Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World

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Justin Marozzi

Captives and Companions

A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World

Justin Marozzi

$69.99

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Allen Lane
10 July 2025

General & world history; Middle Eastern history; African history; Social & cultural history; Slavery & abolition of slavery

A startling exploration of slavery in the Islamic world from the 7th century to the present

Slavery in the Islamic world has a long, complex and controversial history. Captives and Companions is a brilliant synthesis of history and contemporary reportage, which brings to life the voices of the enslaved in stories of eighth-century concubines and ninth-century revolts, thirteenth-century slave soldiers who established dynastic rule over Egypt, Syria and Iraq, eighteenth-century corsairs and twentieth century pearl divers in the Gulf. It also includes first-hand accounts of this legacy in the twenty-first century, including the depredations of Daesh and continuing hereditary slavery in Mali and Mauritania.

Justin Marozzi traces the extraordinary variety of enslavement in the Islamic world, which ranged from agricultural labour and domestic toil to elite concubinage, guardianship of sacred spaces, political leadership and even military command. He shows how Africa bore the brunt of the demand for slave labour, fuelled throughout the nineteenth century by expanding global markets and commodity chains. Slavers plied African coasts, traders raided inland for human cargo, and millions were marched across the Sahara into captivity. Meanwhile, North African corsairs turned the Mediterranean into a slave-raiding 'free-for-all' between Muslims, Christians and Jews.

Taking the reader on an extraordinary historical journey from Baghdad to Bamako, Tripoli to Timbuktu, Istanbul to the Black Sea, this is the riveting human drama of those caught up in one of history's most remarkable overlooked stories.

By: Justin Marozzi
Imprint: Allen Lane
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 241mm, Width: 164mm, Spine: 35mm
Weight: 986g
ISBN: 9780241522158
ISBN 10: 0241522153
Pages: 560
Publication Date: 10 July 2025
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Justin Marozzi is a historian and journalist who has spent most of his professional life living and working in the Muslim world. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and former Trustee of the Royal Geographical Society, he is a senior advisor to the Middle East Association. His previous books include South from Barbary- Along the Slave Routes of the Libyan Sahara (2001), the bestselling Tamerlane- Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World (2004) and The Man Who Invented History- Travels with Herodotus (2008). His last book, Baghdad- City of Peace, City of Blood (2014) won the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize and was praised by the judges as 'a truly monumental achievement'.

Reviews for Captives and Companions: A History of Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Islamic World

A bold, brilliant and timely history that confronts one of the most neglected and uncomfortable subjects in global history. Justin Marozzi brings to life the complexity and humanity of the Islamic world’s entanglement with slavery using an extraordinary range of sources, across more than a millennium and across sweeping geographies. Not just a mesmerising book, but a profoundly important one too -- Peter Frankopan, author of <i>The Silk Roads: A New History of the World</i> Well written ... important and well-researched ... Marozzi is able both to redress the balance and to draw very effectively on recent scholarship. A richly impressive book. -- Jeremy Black * Nuova Antologia Militare (NAM) *