Muslim Slave System in Medieval India c11.12

c11.12

D.B. Davis in his *Slavery and Human Progress* attempts to estimate the number of blacks that would have been sold as slaves and imported into India. According to him the importation of black slaves into Islamic lands from Spain to India constituted a continuous large-scale migration that in total numbers may well have surpassed, over a period of twelve centuries, the African diaspora to the New World.²³ The absence of a large population of black survivors can be explained by their high mortality rate; by assimilation with other peoples; and by the fact that many male slaves had been castrated. Even so in central part of India and on the western coast, there are communities of blacks who are descendants of African slaves. On some Western Coast Islands also there live descendants of black slaves. The Jinjeera Island, so called because of mispronunciation by Marathas of Jazeera meaning island, or Zanzeera meaning land of Zanj or Blacks, is their main abode. It is also called Habsan or the land of Africans or Habshis. In the seventeenth century these islanders, called Sidis of Jinjeera, served as admirals of the Mughals and were at constant war with the Marathas.