Slave: My True Story by Mende Nazer

These people had stolen my childhood and destroyed my dreams.¹

— Mende Nazer

Why shouldn’t we have slaves? We’re better than everyone else. Stop basing your life on the self-justifying rants of a 7th century tyrant. “We conquered Khaibar, took the captives, and the booty was collected. Dihya came and said, ‘O Allah’s Prophet! Give me a slave girl from the captives.’ The Prophet said, ‘Go and take any slave girl.’” —Muhammad al Bukhari. The Hadith. Volume 1, Book 8, Number 367. “SUCCESSFUL ARE the believers...who restrain their carnal desires (except with their wives and slave-girls, for with them they are blameless: transgressors are those who lust after other than these)...” — Koran 23:1-7

Slave: My True Story is the account of Mende Nazer of the Nuba tribe in Sudan. It chronicles her early childhood up until she was around 12 years old (the Nuba do not know exact dates of birth) when her village was attacked by Arab Muslims and she was kidnapped, raped and taken away from all she knew to become a slave of a Muslim family in Khartoum. She finally escaped while in London on September 11, 2000 after 7 years as a slave.

It’s a quick read and a good one. I’m not going to go into all the details.

One of the interesting things in this book is that Mende and her family were Muslims. But they were black Muslims from the Nuba tribe and seen as inferiors by their Arab Muslim captors. When she went to an Arab school before being kidnapped she was told not to use her Nuba name or speak the language of Nuba.

That attitude is evident in the family that keeps her as a slave. The woman she calls “Master” said to her at one point when she found out she was praying:

“You don’t have time for prayers. And anyway, what do you think you’re doing? Don’t you know? Islam isn’t for black people like you.”²

In another instance she tells Mende:

“Everyone knows that all the Nuba are khulluf—that they’re unclean. And that they’re infidels.”³

My AI of choice says this about the term khulluf:

Khulluf (also transliterated as khulluuf or khoulli) is a Sudanese Arabic racial slur specifically used for black Africans. It’s deeply derogatory — essentially meaning someone who is dark-skinned and therefore fit only for servitude.⁴

It’s an excellent book and though she finally escapes, it’s sad to know that so much of her life was taken away from her by Islam and Islam’s approval of slavery.

I hope she’s left Islam, but there’s no indication that I can find that she has.

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Why shouldn’t we have slaves? We’re better than everyone else.
Stop basing your life on the self-justifying rants of a 7th century tyrant.

“We conquered Khaibar, took the captives, and the booty was collected. Dihya came and said, ‘O Allah’s Prophet! Give me a slave girl from the captives.’ The Prophet said, ‘Go and take any slave girl.’”
—Muhammad al Bukhari. The Hadith. Volume 1, Book 8, Number 367.

“SUCCESSFUL ARE the believers…who restrain their carnal desires (except with their wives and slave-girls, for with them they are blameless: transgressors are those who lust after other than these)…”
— Koran 23:1-7