Palestine in the 19th century > How did Arabs and Jews got along? Historical perspective!

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How Jews Fared in 19th Century Palestine Before Zionism and Balfour

JUL 9, 2023 10:00 AM BY HUGH FITZGERALD

In recent years, Palestinian and other Arab propagandists have claimed that before the Zionists appeared, supposedly intent on taking over by force land “belonging to the Arabs,” the local Arabs in “Palestine” (a toponym not used by the Arabs until the late 20th century, for until 1948 they thought of the area as part of “southern Syria”) had gotten along quite well with the Jews who had been living in the area long before the arrival of the first Zionist pioneers from Europe.

In this version of history, it was only when Jews, having become Zionists, suddenly became land-grabbers, “stealing Arab land,” that the Arabs, quite justifiably, turned on them in self-defense.

This claim is as false as the one that so many peoples in the West accept about Islamic Spain being a splendid example of interfaith tolerance and cultural syncretism. Elder of Ziyon several months ago compiled news reports from the period before the Balfour Declaration, even before the first stirrings of Zionism, to show what had been the real relations of Muslims to Jews in “Palestine.” More on the evidence showing the treatment that Jews had to endure at the hands of Muslims in “Palestine” in the period “before Balfour and before Herzl” can be found here: “A short catalogue of Arab intolerance of Jews in Palestine before both Zionism and the Balfour Declaration,” Elder of Ziyon, April 10, 2023:

There is no doubt that there were some friendships between some Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem and throughout the Arab world, but to use them as evidence of widespread acceptance of Jews as equals or near-equals is not only flawed reasoning but utterly false.

The evidence that Jews were treated horribly is irrefutable.

Here are just some examples from my own articles posted here over the years.

W. B. Lewis, 1824:

The Jews at Jerusalem, (I speak even of European Jews) are liable to be stopped by the lowest of the country, who, if he pleases, may demand money of them as a right due to the mussulman ; and this extortion may be practised on the same poor Jew over and over again in the space of ten minutes.

The Jews are fond of frequenting the tombs of their forefathers, especially on particular days, to read their prayers of remembrance of the dead. Here advantage is taken of them again. They are rudely accosted and pilfered, and if resistance is made, they are beat almost to death, and this not by common highwaymen or Bedouin Arabs, but by men they may have been in the habit of seeing and talking with every day.

The book “Stirring Times: Or, Records from Jerusalem Consular Chronicles of 1853 to 1856” by James Finn, British consul to Jerusalem, describes the financial extortion Muslims practiced on Jews:

In times gone by these native Jews had their full share of suffering from the general tyrannical conduct of the Moslems, and, having no resources for maintenance in the Holy Land, they were sustained, though barely, by contributions from synagogues all over the world. This mode of supply being understood by the Moslems, they were subjected to exactions and plunder on its account from generation to generation (individuals among them, however, holding occasionally lucrative offices for a tune). This oppression proved one of the causes which have entailed on the community a frightful incubus of debt, the payment of interest on which is a heavy charge upon the income derived from abroad.

…Notwithstanding these glimpses of honorary distinction the Jews are humiliated by the payment, through the Chief Rabbi, of pensions to Moslem local exactors, for instance the sum of 300£. a year to the Effendi whose house adjoins the ‘ wailing place,’ or fragment of the western wall of the Temple enclosure, for permission to pray there; 100£. a year to the villagers of Siloam for not disturbing the graves on the slope of the Mount of Olives ; 50£ a year to the Ta’amra Arabs for not injuring the Sepulcher of Rachel near Bethlehem, and about 10£ a year to Sheikh Abu Gosh for not molesting their people [the Jews] on the high road to Jaffa…

From Remarks on the present condition and future prospects of the Jews in Palestine, by Arthur George Harper Hollingsworth, 1852:

This Jewish population is poor beyond any adequate word ; it is degraded in its social and political condition, to a state of misery, so great, that it possesses no rights. It can shew no wealth even if possessed of it, because to display riches would secure robbery from the Mahometan population, the Turkish officials, or the Bedouin Arab. … He creeps along that soil, where his forefathers proudly strode in the fulness of a wonderful prosperity, as an alien, an outcast, a creature less than a dog, and below the oppressed Christian beggar in his own ancestral plains and cities. No harvest ripens for his hand, for he cannot tell whether he will be permitted to gather it. Land occupied by a Jew is exposed to robbery and waste. A most peevish jealousy exists against the landed prosperity, or commercial wealth, or trading advancement of the Jew. Hindrances exist to the settlement of a British Christian in that country, but a thousand petty obstructions are created to prevent the establishment of a Jew on waste land, or to the purchase and rental of land by a Jew. “

