By examining some classic literary, geographical and historical texts we shall attempt to unravel the complexity of these culturalist and racializing discourses. By reconstructing their semantic and genealogical threads, we shall try to identify their historical significance. As we have just seen, the founding of an immense colonial empire brought about profound socio-economic and cultural changes - a shift that shattered traditional and family values. By the middle of the seventh century, the outlines of a new society had appeared, with a particular interest in the acquisition of enslaved people. As the main source of energy and prestige, enslaved people would soon be greatly in demand. In a way that was probably different but concordant, Arab chronicles attest to this insatiable call for labour that could be fashioned and worked at will. The development of large-scale work in mines, palm groves, cotton fields and sugar cane plantations, hydroagricultural projects in Iraq, Arabia, Iran, the Persian Gulf, Maghreb and Andalusia was the lever for the mass deportation of a dependent workforce.  
But the enslaved did not all come from the same world. They were an assortment of people of disparate origins and with different skin colours. Even if the warning signs of racialized discrimination were visible from the first century, it should be said that slave recruitment was not based on phenotype. That is perhaps the main difference between this model and the Atlantic enslavement model. It is certainly problematic to speak of an exact symmetry between the notions of slavery and negritude. Neither can we subscribe totally here to Achille Mbembe's reflection on modern European societies and the tragic fate