Just great!
... trust the bloody Turks to implicate Cyprus in the slave trade!
Still, it explains what we have been saying to insan all along ... that the Christians and the Muslims did NOT intermarry or even mix much ...
According to 18th century travel writer Richard Pococke who visited the island on October 24, 1738, black slaves were commonly transferred over from Egypt and sold to the Ottoman Turks in Cyprus. The Turks, according to Pococke would not “suffer them (the Christians) to buy any black slaves”. Their reluctance was because a majority of the slaves were Muslim, and under Islamic Sharia Law they could not be sold to Christians-it would have been unthinkable for a Muslim to be held as a slave by a Christian in a Muslim Empire.
Keeping slave girls was not always for prudent house keeping purposes though; it was not uncommon for a female African slave to be used as a concubine or maintain the role of an inamorata that the family wished to keep a secret.
BTW .... Does anyone have that photo of Zan with that lovely, dark Afro hair ....
Zan wrote:I know Halil but as there is not one GC here that has stood up and said "I'M BLACK AND I'M PROUD" then I don't think they are interested!!!