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Forced labour and slavery |
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Chattel slavery was a major part of society, culture and economy in the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258), which during its history included most of the Middle East. While slavery was an important part also of the preceding practice of the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), it was during the Abbasid Caliphate that the slave trade to the Muslim world reached a more permanent commercial industrial scale, establishing commercial slave trade routes that were to remain for centuries.
The Caliphate was a major slave trade destination, and slaves were imported from several destinations. Since Islamic law prohibited enslavement of Muslims, slaves were imported from non-Muslim lands around the Muslim world. These included Pagan Africa in the South; Christian and Pagan Europa in the North; and Pagan Central Asia and India in the East.
These slaves came from the North along the Balkan slave trade and the Volga trade route; from the East via the Bukhara slave trade; from the West via the Andalusian slave trade, the Trans-Saharan slave trade and the Red Sea slave trade; and from the South from the Indian Ocean slave trade. The slave trade to and slavery in the area continued during subsequent rulerships, and continued until the slavery in the Ottoman Empire ended in the 20th-century.