About Islamic slavery

[Frodo Baggins]

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/005718.php

Bostom: The living legacy of jihad slavery

Andrew Bostom writes in The American Thinker (thanks to all who sent this in) about a much-needed protest against Islamic slavery, and some of its implications:

A public protest in Washington, DC, April 5, 2005 highlighted the current (ongoing, for centuries) plight of black Mauritanians enslaved by Arab masters. The final two decades of the 20th century, moreover, witnessed a frank jihad genocide, including mass enslavement, perpetrated by the Arab Muslim Khartoum government against black Christians and animists in the Southern Sudan, and the same governments continued massacres and enslavement of Animist-Muslim blacks in Darfur. These tragic contemporary phenomena reflect the brutal living legacy of jihad slavery.

Jihad Slavery

The fixed linkage between jihad- a permanent, uniquely Islamic institution- and enslavement, provides a very tenable explanation for the unparalleled scale and persistence of slavery in Muslim dominions, and societies. This general observation applies as well to “specialized” forms of slavery, including the (procurement and) employment of eunuchs, slave soldiering (especially of adolescents), other forms of child slavery, and harem slavery. Jihad slavery, in its myriad manifestations, became a powerful instrument for both expansive Islamization, and the maintenance of Muslim societies....

Contemporary manifestations of Islamic slavery—-certainly the razzias (raids) waged by Arab Muslim militias against their black Christian, animist, and animist-Muslim prey in both the southern Sudan and Darfur—and even in its own context, the persistence of slavery in Mauritania (again, black slaves, Arab masters)—-reflect the pernicious impact of jihad slavery as an enduring Muslim institution. Even Ottoman society, arguably the most progressive in Muslim history, and upheld just recently at a United Nations conference as a paragon of Islamic ecumenism, never produced a William Wilberforce, much less a broad, religiously-based slavery abolition movement spearheaded by committed Muslim ulema. Indeed, it is only modern Muslim freethinkers, anachronistically referred to as “apostates,” who have had the courage and intellectual integrity to renounce the jihad, including jihad slavery, unequivocally, and based upon an honest acknowledgement of its devastating military and social history. When the voices of these Muslim freethinkers are silenced in the Islamic world—by imprisonment and torture, or execution—the outcome is tragic, but hardly unexpected. That such insightful and courageous voices have been marginalized or ignored altogether in the West is equally tragic and reflects the distressing ignorance of Western policymaking elites.
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[Frodo Baggins]

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_3_55/ai_97347246

Maids, Slaves, and Prisoners: To be employed in a Saudi home - forced servitude of women in Saudi Arabia and in homes of Saudis in US
National Review, Feb 24, 2003 by Joel Mowbray
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[AC]

Trafficking in Persons Report

by U.S. Department of State
_________________
Antarctic Defense Forces

[Frodo Baggins]

http://www.brandeis.edu/projects/fse/Pages/islamandslavery.html
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[DavidE]

Don't we have any respect for cultural differences? Are we to deprive Muslims of what Allah allows them? You betcha!

This Indonesian woman that was kept as a slave should get a good lawyer and sue these Saudi bastards. Maybe these plaintiff lawyers should start signing up people who work in Arab's homes!

Friday, June 10, 2005

(06-10) 19:27 PDT Aurora, Colo. (AP) --


A Saudi Arabian couple was in custody Friday, accused of turning a young Indonesian woman into a virtual slave, forcing her to clean, cook and care for their children while she was threatened and sexually assaulted.


A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Homaidan Al-Turki, 36, and his wife, Sarah Khonaizan, 35, on charges of forced labor, document servitude and harboring an illegal immigrant.


Al-Turki also faces state charges including kidnapping, false imprisonment and extortion, as well as 12 charges of sexual assault. His wife faces some of the same charges. The two could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.


Phone messages left Friday for their individual lawyers were not immediately returned.


U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Jeff Dorschner said the Indonesian woman, who is in her 20s, came to the United States with the couple legally to perform domestic chores. But her U.S. visa was hidden from her by Al-Turki and Khonaizan, according to Thursday's indictment.


The woman was controlled by "a climate of fear and intimidation" that included sexual abuse and the belief that she would "suffer serious harm" if she did not perform her tasks, the indictment said.


The woman is believed to have lived with the couple from 2000 until November 2004, according to authorities. Dorschner said she is not in custody.


