Preamble
The Arab slave trade of Africans south of the Sahara was for a far longer period and involved far more slaves than the Atlantic chattel slave trade. The Arab slave trade began in the eighth century AD and ended in the twentieth century. Remnants of slavery have persisted in some areas even after legal abolition. For instance, one can argue that slavery is still alive in Mauritania. The Arab slave traders took about ten million slaves. It had a very high loss ratio and so about twenty million slaves died in addition to the ten million landed alive in Arab slave markets.
The Arab slave trade gradually ended due to a combination of factors. These factors were:
- International Pressure
Increasing international pressure from Western nations, particularly Britain and France, who actively campaigned against slavery. The campaign was through soft diplomacy and also the use of the West African Protection Squadron. The British and French Navies actively engaged Arab slave ships and blocked ports that carried out slavery. These poachers turned gamekeepers did use their naval might to pressure the Arabs to stop the slave trade. Were they expiating for their sins? Probably. Was there another ulterior motive? Who knows!
- Nationalist Movements in Africa
The rise of nationalist movements in Africa and the growing awareness of human rights abuses associated with the practice forced Arab societies to formally outlaw slavery in the 20th century. Most of these slaves were black Africans. So, as independence was achieved in these sub- Sahara African countries there was a realisation that this freedom was not complete if the Africans stolen by Arabs were still slaves.
3 Religious Interpretations
While Islam allows the enslavement of non-believers, some within Islamic scholar started advocating for its abolition, using compassion which is strongly promoted in the Quran. Some Islamic scholars state that there had been a misunderstanding of the Holy Book. They stated that the slavery mentioned in the Holy Qur’an was to do with what went before and not what was to come. Consequently in 1990 the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam declared that “no one has the right to enslave another human being”. Finally, the Arabs joined the slave abolition express, after 13 centuries of perfidy visited on Africans south of the Sahara.
- Industrialisation
Though coming late to the party Arab countries started to industrialise and so needed fewer slaves, mostly now for domestic work.
- International Organisations
In 1948 the United Nations (UN) came up and pontificated on a Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The UN had cconventions on the abolition of slavery, the slave trade, and institutions and practices similar to slavery. The UN pressured the Arab countries to end slavery, but their response was mostly at a snail’s pace.
The organisation of African Unity (OAU) was doing the same. The OAU Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Slavery is a convention that aimed at intensifying efforts to abolish slavery and the slave trade in Africa. The convention was signed in Addis Ababa on September 10, 1969, by the Heads of African State and Government. But some slave holding Muslim countries still held out until 1981. The African Union (AU) has an action plan to end modern slavery and other forms of human exploitation in Africa.
The Lowdown on Arab Slavery
The Arab slave trade was linked to Islam and therefore practiced in Muslim countries. This slave trade was very difficult to abolish because of various factors. One of those factors was the interpretation of most Islamic scholars that their religion allowed the enslavement of non- believers and those captured in a Jihad or prisoners of war who were not Muslims together with their women and children, especially those taken in self-defence or if fighting Allah and his messengers.
A good question to ask is why Islamic countries were so dilatory in ending slavery, as indeed they were. One of the reasons must be that the Qur’an states clearly when slaveholding is permissible. So, Islam had a very clear take on slavery, and removing these slave-tinted lenses proved very difficult for some of its adherents. Another reason for the resistance by Muslim countries in ending slavery was that industrialisation was behind that of Europe and the Americas. Slavery was the engine oil of these societies. Engines do not run well without oil: they seize up or knock. The implication for Muslim countries stopping slavery was severe economic pain and severe social rupture. For adherents who followed their religion religiously — excuse the pun — there was another serious psychological barrier to overcome: suspending belief in their interpretation of some parts of their Holy Book. The last was, and still is, a big ask for some Muslims. Finally, freedom of speech in Muslim countries two hundred years ago was muted compared to Europe and the Americas. If Muslim religious leaders said slavery was sanctioned by the Creator, anyone stating or holding a contrary view was asking for real trouble. Remember that in Islam, what was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad was the last communication from the Almighty on the way to live on earth. To Muslims, this is the only route to joining Allah in the afterlife.
Slavery on the notorious island of Zanzibar was abolished in 1909. The slave markets in Morocco were closed in 1922. The Ottoman Empire abolished slavery in 1924. Slavery in Iran and slavery in Jordan was abolished in 1929. In the Persian Gulf, slavery in Bahrain was abolished in 1937, in Kuwait in 1949 and in Qatar in 1952. Saudi Arabia and Yemen abolished slavery in 1962, and Oman followed in 1970. Mauritania became the last Islamic state to abolish slavery, in 1981.
While Africans and their descendants in the diaspora talk about slave reparations from Europe, little is said about reparations from Arab countries, whose slavery was more pernicious and lasted for 1,300 years. The Arabs collectively have trillions of dollars in reserve funds but give akanya mpuku — the size of a rat’s pool — in development aid to Africa. It’s time to add them to the reparation’s agenda, for they bear a big responsibility for the delayed development and industrialisation of Africa south of the Sahara after 13 centuries of exploitation.
I know both reparations and aid are not particularly popular subjects at the moment but the Europeans, Americans and Some Arab countries could not be where they are without the blood, sweat, and tears of black Africans as their slaves.
