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Slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate

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Rashidun expansion 632-661

Slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate refers to the chattel slavery taking place in the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), a period when the Islamic Caliphate was established and the Islamic conquest expanded outside of the Arabian Peninsula.

The slave trade in the Rashidun Caliphate expanded in parallel with the Imperial conquests, when non-Muslim war captives as well as civilians were enslaved, and humans were demanded by tribute and taxation from subjugated people. During the Rashidun Caliphate, the regulations regarding slavery in Islamic law were enacted on a large scale and lay the foundation for the institution in the Umayyad Caliphate.

Slave trade[edit]

The slave trade in the Rashidun Caliphate was built upon a combination of the enslavement of war captives during the Early Muslim conquests of the Caliphate; tributary and taxation slaves; as well as commercial slave trade by slave merchants.

War captives[edit]

See also: Muslim conquest of the Levant, Muslim conquest of Egypt, Muslim conquest of Persia, and Military campaigns under Caliph Uthman

During the Rashidun Caliphate the Caliphate first wave of the Early Muslim conquests expanded outside of the Arabian Peninsula and founded an Empire. The new Empire of the Caliphate expanded to Byzantine Palestine and Syria in the North, Egypt in the West and Persia in the East. The military expansion of the Empire took place in parallel with a slave trade with war captives, which expanded in parallel with the conquests, when captives of subjugated non-Muslim peoples were killed or enslaved.

Not only male warriors were enslaved as war captives. Thousands of civilian women and children were enslaved during the Islamic conquests. After the fall of Caesarea in 640, 4,000 "heads" (captives) were sent to Caliph Umar in Medina, were they were gathered and inspected on the Jurd Plain - a plain commonly used to assemble the troops of Medina before battle, with room for thousands of people, before they were distributed as war booty to the orphans of the Ansar.[1] Caliph Abu Bakr had previously given two girls taken during the early conquests as slave maids to two daughters of one of the Companions of Muhammad, but since these two slave girls had died, Caliph Umar replaced them with two girls from the slave shipment after the fall of Caesarea.[2] Caliph Umar kept a number of literary boys from the Caesarea slaves for use as secretaries within the newly established state bureaucratic apparatus, since there was a great lack of people able to write and read in Arabia.[3]

Tributary slaves[edit]

Slaves were also provided via human tribute and taxation.

When Amr ibn al-As conquered Tripoli in 643, he forced the Jewish and Christian Berbers to give their wives and children as slaves to the Arab army as part of their jizya.[4][5][6] Uqba ibn Nafi would often enslave for himself (and to sell to others) countless Berber girls, "the likes of which no one in the world had ever seen."[7]

A permanent supply source of African slaves was provided to the Caliphate via the baqt treaty, which was between the Rashidun Caliphate and the Sudanese Christian Kingdom of Dongola in 650, and by which the Christian Kingdom was obliged to provide up 400 slaves annually to the Caliphate via Egypt.[8]

Commercial slave trade[edit]

The slave trade from Africa to Arabia via the Red Sea had ancient Pre-Islamic roots, and the commercial slave trade was not interrupted by Islam. While in Pre-Islamic Arabia, Arab war captives were common targets of slavery, importation of slaves from Ethiopia across the Red Sea also took place.[9] The Red Sea slave trade appears to have been established at least from the 1st-century onward, when enslaved Africans were trafficked across the Red Sea to Arabia and Yemen.[10] The Red Sea slave between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula continued for centuries until its final abolition in the 1960s, when slavery in Saudi Arabia was abolished in 1962.

Slave market[edit]

During the Rashidun Caliphate, the Arab elite still lived a partially nomadic lifestyle in the Arabian Peninsula, with base in Mecca and Medina.

The Rashidun Caliphs were known to buy, sell and distribute slaves. On one occasion, Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab (636-644) sold a substantial number of slaves to two elite Qurashis.[11] Caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib (656-661) were known to manumite slaves on condition that they remain to work on his estates for at least six years afterward.[12]

Female slaves[edit]

See also: History of concubinage in the Muslim world, Islamic views on concubinage, and Ma malakat aymanukum

The harem polygyny were expanded during the Islamic conquests, when female prisoners were distributed to the male Muslim warriors in sexual slavery as concubines, particularly after the Islamic conquest of Persia.

Conquests had brought enormous wealth and large numbers of slaves to the Muslim elite. The majority of the slaves were women and children,[13] many of whom had been dependents or harem-members of the defeated Sassanian upper classes.[14] In the wake of the conquests an elite man could potentially own a thousand slaves, and ordinary soldiers could have ten people serving them.[13]

Male Muslims were given the right to have sex with female captives (slaves), which was phrased: "those men who guard their genitals, except with their wives and those whom their right hands possess, for then there is no blame" (Quran 23:6), which granted men the right to have sex not only with their wives but also with female captive slaves.[15]

Women captives were known to be subjected to sexual abuse, and the Jewish convert Abdallah ibn Salam were active in mediating between the Jewish Exilarch and the Muslims in ransoming Jewish captives taken during the Islamic conquests, and was obliged to remind the Exilarch that the Torah obligated him to ransom also women who had been raped by the Muslim warriors.[16]

The Battle of Jalula in 637 ended in a complete Muslim victory, and women and children were enslaved as Spoils of war and Umar says « in fear of Children of these Slave-women who are going to be born, I seek refuge in Allah».[17]

While men were given the right to sex with both wives as well as female slaves, Islamic law did not define a difference between his child with a slave (if he had acknowledged paternity) and his child with a legal wife; there was no difference in legitimacy defined between the child of a slave mistress or a wife and therefore both were defined as legitimate.[18]

Male slaves[edit]

Eunuchs was a category of male slaves that existed already during the Rashidun Caliphate.

Male slaves sent to the Arabian Peninsula were put to slave labor as agricultural slaves, digging underground irrigation canals and other hard labor, and so many thousands of young men were sent as slaves to Arabia during the Islamic conquests that many Christian and Jewish communities were almost drained of young males.[19]

Slave soldiers were a phenomenon that had occurred in the Mediterranean world already during antiquity, but it was not until Islamic times that this form of slavery came to play any significant role, with an expanding number of slave soldiers.[20]

Slave soldiers are known to have served in the first battle of Muhammad, [21] often called mawla-converts, and the African slave soldier Mihja has been referred to as the first Muslim who died in battle.[22] In the Battle of Badr, at least 24 mawla slave soldiers are said to have participated.[23]

