If you read Lovejoy or other works that discuss the Islamic trade in slaves
from Africa to the Middle East, you may be--as I was--amazed to learn the
huge numbers
that were involved.
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Segal estimates it to be about the same as the Atlantic trade, but it took
place over eight centuries+.

Many of the men were eunuchs. It is estimated that 1 in 200 potential
eunuchs made it alive to their destinations. Those that survived were
greatly revered in Muslim society, some becoming generals, heads of state,
etc. In the early 20th century when eunuchs entered the tramcars in
Istanbul, all Turks would stand and greet them, and remain standing until
they took their seat.

The survival rate from walking 2,500 miles across the Sahara from West
Africa to Egypt or Northern Africa was, as you might imagine, much worse
than the survival rate in the Atlantic trade on ships.

Under pressure from the British the Turks closed the slave market in
Istanbul in 1846, but in 1855 "the head of the Muslim community in Mecca
issued a fatwa declaring that the ban was a breach of Islamic holy law and
that the Turks were apostates and heathens upon whom it was obligatory to
wage holy war." Slavery was still legal in Saudi in the 1950s and continued
to some extent into the 1980s. It was replaced by hiring Filipino and Indian
"house maids." When I worked in Saudi, I used to hear my Saudi work mates
joking about taking advantage of their maids.

I think the South has the same problem as the Saudis. Emancipation was
enforced. The recent state legislature apologies to African Americans for
the damage slavery did to the African American community both before and
after slavery is a great stride toward ridding the soul of those past
actions. The only thing that is lacking in the apologies is the
acknowledgement of how wrong it was for their white ancestors in the 1860s
to still be fighting to maintain slavery. One wonders when they would have
agreed to emancipation if left to their own devices.

Paul