Just like in the rest of the ancient world, slavery was a common practice in Arabia, centuries
before the coming of Islam. Sources tell about slaves being brought to Arabia from the Middle
East, India, and other countries. But the biggest source of slaves in pre-Islamic Arabia were
African slaves from present-day Ethiopia, Eritrea, Mozambique, Kenya, and so on. Old Arabic poetry
tells about dark-skinned foreign slaves called Habash. Slavery persisted after Islam became the
law of the land in Arabia and expanded with the territorial advance of the Caliphate as well.
How did slavery in Arabia transform following the ascent of Islam?
What kind of work were the slaves forced to do on the territory of the Caliphate?
In this episode, Kings and Generals is going to talk about slavery in the Caliphate.
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Slavery in Arabia goes back to the pre-Islamic Jahiliyyah - Ignorance period. Arabia had several
sources of slave supply, and the largest among them were conflicts. Arabs would raid
bordering Byzantine and Persian provinces for the purposes of getting war booty and slaves,
and the Ajami - Iraqi slaves were prominent among them. Inter-tribal conflict within Arabia
would result in the victorious side taking the surviving members of the losing tribe
as prisoners, but most of them were ransomed before they could be turned into slaves.
But the majority of slaves were imported from Africa. Mecca was a major trading center of the
region at the time and trade caravans including those which transported African slaves were going
through Mecca. Arab slave owners would purchase them in Mecca. Also, raiding parties would attack
caravans and capture slaves for themselves or sell them later. There were two types of slaves:
purchased ones and slaves born in the house of their master. Arabia’s climate and terrain
limited the scope of work, in which slaves could be used, but they would work as servants of rich
Arabs, as shepherds, as caravan guides. Female slaves would also be used for sexual purposes.
In theory, Islam saw a natural state of a human being as being free stated
as al-'asl huwa 'l-hurriya. Islam brought some limitations and regulations to slavery in Arabia,
but slavery was such an ordinary phenomenon for that age, along with being a fundamental element
of the Arab society that it was not possible to outright prohibit slavery. All of the Arab elite,
including the Prophet, owned slaves. But at the same time, there are numerous Quranic verses and
hadiths describing the emancipation of slaves by the Prophet Muhammad such as Bilal, who became
the first muezzin - caller for prayer in the history of Islam, and Zayd, Muhammad’s step-son.
During his Farewell Sermon, Muhammad said: “…an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab
nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority
over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action.”
Historians Neusner and Sonn argue that “Prohibiting slavery in the context
of seventh-century Arabia apparently would have been as useful as prohibiting poverty;
it would have reflected a noble ideal but would have been unworkable on an immediate basis
without establishing an entirely new socioeconomic system” and “Its recommendation that slaves be
freed is on the same plane as its recommendation that the poor be clothed and the hungry be fed.“
Thus, slavery was not prohibited in Islam, but the ascension of the Islamic Caliphate led to
some reforms in terms of treatment of slaves, their release, and amended procedures related
to enslavement. Quran stated that a slave Muslim is better than a free pagan; that it was better
to marry a slave Muslim female rather than a free pagan. Islam barred Muslims from enslaving other
Muslims, called for humane and kind treatment of slaves, and prohibited killing them.
The Abbasid Caliph Al-Mutasim freed 8k of his slaves on deathbed as manumission was
encouraged by Islam. A child born to a freeman father and a slave mother was considered free.
This slave woman could not be sold off anymore and would be set free upon the death of the master.
The state prohibited freemen from selling their children into slavery
as a punishment for debt or a crime. Despite this, the slave population increased due to purchase
through military campaigns, commercial purchase, procreation of slaves, inter-state agreements,
where the Caliphate insisted on payment of tribute through the import of slaves.
People of the Book - Jews and Christians were safe from being enslaved, but Muslims could purchase
Jewish and Christian slaves, in case they had become slaves before their purchase, but it was
allowed to turn pagans into slaves, even if they would decide to convert to Islam. Moreover, there
was a distinction in terms of enslavement between Dar al-Islam (the realm of Islam) and Dar al-Harb
(the realm of war). Dar al-Islam was the territory where Islam has prevailed and therefore, the laws
of peacetime applied, while Dar al-Harb was the territory dominated by non-believers, who did
not recognize Allah and Muhammad as his prophet, therefore a peace time law did not apply there.
This loophole was used to import slaves, who were already Muslims or for the castration of slaves,
the practice which was prohibited by Islam. Although good treatment of slaves was encouraged
by Islam, slaves were essentially rightless. Their testimonies were not admitted at judicial
proceedings, offence against slaves required half of the punishment envisaged for the same
offence against freemen, slaves were not allowed to enter into a contract, and so on. The death
rate of slaves was quite high, particularly among those employed for plantation and mining slavery.
On the other hand, the vast majority of slaves lived under better conditions than for instance,
their counterparts in ancient Greece and Rome. Masters were obliged to provide slaves with
medical attention, shelter, and support at an old age and were prohibited from overworking them.
They could be forced by Islamic courts to emancipate a slave whom they have mistreated.
In some cases, slaves had a contractual right to buy their freedom over time
or be emancipated upon the master’s death. The expansion of the Caliphate and its
military successes were the primary sources of slave supply. People of different races
and beliefs such as Assyrians, Copts, Persians, Nubians, Berbers, Indians, Greeks, Turks, Slavs,
etc. were enslaved by the Caliphate. Slaves were acquired from all over the Middle East, Egypt,
Iran, Caucasus, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, India, Spain, Central and
Eastern Europe, even China, and Southeast Asia. A significant part of the slave supply of Arabia,
even before Islam, was from Africa with countries like Ethiopia and Nubia being the
most prominent in this regard. This continued after the ascension of Islam too and historian
Yosef Ben-Jochannan argues that “jihads were brought to Africa as early as the year 640 AD”.
