Black Morocco
A History of Slavery, Race, and Islam

Chronicles the experiences, identity, agency and achievements of enslaved black people in Morocco from the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century.

Chouki El Hamel (Author)

9781107651777, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 February 2014

354 pages, 4 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.52 kg

'Chouki El Hamel has given us a thorough, well-researched, engaging study of Islam, slavery, and race in Morocco. He weaves together Islamic jurisprudence, Moroccan court histories, European travel accounts, Sufi hagiography, diplomatic correspondence, and social history to explode long-standing cultural myths … El Hamel locates a window to the past in the black diasporic mystical culture of the present.' Ellen Amster, American Historical Review

Black Morocco: A History of Slavery, Race, and Islam chronicles the experiences, identity and achievements of enslaved black people in Morocco from the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century. Chouki El Hamel argues that we cannot rely solely on Islamic ideology as the key to explain social relations and particularly the history of black slavery in the Muslim world, for this viewpoint yields an inaccurate historical record of the people, institutions and social practices of slavery in Northwest Africa. El Hamel focuses on black Moroccans' collective experience beginning with their enslavement to serve as the loyal army of the Sultan Isma'il. By the time the Sultan died in 1727, they had become a political force, making and unmaking rulers well into the nineteenth century. The emphasis on the political history of the black army is augmented by a close examination of the continuity of black Moroccan identity through the musical and cultural practices of the Gnawa.

Introduction
Part I. Race, Gender, and Slavery in the Islamic Discourse: 1. The notion of slavery and the justification of concubinage as an institution of slavery in Islam
2. The interplay between slavery, race, and color prejudice
Part II. Black Morocco: The Internal African Diaspora: 3. The trans-Saharan diaspora
4. 'Racializing slavery': the controversy of Mawlay Isma'il's project
5. The Black Army functions and the role of women
6. The political history of the Black Army: between privilege and marginality
7. The abolition of slavery in Morocco
8. The Gnawa and the memory of slavery
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Islam [HRH], African history [HBJH], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1], History [HB]