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Islam's Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora

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Christian societies were responsible for an engagement to slavery in its most hideous, dehumanizing form. ... Islam has been, by specific spiritual precept and in common practice, relatively humane in its treatment of slaves and its readiness to free them... -Ronald Segal, Author's Preface to Islam's Black Slaves

This truly odd book details the horrors of the enslavement of black Africans in the Islamic world--a traffic in human beings which equaled in volume that of the better known Atlantic slave trade (totaling some 11 million blacks in each case), and which continues to this day, particularly in places like the Sudan--but at the same time seeks to differentiate Islam's treatment of slaves, which is portrayed as relatively enlightened and beneficent, from the harsher treatment of blacks, both slave and free, in the West. Though I had trouble finding much biographical information on Segal, his motivation in this exercise appears to be twofold. First, there's the simple necessity to explain, not merely the absence of racial tension in the modern Islamic world, but also the absence of blacks : where, after all, did the 11 million go ? Why is there no conspicuous black culture in the Middle East ? Second, based on the admittedly sketchy evidence I could find : that Segal, a white South African, was a significant player in the ANC in the late 50s & early 60s and that his prior books include a biography of Trotsky and Race War, which apparently predicted such a war in America, it seems safe to assume that, if not a Marxist, he is at least a Leftist, which would tend to suggest that his exoneration of Islam may be intended to indict the West.

In presenting the history of the African slave trade, Segal perforce has to concede the thorough involvement of Arabs in the capture, sale and transport of black Africans. Likewise, he acknowledges that the Islamic world did make just as extensive use of black slaves as did the West. But he differentiates the treatment of blacks by Muslim captors, suggesting several religious bases for it :

* Islam's unique blend of the religious and the political into a unitary system mitigated against the development of capitalist economies, so that blacks tended to be used in households rather than in heavy manual labor.

* The Koran specifically commands Muslims to treat slaves well and offers inducements in the next world to those who free their slaves.

* While the gender ratio of slaves imported to the West was 2-1 male to female, the exact opposite was true in the Islamic world. This high ratio of household female slaves and a tradition of polygamy and concubinage, led to the use of blacks as sex objects, and in the absence of systemic racism and theories of racial superiority, mixed race offspring tended to be accepted into the household and the subsequent freeing of the children's mothers.

These factors account for the milder treatment of blacks and, in part, for their assimilation into Islamic society. Several other factors help to account for the disappearance of a distinct black populace :

* Males slaves were frequently turned into eunuchs--so obviously they had no offspring.

* Many of the rest were used as soldiers, with resulting low survival rates.

* For unexplained reasons, African slave women imported to the Islamic states had extraordinarily low fertility rates.

* Mortality rates among Islam's black slaves were extremely high, from adverse treatment, disease, and other causes.

In the end, Segal suggests, a combination of death, infertility (naturally occurring and man made) and miscegenation must account for the disappearance of blacks and blackness from the Islamic Middle East.

This brings us to an intriguing question : does the absence of racial tension in the Islamic world necessarily indicate that the experience of black Africans was in fact less horrific than in the West ? Segal kind of glides past the rather important fact that using blacks for sex (heterosexual and homosexual, which he says was prevalent) and making them eunuchs constituted physical assault on a rather massive scale. Nowhere does he refer to the sexual practices as what they really were : rape. Nor is it possible to figure out why he considers the systematic neutering of black males to be less objectionable than the forced physical labor of the American South. The key sentence in the book may be the following :

While slavery in the West was directed to the productive economy, in the Ottoman Empire it was a form of consumption.

I recognize that to some people the worst fate possible is to be treated as a mere cog in the means of production, but I'm uncertain that most of us would agree with Segal that it is better to be an object for consumption. At the point where you have to debate whether cotton picking or sexual degradation was more dehumanizing, I think it's safest to admit that both Islam and the West were responsible for monstrous treatment of innocent peoples and leave it at that.