…What security exists, that a Jewish emigrant settling in Palestine, could receive a fair remuneration for his capital and labour? None whatever. He might toil, but his harvests would be reaped by others; the Arab robber can rush in and carry off his flocks and herds. If he appeals for redress to the nearest Pasha, the taint of his Jewish blood fills the air, and darkens the brows of his oppressors ; if he turns to his neighbour Christian, he encounters prejudice and spite ; if he claims a Turkish guard, he is insolently repulsed and scorned.

,,,Now, how is this poor, despised, and powerless child of Abraham to obtain redress, or make his voice heard at the Sublime Porte? The more numerous the cases of oppression, (and they are many), the more clamorous their appeals for justice, the more unwillingly will the government of the Sultan,—partly from inherent and increasing weakness, partly from disinclination,—act on the side of the Jew. They despise them as an execrated race ; they hate them as the literal descendants of the original possessors of the country. ...

From “Sir Moses Montefiore’s Report to the Board of Deputies of British Jews,” 1867:

On Saturday, April 14th [1866], after the morning service, I took a walk round the garden, and was much pleased with the improvement of the place since my last visit to Jerusalem.

I regret, however, not being able to report the same of the land at Jaffa, which has been unfortunately let to persons who, being unable to resist the threatened attacks of the neighboring Arabs, deserted the place altogether. The consequence is, that the houses are completely demolished and the trees destroyed….

Many more [Arab attacks on Jews] listed here, including in 1911: September 23: Arabs assault about sixty worshippers at religious service on Rosh Hashanah at Wailing Wall.

Widespread persecution of Jews by Palestinian Arabs – both Muslim and Christian – is undeniable. A few counterexamples cannot counter the overwhelming evidence of antisemitism and abuse. And saying otherwise is not scholarship – it is cherry picking propaganda points.

There it is, the written testimony of those Christians who traveled to the Middle East and saw for themselves the overwhelming evidence of the terrible mistreatment of Jews by Muslims in “Palestine.” It was not the Balfour Declaration nor the modern Zionism of Herzl that caused these Arabs to treat their Jewish neighbors so wretchedly. The Muslim hatred of Jews has always been prompted by many passages in the Qur’an and stories in the hadith: these are the fons et origo of the cruel, greedy, and sometimes murderous antisemitism of the Muslims that these Christian visitors to Palestine witnessed, and recorded for history.

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Islam - Current Day > An inflection point for Iran?

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An inflection point for Iran?

A young woman's death after arrest by the morality police has sparked huge protests

Melanie Phillips

Sep 21

Protest in Tehran over death of Mahsa Amini

There have been amazing scenes in Iran. Women have been burning their headscarves and cutting off their hair in protest at the death of 22 year-old Mahsa Amini following her arrest by Tehran’s morality police. 

Amini died after three days in a coma. Witnesses have claimed she was beaten on the head with a baton while being dragged into a police van to be taken to a detention centre for not wearing a headscarf.  

Since Iran’s Islamic revolutionary regime came to power in 1979, women have not only been required to wear headscarves but have also been banned from wearing tight trousers, ripped jeans, brightly coloured outfits or clothing that reveals the knee.

Tehran’s police chief, General Hossein Rahimi, said Amini had violated the dress code. The police have rebutted the accusations of brutality and claimed she died of a heart attack. But Col. Ahmed Mirzaei, the head of the moral security police of Greater Tehran, has reportedly been suspended.

The move failed to prevent massive unrest which has now been going on for four days.  The Telegraph reports: 

Videos posted on social media showed protesters setting fire to hijabs while chanting promises to “take revenge” for “our sister” Amini, who died in hospital on Friday after three days in a coma following her arrest during a visit to the capital…

Videos of women cutting their hair to express their anger at women’s treatment at the hands of the police have also been shared widely on social media, while Googoosh — arguably the country’s most famous female singer — gave an emotional tribute to Amini at a concert in Frankfurt…

Police in the capital used tear gas and batons to disperse crowds of protesters chanting slogans denouncing the morality police — the enforcers of the Islamic republic’s draconian laws requiring women to wear headscarves in public.

