Slavery In The Middle East

When the majority of Americans think of slavery, they consider it to be an open and shut experience; something that they understand fully and believe to be done with. However, slavery is an issue that is more widespread and long running than most people know. Slavery is largely considered to be a “white” issue; something constrained to European nations, perpetrated by European people. In actuality, slavery was far more global, occurring throughout the years and nations that have existed in our world. Slavery occurred within Africa itself; many tribes would take other tribe members as slaves that could be bought or sold. A significant amount of slavery occurred in Middle Eastern nations as well, in the Sahara, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean (Azumah). …show more content…
The black African slaves of the Middle East were written was being “submissive to slavery”, and were compared to “dumb animals”. They were called, “Abdullah”, meaning, “God’s slave”, a term that could be applied to any person not of the Muslim faith. Throughout Islamic history, there were numerous “Holy Wars” fought with the express purpose of plundering villages and taking groups of people as slaves. These slaves were often castrated, forced into the army as children, and slaughtered. Here, women more often than men were enslaved, because rather than being used for physical labor (as most slaves were used for in European nations), they were sex slaves, or concubines. The children born to the African slaves of the Middle East were killed at birth.