Continued from Part I.
Prof. Flaig’s chapter on slavery under Islam is called “An Intercontinental Slave System,” and points to a perceived integration of intercontinental slavery with the essence and history of Islam. Prof. Flaig does not use the terms pagan slavery or Christian slavery, but he does use the term Islamic slavery. He opens this chapter with a stark assertion: “When the Muslims conquered a global empire, they set up the biggest and longest-living slave system in world history.” (p. 83)
Prof. Flaig argues two essential points in this chapter. First, both in terms of numbers of the enslaved over time and the geographical area where Islamic slavery prevailed, its dimensions were greater than those of any other intrusive slave society. Second, by their nature, Islamic societies, at least those under Sharia law, are intrinsically disposed to favor and promote slavery, specifically slavery of non-Muslims, and that is why the greater part of the history of Islam has been the history of a rapidly expanding intrusive slave society.
