History of slavery in the Muslim world
The
Ottoman slave trade came from raids into
eastern and central Europe and the
Caucasus connected to the
Crimean slave trade, while
slave traders from the
Barbary Coast raided the Mediterranean coasts of Europe and as far afield as the British Isles and
Iceland...
Between 1530 and 1780, there were almost certainly one million and quite possibly as many as 1.25 million white, European Christians enslaved by the Muslims of the
Barbary Coast of North Africa.
[47]...
Saqaliba is a term used in medieval
Arabic sources to refer to
Slavs and other peoples of
Central,
Southern, and
Eastern Europe, or in a broad sense to European slaves under
Arab Islamic rule.
Through the
Middle Ages up until the
early modern period,
[74] a major source of slaves sent to Muslim lands was Central and Eastern Europe. Slaves of
Northwestern Europe were also favored. The slaves captured were sent to Islamic lands like Spain and Egypt through France and
Venice.
Prague served as a major centre for castration of Slavic captives.
[75][76] The
Emirate of Bari also served as an important port for trade of such slaves.
[77] After the
Byzantine Empire and
Venice blocked Arab merchants from European ports, Arabs started importing slaves from the Caucasus and Caspian Sea regions, shipping them off as far east as Transoxiana in Central Asia.
[78] Despite this, slaves taken in battle or from minor raids in continental Europe remained a steady resource in many regions. The
Ottoman Empire used slaves from the
Balkans and Eastern Europe. The
Janissaries were primarily composed of enslaved Europeans. Slaving raids by
Barbary Pirates on the coasts of Western Europe as far as Iceland remained a source of slaves until suppressed in the early 19th century. Common roles filled by European slaves ranged from laborers to concubines, and even soldiers.
Christians became part of harems as slaves in the Balkans and Asia Minor when the Turks invaded. Muslim qadis owned Christian slave girls. Greek girls who were pretty were forced into prostitution after being enslaved to Turks who took all their earnings in the 14th century according to Ibn Battuta.
[79]
There was a very extensive slave trade of Christians in Anatolia by the Seljuk Turks in the eleventh and twelfth centuries which caused a significant decline in the numbers of Christians in Asia minor. After Edessa was captured and pillaged, 16,000 Christians were enslaved. Michael the Syrian reported that 16,000 Christians were enslaved and sold at Aleppo when the Turks, led by
Nur ad-Din invaded Cilicia. Major raids in the Greek provinces of western Anatolia led to the enslavement of thousands of Greeks.
en.wikipedia.org
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JoeB131, do I need to explain
everything to you? I would expect a history major to know what I just posted.