Linda Northrup

INTRODUCTION It is generally held that the medical sciences in the Islamic world reached their peak during the eleventh century and then subsequently declined. Yet there are many indications that, in fact, medicine, or aspects of it, continued to flourish in the following centuries. One thinks particularly of the hospitals founded by Nu≠r al-D|n (ca. 548-49/1154) and by al-Qaymar| (ca. 646/1248) in Damascus and by S ̋ala≠h ̨ al-D|n in Cairo in the twelfth century, as well as the long list of illustrious physicians who served in both, not to mention the biographical dictionaries of Ibn al-Qift ̧| (d. 645-46/1248) and Ibn Ab| Us ̋aybi‘ah (d. 668-69/1270) which vividly portray the vitality of intellectual life, including the medical sciences, in their

A Historical Guide to World Slavery is intended to fill a need in historical studies, which have witnessed in recent years an increasing interest in the study of slavery and related forms of dependence and slave societies. The guide facilitates the systematic comparative study of slavery on a global and cross-cultural basis and is thus organized around geographical or generic topical themes. The entries, concerning particular regions divided topically or topics divided regionally, are of various lengths and differ in the amount of detail provided. Slavery in the Islamic world is treated mainly within articles on particular regions (for example, Africa: East Africa; Europe: Middle Ages) or on topics such as Concubinage, Eunuchs, Slave Trade; Trans-Saharan Trade. The most extensive entry and the one article that treats slavery in the Islamic world in its own right is the section of the article on Law which deals with Islamic law. Here the author, John O. Hunwick, has based his coverage on the views of the Maliki madhhab, since it is "the school with the most elaborated law on slavery, and the one most widely followed in Africa, the continent that produced the majority of slaves over the ages, and a region where slave ownership was also common" (p. 249). Although the Islamic world is certainly not entirely neglected, this guide nevetheless betrays, by the number of entries and the detail of coverage, a decided tilt toward the Atlantic trade and its sources, even though Barry Higman, author of the entry, "Demography," recognizes that the second most travelled route carried the slave trade toward Muslim areas of North Africa, Arabia, India, and the long distance trade across the Sahara, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean.