Race and slavery in the Middle East : histories of trans-Saharan Africans in nineteenth-century Egypt, Sudan, and the Ottoman Mediterranean / edited by Terence Walz and Kenneth M. Cuno.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In the nineteenth century hundreds of thousands of Africans were forcibly migrated northward to Egypt and other eastern Mediterranean destinations, yet relatively little is known about them. Studies have focused mainly on the mamluk and harem slaves of elite households, who were mostly white, and on abolitionist efforts to end the slave trade, and most have relied heavily on western language sources. In the past forty years new sources have become available, ranging from Egyptian religious and civil court and police records to rediscovered archives and accounts in western archives and libraries. Along with new developments in the study of African slavery these sources provide a perspective on the lives of non-elite trans-Saharan Africans in nineteenth century Egypt and beyond. The nine essays in this volume examine the lives of slaves and freed men and women in Egypt and the region.Contributors: Kenneth M. Cuno, Y. Hakan Erdem, Michael Ferguson, Emad Ahmad Helal Shams al-Din, Liat Kozma, George Michael La Rue, Ahmad A. Sikainga, Eve M. Troutt Powell, and Terence Walz.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This readable, well-documented book flows, with noncontradictory essays and few dry statistics. The contributors explore the slave trade and slavery in the Middle East alongside the (overdone) integrative ability of Islam, both positive and negative. Authors responsibly discuss racial prejudice, still common, which gives the book an aura of objectivity. All is placed in the bright lights of a massively iniquitous society. The collection reveals the universality of slave mistreatment as well as the slaves' counter-reactions for cultural survival. Muslims will find this book abrasive because their great conquerors, i.e., Saladin and Muhammad Ali, mistrusting natives, used both white and black slaves for their conquests. Comparisons between the considerable but overstated integrative ability of Islam and the implied exclusionary practices of Christianity will also rub local and Western Christians the wrong way. Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. N. E. Bou-Nacklie Johnson State College