Comparing the Atlantic Slave Trade with the Arab Slave Trade

In contrast to the Atlantic slave trade, where the male-female ratio was 2:1, the Arab slave trade instead usually had a higher female-to-male ratio. Concubinage and reproduction served as incentives for importing female slaves, though many were also imported mainly for performing household tasks. In both continents, anything a slave owns, is automatically the master’s own too, however in Arabia, a slave may be allowed to earn money to purchase his or her freedom and similarly to pay bride wealth if he was to be married, the marriage requiring the consent of the master first. If the master was to use his slave for sexual gratification, he may not co-habit with a female slave belonging to his wife, neither can he have relations with a female slave if she is co-owned, or already married. In America, a man may have relations with a slave but it wasn’t very likely, as this was taboo and not approved of.

For a male slave in Arabia, there were limited options, if already castrated (which was a familiar practice), they were used as eunuchs, mostly in the service of the mosques or for the protection of harems. A system of plantation labour, developed early, but with such terrible consequences, these were relatively rare and often reduced. The need for agricultural labour, in Islam with large peasant populations, was nowhere near as critical as in the Americas, so this didn’t really succeed and slaves in general, were mainly directed at the service sector, the men being cooks, porters and/or soldiers. While slaves were sometimes employed for manual labour during the Arab slave trade, this was usually the exception rather than the norm. In America, slaves were guaranteed hard labour designed exclusively for males like ditch men, ploughme...

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... own. If the master does not have sufficient wealth to facilitate this, she or he must sell, hire out, or manumit the slave as ordered. Masters were encouraged to educate slaves, to teach them how to write/read, etc. Slave-owners had no right in harming a slave under Islamic rule, unless the slave had committed a crime, in which the penalty would be lessened. In America, slaves had no such right to demand the sustenance to be of the same quality the master had, the treatment of slaves in the United States was generally brutal and degrading. Whipping, execution and sexual abuse were common ways in making a slave ‘behave’. Slaves were not educated as to not encourage them to escape or rebel. Punishment was most often meted out in response to disobedience or perceived infractions, but slaves were also sometimes abused to assert the dominance of their master or overseer.