This article concentrates on the slave trade of people from Eastern Europe, Balkans, and Asia Minor/Byzantium: Remember, Mohammad (allah) demanded jihad/war until all the religion is allahsit cannot go away and nor can the associated slavery and dhimmitude. (see comments from 20th century Muslims and others on the ongoing desire for jihad Bostom p 94-104). Both Ottoman Turkey and Shiite Iran openly practised slavery in the 20th century. The last Ottoman sultan had a British captive in his harem, 20th century (Khan p325). Slavery continues throughout the Islamic world today and is brought by Muslims into the west.
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The two waves of Muslim expansion, the Arab from the seventh century and the Turkish from 4 centuries later-are remarkably similar....the great Arab and Turkish conquerors used the same military tactics and the same policies of consolidating Islamic power. This continuity resulted from the fact that the conquests took place within the framework of the common ideology of jihad and the administrative and judicial apparatus of the sharia- a uniformity that defies time, since it adapts itself to diverse lands and peoples, being integrated into the internal coherence of a political theology. In the course of their military operation, the Turks applied to the conquered populations the rules of jihad, which had been structured 4 centuries earlier by the Arabs and enshrined in Islamic sacred law. (Bostom p 60)
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.l...... following 1413, taking slaves returned with a vengeance. (Angelov p 490). Eg 7,000 from Thessalonika in 1430 (Bulgaru p 567) In 1438, 60,000 Serbs were enslaved and taken to Anatolia (Sookhdeo p 268). Sources suggest that in the few years between 1436-1442, some 400,000 people were seized in the Balkans. Many of the captives died in forced marches towards Anatolia (Turkey) (Sookhdeo p 268). Contemporary chronicles note that the Ottomans reduced masses of the inhabitants of Greece, Romania, and the Balkans to slavery eg from Moree (1460)-70,000 and Transylvania (1438) - 60,000-70,000 and 300,000-600,000 from Hungary and 10,000 from Mytilene/Mitilini on Lesbos island (1462) (Bulgaru p 567) and so it continued (see timeline part H)!
The vicious destruction of Constantinople in 1453 shows the religious zeal of the Muslims, their hatred of Christians, massacres, destruction and pillage and of course, the enslavement of 50,000-60,000 people! (see part H for details
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Describing the palace of Ottoman ruler Bayezid (1389-1402) in Brousse, historian Dorcas notes:
there one could find carefully selected boys and girls, with beautiful faces, sweet young boys and girls who shone more brightly than the sun. To what nations did they belong? They were Byzantines, Serbs, Walachians, Albanians, Hungarians, Saxons, Bulgarians, and Latins. Each of them sang songs in his own language, although reluctantly. He himself (the sultan) unceasingly gave himself over to pleasure, to the point of exhaustion, by indulging in debauchery with these boys and girls (Angelov p 489, Bulgaru p567)
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An enormous number of slaves flowed from the Crimea, the Balkans, and the steppes of West/central Asia into Islamic markets (Khan p 321, Bostom p 93). White males were often castrated, females bred Muslims.
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In 1396, the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I defeated a force of largely French Christian knights at Nicopolis (Bulgaria) and ordered that the 3000 who surrendered be decapitated:
The next morning they were paraded before him, naked and in groups of 3 or 4. The mass beheadings began early in the morning and continued through the day.(Sookhdeo p 158)
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In 1499 Sultan Bayezid II after his conquer of Methone (Greece) ordered :
the execution of all those who were 10 years or older; and so it happened. They gathered their heads and bodies, put them together, and built a big tower outside the city, which can still be seen nowadays (Chronicle cited in Bostom p 619)
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And who can forget that great tale of Mohammad beheading all the males with pubic hair (700-900) (nd one woman) from the last Jewish tribe in Medina after they surrendered to him for the crime of remaining neutral in a battle; plus the usual enslavement of women and children, taking of concubines and property (Ishaq p 464-466).
Armenians were beheaded in the 1894-96 massacres (Bostom p 671).
Religiously sanctified beheading and throat slitting is big in Islam even today!
