Slavery in the Islamic world has a complex and controversial history. In the earliest days of Islam, Arab Muslims enslaved men, women, and children as the spoils of war. In the following centuries, young boys were imported to imperial Islamic courts in enormous numbers. Some were castrated to serve as guardians of sacred spaces, while others were 'harvested' by the Ottomans to serve in the sultan's elite infantry unit. Some even rose to the highest levels of political and military command, while women leading concubines also became powerful figures in their own right.

Yet it was Africa which bore the brunt of the Islamic world's insatiable demand for slave labor. Slavers plied its coasts, traders raided inland for human cargo, and millions of enslaved Africans trudged across the Sahara into captivity. Meanwhile, North African corsairs turned the Mediterranean into a slaving free-for-all between Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Arab Muslims adapted and regulated this practice within an Islamic context. Sanctioned by the Prophet Mohammed, legitimated by the Quran and holy law, slavery endured for fifteen centuries. Abolition came late in the day—hereditary slavery continues even today in Mali and Mauritania. Captives and Companions takes the listener on an extraordinary historical journey and reveals a vital chapter in our understanding of world civilization.