Several hundred people gathered on Tehran’s hijab street — or headscarf street —chanting “Death to the Islamic republic!” as they removed their headscarves.

As ever, the courage of those protesting against Iran’s fanatical Islamic regime is astonishing. According to local rights groups, at least five people were killed and hundreds more injured on Monday when security forces opened fire on protesting crowds in Iran’s Kurdish region, with two of the deaths reportedly occurring in Amini’s home city of Saqez.  Social media videos appeared to show protesters running from gunfire in the town of Divandarreh, in Kurdistan province. Protests have also broken out in several universities in Tehran and in Iran’s second city Mashhad.

Witnesses said demonstrators poured into Tehran’s Keshavarz Boulevard, a central thoroughfare, chanting, “Death to the dictator”. They also chanted against the police and damaged a police vehicle.

As has been demonstrated by the suspension of the head of the morality police and the announcement of an inquiry into Amini’s death, the Iranian tyrants have been showing nervousness at this fresh eruption of street protest. As well they might: few know better than a revolutionary regime how fragile is the control it wields through brutality. If enough people have the courage to face that down, the regime falls.  

Until now, the protests that have periodically erupted and have been viciously suppressed — including the “Green Revolution” that followed the disputed 2009 presidential elections — haven’t achieved the critical mass necessary to bring the regime down. But under the hardline president Ebrahim Raisi — who has presided over the execution of more than 300 people this year for political crimes — and the increasing privations of economic collapse, with an approximately 300 per cent increase in the cost of basic goods, public fury and desperation have been increasing. 

For months now, there have been repeated massive demonstrations in which the protesters have somehow managed to communicate with each other even though the regime shuts down the internet.

Moreover, the Iranian people — who according to expert commentators are adept at reading the runes, as well as incubating theories about both real and imaginary conspiracies — may be sensing that the regime is weakening. 

They can see it is suffering one calamity after another  — senior Revolutionary Guards and officials involved in Iran’s nuclear programme being mysteriously killed, equally mysterious explosions at sensitive military plants — which defy the laughable explanations of accident or malfunction that the regime is offering up. Believing that Israel is one of the most powerful countries in the world, people are speculating that Israel is behind these developments and that it is preparing to attack the regime directly. 

They can see that senior figures in the security establishment are now publicly blaming each other for these calamities. Since Iranians don’t squabble in public, this is being viewed as a further sign of the regime’s weakness and internal dissension. 

Excited questions were also asked about an apparently extraordinary event on Iranian TV. In early June, the night before the anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Khomeini who had led the 1979 Islamic revolution, all nine Persian-language foreign TV channels broadcasting into Iran aired simultaneously an hour-long live interview with Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last Shah, who is the only opposition figure known to all Iranians. Since these TV channels reportedly all loathe each other, people speculated that this live simulcast suggested a decision had been taken somewhere to “greenlight” Reza Pahlavi as the symbolic or actual leader of the overthrow of the regime.

Whether any of this speculation is plausible or true is beside the point. For a popular insurrection against a tyranny to succeed, the people involved have to be sure that they have powerful backing. Absent that, they cannot sustain a revolt in which they will unavoidably suffer many casualties. 

Maybe this latest revolt will peter out like all the rest. But if the oppressed and suffering Iranian people have decided that the regime is on its last legs and that powerful forces elsewhere in the world now have their back, this might just be the inflection point for which so many of us have hoped for so long.

Islam in History - Horror Stories of Turkish Invasions of Cyprus - 1570 & 1974

The 1570 Ottoman Invasion

The Turkish presence in Cyprus dates to the sixteenth century

In an article entitled "The Battle of Lepanto: When Turks Skinned Christians Alive for Refusing Islam," historian Raymond Ibrahim describes how "Muslim Turks — in the guise of the Ottoman Empire — invaded the island of Cyprus in 1570 and captured Famagusta:"

"After promising the defenders safe passage if they surrendered, Ottoman commander Ali Pasha — known as Müezzinzade ('son of a muezzin') due to his pious background — had reneged and launched a wholesale slaughter. He ordered the nose and ears of Marco Antonio Bragadin, the fort commander, hacked off. Ali then invited the mutilated infidel to Islam and life: 'I am a Christian and thus I want to live and die,' Bragadin responded. 'My body is yours. Torture it as you will.'

