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Slave Elites in the Middle East and Africa: A Comparative Study edited by Miura Toru and John Edward Philips. London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 2000. Pp.xii + 243, index. L65.00/$100.00 (cloth). ISBN 071306601.
With only a few studies on slavery in the Muslim world in comparison to the numerous studies on American slavery, Slave Elites in the Middle East and Africa is a welcome contribution to the study of the uniqueness of slave elites, soldiers and officials, in the Islamic world.
The book contains selected papers presented at a 1998 workshop at the Institute of Oriental Culture, the University of Tokyo. The aim of the workshop was to compare between two distinctly different regions of Islamic culture, the Middle East and Africa, while emphasizing especially West Africa, where the phenomenon of slave elites was conspicuous.
A comparative study of the institution of slavery between the Muslim World and the New World place before Middle Eastern historians a complicated challenge, and the essence of this collection of essays verifies the difficulties involved. Even though slave elites were not the only unique phenomenon characteristic of Islamic civilizations, this specific social stratum had not existed in the New World at all. Indeed, the institution of slavery in the Muslim world, Dar al-Islam, differed in many aspects from that existing in the Americas. Notably in the development of slave elites, since in the New World slaves never achieved any power over free persons. Thus, choosing to compare between two different regions of the same religious culture, who cultivated and accepted slavery as a way of life, has an advantage, and is an important contribution to understanding this institution. On the other hand, as John Philips and Miura Toru show, if one wishes to compare the phenomenon of slave elites in different societies, it would be easier done with the Far East, as well as with the late Roman Empire and Byzantine societies, in which the roots for the development of this elite were founded to start with.