A startling exploration of slavery in the Islamic world from the 7th century to the present
Slavery in the Islamic world has a long, complex and controversial history. Captives and Companions is a brilliant synthesis of history and contemporary reportage, which brings to life the voices of the enslaved in stories of eighth-century concubines and ninth-century revolts, thirteenth-century slave soldiers who established dynastic rule over Egypt, Syria and Iraq, eighteenth-century corsairs and twentieth century
pearl divers in the Gulf. It also includes first-hand accounts of this legacy in the twenty-first century, including the depredations of Daesh and continuing hereditary slavery in Mali and Mauritania.
Justin Marozzi traces the extraordinary variety of enslavement in the Islamic world, which ranged from agricultural labour and domestic toil to elite concubinage, guardianship of sacred spaces, political leadership and even military command. He shows how Africa bore the brunt of the demand for slave labour, fuelled throughout the nineteenth century by expanding global markets and commodity chains. Slavers plied African coasts, traders raided inland for human cargo, and millions were marched across the Sahara into captivity. Meanwhile, North African corsairs turned the Mediterranean into a slave-raiding ‘free-for-all’ between Muslims, Christians and Jews.
Taking the reader on an extraordinary historical journey from Baghdad to Bamako, Tripoli to Timbuktu, Istanbul to the Black Sea, this is the riveting human drama of those caught up in one of history’s most remarkable overlooked stories.
About the Author
Justin Marozzi is a historian and journalist who has spent most of his professional life living and working in the Muslim world. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and former Trustee of the Royal Geographical Society, he is a senior advisor to the Middle East Association. His previous books include South from Barbary- Along the Slave Routes of the Libyan Sahara (2001), the bestselling Tamerlane- Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World (2004) and The Man Who Invented History- Travels with Herodotus (2008). His last book, Baghdad- City of Peace, City of Blood (2014) won the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize and was praised by the judges as ‘a truly monumental achievement’.
Industry Reviews
A bold, brilliant and timely history that confronts one of the most neglected and uncomfortable subjects in global history. Justin Marozzi brings to life the complexity and humanity of the Islamic world’s entanglement with slavery using an extraordinary range of sources, across more than a millennium and across sweeping geographies. Not just a mesmerising book, but a profoundly important one too
— Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
Well written ... important and well-researched ... Marozzi is able both to redress the balance and to draw very effectively on recent scholarship. A richly impressive book
— Jeremy Black, Nuova Antologia Militare (NAM)
An unsentimental unveiling of a subject that has long been shrouded in scholarly purdah...An elegant and ambitious synthesis, serving up a scintillating compendium of lives.. .Gliding through the ages, Marozzi's prose recalls an older tradition of history writing - the effortless fluidity of a John Julius Norwich of Jan Morris. Reading him one thinks of Tintoretto: vast canvases, mannered style, high drama, narrative drive
— Pratinav Anil, The Times
A remarkably humane work, written in urbane and polished prose. A rare combination of the erudite and the adventurous, the author... provides first-person glimpses into contemporary slavery in Mali, Libya, Tunisia and Mauritania. Marozzi has once again made a meaningful and enjoyable contribution to historical debate
— Bartle Bull, Literary Review
A powerful and important book ... [while] he is careful not to turn his book into a polemic against Islam.. it is... a masterly and thoughtful study of human cruelty and endurance
— Gerard Russell, Financial Times
A scrupulously fair, fearless and detailed history
— Christopher Hart, Daily Mail
truly an eye opening read, from past to present, it's shocking, yet totally absorbing – a history book that brings the then and the here-and-now graphically to life
— Peter French, Sunderland Echo
