Arab slave trade refers to various periods in which a slave trade has been carried out under the auspices of Arab peoples or Arab countries. The Arab slave trades are often associated or connected to the history of slavery in the Muslim world.
Arab slave trade refers to various periods in which a slave trade has been carried out under the auspices of Arab peoples or Arab countries. The Arab slave trades are often associated or connected to the history of slavery in the Muslim world.
Examples of Arabic slave trades are :
Saqaliba is a term used in medieval Arabic sources to refer to Slavs, and other peoples of Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe. The term originates from the Middle Greek slavos/sklavenos (Slav), which in Hispano-Arabic came to designate Slavic slaves.
Slavery in medieval Europe was widespread. Europe and North Africa were part of an interconnected trade network across the Mediterranean Sea, and this included slave trading. During the medieval period (500–1500), wartime captives were commonly forced into slavery. As European kingdoms transitioned to feudal societies, a different legal category of unfree persons – serfdom – began to replace slavery as the main economic and agricultural engine. Throughout medieval Europe, the perspectives and societal roles of enslaved peoples differed greatly, from some being restricted to agricultural labor to others being positioned as trusted political advisors.
The Islamization of the Sudan region (Sahel) encompasses a prolonged period of religious conversion, through military conquest and trade relations, spanning the 8th to 16th centuries.
Islamic views on slavery represent a complex and multifaceted body of Islamic thought, with various Islamic groups or thinkers espousing views on the matter which have been radically different throughout history. Slavery was a mainstay of life in pre-Islamic Arabia and surrounding lands. The Quran and the hadith address slavery extensively, assuming its existence as part of society but viewing it as an exceptional condition and restricting its scope. Early Islam forbade enslavement of dhimmis, the free members of Islamic society, including non-Muslims and set out to regulate and improve the conditions of human bondage. Islamic law regarded as legal slaves only those non-Muslims who were imprisoned or bought beyond the borders of Islamic rule, or the sons and daughters of slaves already in captivity. In later classical Islamic law, the topic of slavery is covered at great length.
White slavery refers to the enslavement of any of the world's European ethnic groups throughout human history, whether perpetrated by non-Europeans or by other Europeans. Slavery in ancient Rome was frequently dependent on a person's socio-economic status and national affiliation, and thus included European slaves. It was also common for European people to be enslaved and traded in the Muslim world; European women, in particular, were highly sought-after to be concubines in the harems of many Muslim rulers. Examples of such slavery conducted in Islamic empires include the Arab slave trade, the Barbary slave trade, the Ottoman slave trade, and the Black Sea slave trade, among others.
The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. The social, economic, and legal positions of slaves have differed vastly in different systems of slavery in different times and places. Slavery has been found in some hunter-gatherer populations, particularly as hereditary slavery, but the conditions of agriculture with increasing social and economic complexity offer greater opportunity for mass chattel slavery. Slavery was institutionalized by the time the first civilizations emerged. Slavery features in the Mesopotamian Code of Hammurabi, which refers to it as an established institution. Slavery was widespread in the ancient world in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
In the Middle Ages, the Volga trade route connected Northern Europe and Northwestern Russia with the Caspian Sea and the Sasanian Empire, via the Volga River. The Rus used this route to trade with Muslim countries on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, sometimes penetrating as far as Baghdad. The powerful Volga Bulgars formed a seminomadic confederation and traded through the Volga river with Viking people of Rus' and Scandinavia and with the southern Byzantine Empire Furthermore, Volga Bulgaria, with its two cities Bulgar and Suvar east of what is today Moscow, traded with Russians and the fur-selling Ugrians. Chess was introduced to Medieval Rus via the Caspian-Volga trade routes from Persia and Arabia.
Slavery has historically been widespread in Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were once commonplace in parts of Africa, as they were in much of the rest of the ancient and medieval world. When the trans-Saharan slave trade, Red Sea slave trade, Indian Ocean slave trade and Atlantic slave trade began, many of the pre-existing local African slave systems began supplying captives for slave markets outside Africa. Slavery in contemporary Africa is still practised in some parts despite it being illegal.
