The Arab Slave Trade

At least one of you guys had to be aware that this was going to show up.

For context, the arab slave trade was the practice of slavery in the arab world, centralized in places such as Western Asia, East Africa, North Africa, South East Asia, and Europe.

My question is: What is your opinion on it? Do you think the institution had anything to do with the spread of Islam in those regions, and do you think this institution was either worse, similar, or in somehow less harmful than the Transatlantic Slave Trade?

Well, my opinion of slave trades is always going to be that they are negative. As for whether it had anything to do with the spread of Islam, I say of course. I know that the Norse traded slaves to the Arabs for silvers and glass (they also traded furs, too) and that the reason those slaves were a fair deal for the Arab traders was, of course, because Islam prohibits enslaving other Muslims.

I don't know that it was as awful as the Transatlantic Slave Trade, but I will say that you probably wouldn't want to be there. Additionally, there was no "middle passage" and it wasn't identical to the horror of the TST, but I will stop short of saying they weren't equal in their harm.

My opinion is that all forms of slavery are horrible, since it just goes against human dignity.
Also, lots of people try to justify their ancestors actions by saying that the arab slave trade was longer and brutal, but i just belive that every culture in every place of the world practiced it in at least a way, so no one is innocent. And i also belive it was pretty much a result of Islam, since Islam goes against enslaving other muslims, but not against non-muslims.

Hatshepsut wrote:At least one of you guys had to be aware that this was going to show up.

For context, the arab slave trade was the practice of slavery in the arab world, centralized in places such as Western Asia, East Africa, North Africa, South East Asia, and Europe.

My question is: What is your opinion on it? Do you think the institution had anything to do with the spread of Islam in those regions, and do you think this institution was either worse, similar, or in somehow less harmful than the Transatlantic Slave Trade?

Slave Trades are always bad, even Islam doesn't condone slaves, however many people who owned slaves often treated them well, but I am still against it.

All slavery is horrible. Period. Nothing will ever justify ownership of another human being. However, some forms of slavery are worse than others. Chattel slavery as practiced in the United States is the worst type. How does Arab slavery stack up to this?

When and where could I go back in time if I were a connoisseur of such a trade? (dates and times pls)

Well... it is the same in my opinion, doesn't matter the amount of slaves that were sold or how the owners treated the slaves, with the simple fact of being owned by someone, well, that's terrible.

I would have liked to sold slaves in those times though... I mean, you could get a lot of money. haha

The classical philosophers of most traditions that I am aware of permitted slavery, and indeed viewed it as natural, and even concluded that it was part of some grand design. This was the same from Moses to Aristotle to St. Augustine to Mohammad.

It seems crazy and upside down to us. But perhaps we had to go through the horror of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade before we realized it was a very, very cruel institution. From there, the math says it will always be as cruel as the cruelest "owner", as indeed it always was. "Christian" sensibilities were shocked by it, particularly British ones, and - ironically, considering how they had benefited - that is ultimately what ended slavery.

The Arab slave trade spread with Islam's trade network as a result of the Arab conquests during those early generations after Mohammad. The fact that Islamic law permitted enslaving non-Muslims is not surprising. It would have been a very impressive reform if slavery had been banned under the new religion!

I think the Arab Slave Trade and the Transatlantic Slave Trade had their own areas of exceptional cruelty, based on gender and race respectively, but it may be that I view things differently than they actually were because I myself am a product of the modern post-slavery era.

Ultimately, the measure of the relative virtues (or lack thereof) of a particular system must be the experience of the individuals impacted by it. Since most slaves were illiterate during the past 4,000 years and left no record of their experience, it is pretty much impossible to judge how bad one system was relative to another.