The Qur’an and Sunnah sanction slavery, which is why it is so hard to eradicate in North Africa even today. In my new book The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS, I recount how Captain G. F. Lyon of the British Navy traveled to Tripoli, where in 1819 he witnessed the arrival of a shipment of slaves in Murzuq:
At the end of the month [August 1819], a large Kafflé [caravan] of Arabs, Tripolines, and Tibboo, arrived from Bornou, bringing with them 1400 slaves of both sexes and all ages, the greater part being females…. We rode out to meet the great kafflé, and to see them enter the town—it was indeed a piteous spectacle! The poor oppressed beings were, many of them, so exhausted as to be scarcely able to walk; their legs and feet were much swelled, and by their enormous size, formed a striking contrast with their emaciated bodies. They were all borne down with loads of firewood; and even poor little children, worn to skeletons by fatigue and hardships, were obliged to bear the burthen, while many of their inhuman masters rode on camels, with the dreaded whip suspended from their wrists, with which they, from time to time, enforced obedience from these wretched captives. Care was taken, however, that the hair of the females should be arranged in nice order, and that their bodies should be well oiled, whilst the males were closely shaven, to give them a good appearance on entering the town. All the traders speak of the slaves as farmers do of cattle.
Click here to preorder The History of Jihad, the only comprehensive one-volume history of jihad in the English language, including not just the jihad in Europe but in India, Africa and elsewhere, and one of the few books that elucidates slavery in Islam as one aspect of that jihad.