"So he was tied to a chair, repeatedly hoisted up the mast of a galley, and dropped into the sea, to taunts: 'Look if you can see your fleet, great Christian, if you can see succor coming to Famagusta!' The mutilated and half-drowned man was then carried near to St. Nicholas Church — by now a mosque — and tied to a column, where he was slowly flayed alive. The skin was afterward stuffed with straw, sown back into a macabre effigy of the dead commander, and paraded in mockery before the jeering Muslims."

The Ottoman Turks converted many historic churches into mosques, such as St. Nicholas Cathedral, the most majestic structure in Famagusta. "In 1570 the Ottoman invasion which took Nicosia, then Famagusta, in hideous and bloody sieges, marked the end of the natural life of the edifice as a place of Christian worship," according to Michael Walsh, a professor of art and archaeology. St. Nicholas Cathedral, still used as a mosque in Turkish-occupied Famagusta, is now named "Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque" after the commander of the 1570 Ottoman invasion.

Author Helen Starkweather notes:

"In 1570, Ottoman Turks sent cannon balls ripping through the walls in a siege that lasted for nearly a year. Outnumbered and starving, the Venetians surrendered in 1571. The Ottomans took over Cyprus and closed Famagusta to Christians. They built fountains throughout the city to modernize the water supply, and they converted most of the churches to mosques. A minaret was placed above the gothic buttresses of the former Cathedral of St. Nicholas, where Jerusalem's kings had once been coronated. Churches that weren't converted—as well as other buildings damaged by the siege—were left to ruin. By the 19th century only a handful of residents remained, most living in shacks attached to deteriorating churches. In 1878, when the British occupied Cyprus, Scottish photographer John Thomson called Famagusta 'a city of the dead.'"

Despite successive invasions and occupations throughout the centuries, including the Ottoman occupation from 1571 until 1878, the population of Cyprus remained predominantly Greek Christian. The Turkish-speaking Cypriot minority was scattered all across the island, never a majority in any district or major town. The atrocities of Turkey in 1974 drove out the Greek Cypriots from the northern area, turning it into a Turkish colony and putting an end to a recorded non-stop Greek presence predating the birth of Christ.

The 1974 Turkish Invasion

In 1878, Britain assumed administration of Cyprus, and annexed it following Turkey's defeat in the First World War. Cyprus declared its independence from British rule in 1960. The Treaty of Guarantee said that it "recognized and guaranteed the independence, territorial integrity and security of the Republic of Cyprus." It was signed by Britain, Greece, Turkey and Cyprus.

Fourteen years later, however, Turkey violated the treaty and invaded Cyprus twice: on July 20 and on August 18, 1974. What followed was ethnic cleansing through forcible displacement. Like the Ottoman occupation in 1570, the 1974 Turkish invasion was bloody and brutal.

Many well-documented atrocities were committed by occupation forces during that time. Civilians, including children between six months and eleven years, were murdered. Many were arbitrarily detained by the Turkish military authorities and placed in concentration camps. The detainees were tortured or exposed to other types of inhumane treatment, including performing forced labor. Greek Cypriot women and children between the ages of 12-71 were raped. Houses and business premises of those who had to leave were looted, seized, and appropriated.

Professor Van Coufoudakis notes in his 2008 report "Human Rights Violations in Cyprus by Turkey":

"Evidence of the gross and continuing violations of human rights by Turkey in Cyprus come from, among others:

Eyewitness accounts

NGO investigations

Various international organizations

The European Commission of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights

Reports by international media"

Since 1974, Turkey has forcibly occupied 36% of the sovereign territory and 57% of the coastline of the Republic of Cyprus. The ethnic cleansing of northern Cyprus by Turkey has resulted in the displacement of more than 170,000 Greek Cypriots, or roughly one-third of the island's population. In addition to Greek Cypriots, Armenian, Maronite, and other non-Muslim Cypriots were also forcibly displaced. The result was that Turkey effectively crushed the Christian population.

In 1983, the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" ("TRNC") was established by a unilateral declaration that was condemned by the international community. To this day, Turkey remains the only country that has recognized the entity. The "TRNC" does not exist as a state but rather as a de-facto administrator of the Turkish occupation.