The secondary issue which arises is : given a choice, and it is admittedly an awful choice, would people choose the suffering they underwent in the West, but emergence with the vibrant and vital black culture we see in America today; or the complete (forced) assimilation that took place in the Islamic world with the resulting annihilation of the race as a race ? I'd suggest the answer to this is very much a subject for debate. We pay frequent lip service to the idea of creating a color blind society, but we all cling pretty fiercely to our respective ethnic heritages. And it's not like you hear Arabs celebrating the fact that they are the product of extensive racial intermingling. The modern Islamic world may very well be to a significant degree the product of those 11 million black slaves, but if it is, they are awfully quiet about that fact, which does not suggest such an enlightened attitude.

It is also difficult to reconcile the continuing Islamic slave trade with the idea of enlightenment. Segal discusses the ongoing traffic in human beings that is occurring even today in places like the Sudan--A. M. Rosenthal wrote a piece for the NY Times several years ago in which he said that there are still tens of thousands of slaves in the Sudan. We have to acknowledge that racial violence continues in the United States, but such incidents are isolated and are met with society wide outrage, Even if, for the sake of argument, we concede that plantation-style slavery was more oppressive for blacks than Islamic slavery, the Christian world would certainly seem to be winning the comparison now, and for the last few decades, at least.

As to Segal's motivation, I can only point to a couple of cryptic remarks as evidence of my theory that he is driven by a dislike of the West. At one point he characterizes the Western economic system as "an ultimate totalitarianism of money" and he elsewhere speaks of capitalism as "the effective subjugation of people to the priority of profit." These assessments, and several similar, and the general tone of the book, betray a general hostility to the organizing principles of Western society. This makes his conclusions about the mild nature of Islamic slavery at least somewhat suspect.

Finally, the book concludes with an epilogue which borders on being a non sequitir, but which actually relates back to several problems with the book; in it he discusses America's Nation of Islam movement. As a threshold matter, it's amusing that this distinctive black Islamic culture resides here, in the evil West, and not in the munificent East. But the real gist of this section of the book is a bizarre harkening back to Segal's prediction of coming race war. He excuses the racism of Black Muslim's as justified by white racism and the anti-Semitism as a mere learned behavior, taken from anti-Semitic whites :

What rage, resentment, and revenge have developed in the Black Muslim movement is a racism to confront racism.

Segal also uses some statistics about the U. S. justice system to conclude that America remains a deeply divided and racist society, one which needs to listen to Louis Farrakhan's message about "the reality of racism." In a few short pages, he manages to wildly overestimate both the problem of race in America and the importance of the Nation of Islam to such a degree that it calls into question his authority on the other topics he's discussed.

In the final analysis, though he has an important and unfairly ignored story to tell, Segal is just too unreliable a narrator to be taken seriously. Having gotten so many of the big issues wrong, how can the reader trust him on the smaller one ? There's probably a good book to be made out of these raw materials : this is not it.

GRADE : D

Segal has done an impressive job of marshalling important and relatively unknown facts about the eastern slave trade. Unfortunately, he never seems to go anywhere with these facts, or suggest what we are to make of them.

The facts are that Islamic Arabs and Africans ran a significant slave trade for many centuries throughout the Mediterranean, North and East Africa, Arabia, the Middle East, and Northern India. Muslim masters possibly treated their slaves "better" on average than American or other Western colonial masters did, although this seems to have had less to do with religion than with the purposes for which slaves were employed -- as domestics, soldiers and business assistants in the Islamic world, as opposed to agricultural laborers in the West. The process of enslavement was just as cruel, however, whether the destination was the Eastern slave markets or the Atlantic trade. Islam accepted slavery as a fact of life for conquered non-believers (ignoring the fact that many of those enslaved were in fact Muslims) and therefore perhaps had less need than the Christian West to invent a demeaning racist mythology to justify continuing slavery. (As the title indicates, Segal is interested in *black* slaves, and therefore largely ignores the substantial number of Eastern European and Middle Asiatic slaves who were "employed" in the Ottoman and some other Muslim states.) Neverthless, racism did eventually enter the Islamic world, with effects (and slavery) that can still be seen today in places like Sudan and Mauritania.

