Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry (34 page)

19. Nasir-i Khusraw, Safar-nama, ed. and trans. (into French) C. Schefer (Paris,
1881), text p. 82, trans. p. 227.

20. Ahmad al-Wansharisi (d. 1508), Kitah al-Miyar al-mughrib, vol. 9 (Fes, 1313/
1895-96), pp. 71-72; French translation by E. Amar, in Archives Marocaines 13
(1909), pp. 426-28. See below, p. 148.

21. El', s.v. "Abd" (by R. Brunschvig), p. 32a. Rotter. Die Stellung des Negers,
pp. 44f., 49ff.

22. Mahmoud A. Zouber, Ahmad Baba de Tomhoktou (1556-1627): Sa vie et son
oeuvre (Paris, 1977), pp. 129-46. For an edition and translation, with commentary, of
this text see Bernard Barbour and Michelle Jacobs, "The Mi'raj: A legal treatise on
slavery by Ahmad Baba," in Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa, ed. J. R. Willis, vol.
I (London. 1985). pp. 125-59. In this work, Ahmad Baba quotes from an earlier
jurist, Makhluf al-Balbali (d. 1533 A.D.), who said: "The origin of slavery is non-belief,
and the black kafirs are like the Christians, except that they are majus, pagans. The
Muslims among them, like the people of Kano, Katsina. Bornu, Gobir, and all of
Songhai, are Muslims, who are not to be owned. Yet some of them transgress on the
others unjustly by invasion as do the Arabs, Bedouins, who transgress on free Muslims
and sell them unjustly, and thus it is not lawful to own any of them.... If anybody is known to have come from these countries, he should be set free directly, and his
freedom acknowledged" (pp. 130-31).

23. Al-Nasiri, Kitdb al-Istigsa', vol. 5 (Casablanca, 1955), pp. 131 ff. This passage
is translated in J. O. Hunwick, "Black Africans in the Islamic world." Tarikh 5, no. 4
(1978), pp. 38-40.

24. Tabari, Ta'rikh, ed. M. J. de Goeje, vol. 3 (Leiden. 1881), pp. 950-51; Hilal
al-$abi`, Ruston Dar al-Khilafa, ed. Mikha'il `Awad (Baghdad, 1964), p. 8, cf. p. 12.
For medieval Arabic accounts of castration, see Jahiz, Kitab al-Havawan, vol. 1
(Cairo, 1356/1958), pp. 106ff.; Spanish translation by Miguel Asin Palacios, Isis 14
(1930), pp. 42ff.; Al-Mugaddasi. Ahsan al-tagasim, ed. M. J. de Goeje. 2d ed.. Bibliotheca geographorum arabicorum, vol. 3 (Leiden, 1906), p. 242; French translation by
C. Pellat, Description de !'occident musulman an IV"-X' siecle (Algiers, 1950). pp. 5758. Other sources in Rotter, Die Stellung des Negers, pp. 33-35. Descriptions of the
procedures used in Egypt for castrating black boys are given by European observers at
the beginning of the nineteenth century; see above, pp. 76-77. On eunuchs, see Mez,
Die Renaissance, pp. 332ff. (The Renaissance, pp. 353ff.); M. F. Koprulu, in Turk
Hukuk ve Iktisat Tarihi Mecmuasi 1 (1931), pp. 208-11; Italian translation, idem,
Alcune osservazioni intorno all'influenza delle istituzioni bizantine sidle istituzioni ottomane (Rome, 1953).

25. Jeremy Bentham, The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 3 (January
1781 to October 1788), ed. Ian R. Christie (London, 1971), p. 387.

26. See El 2, S.V. "Habshis" (by J. Burton-Page).

27. The first poem is cited in the translation of A. J. Arberry, Poems of alMutanabbi (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 112-14. The second is translated from the original
in al-Mutanabbi, Diwan, ed. `Abd al-Wahhab `Azzam (Cairo, 1363/1944), p. 460. On
al-Mutanabbi's "racism," see J. Lecerf, "La Signification historique du racisme chez
Mutanabbi," in Al-Mutanabbi: Recueil publie a !'occasion de son millenaire (Memoires
de l'Institut francais de Damas) (Beirut, 1936), pp. 33-43.

28. The most famous was the Egyptian-horn mystic Dhu'l-Nun al-Misri (ca. 796861), the son of a freed Nubian slave. See Eh, s.v. (by M. Smith); above, p. 114, n. 16.

Chapter 9

1. C. A. Plassart, "Les Archers d'Athenes," Revue des etudes grecques 26 (1913),
pp. 151-213; O. Jacob, Les Esclaves publiques a Athenes (Liege, 1928), chap. 2; M. I.
Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology (New York, 1980). p. 85.

2. William L. Westermann, The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity
(Philadelphia, 1955), pp. 15-16, 37, 61; on the use of armed slaves as bodyguards,
ibid., p. 67.

3. Wagidi, Kitab al-Maghazi, ed. Marsden Jones (London, 1966), p. 91; Balad-
huri, Ansab al-Ashraf, ed. Muhammad Hamidullah. vol. I (Cairo, 1959), p. 367.