Turkey has, in addition, caused the obliteration of much of the island's cultural heritage. A 2012 report entitled, "The Loss of a Civilization: Destruction of cultural heritage in occupied Cyprus," documents the devastation by Turkish forces of monasteries, churches, Christian and Jewish cemeteries, among other religious and cultural artifacts. According to the report:

"Turkey has been committing two major international crimes against Cyprus. It has invaded and divided a small, weak but modern and independent European state (since 1 May 2004 the Republic of Cyprus has been a member of the EU); Turkey has also changed the demographic character of the island and has devoted itself to the systematic destruction and obliteration of the cultural heritage of the areas under its military control."

On November 15, 2020, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited a part of Famagusta, Cyprus, after joining the ceremony celebrating the 37th anniversary of the unilateral declaration of the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus", the illegally-occupied northern part of Cyprus that is not recognized under international law. Since 1974, it has been under Turkish occupation, which has looted and ethnically cleansed its indigenous population. Pictured: Erdogan (second from right) in Varosha, Famagusta on November 15, 2020. (Photo by Alexis Mitas/Getty Images)

Famagusta since 1974

Famagusta, a district on the east coast of Cyprus, has a long history and deep significance for its cultural heritage.

During the second phase of the Turkish invasion on August 14, 1974, Famagusta was bombed by the Turkish Air Force. As a result, dozens of civilians died, including tourists. Famagusta is thus a crime scene and the current activities of Turkey are destroying evidence of these war crimes.

In the 1980s, the Turkish military completed re-zoning the empty, looted part of Famagusta, which was then fenced off and became accessible only by the Turkish military. With its abandoned shops, hotels and homes untouched since 1974, Famagusta has remained a ghost town ever since.

The current status of Famagusta is the same as the rest of the occupied area. Most of Famagusta is under Turkish military occupation, under the control of Turkey – not because the Greek locals got bored and abandoned the town, but because they were terrorized by Turkish troops and fled.

In a 2009 article at Smithsonian Magazine, author Helen Starkweather warned the world about the situation of Famagusta, by calling it an "endangered site." She noted:

"'All ships and all wares,' a 14th-century German traveler wrote, 'must needs come first to Famagusta.' The port city on the northeastern coast of Cyprus was once on a bustling shipping lane, carrying merchants from Europe and the Near East and armies of Christian knights and Ottoman Turks. Famagusta rose to prominence between the 12th and 15th centuries, most notably as the city where the Crusader kings of Jerusalem were crowned.

"Now ancient Famagusta, tucked into a modern city of 35,000 people, also called Famagusta, is largely forgotten, except, perhaps, as the setting for Shakespeare's Othello. Some 200 buildings—reflecting Byzantine, French Gothic and Italian Renaissance architectural styles—are in a state of disrepair. Weeds and wildflowers press against sandstone walls eroded by rain and earthquakes."

Meanwhile, the Turkish government has begun the second phase of the ethnic cleansing of the region: changing the street names in the ghost town to Turkish. On November 22, the 57th anniversary of the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy, Turkey and the regime in occupied northern Cyprus renamed Kennedy Street in Famagusta after Semih Sancar, the chief of the general staff of Turkey who orchestrated the 1974 invasions.

Turkey used two main pretexts for invading Cyprus. The first was the July 15, 1974 coup engineered by the Greek military, which attempted to topple the democratically-elected Cypriot president, Archbishop Makarios III. Five days later, on July 20, 1974, the Turkish Armed Forces launched a full-scale invasion of Cyprus, using the coup as a pretext even though Makarios had escaped, and the United Kingdom, the third guarantor power of Cyprus, had refused to take joint action. Just days after the Turkish invasion, the Greek junta collapsed and democratic rule was reestablished in Greece. The path was now clear for Makarios's return to Cyprus. Turkey, however, had other plans. Less than a month later, on August 14, Turkey launched a second and even more devastating invasion of the island.

This pretext becomes even more irrational when one considers Turkey's own history of military coups: mainly, the coups in 1960 and 1971. Six years after Turkey invaded Cyprus, another military coup d'état in 1980 in Turkey would destroy whatever crumbs of freedoms remained. According to US secret diplomatic documents, at least 650,000 people were detained. Many were tortured and hundreds died in custody. A state such as Turkey -- whose history has been largely shaped by military coups -- does not have a right to "interfere" in the internal affairs of other nations by using one extremely short-lived coup there as an excuse to invade and occupy the place.

