Regarding the Islamic World's History of Slavery, a NYT Book Review Tries to Be Nice and Understanding

As The New York Times reviews Justin Marozzi's CAPTIVES AND COMPANIONS: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World, America's "paper of record" in no way resorts to the same kind of common depictions reserved for slavery in the United States as a country or region flagrantly condemnable (what am I saying? Damnable!) and abhorrent while ranting about the (ridiculous) concept of America's "original sin." 

No, it turns out that NYT reviewer Thomas Meaney wants to be tolerant, contextualize, and put things into perspective, condemning Western "myths" and "lazy generalizations" while drawing comparisons (or contrasts) with abominable Westerners such as George W Bush and Belgium's King Leopold II (his case can hardly be denied), not to mention… the patriarch Abraham. 

Nothing in his review about the generalized castration of the Muslims' male slaves or the fact that the Transatlantic slave trade pales in comparison to the fate of Africans forced to reach their Arab masters' regions, given that the "brutal" Middle Passage, however horrific, consisted, after all, of lying still in a ship (certainly, inhumanely, like sardines and in their own filth), which is still hardly comparable with the fate of Africans forced to spend weeks walking the entire way to their Arab destinations and that, indeed, across one of the hottest regions in the world, i.e., the Sahara desert (which, needless to say, allowed for more — for far more — deaths).

As it happens, the history about the Muslims' slavery in the Arab regions never seems to be condemned outright in the NYT's book review, but boils down to asking a simple question: How Should We View the Middle East’s Legacy of Slavery?

As … the British journalist Justin Marozzi … showcases the many types of enslaved people — eunuchs, harem women, mercenaries, unpaid laborers — who populated a region that stretches across modern-day Libya, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Oman and Saudi Arabia, all the while demonstrating how the realities of bondage in these places differed from the more familiar chattel slavery of the West.

Until the late 19th century, slavery was a near universal institution, though it was practiced in so many varieties that the word could hardly encompass them all. Marozzi’s account begins in 632 with a “free-spirited woman” in the first caliphate who took a slave to bed, assuming it was her right as set forth in the Quran.

 … Marozzi refers to his scope of interest as the “Islamic world,” apparently because slavery, like so many other iniquities, was justified by the existence of rules found in religious codes. The Prophet Muhammad, like Abraham, was an untroubled owner of slaves, and “the legitimacy of the slavery, as pronounced upon by the Quran, is not up for debate,” Marozzi writes.

 … Most enslaved people over the span of the centuries were held in bondage for life, and treated inhumanely by their owners.

How significant was racism in the practice of slavery by Muslims? Marozzi suggests that the advent of racial prejudice in the Middle East might have preceded the rise of modern European racism by several centuries.

 … Marozzi … appears to know how easy it is to descend into lazy generalizations about Islamic culture, and, in doing so, to prop up Western self-regard. Nevertheless, Marozzi appears reluctant to wriggle free from some of the most robust myths of the Victorian age.