Dimeolas

1300 YEARS, APPROXIMATELY 17 MILLION SLAVES AND 6 MILLION CASTRATED MEN: THIS PART OF HISTORY THAT WAS HIDDEN FROM US. Long before the arrival of Europeans, the first Arab caliphates had already opened the route for the slave trade. In 652, the Treaty of Baqt between Muslim Egypt and the Nubian kingdom of Makuria (present-day Sudan) formalized a monstrous pact: every year, Sudan had to deliver slaves in the name of peace, or else face swords, fire, and savagery. This was no longer war; it was an economy of capture. On that day, Africa ceased to be a continent: it became a stockpile of bodies. At the heart of the Arab-Muslim slave system lay a practice of such extreme barbarity that it defies comprehension: mass castration. This deadly surgical procedure transformed millions of African men into eunuchs, condemned to a life of suffering. After the Muslim Arabs took control of Egypt, they established their system. The Egyptian capital housed some of the most lethal castration centers. Specialized "surgeons" performed the complete removal of the genitals. The patient was held down by four men while the "doctor" severed the testicles and penis in one swift motion. To prevent the urethra from closing, a bamboo tube was inserted, and then boiling oil was poured over the gaping wound. The mortality rate reached 90%—a veritable organized slaughter. In Baghdad (the capital of Iraq), a more "economical" method was perfected: castration by crushing. Ropes were tightened around the testicles until the tissue died from necrosis. Gangrenous infection claimed the lives of most victims in excruciating agony. Only one in twenty men survived this ordeal. Basra (a city in Iraq) developed its own specialty: cauterization with a red-hot iron. After the castration, a red-hot metal was applied to the wound to stop the bleeding. The deep burn caused fatal infections in 80% of cases. Why this systematic practice? The answer is chilling: to prevent the reproduction of African slaves in the land of Islam. Castrated men could not start families, thus ensuring that no African descendants would take root. It was a definitive solution to the demographic problem. The survivors became mere shadows of their former selves, destined to guard harems or serve in the administration. Their high-pitched voices and lack of facial hair marked them for life as products of this death industry. The figures are staggering: of the 17 million Africans deported, approximately 6 million died as a result of castration. This is equivalent to the current population of Togo, Benin, and the Congo combined, sacrificed on the altar of this barbaric practice. Even today, silence surrounds this darkest chapter of the Eastern slave trade. While Europe confronted its history of slavery, the Arab-Muslim world has still not undertaken this essential work of remembrance. The truth must be told: millions of African men were transformed into eunuchs under atrocious conditions. Their memory demands that we break the silence and inscribe their martyrdom in the collective memory of humanity. Their stifled cries deserve to finally be heard. Historians speak of 17 to 19 million Africans deported. But behind these figures lie the invisible: the dead of the desert, the missing along the roads, the erased from history. If we add up the lives lost, nearly 60 million African souls have been swallowed up. Sixty million! It's as if the entire current population of Ghana, Cameroon, Senegal, and Mali combined had been wiped out. And yet… Not a single memorial. Not a single World Day. The world mourned over the Atlantic, but it forgot the Sahara. The Arab-Muslim slave trade didn't just steal bodies; it stole memory. In history books, in school curricula, this page is deliberately erased. We are taught that slavery originated in the West, never that it was first perpetuated by the East. This silence is not a mistake. It is a strategy. Because a people who don't know the full extent of their wounds cannot understand the depth of their scars. Africa doesn't ask for pity. It asks for the truth. It doesn't seek revenge. It demands recognition. We don't want to rewrite history, we simply want it to stop lying. And I say this without hesitation: Africa will only be free the day it knows its whole history.