From the ninth to the early 20th century, probably as many black Africans were forcibly taken across the Sahara, up the Nile valley, and across the Red Sea, as were transported across the Atlantic in a much shorter period. This work provides an introduction to this ""other"" slave trade.

"For every gallon in ink that has been spilt on the trans-Atlantic slave trade and its consequences, only one every small drop has been spent on the study of the forced migration of black Africans into the Mediterranean world of Islam. From the ninth to the early twentieth century, probably as many black Africans were forcibly taken across the Sahara, up the Nile valley, and across the Red Sea, as were transported across the Atlantic in much shorter period. Yet their story has not yet been told. Slavery was a fundamental social assumption of Arab society at the rise of Islam and of the various Mediterranean societies in which Islamic culture developed. It was written into the shari'a, and was therefore considered a divinely sanctioned practice that mere human beings could not abrogate or interfere with. Black Africa was the earliest source for slaves and the last great "reservoir" to dry up; in the 640's slaves were already part of the "non-aggression pact" between the Arab conquerors of Egypt and Nubian rulers to their south, while as late as 1910 slaves were still being shipped out of Benghazi, supplied, it would seem, via as eastern Saharan route from Wadai (in Chad). By the seventeenth century blackness of skin of African origin was virtually synonymous in the Arab world with both the notion and the work 'abd (slave). Even today the word for Africans in many dialects of Arabic remains just that--'abid--"slaves." This book provides an introduction to this other" slave trade, and to the Islamic cultural context within which it took place, as well as the effects this context had on its victims."--Book cover

"Even while enslaved, many Muslims managed to follow most of the precepts of their religion [...] 'Servants of Allah' illuminates the role of Islam both in the lives of individual practitioners and in communities. It shows that though the religion did not survive in its orthodox form, its mark can be found in certain religions, traditions, and artistic creations of people of African descent"--Back cover.

Now that North Africa is viewed less as the exclusive hunting ground of French scholars, those from elsewhere are seeing the region in its relation to the larger world rather than merely to its former colonists. Here American, British, and Tunisian scholars explore the Maghrib as a space where worlds have met through history, emphasizing its central role in shaping those encounters. The nine essays are from a 1998 conference in Tunisia, and were published as The Journal of North African Studies 6/1 (spring 2001). Distributed in the US by ISBS. c. Book News Inc.

This book examines the global unfolding of the African Diaspora, the migrations and dispersals of people of African, from antiquity to the modern period. Their exploits, challenges, and struggles are discussed over a wide expanse of time in ways that link as well as differentiate past and present circumstances. The experiences of Africans in the Old World, in the Mediterranean and Islamic worlds, is followed by their movement into the New, where their plight in lands claimed by Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, French and English colonial powers is analyzed from enslavement through the Cold War. While appropriate mention is made of persons of renown, particular attention is paid to the everyday lives of working class people and their cultural efflorescence. The book also attempts to explain contemporary plights and struggles through the lens of history.

From the ninth to the early 20th century, probably as many black Africans were forcibly taken across the Sahara, up the Nile valley, and across the Red Sea, as were transported across the Atlantic in a much shorter period. This work provides an introduction to this ""other"" slave trade.