Shafïk’s defense of Islamic slavery convinced no one and even backfired with European observers

Evidence

Interestingly, despite his erudite defense of Islamic slavery within Egypt, Shafïk concluded his discussion with the point that prominent contemporary Muslim scholars and judges condemned slavery within the Islamic world. And even though Shafïk in his later memoirs claimed that the publication of his lectures in the Egyptian Gazette was used by an Ottoman diplomat to convince the Portuguese government about the necessity of abolition (without the intervention of the British), his arguments seemed to have done little to assuage the doubts of British and French observers. The intimacy with which Shafïk claimed slaves were integrated into the family structure in Egyptian homes sounded to the members of the Anti-Slavery Society too much like the secretive and remote relationships of Islamic marriage. It also seemed an affront to holy relationships sanctioned by the Church. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 679

Categorization

• XREF: The failure of Shafïk’s apologetic discourse to persuade Europeans echoes Orientalist misreading dynamics — connects to the reader’s wider coloniality framework and to Said’s analysis.