Okay, Justin Marazzi.

Thanks so much for coming on my show.

Thanks so much.

Great to be here, Coleman.

So I'm a huge fan of your recent book, Captive and Companions.

I think, in my opinion, it's the undisputed best and most comprehensive

book that exists on the topic of the history of slavery in the Islamic world. And I've read

several other such books. I mean, the first thing that strikes me as interesting is that it's still so clearly

possible to write the comprehensive account of this topic because there are so few books on

it relative to, say, slavery in the Atlantic world, anywhere in the Americas, right? No one could

publish a book on American slavery tomorrow that was leaps and bounds more comprehensive than any

other book on the subject because there's just been too many books on it, right?

So my first question, I'm curious what your background is that you are so deeply studied on this topic

that is so relatively untouched in our Western mind.

Yeah, okay,

Comer, thanks. I think the way I got into this

subject dates back about

a quarter of a century, because my first book, when I

traveled in the Libyan

Sahara, it was a

two and a half thousand a kilometer journey by

Camel, and the subtitle of that book

...