Authorities said the couple owed the woman nearly $93,000 in unpaid wages.


A neighbor, Vicki Lisman, said she believed the couple has four children — three young girls and a teenage boy. In the summer, the mother and children would go to Saudi Arabia while the father stayed in Colorado, she said.


Lisman said she had no idea another woman lived with the family.


"There was certainly a sense of normalcy with the house and the family," she said.


Al-Turki worked at Al-Basheer Publications and Translation in Denver. No one answered the company's phone Friday.

[Frodo Baggins]

http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/007189.php

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2005/07/slave-trade-continues.html

"It is estimated that possibly as many as 11 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic (95% of which went to South and Central America, mainly to Portuguese, Spanish and French possessions. Only 5% of the slaves went to the United States).

However, at least 28 million Africans were enslaved in the Muslim Middle East. As at least 80% of those captured by Muslim slave traders were calculated to have died before reaching the slave markets, it is believed that the death toll from the 14 centuries of Muslim slave raids into Africa could have been over 112 million. When added to the number of those sold in the slave markets, the total number of African victims of the Trans Saharan and East African slave trade could be significantly higher than 140 million people."
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[Frodo Baggins]

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/006645.php

Pipes: Saudis Import Slaves to America

Daniel Pipes writes in Front Page:

Homaidan Ali Al-Turki, 36, and his wife, Sarah Khonaizan, 35, appear to be a model immigrant couple. Having arrived in the United States in 2000, they live with their four children in an upscale Denver suburb. Al-Turki is a graduate student in linguistics at the University of Colorado, specializing in Arabic intonation and focus prosody. He donates money to the Linguistic Society of America and is CEO of Al-Basheer Publications and Translations, a bookstore specializing in titles about Islam.

Last week, however, the FBI accused the couple of enslaving an Indonesian woman in her early 20s. For four years, reads the indictment, they created “a climate of fear and intimidation through rape and other means.” The slave woman cooked, cleaned, took care of children, and more for little or no pay, fearing that if she did not obey, “she would suffer serious harm.”

The two Saudis face charges of forced labor, aggravated sexual abuse, document servitude, and harboring an alien. If found guilty, they could spend their remaining lives in prison. The government also wants to seize the couple’s Al-Basheer bank account to pay their former slave $92,700 in back wages.

It’s a shocking instance, especially for a graduate student and religious bookstore owner – but not a particularly rare one. Here are other examples of enslavement, all involving Saudi royals or diplomats living in the United States.

In 1982, a Miami judge issued a warrant to search Prince Turki Bin Abdul Aziz’s 24th-floor penthouse to determine if he was holding Nadia Lutefi Mustafa, an Egyptian woman, against her will. Turki and his French bodyguards prevented a search from taking place, then won retroactive diplomatic immunity to forestall any legal unpleasantness.
In 1988, the Saudi defense attaché in Washington, Col. Abdulrahman S. Al-Banyan, employed a Thai domestic, Mariam Roungprach, until she escaped his house by crawling out a window. She later told how she had been imprisoned there, did not get enough food, and was not paid. Interestingly, her work contract specified that she could not leave the house or make telephone calls without her employer’s permission.
In 1991, Prince Saad Bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud and his wife, Princess Noora, lived on two floors of the Ritz-Carlton Houston. Two of their servants, Josephine Alicog of the Philippines and Sriyani Marian Fernando of Sri Lanka, filed a suit against the prince, alleging they were for five months held against their will, “by means of unlawful threats, intimidation and physical force,” they were only partially paid, denied medical treatment, and suffered mental and physical abuse.
In March 2005, a wife of Saudi Prince Mohamed Bin Turki Alsaud, Hana Al Jader, 39, was arrested at her home outside of Boston on charges of forced labor, domestic servitude, falsifying records, visa fraud, and harboring aliens. Al Jader stands accused of compelling two Indonesian women to work for her by making them believe “that if they did not perform such labor, they would suffer serious harm.” If convicted, Al Jader faces up to 140 years in jail and $2.5 million in fines.
There are many other similar instances, for example, the Orlando escapades of Saudi princesses Maha al-Sudairi and Buniah al-Saud. Joel Mowbray tells of twelve female domestics “trapped and abused” in the households of Saudi dignitaries or diplomats.