The expansion of the Caliphate into Egypt and Sub-Saharan Africa, into what the Arabs called
bilad-ul-Sudan - land of the Blacks enabled a higher supply of African slaves into the empire.
This supply was both from military conquest and booty, along with treaties signed with African
states, where they agreed to supply the Caliphate with slaves annually.
Moreover, Arabs set up slave-trading posts along the southeastern coast of the Indian Ocean,
including the archipelago of Zanzibar. This paved the way for the major African slave trade to the
Caliphate. Black African slaves were sold in slave markets in Egypt, South Arabia, and the Maghreb.
Historian Paul Lovejoy estimates that close to 10 million Africans were shipped out as slaves
to Arabia and the Caliphate. According to him every year 5000 Africans were brought to Arabia
as slaves between the years 650 and 1600. Luiz Felipe de Alencastro argues that 8 million African
people were sold or sent into slavery through the Oriental and Trans-Saharan slavery routes
between the 8th and the 19th centuries. Historians might disagree on the numbers going as high
as 30 million, but the truth is that millions of Africans were forced to live and work as slaves in
the Caliphate. The slave trade from Africa to Arab countries continued right until the beginning of
the 20th century. For instance, slavery in Saudi Arabia was formally abolished as late as 1962,
in Oman in 1970. Africa had become a pragmatic choice for slave supply of the Caliphate,
as towards the 8th century most of the borders of the Arab Caliphate had already become more or
less stable. There were fewer expansionist wars, which meant there were fewer slaves imported. By
then the Eastern Roman Empire and the Frankish kingdom bordering the Iberian possessions of the
Caliphate had become strong enough to oppose further expansion of the Caliphate. Moreover,
they were the People of the Book, and enslavement of Christians was a legally problematic matter.
For instance, in the 9th century, the Egyptian Christians rebelled against the Caliphate,
and following their defeat many of them were sold as slaves in Damascus.
According to the historian Adam Metz, this was widely criticized in the Caliphate
and considered absolutely illegal. In contrast,
Sub-Saharan Africa did not have a political entity strong enough to oppose the Caliphate and it had
maintained and enhanced its position as one of the major sources of slave supply of the Caliphate.
Unlike the slaves in the Americas, where they were mostly forced to work in manual labor jobs,
such as working on plantations and mining, in the Caliphate slaves were used in a wider scope of
jobs. In the Americas, slaves were a major tool of production, while in the Caliphate they were
mostly used in service jobs or for military purposes. Slaves worked as servants, nurses,
concubines, entertainers, eunuchs, business assistants, craftsmen, builders, and soldiers.
There were also types of slave jobs, which existed in the Jahiliyyah period, but were prohibited by
Islam such as masters forcing female slaves into prostitution for their personal material gain.
Some of the jobs, particularly being a soldier, or taking part in administration and business
allowed for upward social mobility for slaves and Mamluk slaves are the perfect
example of the former. In general, slaves working in domestic and urban settings were not subject to
overworking and cruelty, and the problem with the Arab historiography of that period is that it is
very much focused on urban Arabia, not only with regards to the issue of slavery, but in general.
Slaves working in rural settings are largely overlooked, despite being subject to the hardest
living conditions among the slaves of Arabia. They were mostly employed in agriculture, mining, and
the drainage of marshes. These were mostly black slaves, who were more prone to being overworked,
being subject to cruelty, living in worse conditions, often crammed in dozens in
small spaces. It is said that no slave lived for longer than 5 years in the Saharan salt mines.
Extremely hard living and working conditions existed in cotton and sugar fields. The slave
labour of the Black slaves - Zanj as the Arabs called them, in the marshlands and salt flats of
Southern Iraq is among the most vivid examples of cruelty against slaves in the Caliphate.
But white slaves were brought to the Caliphate as well and were mostly employed in the military,
as business associates and entertainment of the Arab elite. This demonstrated the existence of
racial discrimination in the Caliphate, despite the fact that Islam considered all human beings
equal regardless of colour of their skin. Most of the white slaves were Slavic and Turkic. Slavs
were considered more expensive than Turks and were brought into the Caliphate through Germany
to Spain. Prague was also one of the centers of the slave trade from Europe to the Caliphate.
Meanwhile, Turkic slaves were mostly sold in the slave market of Samarkand.
A good-looking white slave woman would cost 1000 dinars. In some cases, this cost could go as high
as 10k dinars. In contrast, a good-looking black slave woman would cost 150-300 dinars.
Black male slaves would cost even less, their purchase cost was around 25-30 dinars. A special
category of slaves in the Caliphate were those specialized in arts and entertainment,
who were educated by their masters and then sold to the Arab elite for massive sums. 1-2k dinars
was the average cost of an entertainer. In 937 the de facto ruler of the Caliphate Ibn Raiq
purchased a popular female singer for 14k dinars. While Islam alleviated the suffering of slaves
and placed certain restrictions on their abuse and encouraged good treatment of slaves,
their lives were extremely hard. Slaves working in agriculture, mining, and construction had a
shorter life span and were more susceptible to ill-treatment. One of the sights of cruel
and inhumane treatment of slaves was the Basra marshlands in Southern Iraq, where Black slaves
were forced to work under horrible conditions. They rebelled against the Caliphate in 869
and would trouble the state for more than 2 decades. In our upcoming episode, we are going
to talk about the Zanj rebellion, so make sure you are subscribed and have pressed the bell button to
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