What should we learn from these facts? The book's title suggests that it is in some way a commentary on Islam, but that point is never really developed in the text. In early chapters, Segal suggests that slavery in the Islamic world was less racially charged than in the West -- but a great deal of his book, particularly the later chapters addressing the contemporary situation in Sudan and Mauritania, contradicts that view. The history of Islamic African and Arab slavery undoubtedly explains a great deal about contemporary issues in Africa and the Middle East, yet the book is too short to really draw out these connections. As others have noted, the final chapter on America's black Muslim movement seems to have little connection with the rest of the book, other than to point out that the Nation of Islam's racist attitude toward whites is incompatible with the Koran (as, of course, is Arab racism toward blacks, and just as white racism is incompatible with Christian doctrine). In sum, lots of information, but little meaningful analysis.

Considering the amount of ink that's been spent on the subject of the Atlantic slave trade, the lack of writing on the Islamic trade is remarkable, so this book certainly fills a gap. There's always going to be that problem though - especially since Sep 11 - about Westerners writing about Islam. We all know about the dangers of orientalism.

Segal is certainly aware of this, and makes it clear that he regards the Atlantic trade as worse than the Islamic trade, citing the generally more systematic racism by the Europeans, and the greater possibilty of assimilation by the Arabs. Unfortunately the result of this determination not to be seen to be orientalist is to make the whole account rather bloodless. We're treated to a dry summation of the facts, with little to tie them together or, frankly, to make them very interesting. It's only in the concluding chapters, dealing with the trade in the nineteenth century, and particularly in the twentieth century, that Segal's account takes off, as, at last freed from looking back over his shoulder at comparable Western crimes, he manages to summon some indignation, and the true horror of slavery becomes clear.

I have to confess that Segal's insistence - at regular intervals - that the Islamic trade was in some ways less horrendous than the Atlantic trade became counter-productive in my case. Was it really that much better? The numbers involved are, as far as anyone can tell, of a similar order of magnitude. The actual transportation, and the treatment of the slaves en route, was equally appalling in both cases. The major difference was to do with the eventual use of the slaves - for domestic or sexual services leading to a predominance of female slaves in the case of the Islamic trade, against the plantation slavery in the West, leading to a predominance of male slaves. In the case of Islam, of course, a significant proportion of the males were castrated, which as Segal makes all too clear as often as not involved slicing off - how shall I put this? - the whole works. Lovely. But these eunuchs could then go on to assume important positions in Islamic society. So that's alright then! I just wonder what the reaction would be if it had been the Europeans who'd done the castrating and concubinage on a regular basis: imagine the outrage, the denunciations of this institutional genital mutilation, this institutional rape, not to mention the library-loads of books there'd be on the psychosexual significance of white males castrating black males and taking black females as concubines.

Ah well......I look forward to the slew of books forthcoming from Islamic scholars on the evils of slavery as practised by their societies, and how we all owe a debt of gratitude to the West for putting an end to this ghastly trade. But then again, maybe I'll have a long wait.

I did not enjoy the book as much as i perceived i would. Ronald Segal seems to adopt a completley diffrent line of thinking when tackling slavery in the islamic world as he does for the West.

There is an endless stream of sources to reflect the evil nature of this trade that orginated in the East thousands of years ago, to be legitimised under islam in the seventh century and continued to this very day. Ronald is constantly looking for ways to basically say,' the christian west was much more cruel than the Islamic East'. I cant help but feel that Ronald has been swept along by the wave of apologetic, liberal, modern historians.

It must be remmberd that America went to war over the slave trade, something that has never happened in an Islamic country. Colonisation forced the abolition of the slave trade in the islamic world.

If you want to see a fair reflection of the nature of Islamic African slave trading, you can look at Sudan where it is there for all to see.

Slave trading is a despiciable business at any time, by anyone.