Why is this problem so acute when it comes to affluent Saudis? Four reasons come to mind. Although slavery was abolished in the kingdom in 1962, the practice still flourishes there. Ranking Saudi religious authorities endorse slavery; for example, Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan insisted recently that “Slavery is a part of Islam” and whoever wants it abolished he called “an infidel.”...

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/007450.php

Bail set for Saudi man accused of raping, enslaving housemaid

An update on the Al-Turki case from the Denver Post, with thanks to Two Stellas.

Despite strenuous objections from prosecutors, a federal judge set bail Thursday for a Saudi Arabian man who is accused of raping his housekeeper and holding her as a virtual slave in his Aurora home.

U.S. District Judge Walker Miller set bail at $400,000, which is the amount the Saudi government has put up so Homaidan Al-Turki can bond out on related charges in state court. He will have to post $400,000 bail for each case.

"It was a close call, given the serious nature of the charges and the fact that he is a foreign national," Miller said. "We are an open society, and it's not too hard to get out of here."

Miller said that while the crimes were serious, the evidence presented thus far did not weigh heavily against setting bail. Also, Al-Turki had received extraordinary support from his community and academic peers. The decision overturned a ruling issued this month by a federal magistrate who denied bail in the case.
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[Frodo Baggins]

http://www.iabolish.com/today/background/mauritania.htm

Slavery has been a part of Mauritanian society for centuries. 800 years ago, Arab and Berber tribes descended from the Mediterranean peninsula and launched slave raids against the indigenous African population, abducting women and children as slaves. Those enslaved were converted to Islam and raised to believe that their religious duty was to serve their masters faithfully. Slaves were taught that because of their impure dark skin they were forbidden from touching the Koran, praying in the mosque, and attending school. The saying "paradise under your master's foot" embodied the notion that the path to salvation was through loyal servitude.

While Christianity was once used in a similar manner to justify slavery to Africans ensnared by the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Mauritania's system persists today in the 21st century. Moors still hold "haratine" slaves, descendants of those abducted centuries ago. Slaves are bought and sold, branded and bred, and even given to the poor as an act of charity. Some are trafficked to Gulf states or even serve in embassies around the world.

Black slavery is simply an integral part of Mauritanian society, with slaves performing all sorts of physical labor. Mauritania has theoretically outlawed slavery three times, most recently with a military edict in 1980. But local Islamic courts rarely enforce anti-slavery statutes, and there is no evidence of widespread emancipation. The U.S. State Department used to cite Mauritania for slavery each year in its human rights reports. But since Mauritania joined the Middle East peace process, the U.S. government has chosen to overlook the country's pervasive system of human bondage.
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[Frodo Baggins]

http://www.iabolish.com/update/press-release.php?id=50

US State Department's Estimate of Sudanese Slaves "Far Too Low"

The head of Sudan’s “Dinka Chiefs Committee” (DCC), James Aguir, rejects as “far too low” the U.S. State Department’s estimate of 14,000 as the number of enslaved Dinka women and children. Christian Solidarity International (CSI), the American Anti-Slavery Group and other abolitionists call on President George W. Bush to establish an independent commission to ascertain the facts about Sudanese slavery and oversee its eradication.

The State Department’s 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report, produced by the Office for Monitoring and Combating Trafficking (OMCT), estimates that only 14,000 Dinkas were abducted by Baggara Arab tribesmen during 22 years of civil war. The OMCT, headed by Ambassador John Miller, cites Aguir’s committee as the source of this figure. Speaking to CSI, Aguir denied that he was the source of this erroneous information.

Aguir claims that the DCC has identified 40,000 Dinka slaves since 1986. But the true number of enslaved Dinkas is far higher, he says. Aguir accepts a 200,000-plus figure estimated by Dinka Civil Commissioners of northern Bahr El Ghazal – the area most severely affected by slave raids. “It is the Commissioners in the area”, Aguir says, “who know best the fate of their people.”

The DCC has been allowed by the Government of Sudan (GOS) to register slaves only in certain towns and villages in Dafur and Kordofan, but not to make a comprehensive slavery survey of the entire country. The DCC, whose operations are controlled by the GOS, have a particularly difficult time reaching the remote farms and cattle camps where most Dinka slaves are held.

The DCC is made up of Khartoum-based Dinka community leaders. Until last year, the civil war made it impossible for DCC members to visit most parts of Southern Sudan. Since 1999, the DCC has been co-opted into the Sudanese government’s Committee for the Eradication of the Abduction of Women and Children (CEAWC), which funds and supervises it.

Responding to the 2005 report, Dr. John Eibner of CSI said:

“The State Department appears to have whitewashed the grisly reality of Sudanese slavery. The trafficking report portrays Sudanese slavery exclusively as a by-product of ‘inter-tribal’ conflict and fails to identify the Government of Sudan as responsible for the revival of this evil institution. It says that Dinka slaves ‘frequently’ become part of the abductor’s, [i.e., master’s] family, while only ‘some’ were used for forced domestic labor and/or sexual exploitation. It gives an incredibly low estimate of the number of slaves. It consistently uses the insulting euphemism ‘abductee’ to identify slaves. The Islamist regime in Khartoum - a regime that currently enslaves Black Africans in Darfur as an instrument of genocide - will be delighted with this State Department report, and interpret it as confirmation that slavery - an internationally recognized ‘crime against humanity’ - can be committed with impunity.”

Upon publication of the trafficking report, Ambassador Miller said its goal was “not to punish but to stimulate government action to end modern-day slavery.”

# # #
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[Frodo Baggins]

http://www.islamreview.com/articles/slaveryinislamprint.htm

SLAVERY IN ISLAM
by Silas



http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_9_54/ai_85410331

The Unknown Slavery: In the Muslim world, that is — and it's not over
National Review, May 20, 2002 by John J. Miller

When Henry Morton Stanley explored the Congo River's Boyoma Falls, the cascades weren't the only thing he noticed: "Every three or four miles we came in view of the black traces of the destroyers. The scarred stakes, poles of once populous settlements, scorched banana groves, and prostrate palms, all betokened ruthless ruin."

The perpetrators of this wreckage were slavers. As late as 1883 -- when Stanley wrote -- they were scouring the African countryside for people they could seize and haul into bondage. Their gruesome search destroyed whole villages, leaving once-prosperous areas devoid of inhabitants. Their forced marches to the coast were ghastly, with the exposed bones of captives who died along the way so numerous they practically served as trail markers. Those who survived the ordeal -- fewer than half, by some estimates -- were exported to the world's final repository of slavery: the Islamic world.

The phenomenon of Muslim slavery is not often studied, and especially not the Muslim enslavement of black Africans. "A list of serious scholarly monographs on [Islamic] slavery -- in law, in doctrine, or in practice -- could be printed on a single page," wrote Princeton's Bernard Lewis in his pioneering but brief book Race and Slavery in the Middle East (1990). He went on to suggest that the subject is so "highly sensitive" that it would be "professionally hazardous" for young scholars to take it up. Indeed, among the thousands of professors and graduate students affiliated with Middle Eastern studies programs in the U.S., only a handful have dared to broach the controversial topic, and a comprehensive history and analysis of it remains to be written.

This stands in stark contrast to the huge amount of scholarship on slavery in the West. Judging by the sheer volume of material, one might come away with the mistaken impression that nowhere was the vile institution of slavery more entrenched than among the American hypocrites who declared that all men are created equal. And yet throughout Muslim history, starting with Mohammed himself, slavery was a vigorous and central part of Islamic civilization. This is not to say Islamic slavery was worse than American slavery; in many ways, life was easier under Muslim owners than under Mississippi owners. The problem, rather, is that the Islamic world has not experienced the same kind of moral reckoning on slavery that the West has. Muslim countries proved extremely resistant to abolition; many of them had to be dragged into it by the European colonial powers. It is hard to imagine a serious person calling for America to enslave its enemies. Yet a prominent Saudi cleric, Shaikh Saad Al-Buraik, recently urged Palestinians to do exactly that with Jews: "Their women are yours to take, legitimately. God made them yours. Why don't you enslave their women?"

Words are one thing, and actions another. Even today, however, Islamic abolition cannot be called a complete success: Slavery continues to be practiced in at least two nations whose regimes claim to derive their legitimacy from Islam. These nations are Mauritania and Sudan, and Muslims remain virtually silent about the practices of their coreligionists there.

Slavery is an ancient institution, as old as recorded history. Aristotle defended it; both the Old and New Testaments accept it as a feature of the human condition. The Koran takes a similar view -- though it also encourages (without commanding) slaveholders to treat their slaves well, and urges (without requiring) their release. In Islamic theology, slave ownership is a morally neutral act, but God smiles on those who give slaves their liberty.

The characteristics of Muslim slavery have been far from uniform over the centuries, but it is possible to identify a few general traits. For starters, slaves were accorded more legal protections in the Islamic world than they received almost anywhere else. Slavery came under an intricate set of regulations that, for example, forbade the use of slaves as prostitutes, and prevented mothers and young children from being separated. The act of enslavement also wasn't supposed to occur on Muslim soil, though the slavers and their customers didn't always pay close attention to this rule. In the 19th century, Captain G. F. Lyon of the Royal Navy described slaveholding in Libya: "They seize on the inhabitants of whole towns where the only religion is that of the Koran, and where there are mosques; and this is without scruple or remorse."

There was plenty of cruelty -- slavery, of course, always involves cruelty -- but many chattels of Muslims were essentially domestic workers who functioned as surrogate members of the master's family. "Slaves in Islam were directed mainly at the service sector -- concubines and cooks, porters and soldiers -- with slavery itself primarily a form of consumption rather than a factor of production," writes Ronald Segal in Islam's Black Slaves. Perhaps the most important difference between slavery in the West and slavery in Islam is a demographic one: Two-thirds of the slaves transported across the Atlantic were male, and two-thirds of those involved in the Muslim trade were female.

Over time, sub-Saharan Africa became the principal source of involuntary labor. Muslims were not the first people to enslave black Africans -- the ancient Egyptians had done it -- but they were the first to engage in it systematically on a massive scale. Going back to Islam's birth in the 7th century, historian Raymond Mauvy estimates that 14 million black slaves have been sold to Muslims. (This compares to Paul E. Lovejoy's estimate of 10 to 11 million Africans shipped in chains to the Western Hemisphere between 1650 and 1900; the vast majority of them were sent to Latin America and the Caribbean, and half a million to British North America and the U.S.) The journey from the slave's homeland to the Middle East was often a treacherous one, especially when it involved enduring the blistering heat of a Sahara crossing. Yet the march was dangerous everywhere -- an Islamic version of the brutal Middle Passage. The dead frequently outnumbered the survivors on these journeys, often by a lot. Slavers accepted the high casualty rates because their business was so lucrative. "It is like sending up to London for a large block of ice in the summer," wrote a 19th-century missionary in what is now Tanzania. "You know that a certain amount of it will melt away before it reaches you . . . but that which remains will be quite sufficient for your wants."

The oddest aspect of Islamic slavery was the eunuch. Castrated male slaves became exceedingly popular in the Middle East sometime after the rise of Islam. They are best known for serving as harem guards, but they were also mosque custodians, administrators, and teachers. Eunuchs were bought and sold at a premium, in part because their grisly operation resulted in many fatalities. Their popularity remains something of a mystery. "One can only speculate that eunuchs were regarded as likely to be more devoted and dependable in serving their masters than other males, with normal distractions, would be," writes Segal. Whatever the reason, eunuchs became fixtures of Muslim culture. Islam teaches against physical mutilation, so Muslims found themselves searching for loopholes. Many eunuchs were castrated in non-Muslim territory immediately before importation, in the belief that this somehow kept Islamic land pure; a business in commercial castration thus developed along the fringes of the Muslim world. (Prague is said to have specialized in this during the period when Islam imported many slaves from Europe.) Muslims later accepted castration within their own lands, so long as non-Muslims performed the deed.

Slavery, in short, was an ingrained part of Islamic culture -- and it might still have been one today, but for European insistence that Muslims end it. As recently as 1878, the holy cities of Mecca and Medina served as major slave markets, trading 25,000 slaves annually. The eradication of slavery, in fact, is one of the great and unheralded legacies of colonialism.

The first Islamic countries to abolish slavery -- Tunisia, Egypt, the Ottoman Empire -- did so under pressure from the West. Others were more obstinate. In East Africa, slavery continued until after World War I. Its persistence into the 20th century explains why the League of Nations prioritized the abolition of slavery, even though doing so must have seemed an anachronism to unsuspecting Westerners. It wasn't until the start of World War II that Ethiopia and Liberia had gotten rid of slavery. Later still, the U.N.'s Declaration of Human Rights condemned slavery -- again, because the Islamic world had failed to wipe it out. In 1953, sheikhs from Qatar attending the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II included slaves in their retinues, and they did so again on another visit five years later. Saudi Arabia and Yemen didn't get around to abolishing slavery until 1962; three years later, a special report by the U.N. reported that the Saudi royal family continued to keep hundreds in bondage.

Mauritania outlawed slavery in 1980, apparently because its two earlier prohibitions (in 1905 and 1960) were ignored. Today, it is illegal for Mauritanians to say that slavery exists in their country -- a sure sign that it really does. By some estimates, at least 100,000 of Mauritania's 2.7 million people continue to live in unpaid servitude, most of them blacks toiling for light-skinned Moorish masters. Slavery goes back centuries in Mauritania, and there's a long tradition of slaves' working for the same family across generations. Apologists say that those who remain in this capacity aren't slaves at all, but servants who volunteer to trade their labor for room and board. Yet these claims are effectively rebutted by a small group of escapees who have delivered powerful personal testimonies of beatings and bondage. Reliable information on what's really happening in Mauritania is hard to come by because the Islamic government won't allow investigations. Foreign journalists must travel in the company of the secret police and face expulsion if they ask too many questions. In January, the government banned the main opposition party, which has demanded slavery's eradication. Mauritania has far to go before slavery ceases within its borders.

Sudan has received considerably more attention than Mauritania. In April, an organization affiliated with the Boston-based American Anti- Slavery Group made headlines by purchasing 3,000 slaves at $33 apiece and releasing them, and also negotiating the release of 3,000 others. Another group, the Swiss-based Christian Solidarity International, says it has bought freedom for 60,000 slaves in Sudan over the last several years. (This raises a separate question: Does buying slaves from modern-day slave traders wind up perpetuating their wretched business?) As with Mauritania, there are no truly credible numbers describing the extent of the problem. Sudan has engaged in slaving and slaveholding for ages; the current wave seems to have begun in 1983, with the imposition of Islamic law. Following the 1989 coup by the Islamofascist general Omar el-Bashir, the government became actively involved in arming the slavers and supporting their operations in the southern part of the country, where Muslims are outnumbered by Christians and other non-Muslims. These slavers' methods are especially vicious: The men are shot, the women and girls are sold into concubinage, and the boys are fortunate if they become unpaid cattle herders.

In considering the history of slavery in Islam and in the West, it is a mistake to decide that one branch of the same evil represents the greater sin. Instead, it is probably enough to say the human toll in both places was horrible: Call it "immoral equivalence." But there's an important difference today. The United States finds itself apologizing for slavery (at least when Bill Clinton visits Africa), handing out huge amounts of foreign aid (partly from a sense of guilt), and giving at least passing thought to financial reparations for the descendants of its own slaves. Yet when Muslim countries gather at international forums, they discuss none of this -- and instead spend their time writing resolutions bashing Israel and the West. They appear to feel no remorse for the past, and no responsibility for the present. While the West has its problems, it does not have this one.

COPYRIGHT 2002 National Review, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group
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[jonny2mad]

mohammed personally had 28 slaves at times he had several hundred as he got a percentage of the people taken in raids
Ibn al-Qayyim (a famous scholar, student of Ibn Taymiyyah, d. 1350CE) mentioned twenty-eight of Muhammad's slaves, nine of whom were women, the rest were men. They were:

Zayd ibn Haarithah ibn Shuraaheel, the beloved of the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him). He freed him and arranged his marriage to his freed slave woman Umm Ayman, and she bore him Usaamah. His other slaves include Aslam, Abu Raafi', Thawbaan, Abu Kabshah Sulaym, Shaqraan (whose name was Saalih), Rabaah (who was Nubian), Yassaar (who was also Nubian and was killed by the 'Arniyeen); Mid'am and Kirkirah (another Nubian) - these two were killed at Khaybar. They also included Anjashah al-Haadi and Safeenah ibn Farookh, whose real name was Mihraan, but the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) called him Safeenah (= "ship") because they used to make him carry their luggage when they traveled, so he said, "You are a ship (anta safeenah)." Abu Haatim said that the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) freed him; someone else said that Umm Salamah freed him. The Prophet's slaves also included Anasah, whose nickname was Abu Mashrah; Aflah; 'Ubayd; Tahmaan - also known as Keesaan; Dhakwaan; Mihraan; Marwaan - although it was said that this was another name of Tahmaan, and Allaah knows best; Hunayn; Sandar; Fudaalah (who was Yemeni); Maaboor (who was a eunuch); Waaqid; Abu Waaqid; Qassaam; Abu 'Usayb and Abu Muwayhabah.

His female slaves included: Salma (Umm Raafi'); Maymoonah bint Sa'd; Khadrah; Radwa; Razeenah; Umm Dameerah; Maymoonah bint Abi 'Usayb; Maariyah and Rayhaanah.
- Zaad al-Ma'aad,

[Frodo Baggins]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/06/16/senegal.children.reut/index.html

U.N.: Koranic schools in Senegal fuel child trafficking

Religious teachers send tiny children into Dakar to beg

Friday, June 16, 2006; Posted: 1:10 p.m. EDT (17:10 GMT)

DAKAR, Senegal (Reuters) -- In a dirty white T-shirt hanging down to his knees, 4-year-old Harouna Balde begs for coins in bare feet among the traffic on the polluted streets of Dakar.

Holding a rusty begging tin that is the trademark of the "talibes" -- students at Senegal's Koranic schools -- Balde says he must take back money or face a beating from his religious teacher, or marabout.

"I must bring back 500 francs ($0.90) every day to my master or face punishment," says the tiny boy. He travels from his squalid daara, or religious school, in the distant suburb of Thiaroye to beg all day in the city center.

Balde is one of an estimated 100,000 children begging on the streets of Senegal, according to U.N. officials -- most of them sent out by their religious teachers.

The begging is a modern corruption of a Senegalese tradition, which allowed poor rural families to provide their children with a basic education and sometimes send them to towns where they might have greater opportunities.

Now, the booming industry has become so successful that children are smuggled from neighboring Mali, Gambia or Mauritania to beg in Dakar, U.N. child agency UNICEF said. Balde was separated from his parents in Guinea Bissau.

"The problem is mushrooming," said Jean-Claude Legrand, West and Central Africa child protection officer with UNICEF, in an interview ahead of Friday's Day of the African Child.

"The issue of begging children in Senegal is becoming a sub-regional child trafficking problem."

Every year thousands of children are smuggled across West Africa, UNICEF says. Many end up as victims of forced labor, sexual abuse and prostitution.
Poverty worsens problem

With migration traditionally an important part of life, West African society has relied on extended families to raise and educate children. Poor parents would often send their offspring to richer relatives to be raised and educated.

In West African countries, more than half of children are in the care of other families, Legrand said. But the advent of a modern, commercial culture is weakening traditional values that tended to protect such children.

"Growing poverty is forcing people to develop new survival strategies, which sometimes means using the resources of the whole family," Legrand said.

"We are in a period of huge change, with mass migration to urban areas. It becomes more and more a system where children get exploited."

In war-divided Ivory Coast, planters long preferred to employ helpers to harvest cocoa, sending their own children to school. But economic hardship and a 2002-2003 war forced them first to hire foreign children and finally use their own.

Until recently most countries in West Africa did not have laws to penalize rape or child trafficking, although the situation was improving, Legrand said.

But as one government cracked down on abuse, the problem moved to another country. A recent drive against child prostitution in Gambia had driven sex tourism to other parts of the region, such as Togo, Legrand said.

The threat of U.S. sanctions on cocoa had improved the situation in Ivory Coast, but child traffickers had moved their attention to cotton plantations in Mali and Burkina Faso.

"Africa is in a worse situation because it is on the periphery of modernity. It is excluded from the benefits of the world economy, but at the same time it must form part of it," Legrand said.
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[Frodo Baggins]

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/012947.php

ASHINGTON, 1 September 2006 - A Saudi man convicted of sexually assaulting an Indonesian housekeeper and keeping her as a virtual slave was sentenced yesterday to 27 years to life in prison in Colorado.

Homaidan Al-Turki, the 37-year-old Saudi national, denied the charges and blamed anti-Muslim prejudice for the case against him. He said prosecutors persuaded the housekeeper to accuse him after they failed to build a case that he was a terrorist.

Al-Turki, who was studying for a doctoral degree at the University of Colorado, was convicted June 30 of unlawful sexual contact by use of force, theft and extortion. All are felonies.

He was also convicted on misdemeanor counts of false imprisonment and conspiracy to commit false imprisonment.

