CAPTIVES AND COMPANIONS

The long history of slavery—far from America’s shores.

Journalist Marozzi, author of Islamic Empires: The Cities That Shaped Civilization, regrets that Islamic scholars have largely ignored the subject of slavery. In his detailed history, he emphasizes that neither the Bible nor the Koran objects to the institution. Both urge the pious to treat slaves kindly and proclaim all souls equal in the sight of God. However, that all living humans deserve equal rights owes far more to Jefferson than Christ or Mohammad. “It has been estimated,” the author writes, “that the Prophet owned a total of seventy slaves in his lifetime, typically of Coptic, Syrian, Persian, [and Ethiopian] origin.” His armies followed tradition by enslaving defeated opponents and conquered nations. Unlike America’s system, in which enslaved people had no more rights than farm animals did, under Islam they were not so degraded, occasionally rising to responsible positions in government or the military and facing fewer barriers to manumission. The Koran itself proclaims that freeing a slave is a virtuous act and that no Muslim must be enslaved, although the latter was often ignored. Arabs conducted a cruel African slave trade long before Europeans arrived and shared their racist conviction that Blacks were subhuman and only fit for servitude. Taking an expansive view of his subject, Marozzi recounts the 7th-century founding of Islam, its spectacular conquests, and the long, stormy history of the Caliphates and Sultanates, with digressions into Islamic law, culture, and literature. Getting down to specifics, the author devotes a long chapter to concubinage and sexual matters, with which the Koran and Islamic law show an intense preoccupation. Eunuchs receive equal time, as do enslaved soldiers. He concludes with an account of abolition in the Ottoman Empire and other Islamic nations, which was forced on them, often clumsily, by the Christian West, but was never entirely successful, even today.

Expert, exhaustive history.