“The mortality rate for the black Africans was about 90% – that is, only 10% survived – and the millions seized by the Arabs far exceeded the numbers who were bought by Europeans in the Atlantic Slave Trade.”
(New English Review) Hugh Fitzgerald
Last week, in an unlikely encounter near the Sangre de Cristo mountains of Colorado, I met a couple who had just returned from a sabbatical year in Togo. I asked them about Togo. They told me they had last been in the country ten years ago, and this time had been horrified by the visible signs of Islam in Lomé. Ten years ago, the wife, a native of Togo, told me, there could not have been more than four mosques in Lomé, and now, she said, “there are four hundred.” And what is more, these four hundred are now equipped with P.A. systems, used by the muezzins to make sure that everyone – Muslim and Christian and animist – all over Lomé, hears five times a day the Call To Prayer.
I began to think about Islam in Africa, and the steady advances it appears, largely, at the level of mosque and madrasa and missionary work, through the deployment of oil money from the rich Gulf states, to be making all over sub-Saharan Africa. It is amazing, when one considers the long history of Arab depredations and Arab cruelty, and Arab seizure of black Africans in the longest-running, and cruelest, slave trade in history.
No doubt the blog-owner’s commitment to Spencer and Jihad-Watch has to come accross to the other croney Hugh Fitzgerald.
Most cultures had their empires, ascendence and decline, acts of barbarity and other influences both beneficial and malign.
The reality of course is that the Arab and Islamic influence in Africa had its mixed results and the barbarity of men – as everywhere – is not forgotten. The question is why this article – it of course has its own malign and malicous agenda.
Arab slavery is well known, it has been a cultural habit from the tribes for countless generations. They fed the slave needs in Arabia as well as acted as middle-men to other cultures (and religions) whom thrived of its economy. The notions from the above article of course makes for misguided and incorrect assumptions, the context as usual being played with for agenda reasons.
Lets look at facts: (something the blog-owner himself hates)
Between 11 and 17 million Africans were enslaved and sent “eastward” between 650 and 1900, or an average of between 8,800 and 13,600 per year.
Between 1500 and 1900 between 9.4 million and 12 million Africans were sent in ships across the Atlantic to the “Western Hemisphere”, or an average of between 23,500 and 30,000 per year.
During the time of “competing” slavers the Atlantic slave trade dwarfed the Arabian slave trade. On the western coast of Africa from the 1500s, Arab slavers were banned, hunted and sunk as they would be considered attempting to move in to the lucrative trade. The age of the Barbary Pirates or often called the Corsairs (based in what is now modern day Salé, Morocco) being involved in slavery was at an end.
Now taking a look at the above, consider the other aspects of Slavery and domination. Islam spread and it spread both by faith and by sword at the hands of conquerors – like all conquerors did. Nothing special. But what about the last 300 years?
There is no doubt – but of course not mentioned here – that the influence of Europe over Africa – and the rest of the world – is the singularly major event in those countries – for both good and bad but mostly in fact bad. Apart from the slavery by Europeans at gross wholesale levels that are still shocking, we have the forced Christianization, the barbarity of the Belgium Congo, the creation of concept of Apartheid, the forcing of borders that do not fit tribes and cultures, the eradication and denial of the history of ancient Zimbabwe and so on. There are a number of well documented and photographed examples of the still-existing slave trade in diamond mines that are owned by still European companies that have not changed in over 200 years.
I could go on but it is not necessary. The Arabs did some horrible things, they have their own cultural hangups, Islam itself is a faith, a religion without borders and frankly speaking has because of the interference of westerners, dictators and their own radicals, done little to change the lives of the average black African. But all this has to do with the hands of man, not the religion just like it would be wrong to blame the horrors of the last 300 years on most of Africa – if not the entire developing world – at the hands of Christianity and its missionaries.
The article is crap, simple enough.
“The khimar is the piece of cloth that women use to cover their heads and the protruding part of their breasts. This is what Islamic law requires.”
The legalism goes on and on and on – more and more laws and rulings
to cover more and more trifling possibilities – often backed up with
the threat of “dire consequences”.
Contrast law with grace, with its minimal rule set …
It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain
from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things. Farewell. (Acts 15:28&29)
I take abstention from food sacrificed to idols to include anything
marked as “halal” and sacrificed to “allah” – a false god. The halal
cert in the shop is usually a clue as to which god they serve.
I remember when I was a child of a strong catholic family the instructions both oral and written about everything in one’s life and what is acceptable and not.
The Qur’an gives examples, instructions, messages and histories for mankind to understand and to follow, the haddiths though are touched by man and though perhaps at that time given with all the best intentions, does not stand the test of time with a few perhaps close to understanding or giving examples. Thus, as most Muslim countries do, they have avoided the mistake of going Shari’a in their legal system, made their own minds up of what is acceptable and not and left the rest for the individual family to follow within their own homes.
“Low is the man whom has to sell his faith to others, lest it stand by itself and fall vitim of its lack of merrits”.
Message to the Proslethizers
Martin Luther
Solkhar,
the arab mistreatment of black africa has continued unabated for over 1000 years – the latest incidents being Dafur and the meddling of arab states in Somali politics. The arabs bear sole responsibility for the destruction of much of central africa – the europeans came much later. they were also not a good influence, but they pale in comparison to the long term arab muslim
contribution.
On a final point related to other posts –
the statement that abuse of religion is not due to religion but to man is flawed logically – religion, as we understand it, is a human construct. Perhaps it is the word of G_d, but it is a personnel choice to believe, and humans can only believe within an extremely limited frame of reference – our understanding in most things is far from complete. I suspect that the understanding of G_D, assuming he/she/it exists, is beyond our comprehension and the statement that a particular religion is a true religion because a small group of humans have perceived themselves to be special introduces a contradiction that fatally damages the claim of that special group.
Blackson Black slavery and Arab (later Mohammedan Arab) slavery has been active in Africa for THOUSANDS of years and is STILL being perpetrated now by Blacks and Mohammedans. When the whites first came to Africa it was Mohammedan ARABS who were the slave traders who brought the Blacks from the interior (where they were taken as slaves by fellow Blacks) to the ports to sell them . However it was wicked ‘whitey’ who stopped the slave trade and the British and American Navies drove it from the seas and the American Civil War which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives was largely fought on the Slavery issue. However Blacks and Mohammedan Arabs continue their evil slaving TODAY and in fact the Krap Kran actually supports slavery. So I find it so amusing when Blacks in Africa convert to Islam because they are so stupid and ignorant of their own history. But hey only ‘whitey’ can be a racist right guys LOL