After the judge denied a motion for a new trial yesterday, defense attorney John Richilano said he would appeal the convictions. The lawyer argued that cultural differences were at the heart of the charges.

It must be emphasized that such "cultural differences" are rooted in the Qur'an and thus considered divine fiat for all time:

Also (prohibited are) women already married, except those whom your right hands possess. (4:24)

The Saudi Embassy in Washington would not comment on the case.

"The problem is that in Saudi Arabia, many are going to take Al-Turki’s side, and say he was a good guy, which isn’t true," said a Saudi businessman working in Washington who is following the case but requested anonymity. "He truly did some awful things."

Bakr Bagader, member of the Saudi National Human Rights Society (NHRS), said the Saudi government should ensure that the man is indeed guilty. "If the man is given a fair trial and is found guilty of sexual assault, backed up by solid evidence, then no one should be above the law," said Bagader.

Prosecutors and FBI agents said Al-Turki and his wife, Sarah Khonaizan, brought the woman to Colorado to care for their five children and to cook and clean for the family. An affidavit said she spent four years with the family in their suburban Colorado home, sleeping on a mattress on the basement floor and getting paid less than $2 a day.

The media have not identified the woman, who is now 24, because she is an alleged victim of rape.

Al-Turki said he treated the woman the same way any observant Muslim family would treat a daughter. "Your honor, I am not here to apologize, for I cannot apologize for things I did not do and for crimes I did not commit," he told the judge. "The state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors. Attacking traditional Muslim behaviors was the focal point of the prosecution."

[...]

Dozens of members of the Denver area Muslim community, including Al-Turki’s family and the prayer leader of the state’s largest mosque, packed the courtroom. Many had written to the judge expressing support for Al-Turki. Other letters of support came from Al-Turki’s academic colleagues at the University of Colorado.

The NHRS’ Bagader said that setting aside the more serious charges related to sexual assault, he felt there were some cultural issues that may indeed be at play on some of the evidence related to illegal imprisonment, such as the allegation that Al-Turki was holding the maid’s passport.

"The American government and our government should work together to clarify to Saudis heading to the US for vacation or education purposes, who wish to take their housekeepers, what they should do and what they shouldn’t according to US law," he said.

"What they should do and what they shouldn’t according" to the laws of the US, or anywhere else in the civilized world.

But, he added, the mistreatment of housekeepers is a problem in the Kingdom. "Our society needs to become more aware of housekeepers’ human rights," he said. "We all know there are a lot of cases raised against Saudis for the abuse of housemaids."

Legal adviser Mohammed Al-Abdali, however, said he felt like the sentence of 27 years to life is a "down point for the American courts that we used to respect and admire."

"There was no justice in this case according to what we have learned," said Al-Abdali. "To my knowledge, the evidence against him doesn’t hold up on both verdicts.

They used holding her passport, which most Saudis and GCC citizens do because a lot of housekeepers flee and tend to work for illegitimate networks, as evidence."
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[Frodo Baggins]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,251-2358341,00.html

September 15, 2006

Sheikh accused over camel boys

A legal case has been filed in a US district court alleging that the governor of Dubai and his brother enslaved about 30,000 children over the past 30 years for use as camel jockeys.

The claim, which is based on international laws banning slavery and child labour, names Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Governor of Dubai and Vice-President of the United Arab Emirates, and Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, as well as others.

The brothers, who are among the world’s most famous racehorse owners, are accused of trafficking boys as young as 2 from Bangladesh, Sudan and southern Asia.

The case has been filed in Florida, where the defendants have property, on behalf of six parents. Lawyers are seeking class-action status on behalf of about 30,000 children. (AFP)
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[bob]

According to Ralph Austen in "The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade : a Tentative Census", about 7,450, 000 slaves were transported within Africa by Muslims slave traders between the 7th and 20th Centuries. The peak was reached between 1800 and 1880 when an average 14,500 slaves a year were transported across the Sahara. According to Hugh Thomas in "The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade" an estimated 11,000,000 slaves were transported from Africa to the Americas. According to Christian Delacampagne in his Histoire de l'Esclavage (a book I highly recommend) about 5,000,000 slaves were probably transported from East Africa to ME slave markets from the 7th to 20th Centuries. So in this grim contest, it looks as though the Muslims traded in more African flesh than the Europeans.
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"Ecrasez l'infâme!"