'Slavery and the Slave in the Islamic World'

'Slavery and the Slave in the Islamic World' – a Review

“An important aspect of Lewis’s approach was his comparison of slavery in the Islamic world with the Atlantic slave trade. By claiming that the Muslim history of slavery was worse, Lewis deflected scrutiny from the transatlantic trade. Similar arguments are now made by the European far right. The French journalist and politician Éric Zemmour has claimed that the issue of historical slavery is ‘banal’, since ‘all civilisations’ practised it. Why should Europeans be the only ones to feel guilty? The idea that Muslims did it first and did it worse has been used more broadly to contextualise European colonialism.

“This is not to diminish the use of slavery in the Muslim world. As the historian Ehud Toledano has shown, there has long been a tendency within Islamic society to minimise its violence. According to this view, a ‘softer’ form of slavery prevailed in the Muslim world, one that was domestic, almost familial. These arguments can be traced back to 19th-century Islamic defenders of slavery.”

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Slaves to history

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The Qarmatians (Al-Qaramita)

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Putting a Racist in Their Place

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