Actually the main reason why Somalis were not enslaved or was hard for the British+Italian to colonize for a good part was because we were largely nomadic people and that meant we were moving now and then unlike the Bantus of west and central Africa!I never said that racism did not exist prior to Islam in Arabia, my point was that with Islam initially came an eradication of racism within Muslims. From my understanding of it, there was a time where a Muslim brother was just that, a brother. It's the reason why Somalis weren't enslaved by Arabs, because we ourselves are Muslims. But I have reason to believe that the Arab slave trade did increase racism within the Arabs to the point where even an African or South Asian Muslim are looked down on these days. Like I mentioned before prior and during the beginning of the Arab slave trade, the concept of an Arab identity did not exist because they identified as Muslims first and foremost
Remember the Bantus were shipped from the 16th century and it was not until late 18th century the colonizers settled to Somalia.