Race and Slavery in the Middle East Quotes

“In medieval times most singers, dancers, and musical performers were, at least in origin, slaves.”
― Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry

“The cultivation of cotton and sugar, which the Arabs brought from the East across North Africa and into Spain, most probably entailed some kind of plantation system.”
― Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry

“Black slaves seem to have cost from two to three hundred dirhams; black eunuchs, at least two or three times as much. Female black slaves were sold at five hundred dirhams or so; trained singing girls or other performers, at ten or even twenty thousand.”
― Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry

“[...] the governor of the Hijaz sent an order to the district governor of Mecca prohibiting the trade in slaves. The district governor was instructed to read the order aloud at the Shari a court of Mecca in the presence of the ulema and the sharifs. This took place on October 30, 1855 [...]

This was the moment for which the sharif had been waiting. On his instructions, Shaykh Jamal issued a fatwa denouncing the ban on the slave trade as contrary to the holy law of Islam. Because of this anti-Islamic act, he said, together with such other anti-Islamic actions as allowing women to initiate divorce proceedings and to move around unveiled, the [Ottomon] Turks had become apostates and heathens. It was lawful to kill them without incurring criminal penalties or bloodwit, and to enslave their children.

"The Turks have become renegades. It is obligatory to make war against them and against those who follow them. Those who are with us are for heaven and those who are with them are for hell. Their blood is lawful and their goods are licit.”
― Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry