Servants of Allah Quotes

“African slavery did not follow one model; the institution varied according to region, people, time, and religion. There were, however, similarities among the different African systems and huge differences with American slavery. Whereas kidnapping in the early days and straight purchase of prisoners of war were the methods by which the Americans and Europeans acquired their African slaves, wars were the principal sources of captives in West Africa. The Africans’ viewpoint on the matter is of particular interest. When Frenchman Gaspard Mollien told a group of Senegalese in 1818 that the European battlefields were covered “with thousands of dead, they could not conceive that the Europeans could massacre men since it would be more profitable and humane to sell them than to kill them.”
― Sylviane A. Diouf, Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas

“The adoption of Islamic law had a decisive effect on slavery in West Africa, for it significantly reduced the causes for enslavement while at the same time encouraging manumission. Islam neither condemned nor forbade slavery but stated that enslavement was lawful under only two conditions: if the slave was born of slave parents or if he or she had been a “pagan” prisoner of war. Captives could legally be made slaves if the prisoner was a kafir (pagan) who had first refused to convert and then declined to accept the protection of the Muslims. In theory, a freeborn Muslim could never become a slave; therefore, judicial process led to death for those who had committed a capital crime—since prisons did not exist—while the perpetrators of smaller offenses, including debtors, saw their property seized or received corporal punishment.”
― Sylviane A. Diouf, Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas