Slavery, since its inception, has been a cornerstone of Islam, for over thirteen centuries!  After consolidation of his power, Muhammad provided several revelations to justify and codify slavery.  He also set the precedent in his own life, with dozens of slaves, which he purchased, sold, traded, rented, hired, and exchanged during his lifetime. A considerable number of the Jewish women and children enslaved at the Banu Qurayzah Massacre of Medina, of which surely over 500 became his property, made him a wealthy man.  

Muhammad soon reasoned that corpses were worth little, but a poll tax, the Jisyah, would insure a continuous source of wealth from conquered societies.  The Jisyah, as explained by apologists for Islam, was to provide “protection” for conquered societies, and as an exemption from service in the armies of Islam.  In few cases, if any, was protection needed from any other than the conquering hordes of Islam, and certainly Islam had little desire to incorporate recent enemies or unskilled warriors into their ranks.  However, if an unfortunate family did not have the wherewithal to pay the Jisyah, a boy or girl-child would do just fine, and was taken into slavery as payment for the Tax.  The price was generally set by local authorities of Islam, or by a mandate from higher up.     

In the middle of the 7th Century, as Muslim expansion into Africa accelerated, the slave trade flourished, becoming an integral part of commerce and exchange of the Islamic World.  Depending on circumstances, men and pubescent boys of conquered societies were enslaved or put to death.  Older men and women, deemed not strong enough to serve as slaves, were killed outright.  Attractive women and pubescent girls could expect to be raped before becoming a concubine or destined for the auction block, and pre-pubescent girls and boys were also highly prized.  The boys were generally made into complete eunuchs, with many dying in the process.    

In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spain and Portugal, and later other countries, purchased black African slaves for their colonies in the New World.  It is interesting to note, however, the distinctions between slaves destined for export to the Americas, and those to be used in the Muslim World.  Slaves sent to the various colonies of the New World were predominately male, as being stronger workers.  A lesser percentage of females were sent; certainly enough to provide succeeding generations, but of that primary importance.  Over ten million black Africans were taken to North, Central, and South America, and the Caribbean.  Their descendants now number in the tens of millions.  Not so in the case of the Muslim World.  With the Koran’s approval of slavery, and certainly due to an over-abundance of product, most slaves destined to the Muslim World were female, for the harems.  Male slaves were generally made into eunuchs, thus, outside of Africa, there are considerably fewer descendants sired by black slaves. The progeny of harem slave girls and their Muslim masters were sometimes incorporated into higher stations, and sometimes not. 

The Abolitionist fervor that swept England, and later the United States, had its roots in Christianity.  Though both the Bible and Talmud recognized slavery; neither recognized the practice as “divinely ordained”, as does Islam.  

Slavery is alive and well today in the Muslim World, principally in Sudan, Mauritania, and Saudi Arabia, but to a lesser extent in the other Arab-speaking countries of Islam.  In 2001, the price of a young man in the Sudan was fifty dollars; and a few thousand miles to the East, in Afghanistan, a young girl can still be had for as little as twenty-five dollars.  Virgins command a slightly higher price.

Saudi Arabia supposedly abolished slavery in 1962, and Mauritania became the last Muslim country to (again) abolish slavery in 1982.  However, an estimated 250,000 slaves, almost all women, are held in Saudi Arabia alone!  With those additionally held in Mauritania, Sudan, Afghanistan, and several other mostly Arabic speaking countries, there can be no less than a half million, but probably closer to a million slaves in the Islamic world.  Most presently held in the abovementioned countries have been obtained from sub-Saharan Africa, but not all.  Interpol files are replete with dossiers; missing persons reports, of hundreds of Caucasian women, in many instances tourists, that have disappeared over the years while visiting Muslim countries or countries bordering Muslim countries.        
As an indication that slavery is still an integral part of Islam, the following quote from a lecture of a Saudi religious leader, Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan, in 2003, is offered:  “Slavery is part of Islam; slavery is a part of Jihad and Jihad will remain as long as Islam.”  Sheikh Al-Fawzan is a member of the Senior Council of Clerics that dictates the law in Saudi Arabia, an imam of a mosque in Riyadh, and a professor at Bin Saud University, the main Wahhabi center of learning of Saudi Arabia.  He is also the author of a religious textbook, “Al-Tawhid” (Monotheism), which is widely used both in Saudi Arabia, and in schools funded by the Saudis throughout the world.  (Editorial Note: It would be interesting to determine if the Saudi funded school of Georgetown, in Washington, D.C. uses this textbook.)      

The Muslim Religion is the fastest growing religion in the World, including the United States.  And a disproportionate percentage of these converts are Black Americans.  They are pledging their lives and allegiance to the very society that most harmed their ancestors!