Lastly, Ronald Segal points out early on in the book, how spain was conquered by the Muslims in 711. He states that the Vandals occupied Spain at that time. The vandals, however where in North Africa, not Spain. Spain was a Visigoth Kingdom at the time of the Muslim invasion.

I have not read Ronald Segal's account of slavery in the Western world and if this book a a reasonable representation of his objectivity, style and competency, I find only the slightest justification to rectify that omission. I am sure there is a compelling history of slavery under the Islamic system. I even concede Mr. Segal has provided a copious amount of information. The challenge is to organize his research, separate fact from speculation and then engage in independent objective analysis.

Under the best of circumstances, it would be ambitious to attempt to thoroughly and accurately chronicle the evolution of any societal institution spanning more than twelve centuries in a book of less than 250 pages, excluding notes and indexes. In the preface, Mr. Segal points out a dearth of resource material, in comparison to the available documentation of the Atlantic trade, served as an early deterrent. In many respects, the book reflects that deficiency since he devotes as much attention to iteration of an Islamic timeline as he does to slavery under Islamic theory.

For reasons not explicitly stated in the text, Mr. Segal decided to approach his subject through comparison and contrast rather than to offer a purely distinctive account of Saharan practices. After noting the comparable estimated totals of blacks enslaved under each system (he accepts a figure exceeding 11.5 million for each system), one of his major challenges is to offer plausible causes for the statistically insignificant numbers of acknowledged African descendants in present day Islamic countries. He postulates:

a) Whereas Western slavery was fundamentally an economic system, under Islamic rule, it was more of a symbol of conspicious consumption.

b) By religious doctrine, the Islamic system was comparatively humane, devoid of the racial attitudes and prejudices that permeated the West. Miscegnation and liberalized manumission were prominent characteristics facilitating ease of assimilation into Moslem societies.

c)Gender ratios for each system were reversed. Islamic trade was typified by the importation of two females for every male. However, although most were placed in harems as concubines or relegated to domestic servitude, fertility and birth rates were measurably less than that experienced in the West.

d)Master/slave progeny were customarily emancipated, again in accordance religious principles set forth in the Koran.

e)Significant proportions of males were castrated, imported for homosexual gratification or forced into military service; all of which would have impacted fecundity.

Rather curiously for a system that has lasted for more than 14 centuries - he lightly touches upon the existence of slave trade in present day Mauritania and Sudan - Mr. Segal asserts slavery was never institutionalized in the Islamic Middle East, and he seems to be oblivious to the numerable contradictions to the enlightenment he attributes to Islamic adherents. In the end, it comes down to a value judgment on Mr. Segal's part, the Western form of slavery was more severe. In my opinion his assessment is not radically different than evaluating the relative humanity of lethal injection versus the electric chair.

In the main, the text is somewhat difficult to follow if the reader is not familar with Pre-Ottoman Empire middle eastern history, geographic locales and naming conventions. The author elected to avoid conversion of Islamic terms and generally failed to provide adequate present era references to minimize confusion. He also tended to seamlessly float between eras and regimes which was particularly disconcerting in what is ostensibly a historical work.

The concluding chapter of the book dealt with the emergence of Black Muslims in the United States. Why it was included in this work is beyond me.

The story of the dual impact of slavery on the African Continent needs to be told, and as it pertains to the Islamic version more investigation is sorely required. Hopefully other historians of greater proficiency will take up the task

For myself, a student of history, "Islam's Black Slavery," was an eye-opening book. I already had a faint knowledge that slavery took place in the Muslim world, but I never knew to what extent. This book helped me greatly to bridge the gap of my ignorance on this subject.

Starting with Islam's prophet Muhammad, Mr. Segal gives us a very adequate background to the environment from which this kind of slavery has risen. After Muhammad he talks about the factions and the different kingdoms which started to develop their own interpretations of servitude along with what was allowed by Islamic teachings. Mr. Segal goes into abundant detail on how the preference for slaves gradually turned more towards sub-Saharan Africa, what types of slaves that were in demand, for what purposes, how and what technigues they used to get them, and lastly how this abhorrent practice could continue from century to century.