A freedman or freedwoman is a person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, slaves were freed by manumission, emancipation, or self-purchase. A fugitive slave is a person who escaped enslavement by fleeing.
Slavery was a major institution and a significant part of the Ottoman Empire's economy and traditional society.
Slavery in Ethiopia existed for centuries, going as far back as 1495 BC and ending in 1942. There are also sources indicating the export of slaves from the Aksumite Empire. The practice formed an integral part of Ethiopian society. Slaves were traditionally drawn from the Nilotic groups inhabiting Ethiopia's southern hinterland and Oromos. War captives were another source of slaves, though the perception, treatment and duties of these prisoners was markedly different. Religious law banned Christian slave masters from taking Christians as slaves, slaves were from Muslim and other non-Christian groups.
The Danish slave trade occurred separately in two different periods: the trade in European slaves during the Viking Age, from the 8th to 10th century; and the Danish role in selling African slaves during the Atlantic slave trade, which commenced in 1733 and ended in 1807 when the abolition of slavery was announced. The location of the latter slave trade primarily occurred in the Danish West Indies where slaves were tasked with many different manual labour activities, primarily working on sugar plantations. The slave trade had many impacts that varied in their nature, with some more severe than others. After many years of slavery in the Danish West Indies, Christian VII decided to abolish slave trading.
The history of slavery in the Muslim world was throughout the history of Islam with slaves serving in various social and economic roles, from powerful emirs to harshly treated manual laborers. Slaves were widely employed in irrigation, mining, and animal husbandry, but most commonly as soldiers, guards, domestic workers, and concubines. The use of slaves for hard physical labor early on in Muslim history led to several destructive slave revolts, the most notable being the Zanj Rebellion of 869–883, and led to the end of the practice. Many rulers also used slaves in the military and administration to such an extent that slaves could seize power, as did the Mamluks.
Afro-Palestinians are Palestinians of Black African heritage. In the Gaza Strip, around 1% of the population is estimated to be black, with roughly 11,000 Afro-Palestinians residing in Gaza City's Al Jalla’a district prior to October 2023. In Jerusalem, an estimated population between 200-450 reside in a historic African enclave around Bab al-Majlis, in the Muslim Quarter, as well as communities in other areas of Jerusalem such as Beit Hanina and A-Tur.
The trans-Saharan slave trade, also known as the Arab slave trade, was a slave trade in which slaves were mainly transported across the Sahara. Most were moved from sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa to be sold to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilizations; a small percentage went in the other direction.
The Indian Ocean slave trade, sometimes known as the East African slave trade, involved the capture and transportation of predominately black African slaves along the coasts, such as the Swahili Coast and the Horn of Africa, and through the Indian Ocean. The areas impacted included East Africa, Southern Arabia, the west coast of India, Indian ocean islands and southeast Asia including Java.
The Red Sea slave trade, sometimes known as the Islamic slave trade,Arab slave trade, or Oriental slave trade, was a slave trade across the Red Sea trafficking Africans from the African continent to slavery in the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East from antiquity until the mid-20th century.
Slavery existed in Morocco since antiquity until the 20th century. Morocco was a center of the Trans-Saharan slave trade route of enslaved Black Africans from sub-Saharan Africa until the 20th century, as well as a center of the Barbary slave trade of Europeans captured by the Barbary pirates until the 19th century. The open slave trade was finally suppressed in Morocco in the 1920s. The haratin and the gnawa have been referred to as descendants of former slaves.
Slavery in Egypt existed up until the early 20th century. It differed from the previous slavery in ancient Egypt, being managed in accordance with Islamic law from the conquest of the Caliphate in the 7th century until the practice stopped in the early 20th-century, having been gradually phased out when the slave trade was banned in the late 19th century.
Slavery is noted in the area later known as Algeria since antiquity. Algeria was a center of the Trans-Saharan slave trade route of enslaved Black Africans from sub-Saharan Africa, as well as a center of the slave trade of Barbary slave trade of Europeans captured by the barbary pirates.