On Jun 14, 2007, at 6:53 PM, macbd1 wrote:

> Paul,
>
> With the Muslim slave trade occurring over 14 centuries, and  
> considering the ultra-low survival rate of slave transportation  
> from East Africa to the Middle-East,
The vast numbers of captives overcame the low survival rate. That it  
kept going until the 19th century in full bloom is enough to show the  
"success" of the practice.

> the castration of most male slaves
That may not be the case. Pellow's account appears to have a fairly  
low castration rate from the general reading.

> and murder of slaves' newborns,
Again, that may not be the case. Slave children grow to be adult  
slaves and a benefit to the owner so there would be no real benefit  
to infanticide. No doubt, it was practice in places.

> I'm wondering how slaves and their children were 'incorporated into  
> society' in any meaningful number when slave-descendants are  
> apparently scant in the Middle-East.
Pellow's account is the typical version. Women as the spoils of war  
were assigned to males, slaves or not, depending upon circumstances,  
in Pellow's account. That is something as old as mankind apparently.  
In North American NA society, as well as elsewhere where  
enthnographic accounts have been recorded, raids to capture women and  
adolescents who might be "adopted" by the tribe was a means of  
avoiding in-breeding that became common practice. The practice  
appears to have been world-wide with the women ill-equipped to resist  
at all. Pellow records those particular horrors in 18th century  
Morocco. That would be how societal incorporation would be  
accomplished via the second generation. Certainly some eunuchs, whole  
males (Pellow for instance) and females rose to occupy positions of  
relative power within Islamic society, all depending upon personal  
circumstances and abilities to overcome (at least within the  
circumstances) the worst-case scenarios compared with their former  
lives.

Other posts have posited that slaves were happy, while others have  
questioned that it was possible. All of us who study the past tend to  
clump people into categories to make what are essentially  
quantifiable assertions. BUT, at the personal level, there are those  
who will never willingly live as slaves, those who will go along  
because there are no alternatives at the moment, and those who are  
happy to get 3 squares a day and clothing and as long as they keep  
their heads below the parapet, subsume their feelings into  
acquiescence. That is just plain human nature. Whether they are  
Soviets who would rather live with the uncertainties of the Siberian  
tiaga, African slaves who left to be among the Cherokee, the  
Seminoles or whoever, or the Jewish resistance in WWII, those folks  
cannot be broken. Killed, yes, but broken, never. They were the  
living embodiment of the "Live Free or Die" New Hampshire state  
motto. There were other folks who were essentially followers and  
still others a small minority that were actively abetting the owner  
caste. Finding enough of any of those types of folks at the two  
extremes in the historic record is "an interesting challenge", one  
would think.

Lyle Browning, RPA
> I won't be visiting the Middle-East and can't imagine how I would  
> be able to see for myself how this was accomplished over such a  
> long timespan.  Can you tell me what timeframe of the 14 centuries  
> you are addressing and a little more detail as to how I could  
> readily see this in today's light?  I must admit I was being  
> facetious when I wrote the parenthetical remark while thinking of  
> another's recent posting.  I do know that a few eunuchs who rose to  
> high government or military positions were apparently highly  
> respected.
>
> Thanks for any help toward better understanding of the Muslim slave  
> trade that existed alongside the Trans-Atlantic trade to the  
> Americas including Virginia, and how they contrasted while having a  
> common African origin.
>
> Neil McDonald
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Heinegg"  
> <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 12:05 PM
> Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Islamic Slavery (was Re: Slavery and immoral  
> stance, etc.)
>
>
>> Neil McDonald wrote, "While many children were born to slaves in  
>> the Americas, and millions of their descendants are citizens in  
>> Brazil and the USA to this day, very few descendants of the slaves  
>> that ended up in the Middle East survive.  (Maybe they were just  
>> "incorporated into society," huh??)"
>>
>> --------------
>> I do not want to defend Muslim slavery since my reading of  
>> "Islam's Black Slaves" totally disgusted me. And I disagree with  
>> the author of that book calling what was wholesale rape "household  
>> slavery" and "concubinage," but anyone who visits the Middle East  
>> can see for himself that their slaves were incorporated into society.
>>
>> Saudi Arabia resisted emancipation as did the American South. The  
>> difference is that no one forced Saudi to stop.
>> Paul