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History and Biography

English edition
Nov 2010
256 pp.
15 b/w photographs, 2 maps
Hardbound
15X23 cm
$39.50
LE150
ISBN 978 977 416 398 2
For sale worldwide

Race and Slavery in the Middle East

Histories of Trans-Saharan Africans in Nineteenth-Century Egypt, Sudan, and the Ottoman Mediterranean Edited by Terence Walz
Kenneth M. Cuno

New sources and research illuminate the individual lives of African slaves in the Middle East

In the nineteenth century hundreds of thousands of Africans were forcibly migrated northward to Egypt and other eastern Mediterranean destinations, yet relatively little is known about them. Studies have focused mainly on the mamluk and harem slaves of elite households, who were mostly white, and on abolitionist efforts to end the slave trade, and most have relied heavily on western language sources. In the past forty years new sources have become available, ranging from Egyptian religious and civil court and police records to rediscovered archives and accounts in western archives and libraries. Along with new developments in the study of African slavery these sources provide a perspective on the lives of non-elite trans-Saharan Africans in nineteenth century Egypt and beyond. The nine essays in this volume examine the lives of slaves and freed men and women in Egypt and the region. Contributors: Kenneth M. Cuno, Y. Hakan Erdem, Michael Ferguson, Emad Ahmad Helal Shams al-Din, Liat Kozma, George Michael La Rue, Ahmad A. Sikainga, Eve M. Troutt Powell, and Terence Walz.

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Terence Walz is an independent scholar working in Washington, DC. He is the author of Trade Between Egypt and Bilad as-Sudan, 1700–1820. Kenneth M. Cuno is associate professor of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He co-edited Family, Gender and Law in a Globalizing Middle East and South Asia and is the author of The Pasha’s Peasants: Land, Society and Economy in Lower Egypt, 1740–1858.

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Reviews

“This volume is an excellent contribution to the study of slavery and race in the Ottoman empire and should be considered essential reading for purposes of the comparative study of slavery as well as the study of slavery in the Islamic world. . . . There are two maps and 18 wonderful illustrations of good reproduction.”—Paul E. Lovejoy, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

“Race and Slavery in the Middle East is a well-researched and eloquently written book about African slavery....the editors succeed in capturing the lost voices of the trans-Saharan Africans and presenting their experience of race and slavery devoid of Western imagery and bias. Each of the nine chapters illustrates the strength of this volume to overcome the methodological challenges to document the life experiences of trans-Saharan Africans” – Ismael Montana, The Historian, University of South Florida

“By focusing on various nineteenth-century societies, the book demonstrates that enslaved Africans and their cultures made a substantial impact on the Middle East both economically and culturally.”—Assan Sarr, Northeast African Studies

“Race and Slavery in the Middle East is an admirable volume. The authors profitably exploit a diverse set of archival sources to reconstruct aspects of the history of the nineteenth-century African diaspora in some parts of the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, they adopt various lenses through which to explain some of the experiences, goals, and/or contributions of enslaved Africans in Middle Eastern societies. The authors have written a history of slavery in the nineteenth-century Middle East in a highly readable form, and the book will be of interest to students and historians attracted to the study of comparative slavery around the world.”—Assan Sarr, Northeast African Studies