A second excuse was that Turkey "aimed at protecting Turkish Cypriots" from Greek Cypriot violence. But the falsehood of this excuse has been repeatedly exposed, most notably by Turkish General Sabri Yirmibeşoğlu. He said in 2010 that Turkey had burned a ‎mosque in Cyprus in the 1950s "in order to foster resistance" against Greek Cypriots.

"If you want the people somewhere to be alarmed [agitated] and engage in a resistance movement, and if you demonstrate that your esteemed values are degraded by the enemy or the other side, you will provoke the people. There is a rule in the [Turkish] Special Warfare: To increase the strength of the people, some of their values must be sabotaged as if [the sabotage were conducted] by the enemy. [For example], a mosque can be burned. We burned a mosque in Cyprus."

Even prior to the 1974 invasions, Turkey militarily provoked intra-ethnic tensions in Cyprus by sending weapons and fighters there, starting at least in the 1950s. Yirmibeşoğlu noted that the "Tactical Mobilisation Group" (Turkish: Seferberlik Tetkik Kurulu) was established in 1953 in Turkey and sent weapons to Cyprus to be used against Greek Cypriots:

"The Committee had three officers in Ankara. It was a new organization [established] to send weapons against the EOKA [National Organization of Cypriot Fighters]."

The main reason for Turkey's colonization of northern Cyprus, however, was announced by former Turkish deputy prime minister Tuğrul Türkeş in 2017. "There is misinformation that Turkey is interested in Cyprus because there is a Turkish society there," Türkeş said. "Even if no Turks lived in Cyprus, Turkey would still have a Cyprus issue and it is impossible for Turkey to give up on that." Turkey is occupying northern Cyprus for geopolitical reasons. The occupation enables Turkey to dominate the eastern Mediterranean.

Today Turkey still calls the atrocities it committed in 1974 "a peace operation."

No matter what the Turkish government claims, the photos and documents concerning Famagusta and the rest of the occupied area in Cyprus tell their own story. The invading Turkish army killed, tortured and raped.

Those who were forcibly displaced by Turkey are still not allowed to return unless the Republic of Cyprus -- the Greek-run area in the south -- agrees to the blackmail of relinquishing the sovereignty of the entire occupied northern area, and transferring it to the Turkish Cypriot minority -- in effect to Turkey itself -- thus legitimizing in Cyprus a pure Muslim zone for the first time ever.

Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

Islam - This Day in History - At Least 12 Million Africans Sold in Islamic-Arabic Slave Trade

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The Brutal Slavery Of Over 12 million Africans By Arab Islamic Merchants

– A Bitter History

December 27, 2020

The harrowing experiences of the African-man during the era of slavery still remains an open book in our history as people. A lot has been accounted for. But many more tales remain untold or forgotten.

The Transatlantic slave trade seems to have the most popular of accounts. And that might be because the slavers, historians, scholars, and the slaves themselves spoke English and understood the English language. And that made it easier for multiple narratives to be found.

 

Today you easily hear the horrific accounts of European and American slavery from the mouths of a common African or African-America. But the reverse is the case for the Arab slave trade and era. Very little or nothing is known by the majority of English and French-speaking Africans.

The Arab slave trade involved some of the most atrocious and dreadful atrocities committed against Africans. It is said that it was more dehumanizing and brutal.

The Arab slave trade began in the 7th century, around 633. This was the year after the death of Prophet Muhammad. Then the armies of Islam conquered a large portion of what is today Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and the North African coast. The Qur'an (Koran) was codified in 650, and Muslims took it as the direct words of God (Allah). The Koran forbade the taking of slaves from fellow Muslims, but did not forbid them from taking non-believers and those who opposed their religion.

 

The practice of slavery in Africa, as a business venture, started in Darfur in the year 652. There was a peace agreement between the Arab invaders and the Sudanese leader. So, to meet up with his own end of the treaty, the leader provided the invaders several hundreds of African slaves every year. This supply of slaves continued for centuries. The slaves were sent along the Red Sea route up until the 18th century, which was the peak of the Arab slave trade.

