What is the nature of slavery as practiced and at times reintroduced over the past two centuries in the Middle East and North Africa? In spite of the rich regional diversity of the areas studied – from Morocco to the Indian Ocean to Iran – this anthology demonstrates clear commonalities across the super-region. These include the regulation of slavery by Islam and local traditions, the absence of a rigid racial hierarchy as in North American slavery, the management of the sexuality and reproductive capacity of female slaves, and views on identity and heritage among descendants of slaves. Authors also examine the economic and theological underpinnings of contemporary slavery and human trafficking.
The book is among the first to focus on slavery across the Islamic world from the 19th century to the present – a period constituting the endgame of institutionalized slavery in the region but also the persistence of forms of de facto enslavement. Each chapter scrutinizes from a different vantage point – institutions, economics, the abolitionist movement, literature, folklore, and the moving image – creating a multi-dimensional picture of the phenomenon.
The authors have mined government archives and statistics, memoirs, interviews, photographs, drawings, songs, cinema and television. Not only are Arabic, Persian and Turkish sources leveraged, but a variety of materials in minor and endangered languages, such as Soqotri, Balochi and Sorani Kurdish, in addition to European languages.
Edited by:
Elena Andreeva,
Kevin McNeer
Imprint: I.B. Tauris
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780755647934
ISBN 10: 0755647939
Series: Sex, Family and Culture in the Middle East
Pages: 254
Publication Date: 27 June 2024
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction, Elena Andreeva and Kevin McNeer, Virginia Military Institute, USA Part One: Gender and Sexuality: Female Slaves 1. Ziba Khanum of Yazd: An Enslaved African Woman in Nineteenth-Century Iran, Anthony A. Lee, UCLA, USA 2. On the Multivalence of Women’s Captivity Narratives, Irvin Cemil Schick, Istanbul Sehir University, Turkey Part Two: Resistance and Abolition 3. The Gradual Elimination of Female Slavery in the late Ottoman Empire: Institutional Change, Kadir Yildirim, Rice University, USA 4. The Social Construction of Slavery, Injustice and Manumission on the Gulf Coast of Arabia and Oman in the 1920s and 1930s, Jerzy Zdanowski, Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Krakow University, Poland 5. Iranian and Russian Slaves in Turkestan as Seen Through the Art of Nikolai Karazin (1842-1908), Elena Andreeva, Virginia Military Institute, USA Part Three: Preserving Identity and Tradition 6. Afro-Baloch Communities in Modern Iran and Their Healing Traditions, Maryam Nourzaei, Uppsala University, Sweden 7. Identity Preservation Among the Descendants of Slaves on the Island of Soqotra: music, handicrafts, and lexicon, Kevin McNeer, independent scholar, and Sarali Gintsburg, University of Navarra, Spain 8. Mercy Releases: Manumission Practices in Tetouan, Morocco (1860–1960) Josep Lluís Mateo Dieste, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain Part Four: Slavery in a Post-Slavery World 9. The ‘Street Children’ of Egypt: a case of modern-day slavery by Dina Al Raffie, Duquesne University, USA 10. ‘Ask Her, She is Not Afraid To Tell You’: Sexual Enslavement of Yezidi Women by ISIS: causes and aftermath, Lana Ravandi-Fadai, Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Elena Andreeva is a Professor of History at Virginia Military Institute, USA. She is the author of Russia and Iran in the Great Game (2007) and Russian Central Asia in the Works of Nikolai Karazin, 1842-1908 (2021), and co-editor (with Rudi Matthee) of Russians in Iran (2018). Kevin McNeer is the author of several documentary films including Stalin Thought of You, On One Day of the Days of God and Frame by Frame. He has filmed extensively in the Middle East and edited and translated numerous books and articles related to Eastern Studies, including Storied Land: Kurdish Culture Through the Eyes of Russian Scholars (2014), and Victims of their Faith (upcoming, with Touraj Atabaki and Lana Ravandi-Fadai).
Reviews for Slavery in the Modern Middle East and North Africa: Exploitation and Resistance from the 19th Century - Present Day
The essays in this wide-ranging collection reveal lost worlds and bring readers to the cutting edge of research on slavery and captivity. An important volume, filled with revelations. * Jeff Eden, Professor, Northwestern University, USA *
