A picture of the slave market in Mecca in 1962, known as the “Dakka Slave Market”
The Dutch orientalist Snoek Hoorkhorne, who stayed in Mecca in 1884 AD, describes the atmosphere and atmosphere of the sale of slaves and female slaves in the slave bench: “Against the wall, the girls and women who are slaves stand on the bench, and the older ones wear nothing but a light veil, and the male slave stands in front of them on the floor, and in a foyer The hall is played by a group of slave boys. The brokers sit at their stalls and chat together or with their slave goods.”
As he describes the purchasing ritual: “If a customer is interested in a young black boy, the designated auctioneer calls him and asks him to reveal his hair, feet, and the rest of his limbs to the customer. The boy is forced to open his mouth and show off his tongue and teeth, while the auctioneer shows off his talents to the interested customer.”
If the buyer comes to buy a slave girl, he examines her carefully from the top of her head to the soles of her feet, just as livestock are examined. If he verifies her tact and suitability, he will give her permission from the seller.
Buyers usually carry out several tests on the slaves before completing the purchase, such as detecting signs of smallpox infection, and looking for a “pure smallpox” stamp on their bodies to indicate that they have been vaccinated against smallpox.
The Russian officer Abdulaziz Dolchin, who visited Mecca in 1898 AD, noticed the atmosphere of the slave market and described it as a terrible forum.
Dolchin says: “When I visited this market, there were about 80 people, most of them young Abyssinian women, with two or three of them infants, all of them decorated and lined up in groups on long scrolls. There were two benches on which sat hard-working, adult Negroes, carefully dressed and with their hair cut. Supervising the sales was an energetic Arab merchant, who began to extol in a loud voice the merits of his wares.”
This market and the slave trade were closed in the 1960s due to international pressure.
Source: websites