The historian Paul Lovejoy in his accounts, estimates that about 9.85 million Africans were shipped out as slaves to Arabia, and in small numbers, to the Indian subcontinent. He broke the figure down as follows:

 

An average of 5,000 Africans was shipped out by the Arabs, between AD 650 and 1600. And this brings the number to a rough total of 7.25 million Africans. Then another 1.4 million Africans were shipped out between 1600 and 1800. The 19th century defined the peak of the Arabian slave trade, where 12,000 Africans were shipped out every year. The 19th century alone accounted for 1.2 million slaves shipped to Arabia.

The Arabic slave trade with an estimate of 9.85 million African slaves falls closely behind the Atlantic slave trade with nearly 12 million Africans shipped out. Although some African historians argue that 12 million is too low and conservative. They suggest that over 50 million Africans were shipped out during the Atlantic trade alone.

 

We at Liberty writers believe that there can never be an accurate account of these numbers. What matters here is telling the stories and teaching our people their route throughout human existence.

Lovejoy wrote that another 4.1 million Africans were shipped across the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf and India, by Arab slavers.

The Omani Arab rulers of Zanzibar, throughout the 19th century, shipped hundreds of thousands of African slaves to labor on clove plantations on the Island. After the abolishment of the European and American slavery, this slavery at Zanzibar was so horrific that Europe and American authorities started to highlight the wickedness of the Arab slavers, who continued their enslavement of Africans farther into the first decade of the 20th century. It has been reported that even till today, Arab slavers are still buying and selling slaves in Sudan and Mauritania. This is a slap to humanity and African leaders.

The African slaves were said to have suffered terrific horrors in the hands of the Arabs. The men were castrated and the women were converted to sex slaves. Even when the women got pregnant for their slave masters and give birth, their children were killed. This is to snuff out any chance of a semblance of the African in their community. What vile wickedness?

 

A British missionary and explorer named David Livingstone was upset by the manner the Arabs treated the African slaves, that he wrote back home in 1870 and had this to say:

"In less that i take to talk about it, these unfortunate creatures - 84 of them, wended their way into the village where we were. Some of them, the eldest, were women from 20 to 22 years of age, and there were youths from 18 to 19, but the large majority was made up of boys and girls from 7 years to 14 or 15 years of age.

"A more terrible scene that these men, women, and children, I do not think I ever came across. To say that they were emaciated would not give you an idea of what human beings can undergo under certain circumstances. "Each of them had his neck in a large forked stick, weighing from 30 to 40 pounds, and five or six feet long, cut with a fork at the end of it where the branches of a tree spread out. "The women were tethered with bark thongs, which are, of all things, the most cruel to be tied with. Of course, they are soft and supple when first striped off the trees, but a few hours in the sun make them about as hard as iron round packing cases. The little children were fastened by thongs to their mothers.

"As we passed along the path which these slaves had travelled, I was shown a spot in the bushes where a poor woman the day before, unable to keep on the march, and likely to hinder it, was cut down by the axe of one of the slave drivers. "We went on further and were shown a place where a child lay. It had been recently born, and its mother was unable to carry it from debility and exhaustion; so, the slave trader had taken this little infant by its feet and dashed its brains out against one of the trees and thrown it in there."

 

This was the kind of brutality that Africans experienced at the hands of the Arabs. It seemed like the entire world was pitched against Africans. Each man taking his pound of flesh from a race that did them no harm.

The painful of them all was the trek across the Sahara Desert, in leg and neck chains. One can imagine the distance the slaves would have to travel on foot, under the devilish weather conditions of the Sahara, with little or no water for hours/days.

Duncan Clarke said that "the hardships of these long marches across the desert were considerable, and many later travelers reported that the routes were lined with the parched skeletons of those who succumbed to exhaustion and thirst along the way."

Islam - Current Day - 66th Blasphemy Murder in Pakistan; Abused Woman Cries for Help in Dubai

Man shot dead during blasphemy trial in Pakistan

By Daniel Uria



July 29 (UPI) --

Police in Peshawar said:

"The culprit accepts responsibility for killing him and says that he killed him for having committed blasphemy," police official Ijaz Ahmed said. "[The suspect] has been arrested from the scene."

Footage of the shooting showed the alleged gunman sitting on a bench under police guard saying he was told to do it in a dream.

Naseem had been in police custody since 2018 when he was accused of committing blasphemy by claiming to be a prophet.

He is a member of the Ahmedi sect, which is persecuted in Pakistan where they have officially been declared non-Muslims.

The shooting took place at a high-security complex next to the Peshawar high court.

