The slave trade and the
population drain from Black Africa to
North Africa and the Middle East
I. B. Kake
It has been customary for historians to study the phenomenon of the slave trade
in the perspective of America and the West Indies only. Yet long before Euro-
peans began trading in slaves, the peoples of North Africa and the Middle
East had been transferring black populations to their countries.
The slave trade in that part of the world goes back to antiquity, but
it was from the fifteenth to the end of the nineteenth century that it was devel-
oped on a particularly large scale.
What routes were used to bring the black slaves back? Who organized
the expeditions? Where did the slaves come from? Where did they go to? How
did they travel? What fate awaited them at their destination?
Attitude of Islam to slaveryIslam, like Christianity, did not do away with slavery but tempered it. Moham-
mad accepted the Arabs of his time as they were. The Koran, while acknow-
ledging bondservice as an established fact, sought to alleviate its conditions and
possibly to prepare the way for its disappearance. To free a slave, says the
Book in many of its verses, is one of the most laudable acts a Believer can
perform, worthy enough to merit redemption of one's sins. To enslave a
Muslim against his will is an offence against God. According to the sharVah,
prostitution of captives or even trading in them for purely lucrative ends is no
less reprehensible: 'the worst of men is he who sells men,' said the prophet
Mohammad, who appointed one freed slave, the Ethiopian, Bilal, to the much-
coveted position of Muezzin, and another to the commander of an army.
During his lifetime Othman, the third Caliph, bought 2,400 captives for
the sole purpose of setting them free, and was highly praised by the devout for
doing so.^1
Only non-Muslims could be taken as slaves. In practice, it was not easy
to make the distinction. After the celebrated Battle of Tondibi, the Moroccans,
having defeated the Songhai, took back with them forty camel-loads of gold-
dust and 1,200 prisoners. One of them, Ahmed Baba, a famous jurisconsult