This instalment of the Silk Road series examines something the exhibit omits. It makes no mention of the slave trade. That trade began and flourished during what the exhibit calls the “Golden Age of Islam.”

The Silk Road exhibit leaves out slavery

EXHIBIT SIGN:

TREASURE IN THE HOLD

At its height, Baghdad attracted wealth from all corners of the world. Built on the banks of the Tigris River, with easy access to the Persian Gulf, the city received goods not only by Silk Road trade routes, but also by sea. By the early 800s, Arab ships were making regular voyages from Baghdad to China. They returned heavily laden, as shown in this scene below the deck of an Islamic ship, some 1,200 years ago.

WHAT WASN’T SAID:

That the Arab ships were undoubtedly heavily laden with booty and human cargo.

FACTS:

Arab slave trade routes in Africa during the Middle Ages. Graphic: User Runehelmet on Wikimedia Commons, derived from an earlier work by User Aliesin. CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported License

1. Islam Watch: The Arab slave trade began and flourished around 800 CE, when it was virtually non-existent in Europe and female slaves often became wives. The Quran, hadith and sira support that “Muhammad took, purchased, sold, and gave away both male and female slaves.” Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya – a great scholar, astronomer, chemist, philosopher, psychologist, scientist, theologian and Islamic historian – says: “Muhammad had many male and female slaves. He used to buy and sell them, but he purchased more slaves then he sold. He once sold one black slave for two.  His purchases of slaves were more than he sold.” [Zad al-Ma’ad”, part 1, p. 160] (Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah’s (1292-1350 CE) Zad al-Ma’ad, translated as Provisions of the Hereafter, is rated as one of the finest books on the biography of Mohammed.)[1]
2. “Muhammad had a number of black slaves. One of them was named ‘Mahran’, whom Muhammad forced to do more labor than the average man. Whenever Muhammad went on a trip and he, or his people, got tired of carrying their stuff, he made Mahran carry it. Mahran said “Even if I were already carrying the load of 6 or 7 donkeys while we were on a journey, anyone who felt weak would throw his clothes or his shield or his sword on me so I would carry that, a heavy load”. Tabari and Jawziyya both record this, so Islam accepts this as true.” (Behind the Veil)
3. On one occasion, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law Ali whipped a female slave of Aisha’s in front of Muhammad to make her speak out about the adultery charges brought against Aisha. Muhammad did not say a word to protest Ali’s beating of the slave-girl. On another occasion, Umar beat a slave-girl for wearing the veil (veil is for free Muslim women only). Muhammad had massacred 800 male Koreiza Jews and took their women and children, about 1200 heads, as slaves. He kept at least one Jewish female, named Rihana, as his concubine, and gave the rest away to his companions. He sent his disciple Sa’d bin-Zayd with a portion of the captive women and children to Nejd to sell them for horse and weapons for organizing future jihad-raids.
4. All these incidents bear testimony to the fact that Muhammad was an enslaver and slave-trader. The names of many of Muhammad’s slaves are given in detail in Muslim writings and they can be found in “Behind the Veil”. Moreover, even under Muhammad, slaves were treated brutally as above examples make it clear, although some Muslims, groundlessly claim that slaves under Islam were always treated fairly and kindly.
5. These may also bear testimony that Muhammad’s entourage and followers did not trade honestly, but raped and looted.
6. “Slavery is part of Islam; slavery is part of jihad and will remain as long as there is Islam.” (“Those who argue that slavery has been abolished are ignorant, not scholars. They are merely writers. Whoever says such things is an infidel.” – Sheikh Saleh al-Fawzan, member of Senior Council of Clerics, Saudi Arabia, 2003.
7. “Besides being practiced more or less openly today in Sudan and Mauritania, there is evidence that slavery still continues beneath the surface in some majority-Muslim countries as well – notably Saudi Arabia which only abolished slavery in 19621; Yemen and Oman, both of which ended legal slavery in 1970; and Niger, which officially banned slavery in 2004, but which ban is widely ignored., and as many as one million people remain in bondage. Slaves are bred, often raped and generally treated like animals.” Dr. Daniel Pipes, New York Post (July 30, 2002.
8. “The worst, most inhumane and most diabolical institution of the black African slave trade was initiated, refined, perpetuated and implemented by the Mohammedan Arabs and later aided and abetted by the black converts to Mohammedan Islam.” – Robert Spencer, “The Persistence of Islamic Slavery.”

EXHIBIT SIGN:

THE GOLDEN AGE

Whenever you look at a map, gaze at the stars or take down a phone number, think of Baghdad. Long ago, brilliant scholars in this booming city studied geography, astronomy and mathematics – and made advances that can still be felt every day. Great minds from many lands gathered at a Baghdad library, called the House of Wisdom, one of many centers of learning in an era known as the Islamic Golden Age.

WHAT WASN’T SAID:

That the Golden Age of Islam was an age of inhumane servitude for Jews and Christians, the People of the Book.

FACTS:

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1. Jewish communities had always existed in the Middle East; they were called People of the Book (the Bible). The Golden Age for Jews and Christians meant large-scale discrimination. They were given the status of dhimmi, and afforded the ignominious honor to live in shame under Islamic rule.
2. Dhimmi is the Arabic term that refers to the non-Islamic-embracing population, as a distinctly subjugated, second-class, almost-slave non-citizen, who is subjected to dictatorial deprivation of any legal and human rights since he is a non-Muslim permanent resident in a Muslim state. Bat Ye’or’s book, Dhimmi (1971) describes the basis for development of dhimmitude in Islam, and its relationship to the jihad, the war to conquer territory for Islam.
3. Throughout earliest Islamic history, the people conquered by Muslims were given the choice of conversion, death, or servitude to despotic masters. Jews and Christians had to pay jizya taxes and tolls and give deference to Muslim neighbors and frenzied mobs.
4. Jews and Christians were allowed to continue cultivating land but cede half the produce, with threat of expulsion at any time. Making and breaking agreements was the hallmark of the Muslim armies.
5. As the Muslims grew more powerful, their holy wars spread beyond Arabia. The jihad became a war of conquest subject to a code of eliminating infidels. Truces were made, but never a lasting peace, as happens today.
6. The jihad became a concept of dar al Harab, territory of war, and dar al Islam, territory of Islamic reign. Jihad is a normal state of dar al Harab that can only end with conversion of the world. Therefore, jihad became conquest of the world for Islam – forced conversions, killings, taking slaves, seizing property. This enriched the jihadists and brought wealth to Arab nations; participation was/is obligatory either by force or by betrayal from within.
7. The ruler of the time provided either tolerance and security or fanaticism and pogroms. Communities could be evicted, women raped, exorbitant ransoms placed on them, children abducted for conversion; mass murders of the dhimmis was condoned. There was no due process.
8. Discriminatory and restrictive dress and behavior codes were enacted and severely enforced to reduce dhimmi into a state of despair and poverty. Dehumanization was generally the rule, as were various forms of physical abuse.
9. Distinctive dress identified the dhimmi to restricted areas and behaviors, or banned from walking in Muslims areas of the city. Dress codes included not wearing shoes or sandals, not using certain colors, wearing Stars of David on their clothing. There were prohibitions from working in many occupations, and even rules on how to ride a mule (to distinguish him from a Muslim).
10. Non-observance of rules could result in severe beatings, even mortally wounding; there was no recourse in a court of law.
11. Islam was not a Golden Age for non-Muslims. Islam is intolerant, and it fosters and condones belligerent and aggressive actions toward people who choose not to embrace Islam.
12. Non-observance of these rules would entail a severe beating. Often passing a Muslim on the wrong side would begin a beating that could leave a dhimmi fatally wounded. Since the dhimmis were denied the ability to testify against a Muslim, there was absolutely no recourse.
13. Pogroms against the Jews since the 11th century: 1066 Granada massacre, the razing of the entire Jewish quarter in the Andalusian city of Granada. In North Africa, there were cases of violence against Jews in the Middle Ages, and in other Arab lands including Egypt, Syria. and Yemen. Jewish population was confined to segregated quarters, or mellahs, in Morocco, walled-in ghettos, beginning from the 15th century. The Almohads, who had taken control of much of Islamic Iberia by 1172 treated the dhimmis harshly. Jews and Christians were expelled from Morocco and Islamic Spain. Faced with the choice of either death or conversion, some Jews, such as the family of Maimonides, fled south and east to the more tolerant Muslim lands, while others went northward to settle in the growing Christian kingdoms. In 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in an offensive manner. The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.

(To be continued)

Earlier Silk Road Notes articles:

• Silk Road notes 6: time
• Silk Road notes 5: ships
• Silk Road notes 4: learning
• Silk Road notes 3: glass
• Silk Road notes 2: trade
• Silk Road notes 1: silk

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