In African Muslim societies domestic slavery was a deeply entrenched institution, accepted as a matter of course by African believers and Muslim lawyers. This study, first published by Hurst in 1970, has been extensively revised, with a new introduction and an extra chapter on slavery taken from the work, "Sahara and Sudan". It discusses domestic slavery in the context of the religious, social and economic conditions of Islamic societies, the status of slaves and their roles as currency, goods, enuchs, soldiers and statesman. Comparative detail has also been added from the accounts of Leo Africanus, Ibn Battuta and other African scholars.