In the beginning he does mention that the Islamic slavery was not as brutal and dehumanizing as American slavery, but it certainly seems that he in no way sugar-coats Islamic slavery either. The incessant raids, women used as concubines, and the castrations of the male "eunuch" slaves all add to the horrors of this particular system. A system, he notes, that lasted longer than American slavery did. Towards the end he even writes about the European colonizing powers that tried to stop, or at least discourage the slavery, and why it survived despite various laws and edicts against it. The most interesting, but also the saddest chapters in the book are at the end when he writes about the legacy of slavery, how it has fed into a racist mentality that exists even to this day in countries like the Sudan and Mauritania. It really brings it home, and dispells the notion that it couldn't happen today.

Overall I think that it was an excellent book, and certainly a must read if you are looking for more knowledge in this area. My only criticisms are that I wish there had been more firsthand account from slave's families, or slave raided communities; how this centuries long practice affects them today. In some chapters the author bounces back and forth between time periods, so it gets a little confusing at times, and the very last chapter he talks about the effect of slavery leading to a rise in black Muslim sects in the U.S., but I would have liked to have also seen more of his own personal conclusions. Nevertheless, it is a very beneficial addition to exploring another chapter of an aweful, neverending human tragedy in the history of our world.

Segal's book is very informative in terms of the history of Islam and islamic culture, it becomes more inportant to the story than the actual story of slavery in Islam. At some moments he seems to be apologitic for Islams use of slaves, at other times he attacks them mostly for the sin of not following the rules of Islam. He seems to have some sympathy for the centuries old culture that held slaves as if its age excues it. Once we reach the mid 19th and 20th century that sympathy disappears. (I didn't read his first book so I wonder if that same tollerance exists to the non Islamic western culture of the same period.) It is as if he excuses the men of the past becasue of the times they live in. The actual information is interesting but he seems to over and over be interesting in portraying a sexual slavery as preferable to a working slavery and makes that judgement for the victums. It is a measured choice being made by somebody not involved but I'm sure there are many who might disagree. In terms of the info about the continuing slave trade his info is very valuable and worthy of note, I do think that the chapter on the Black Muslem movement in America didn't really fit into the book but was worth reading. As a collection on the Islamic slave trade that continues to this day it is a book that should be noticed. The violence and evil that fostered the trade and the low value put on human life was shown (although the traders seem to be the main villians here rather than the slave holder, until you get to the 20th century.) I didn't care for the slants, and frankly the book seemed less about slavery as with the culture that fostered it. I think this book couldn't decide where it wanted to go and that tug made it less that what I expected.

received in very timely manner. matter of fact, received before time. I have never been disappointed with Amazon

It's a history book, and I guess that it can't be concerned with trying to cobble an argument about *why* things happened as much as providing actual names and dates to make the history. And by that definition, this is definitely a history book.

It's also understandable that since this is a book that is written in a field where very little has been published, the author cannot take arguments that are already familiar and go into in-depth analysis (that could be something like the done-to-death discussion of the Catholic Church's role in the Dark Ages or something of that sort).

There is some interesting discussion of the morons in the Nation of Islam and how they came to be (it's quite fitting considering that their idiocy has been their greatest cohesive strength). That makes the whole book worth it.

It's worth a secondhand purchase.

ISLAM'S BLACK SLAVES will surprise many readers with its contents because outside of harems little is said about this slave trade that began almost a millennium earlier than the western route. Eye opening to the average reader and history buff though not as deep as expected by a tome of this sort especially when compared to Ronald Segal's companion book THE BLACK DIASPORA. Still, this is quite a good non-fiction book that highlights differences between the economic-based Atlantic slave system and the servile-based Islamic slave system. For instance, in the Islamic world, female slaves were predominant as opposed to males in the Americas. Excellently written and in a general way very enlightening.

Harriet Klausner