Serving the Master uses a unique wealth of hitherto unstudied sources to paint a practical, compelling picture of the experiences of slaves in nineteenth-century Morocco. Mohammed Ennaji brings to life a rich panoply of figures, with court cases, travel accounts, and archival documents, demonstrating the cruelty of an institution whose benign features some writers have overemphasized.

In contrast to slavery in the Americas, he argues that only a fine line separated the fluid categories of slave and free, and he reveals how slaves' dependence on their masters paralleled free Moroccans' dependence on patrons for survival and social mobility.