“I was sitting on my seat in the office around 11.30 when I heard the firing,” said Saeed Zaher, a lawyer, who rushed to the site of the attack, and said the victim appeared to have been shot once in the head. “The killer was caught by the police and the body was lying on a bench within the courtroom.”

65 people murdered for blasphemy

No one has been executed under Pakistan's blasphemy laws, but at least 77 people have been murdered in extrajudicial killings and mob violence since 1990.

Saeed Zaher, a lawyer who was present at the courthouse during the shooting, said members of the public are allowed to observe trials, but for his attacker to smuggle in a weapon represents a serious security breach.

Well, no kidding! Especially when it's a blasphemy trial and the likelihood of something like this happening is very high. Makes one wonder if the police are utterly incompetent, or even complicit?

"A person entering with a pistol and murdering someone within a courtroom is very disturbing," Zaher said.

Footage circulating on social media appeared to show the alleged killer, sitting barefoot on a bench under police guard, claiming he had been ordered in a dream to kill Naseem. He also attacked judges who hear blasphemy cases.

Blasphemy is an enormously sensitive charge in Pakistan, a criminal offence that can carry the death penalty, yet which is sometimes used to settle personal scores, and has become extremely difficult for the justice system to handle.

Mere accusations have prompted mob violence and lynchings; lower-court judges feel unable to acquit defendants for fear of their lives; even a supreme court justice recused himself from a 2016 trial.

While the state has never executed anyone under blasphemy laws, at least 17 people convicted of blasphemy are on death row, and many others are serving life sentences for related offences.

The case of Asia Bibi, a Christian farm labourer who endured a decade-long ordeal over the accusation she had insulted the prophet Mohammed in a dispute with neighbours, drew international attention to the problem of the laws.

Bibi was originally sentenced to death in 2010, though that verdict was later overturned. In 2011, the governor of Punjab province, Salmaan Taseer, and the minorities minister, Shahbaz Bhatti, were murdered after they spoke in defence of Bibi and called for reform of blasphemy laws.

She was eventually given asylum in Canada but still receives death threats.

Since 1990, vigilantes have been accused of murdering 65 people tied to blasphemy, according to research compiled by the Pakistani thinktank the Centre for Research and Security Studies.

There was no comment from the government, a silence that veteran activist Ibn Abdur Rehman said was damning.

“Religious fanaticism is becoming unbearable in Pakistan. People are being killed in the name of religion. There is no check and balance. The government is clearly silent on this matter. This silence makes the government the culprit,” said Rehman, honorary spokesman for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Indian Consulate in Dubai helps woman after her appeal on Twitter about domestic abuse

Mission to facilitate repatriation of young mother who alleged abuse

Sajila Saseendran, Senior Reporter, Gulf News

Domestic violence

Dubai: The Indian Consulate in Dubai has offered support to repatriate an Indian woman in the UAE who complained of domestic abuse and sought help in a video that was posted on Twitter.

The video, put up on the social media platform by an Indian journalist, showed the woman in tears.

The woman alleged that she was being "beaten and mentally tortured" ever since she got married in April 2018.

Mother of a 13-month-old girl, she claimed she reached the UAE in January and was helpless. and could not contact police as she did not have a sim card.

“I am in danger. I am helpless. I don’t have money. I don’t have calling card to call my family. I just need justice. I am requesting you to please help me. Somebody please help me,” she said in the video.

Several Twitter users reacted to the video that went viral and sought immediate support for the woman.

Consulate intervenes

The Indian Consulate, which was also tagged in the video, responded saying that the mission was already extending support.

“We got a complaint...on 27th July and we had contacted her same dày and assured her of all possible assistance. She now desires to go back to India and we will make sure that she can leave for India at the earliest,” the consulate tweeted.

When contacted, Neeraj Agrawal, consul for Press, Information and Culture at the consulate, said: “We are in touch with the woman and her husband. We have asked him to return her passport and we are ready to facilitate her repatriation.”

This is not the first time that the mission has intervened in such a case.

Last year, the consulate assisted the repatriation of another woman, who had sought help. Her husband was arrested by Sharjah Police after her November 12 Twitter video, which went viral, showed her crying with one of her eyes bleeding.

Sharjah Police had also called on members of the public not to circulate such videos because of their negative impact.

When is reality a negative impact?