ABSTRACT
While the origins of racism remain murky, it appears that prejudice against blacks was accentuated in the Middle Ages when light-skinned Arabs, Berbers, and Persians made sub-Saharan Africa the prime hunting ground for new slaves. These Muslim traders had to push beyond the Mediterranean world, which was rapidly converting to Islam, because Islamic precepts barred the enslavement of anyone who was already Muslim. A unique longdistance slave trade resulted in which millions of blacks were seized and sold to far-flung lands, where they worked as servants, concubines, soldiers, miners, and farmhands. In the process, Arabs lumped all dark-skinned peoples of Africa into one general category – ‘blacks.’ Negative stereotypes surfaced, with Arab intellectuals comparing ‘ugly and misshapen’ blacks to ‘dumb animals’ who ‘dwell in caves . . . and eat each other.’ Apes were said to be ‘more teachable and more intelligent’ than blacks. Muslims reinforced this racism with an Old Testament story in which the Hebrew patriarch Noah cursed the descendants of his son Ham to be slaves. Muslim (as well as Jewish and Christian) writers interpreted this ambiguous reference as a condemnation of black Africans. Indeed, the Arab word for ‘slave’ came to mean
only a black slave. This said, slaves under Islamic rule were generally treated more humanely, were more likely to be manumitted, and were more readily assimilated than those who came to the New World.
