Research Seminar discusses Islamic Slave Trade or Slavery in Muslim Societies

The Africa Institute’s Ali A. Mazrui Senior Fellow in Global African Studies, Professor Abdul Mohammed Hussein Sheriff shares his research work as he explores, “Islamic Slave Trade or Slavery in Islamic Societies?” on November 1, 2022, at the Khalid School Auditorium.

His presentation discusses how slavery has been a widespread phenomenon in human history, but they were not predominantly dependent on slave labor to be described as a slave model.

“There has been a tendency to equate the so-called ‘Islamic slavery’ over 14 centuries, which was associated with a great variety of societies at different levels of development, that can hardly be described as a single mode, with the Atlantic Slavery that lasted over two centuries at the ‘rosy dawn of the capitalist mode of production,” said Professor Sheriff who completed his Ph.D. from the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS), the University of London in 1971. 

Apart from answering the question ‘Islamic Slavery or Slavery in Muslim Societies’ presented today, Professor Sheriff felt that it was necessary to analyze exactly what can be described as ‘Islamic slavery’ during the time of the Prophet. 

“I felt it was necessary to describe the kind of society that had developed in Mecca & Medina. I concluded that it was largely a tribal society that was undergoing a transformation because of long-distance trade passing through Mecca between Syria and Yemen in one direction, and Ethiopia and Iran in the other.  It was a society that was undergoing social transformation, a society of merchants and oasis farmers in which there were some slaves derived from the traditional tribal skirmishes, but it was not a slave society whose entire economy depended on slave labor. This led me to a detailed analysis of references in the Quran and the Hadith (Traditions) to define what kind of slavery existed in Mecca and Medina at that time. My discoveries surprised even myself,” he said. 

Professor Sheriff shared that his research agenda is divided into three key parts, firstly, to define the character of slavery during the time of the Prophet by studying the political economy of Arabia, largely based on the authentic sources of the Quran and the Hadiths; secondly, to study the genesis of economic history and; lastly, analyze what residual effect and extent the Islamic ethic has set up in the Quran and Hadith had any influence on the treatment of slaves, and the assimilation that Ali Mazrui is talking about. 

Professor Sheriff has published several books, including Slaves, Spices & Ivory in Zanzibar (1987), and The Dhow Cultures of the Indian Ocean – Cosmopolitanism, Culture & Islam (2010); edited History & Conservation of Zanzibar Stone Town (1995); and co-edited Zanzibar Under Colonial Rule (1991), The Indian Ocean: Oceanic Connections & the Creation of New Societies (2014), and Transition from Slavery in Zanzibar & Mauritius, (2017), as well numerous scholarly articles. His current research interests are on Zanzibar, the Swahili culture, and the Indian Ocean.

Through these series of lectures and workshops, The Africa Institute reaffirms its mission as a center for the study and research of Africa and its diaspora and its commitment to the training of a new generation of critical thinkers in African and African Diaspora studies.