172 /. B. Kake
The role of the black force during the Crusades is a subject that remains
to be studied; it must have been an important one and no doubt accounts for
the tenacity of Islam.^16
The black slaves imported into the Maghreb as a result of this flourishing
trade were used as guards and soldiers.
The Moroccan Sultan Moulay Ismail (1647-1727) called upon blacks
not only for a bodyguard of unswerving loyalty but also to form a large stand-
ing army; he also gave them a political role of the highest importance through-
out his realm by establishing military colonies.^17 The Turks had done the same
before him, when they created at different points groups of auxiliaries who were
known as abids (slaves) when they belonged to the black race.
Mulay Ismail gathered together, through purchase, tribute or war
contribution, all the black slaves in the country, a huge operation that was not
conducted without difficulty, particularly in Fez. His nephew Abhed, Governor
of Draa, led an expedition as far as the Sudan, bringing back a large number
of slaves. He provided them all with wives, then settled them in vast agri cultural
colonies established at selected points, such as road junctions or in the middle
of turbulent tribes. The Sultan raised a black army under the patronage of an
Islamic saint, Sidi el Boukhari.
Ez Ziani, who held an important post at the Sharifian court at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, tells us that at the end of Moulay Ismail's
reign, 150,000 abids were on the army lists. It was these troops who defended
Morocco's independence against the Spaniards and the Turks. And after the
death of the founder of their corps they were to become king-makers.
ConclusionAll in all, the Muslims, as well as the Christians, contributed through the
slave trade to the spreading of the black race beyond its original frontiers.
The Sanaran oases and the southern confines of the Maghreb are largely
populated by blacks, who constitute a quarter of the population of southern
Tunisia, three-quarters of the inhabitants of the Draa valley, and almost the
entire population of the Fezzan.
In the Maghreb and in Egypt, negroid types are not unusual. In Arabia
there is still a faily strong element of black blood among the coastal population.
As noted earlier, the black question is not often spoken of in the Muslim
world. This is due primarily to the fact that the black slaves were not confined
to ghettos as they were in America; more often than not they mingled with the
white families, the black servants living under the same roof as their masters.
However, in spite of their integration into social life, the black is still a second-
class citizen in the Muslim countries.