowing the Ottoman failure to disband slavery in the Hejaz (Saudi region), slave-trade remainedlegal in Saudi Arabia for another 107 years. Lord Shackleton reported to the House of Lords in 1960 thatAfrican Muslims going for the Hajj pilgrimage carried slaves with them for selling in Mecca, ‘‘using them asliving travelers cheques.’’ 935 Saudi Arabia and Yemen banned slave-trade in 1962, nearly 155 years after itsban in Britain; Mauritania banned it only in 1980. This ban was, of course, enacted by virtue of intenseinternational pressure, mainly from the West, but with only partial success.CONTINUATION & REVIVAL OF SLAVERY IN MUSLIM COUNTRIESSlavery continues in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Mauritania in various forms to this day. Reuters recentlypublished a report, entitled Slavery Still Exist in Mauritania, which said:They do not wear chains, nor are they branded with the mark of their masters, but slaves stillexist in Mauritania… Herding camels or goats out in the sun-blasted dunes of the Sahara, orserving hot mint tea to guests in the richly carpeted villas of Nouakchott, Mauritanian slavesserve their masters and are passed on as family chattels from generation to generation… Theymay number thousands, anti-slavery activists say.’ Boubacar Messaoud, a born slave and now ananti-slavery activist told Reuters that 'It’s like having sheep or goats. If a woman is a slave, herdescendants are slaves.' 936Slavery also continues in Saudi Arabia; but because of the secretive nature of the holy Islamic kingdom, verylittle information comes out of it. The hundreds of thousands of young women from poor countries likeBangladesh, Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka and so on, who go to Saudi Arabia to work as maids at thehomes of Saudi Sheikhs, live a life of virtual slavery in domestic confinement. A majority of them likely endup providing sexual service to their masters to comply with the Quranic sanction of concubinage. HomaidanAl-Turki, a former Ph.D. student at the University of Colorado from Saudi Arabia, who was sentenced in2006 to twenty-year imprisonment for sexually assaulting his Indonesian maid, denied that it was a sexualassault; it is a ‘traditional Muslim behaviour,’ he claimed. 937 Human Rights Watch reports on the exploitationand abuse of foreign maids in Saudi that,Some women workers that we interviewed were still traumatized from rape and sexual abuse atthe hands of Saudi male employers, and could not narrate their accounts without anger or tears.Accustomed to unrestricted freedom of movement in their home countries, these and otherwomen described to us locked doors and gates in Riyadh, Jeddah, Medina, and Dammam thatkept them virtual prisoners in workshops, private homes, and the dormitory-style housing thatlabor subcontracting companies provided to them. Living in forced confinement and extremeisolation made it difficult or impossible for these women to call for help, escape situations ofexploitation and abuse, and seek legal redress. 938The Times of India wrote on 10 December 1993 that ‘There is no doubt that many thousands of slaves are stillserving in the wealthy palaces of Arabia.’ The old and rich Saudi Sheikhs frequently travel to Malaysia, India,935. Lal (1994), p. 176936. Fletcher P, Slavery still exists in Mauritania, Reuters, 21 March 2007937. US Urged to Review Saudi Student’s Case, Arab News, Riyadh, 28 March 2008938. Human Rights Watch, Exploitation and Abuse of Migrant Workers in Saudi Arabia,http://hrw.org/mideast/saudi/labor/265