A comprehensive study of the Eastern slave trade by an eminent British scholarA companion volume to The Black Diaspora; this groundbreaking work tells the fascinating and horrifying story of the Islamic slave trade. Islam's Black Slaves documents a centuries-old institution that still survives; and traces the business of slavery and its repercussions from Islam's inception in the seventh century; through its history in China; India; Iran; Turkey; Egypt; Libya; and Spain; and on to Sudan and Mauritania; where; even today; slaves continue to be sold. Ronald Segal reveals for the first time the numbers involved in this trade--as many millions as were transported to the Americas--and explores the differences between the traffic in the East and the West.Islam's Black Slaves also examines the continued denial of the very existence of this sector of the black diaspora; although it survives today in significant numbers; and in an illuminating conclusion; Segal addresses the appeal of Islam to African-American communities; and the perplexing refusal of Black Muslim leaders to acknowledge black slavery and oppression in present-day Mauritania and Sudan.A fitting companion to Segal's previous work; Islam's Black Slaves is a fascinating account of an often unacknowledged tradition; and a riveting cross-cultural commentary.
#3217640 in Books 1994-03Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.50 x 5.75 x .75l; #File Name: 0374154953327 pages
Review
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. the Final Station: UmschlagplatzBy George EppThis book came to me as a surprize. My wife is a librarian and she brought it to me "on spec". I've renewed it twice since. Rymkiewicz weaves here an extraordinary collage of thought and emotion; reason and passion as he leads us through the spectre that was the holocaust in Poland. The narrator is elusive; as if he were the collective mind of all those who lived through the terrible days of the Warsaw Ghetto; its precursors and its aftermath. There is guilt here for the massive consent -- if not cooperation -- with the NAZIs. There is sorrow over the helplessness of ordinary people run over; figuratively; by the tanks and uniforms of the totalitarian state. All is told in a style that defies description in conventional terms; time and substance swim back and forth; making this more a collage of humanity at its weakest and worst rather than a narrative of a single event. A good read; with amazing quotes.4 of 5 people found the following review helpful. a brilliant tour de force of both literary and moral merit.By LeucippeRymkiewicz's engagement with the past events of the Holocaust; as focused through his own forgotten childhood encounter with the liquidation of Jews in Poland; is a brilliant literary accomplishment and a work of high moral value. It is the first sustained treatment by a Pole of the tragedy that befell the Jews of Poland; whose absent presence haunts every page; and it does so through a complex and imaginative structure that draws on documentary sources and fictional recreation of a world the author could not know. The grudging Kirkus review; cited above; does not do justice to this bold and daring work. Read it for yourselves.2 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Fascinating novel of Polish perspective on Jewish HolocaustBy A CustomerThe author was a child during the extermination of the Warsaw Ghetto; anddescribes the Polish wartime experience in relation to that of the Jews he saw beingdeported to extermination. Occasionally apologetic; sometimes confrontative about responsibility; I found the book to be very readable. Flashbacks/forwards are potentially confusing. Certainly a different slant from the typical Holocaust memoir.
