Africans Enslaved in the Arab Slave Trade Experience:Life in the Harem

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Humans, for hundreds of years, have enslaved and inflicted violence upon other human beings usually for selfish desires. Slavery is an illegal act of owning another human being as personal property and using them usually for free labor or sexual acts. Slavery has occurred for hundreds of years, with the most infamous and violent form of slavery being the European Slavery. This type of slavery is known as chattel slavery, usually based on race or geographical differences, where slaves are “treated like property, and they can be sold and bought.” European slavery is the well-known form slavery, where Africans were considered property enslaved, traded, and transported to toil on plantations as free property. While that is well-known and familiar, there was a less known form of slavery and trade that existed which was the Arab slave trade.

The Arab trade began as early as 1095 and was abolished in 1970.Thats what makes this form of slavery unique; it lasted more than a millennium. However, by 1839 the Arab slave trade became the main way of making money and doing business. While the European slave trade was the harshest and the most discussed slavery topic in history, many individuals fail to acknowledge another practice of slavery that has also impacted millions of Africans as well as Europeans- the Arab slave trade: harem trade. The slave trade, especially those that occurred in harems, has gotten less recognition due to the exploitation and violent extent of European enslaving African. Another reason is also because Muslim leaders fail to call the treatment their enslaved people endured slavery. Due to the public’s lack of knowledge on this topic, they fail to know the truth of the things that happened during this slavery. W...

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