Zuhur al-Basatin and Ta'rikh al-Turubbe: Some Legal and Ethical Aspects of Slavery In the Sudan as Seen in the Works of Shaykh Musa Kamara

Captive or slave status among the populations of the Middle Valley of the Senegal River represents a historical fact whose manifestation has not been effaced to this day. And yet this issue has continuously evoked an uneasiness of conscience among the ‘ulama’ or religious clerics of this region also known as Futa Toro. From ethnographic surveys of the area, it has been estimated that the present slave (or slave descendant) population encompasses twenty-one per cent of that society. The community is in fact stratified into three broad groupings: Rimbe (freemen); Nyeenybe (casted people or artisans); and Jyaabe or Rimaibe (slaves). ¹