From the time of Moses up to the 1960s, slavery was a fact of life in the Middle East. But if the Middle East was the last region to renounce slavery, how do we account for its — and especially Islam's — image of racial harmony? This book explores these questions. The research presented in this book was first undertaken as part of a group project on tolerance and intolerance in human societies. The group project was never completed but the material gathered for the project on Islam stimulated the book's study of race and slavery in the Middle East, a subject that appears to have so far encoura ... More

From the time of Moses up to the 1960s, slavery was a fact of life in the Middle East. But if the Middle East was the last region to renounce slavery, how do we account for its — and especially Islam's — image of racial harmony? This book explores these questions. The research presented in this book was first undertaken as part of a group project on tolerance and intolerance in human societies. The group project was never completed but the material gathered for the project on Islam stimulated the book's study of race and slavery in the Middle East, a subject that appears to have so far encouraged scant study.