Ihave been seeing in social media recurring cases of Arab ignorance about the Indian Ocean slave trade and Somali uproar and cyber attacking.
You need only to show the Treaty of Moresby, the first international treaty on the issue of slavery on the Indian Ocean
The treaty was betweem British India and the Omani Zanzibar Sultanate.
The British intent was to limit the exposure of their territory to the slave trade.
A line was drawn from a point in Mozambique to a point in Western Indian.
Anything east of the line, the trade was forbidden.
Later it would be whittled away with until the entire trade was outlawed.
Why is Moresby relevant to Somalis?
Both sides, the Omanis and British, succrssfuly each contributed "immediate death" clauses
The Brits got " Piracy"
The Sultanate "specifically" inserted into the treaty Any instances of Somali enslavement or attempted enslavement was punishable by immediate death
Both Piracy and enslavement involving a Somali was as the Treaty dictated "punishable by immediate death WITHOUT administration of last rites"
So without even giving them time to pray before death if guilty of either charge
Moresby was the first codification of Indian Ocean slavery laws and the Omani clause intrigued and garnered a lot of scholarly interest in the issue.
It informed even that Somalis might be the first group as an ENTIRE ETHNIC GROUP that had probably been identified "free born" in eastern Jurisprudence
The Omani position was a position they said they inherited from Islamic jurisprudence even before they conquered Zanzibar.
It meant as a matter of religiously inspired State dictate, the Somali position might have been formed as early as the formative years of Islam spreading and then making contact with the Horn.
So the Omanis themselves inherited the position that Somalis are "Xor" or "Hurr"...Free born and could never be Freed men.
Next time someone is so casual with this assumption about Somalis, introduce to them the disproportionality between their lazy ignorance and the extent and weight of Somali Liberty identified and guaranteed by Islamic Jurisprudence backed up by it's ultimate punishment "death WITHOUT administration of last rights"