During the first two centuries of Islam, the definition of military slavery was somewhat dubious, and the term mawla was used for both slaves as well as former slaves; some soldiers slaves subjected to military slavery; some were slaves who were allowed to enlist as soldiers as Muslims rather than slaves given this role by their master; some were slaves who were given their freedom after having served as soldiers; and some were former slaves.[24] The use of slave soldiers expanded significantly during the following Umayyad Caliphate, but it was not until the Abbasid Caliphate that the institution of ghilman military slavery was truly institutionalized as a clearly defined permanent institution.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Dynamics in the History of Religions Between Asia and Europe: Encounters, Notions, and Comparative Perspectives. (2012). Nederländerna: Brill. p. 180-181
  2. ^ Dynamics in the History of Religions Between Asia and Europe: Encounters, Notions, and Comparative Perspectives. (2012). Nederländerna: Brill. p. 180-181
  3. ^ Dynamics in the History of Religions Between Asia and Europe: Encounters, Notions, and Comparative Perspectives. (2012). Nederländerna: Brill. p. 180-181
  4. ^ Pipes, Daniel (1981). Slave Soldiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Military System. Daniel Pipes. p. 142-43. ISBN 9780300024470.
  5. ^ Kennedy, Hugh (2007). The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In. Da Capo Press. p. 206. ISBN 9780306815850.
  6. ^ The History of the Conquest of Egypt, North Africa and Spain: Known as the Futuh. Cosimo. January 2010. p. 170. ISBN 9781616404352.
  7. ^ Barbarians, Marauders, And Infidels. Basic Books. 26 May 2004. p. 124. ISBN 9780813391533.
  8. ^ Manning, P. (1990). Slavery and African life: occidental, oriental, and African slave trades. Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 28-29
  9. ^ The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery Throughout History. (2023). Tyskland: Springer International Publishing. 144
  10. ^ The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery Throughout History. (2023). Tyskland: Springer International Publishing. p. 143
  11. ^ Dynamics in the History of Religions Between Asia and Europe: Encounters, Notions, and Comparative Perspectives. (2012). Nederländerna: Brill. p. 179
  12. ^ Dynamics in the History of Religions Between Asia and Europe: Encounters, Notions, and Comparative Perspectives. (2012). Nederländerna: Brill. p. 180
  13. ^ a b Morony, Michael G. Iraq after the Muslim conquest. Gorgias Press LLC, 2005
  14. ^ Abbott, Nabia. Two queens of Baghdad: mother and wife of Hārūn al Rashīd. University of Chicago Press, 1946.
  15. ^ The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2, AD 500-AD 1420. (2021). Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 196
  16. ^ Dynamics in the History of Religions Between Asia and Europe: Encounters, Notions, and Comparative Perspectives. (2012). Nederländerna: Brill. p. 181-182
  17. ^ Zarrinkoub, Abdulhussein (2006). Bamdad Islam (in Persian). Amir Kabir. p. 94. ISBN 978-9640001202.
  18. ^ The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2, AD 500-AD 1420. (2021). Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 196
  19. ^ Dynamics in the History of Religions Between Asia and Europe: Encounters, Notions, and Comparative Perspectives. (2012). Nederländerna: Brill. p. 180
  20. ^ Lewis, B. (1990). Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry. Storbritannien: Oxford University Press. p. 62
  21. ^ Pipes, D. (1981). Slave Soldiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Military System. Storbritannien: Yale University Press. p. 107
  22. ^ Pipes, D. (1981). Slave Soldiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Military System. Storbritannien: Yale University Press. p. 109
  23. ^ Pipes, D. (1981). Slave Soldiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Military System. Storbritannien: Yale University Press. p. 110
  24. ^ Lewis, B. (1990). Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry. Storbritannien: Oxford University Press. p. 62

Referenced material[edit]

  • Dynamics in the History of Religions Between Asia and Europe: Encounters, Notions, and Comparative Perspectives. (2012). Nederländerna: Brill.
  • Patterson, O. (1985). Slavery and Social Death. Storbritannien: Harvard University Press.
  • Manning, P. (1990). Slavery and African life: occidental, oriental, and African slave trades. Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press.
  • The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2, AD 500-AD 1420. (2021). Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press.
  • Lewis, B. (1990). Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry. Storbritannien: Oxford University Press.
  • Willis, J. R. (2014). Slaves and Slavery in Africa: Volume One: Islam and the Ideology of Enslavement. Storbritannien: Taylor & Francis.
  • Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History. (2017). Storbritannien: Oxford University Press.
  • Pipes, D. (1981). Slave Soldiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Military System. Storbritannien: Yale University Press.
  • Rio, A. (2017). Slavery After Rome, 500-1100. Storbritannien: OUP Oxford.
  • Heng, G. (2018). The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages. Indien: Cambridge University Press.
  • Dangler, J. (2017). Edging Toward Iberia. Storbritannien: University of Toronto Press.
  • Black, J. (2011). A Brief History of Slavery. Storbritannien: Little, Brown Book Group.
  • Phillips, W. D. (1985). Slavery from Roman Times to the Early Transatlantic Trade. Storbritannien: Manchester University Press.
  • The Archaeology of Slavery in Early Medieval Northern Europe: The Invisible Commodity. (2021). Schweiz: Springer International Publishing.
  • Freamon, B. K. (2019). Possessed by the Right Hand: The Problem of Slavery in Islamic Law and Muslim Cultures. Nederländerna: Brill.
  • Taef El-Azhari, E. (2019). Queens, Eunuchs and Concubines in Islamic History, 661-1257. Storbritannien: Edinburgh University Press.
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