Zephira Roneiles

The Islamic slave trade started centuries earlier, lasted longer, and enslaved millions of Africans, and yet it's barely taught. The Arab Islamic slave trade ran for over 1,300 years, from the 7th century to well into the 20th century. It moved Africans across the Sahara, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean to North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. The Atlantic slave trade ran for about 400, and transported about 12.5 million Africans across the Atlantic. The Arab Islamic slave trade was clearly far bigger, and it was brutal. Islamic law discouraged enslaving Muslims but allowed enslaving non-Muslims. Millions of men were castrated so they could serve as eunuchs, and millions of women were taken as concubines. Millions died crossing the Sahara, a death rate even higher than the Middle Passage. Slavery was only officially abolished in Saudi Arabia in 1962 and in Mauritania in 1981. It still exists in parts of Libya and Sudan today. So why is only one slave trade taught? If schools taught the full story, young Black people would learn that slavery was not a white invention. It was a universal evil, practiced by Africans selling Africans, Arabs enslaving Africans, Europeans enslaving Africans, and Africans enslaving other Africans. Instead, many curricula teach a framed narrative in which white people are the sole perpetrators of slavery. Teach it that way, and an entire generation of young Black people is taught to hate white people. That's the goal: not truth, not healing, but resentment. Real history doesn't excuse the Atlantic trade. It was evil. But real history also doesn't excuse the Arab trade, or African kingdoms like Dahomey and Asante that grew rich selling captives. If we want truth, teach all of it. If we only teach one half, it's not education. It's indoctrination. t.me/fmazhindu/100