Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World by Justin Marozzi – Kindle book
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It is thought that as many or more people left Africa via the Sahara as over the Atlantic ocean, this is their story and the story of others who became ensnared in the other major transcontinental slave trade. Written for everyone, not just academics by an author with several history books available.
SHORTLISTED FOR 2025 THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION
A startling exploration of slavery in the Islamic world from the 7th century to the present
Slavery in the Islamic world has a long, diverse and controversial history. Captives and Companions is a brilliant synthesis of history and contemporary reportage that brings to life the voices of the enslaved in stories of eighth-century concubines and ninth-century revolts, thirteenth-century slave soldiers who established dynastic rule over Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, eighteenth-century corsairs and twentieth-century pearl divers in the Gulf. It also has first-hand accounts of this legacy in the twenty-first century, including the depredations of Daesh and continuing hereditary slavery in Mali and Mauritania.
Justin Marozzi traces the extraordinary variety of enslavement in the Islamic world, which ranged from agricultural labour and domestic toil to elite concubinage, guardianship of sacred spaces, political leadership and even military command. He shows how Africa bore the brunt of the demand for slave labour, fuelled throughout the nineteenth century by expanding global markets and commodity chains. Slavers plied African coasts, traders raided inland for human cargo, and millions were marched across the Sahara into captivity. Meanwhile, North African corsairs turned the Mediterranean into a slave-raiding free-for-all between Muslims, Christians and Jews.
