This book engages the way Christian, Jewish, Muslim and secular-progressivist actors used Mosaic and Islamic law and ethics in relation to slavery in American, West African and transatlantic history from 1440 to 1830. It focuses on how various groups marshalled these religious-legal traditions to respond to questions of enslavement, amelioration, emancipation and abolition in the face of ever-transforming social, religious-cultural, legal and political contexts over several centuries. The study offers a vital corrective to secularized histories of slavery by showing that sacred law was not peripheral but ever-central to the making—and unmaking—of American slavery, with legacies that reverberate through Reconstruction, segregation and modern civil rights debates.
1 Introduction: Historiographical Backgrounds, Contexts and Frameworks.-
Part I: Laying the Foundations.- 2 The Early Historical and Theological
Origins and Development of Mosaic and Islamic Law in West African,
Transatlantic and American Enslavement History.- 3 Mosaic Law in the
Transition from Indentured Servitude to Racialized Lifelong Hereditary
Bondage for Black Africans, 1600-1710.- Part II: Mosaic and Islamic Slave Law
Before and After the American Revolution.- 4 The Rise & Fall of Moses the
Liberator Before and After the American Revolution, 1710-1830.- 5 Moses,
Muhammad and Slavery among Jews and Muslims in Colonial and Early Independent
America, 1654-1830.- 6 Moses, Muhammad and Slavery in the Thought & Writings
of Key American Founders, 1750-1830.- 7 Concluding Reflections and
Contributions of the Study.
R. Charles Weller, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of History (Career), Washington State University, and Senior Research Fellow, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. He has also been a visiting fellow at Yale University (2010-11), a visiting researcher at Georgetown Universitys Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (2014-19) and Affiliate (Research) Faculty of History at George Mason University (2021-22).
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