Islamic slavery offered slaves mobility and rights unmatched in Christian law

Evidence

Many took pride in direct descent from slaves, a claim that became easier to make as more and more Egyptians entered the ranks of the elite and thus were able to marry (or were given in marriage) the freed slave-women of the Ottoman-Egyptian ruling classes, who were considered to be members of the nobility. There was thus honor and social mobility inherent in the intermarriage between women of the Ottoman-Egyptian households and ambitious Egyptians, demonstrating that a certain kind of slavery led to social mobility. This also created a level of society whose members were half Egyptian and half Circassian, like the lawyer and statesman Ahmad Shafïk.These people took pride in their mothers’ descent and in their ability to marry wives whose slave past ensured them access to nobility. The enslavement of black Africans in North Africa was described (often erroneously so) as being synonymous with this type of intimate slavery. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 647 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Although these enslaved Muslims prayed, observed Ramadan, maintained pious lifestyles, and forged spiritual communities while bonded to slave code and slave master, the law preempted seeing them as bona fide Muslims. Blackness, the antithesis of whiteness, was constructed to justify and perpetuate the enslavement of African peoples, and systematically reduce them to property. But this was by design. In her landmark treatise Whiteness as Property, UCLA law professor Cheryl Harris observes, “The hyper-exploitation of Black labor was accomplished by treating Black people themselves as objects of property. Race and property were thus conflated by establishing a form of property contingent on race—only Blacks were subjugated as slaves and treated as property.” The creation, construction, and consignment of blackness onto the bodies of Africans washed away, from the eyes of the law and those expected to abide by and enforce it, the spiritual identities of enslaved Africans. Enslaved African Muslims were black, the law held, and thus property. And property could not adhere to any organized religion, let alone believe in Islam. — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 170 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Eliminating the religious identities of slaves was central to the process of bifurcating black from Muslim identity during the antebellum era. Although Africans thrust into the American slave market hailed from a diverse range of tribal, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, their heterogeneity had no relevance to the law’s conversion of them into property. Legal recognition of the religious identities of Africans would amount to a concession to their humanity and undermine the project of converting them into subhuman beings whom it was ethically permissible to enslave. — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 171 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Islamic slavery differed markedly from Western Christian slavery.; The law rendered enslaved African Muslims property, not Muslims — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 170; Islamic societies originated modern racial stratification and racialized slavery (+5 more)

Related

• The law rendered enslaved African Muslims property, not Muslims (similarity 0.85)
• Acknowledging slaves’ religion would have conceded their humanity under the law (similarity 0.83)
• Egyptian nationalists argued Islamic slavery was inherently gentler than Christian slavery (similarity 0.83)
• Descent from some slaves conferred honor and social mobility in Egypt (similarity 0.83)
• Islamic slavery permitted social mobility and produced entire slave-founded dynasties (similarity 0.83)
• Egyptian Muslim intellectuals argued Islamic slavery was distinctively gentle (similarity 0.82)
• Egyptian intellectuals defended Islamic slavery as inherently milder than Western slavery. (similarity 0.81)
• American racialization of slaves ran on labor and land, not on religion (similarity 0.81)
• Slavery can be redefined as martyrdom and honor through religious identification. (similarity 0.81)
• Europeans saw enslaved African Muslims as semicivilized aids for Christianizing other Africans (similarity 0.81)
• Islamic and Christian societies held fundamentally different concepts of slavery (similarity 0.80)
• Egyptian elites reframed slave descent as honorable social-capital currency (similarity 0.80)
• African Muslim slaves preserved Islam until Protestant abolitionism pulled them into Christianity (similarity 0.80)
• Islam’s racialization dates to American slavery, not modern immigration debates (similarity 0.80)
• Christian doctrine as taught to the enslaved seeded rather than suppressed Black rebellion (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The law rendered enslaved African Muslims property, not Muslims #contradicts (0.80) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 170
• Descent from some slaves conferred honor and social mobility in Egypt #corroborates (0.80) — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 647
• Islamic societies originated modern racial stratification and racialized slavery #contradicts (0.70)
• Acknowledging slaves’ religion would have conceded their humanity under the law #corroborates (0.70) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 171
• Tens of thousands of colonial slaves were Muslims #exemplifies (0.50)
• Roughly one in five enslaved Africans in America was Muslim #exemplifies (0.50) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 354
• Denying religion to slaves served to prevent resistance and revolt #contradicts (0.40) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 172