4. Akhbar al-Dawla al-Abbasiyya, ed. `A. `A. Duri and A. J. al-Muttalibi
(Beirut, 1971), p. 280; Tabari, Ta'rikh, ed. M. J. de Goeje, vol. 2 (Leiden. 1879-1901),
pp. 1968-69: Julius Wellhausen, The Arab Kingdom and Its Fall (Calcutta, 1927), p.
534. When reproached by their masters, and even by some of his own supporters and
companions, Abu Muslim replied: "If any slave comes willingly to join our cause, we
shall accept him and he shall have the same privileges and the same duties as we."
Speaking of a certain slave, belonging to one `Asim, Abu Muslim remarked: "It was
God who liberated him, and God has a better claim than `Asim." A garbled version of these events seems to have reached as far as Byzantium, where the historian
Theophanes, in recording the events of the year of Creation 624(1 (748 A.D.). reports
that the slaves in Khurasan, incited by Abu Muslim, killed their masters in a single
night and equipped themselves with their arms, horses, and money. See Theophanes,
Chronographia (Bonn. 1839), pp. 654-55: German translation by Leopold Breyer,
Bilderstreit and Arahersturnt in Byzanz (Graz, 1957), pp. 66-67, 70.

5. Baladhuri, Futult al-Buldan, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden, 1866), p. 458; discussed in David Avalon. "Preliminary remarks on the mamluk military institution in
Islam." in War, Technology, and Society in the Middle East, ed. V. J. Pang and M. E.
Yapp (London, 1975), pp. 45-46.

6. The chronicle attributed to Dionysus of Tell-Mahre: J.-B. Chabot, ed., Chro-
nique de Denys de Tell-Maitre (Paris, 1895). pp. 84f. of Syrian text (= p. 72, French
trans. ).

7. See O. S. A. Ismail, "Mu`tasim and the Turks," Bulletin of the School of
Oriental and African Studies 29 (1966), pp. 12-24; David Avalon, "The Military
Reforms of Caliph al-Mu'tasim" (paper presented to the International Congress of
Orientalists, New Delhi, 1964). On the origins and development of Islamic military
slavery, see Patricia Crone, Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity
(Cambridge, 1980), and the by-now classic articles of David Avalon, collected in three
volumes published in the Variorum Series: Studies on the Mamltiks of Egypt (12501517) (London, 1977), The Mamluk Military Society (London, 1979), Outsiders in the
Lands of Islam: Mamluks, Mongols, and Eunuchs (London. 1988). On Ottoman
military slavery, see I. Metin Kunt, The Sultan's Servants: The Transformation of
Ottoman Provincial Government, 1550-1650 (New York, 1983), esp. chaps. 3, 4;
idem, "Kullann Kullari," Bogazici Universitesi Dergisi-Hhmaniter Bilintler 3 (1975),
pp. 27-42: Halil Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age (London, 1973), pp.
68ff., 77ff., 84ff.

8. Ibn Khaldun. Kitdb al-`Ibar wa-diwan al-mubtada wa'l-khabar, vol. 5 (Bulaq,
1284/1867), p. 371: English translation in Bernard Lewis, Islam from the Prophet
Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, vol. 1 (New York, 1974), pp. 97-99.

9. On these, see Daniel Pipes, "Black soldiers," International Journal of African
Historical Studies 13, no. 1 (1980), pp. 88-90, where references to sources are given.
Dr. Pipes's careful examination of these sources has yielded a meager haul.

10. G. Rotter, Die Stellung des Negers (Bonn, 1967), pp. 65ff. On the "Ahabish"
of Mecca see Eh, s.v. (by W. Montgomery Watt). For a more recent discussion of early
black, slave soldiers, see Jere L. Bacharach, "African military slaves and the medieval
Middle East: The cases of Iraq (869-955) and Egypt (868-1171)," International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 13 (1981), pp. 471-94. In discussing the struggles between different ethnic and racial groups of soldiery, Bacharach is concerned to prove
two propositions: that race was not the sole cause and that it was never of any great
importance. He has no difficulty with the first, and as far as I am aware no one has ever
claimed otherwise. He is rather less convincing on the second. The article does, however, offer a very useful collection of evidence and references.

11. The list of Ibn Tulun's treasures and possessions is given in al-Oadi al-Rashid
ihn al-Zuhayr (attrib.). Kitcih al-Dhakha'ir na'l-tuhaf ed. Muhammad Hamid Allah
and Salah al-Din al-Munajjid (Kuwait. 1959), p. 227. See, further, C. H. Becker.
Beitrage zur Geschichte Agyptens unter der Islam, vol. 2 (Strassburg, 1903), pp. 19293. On the participation of Tulunid black troops in the sack of Thessalonica in 904 A.D.,

see B. Christides, "Once again Caminiates' 'Capture of Thessaloniki,' " B_vzantinische
Zeitschrift 74 (1981), p. 8.

12. Maqrizi, Kitah al-Mawa'iz n•0-i'tibur fi dhikr al-khitat wa7-athar (hereafter
Maqrizi, Khitat), vol. I (Bulaq, 1271/1854), p. 315; Ahu'l-Mahasin Ihn Taghri Birdi,
Al-Nujum al-zahira, vol. 3 (Cairo, 1351/1932), p. 15. Even among the Zanj rebels, we
are told, whites and blacks were segregated. Whites had separate houses, blacks did
not: whites were allowed to drink wine, blacks were not (Tahhri, Tarikh, vol. 3, pp.
1760, 1959; Rotter, Die .Stelluug des Negers, pp. 109-10).

13. Ihn Taghri Birdi, Nujum, vol. 3, p. 59.

14. Ibid., p. 137: Maqrizi, Khitat, vol. 1, p. 322.

15. `Arib ihn Sad al-Qurtubi, Silat Ta'rikh al-Tabari, ed. M. J. de Goeje (Leiden,
1897), pp. 148-50. Other accounts in Muhammad ihn `Abd al-Malik al-Hamadani,
Takmilat ta'rikh al-Tabari, ed. Albert Yusuf Kan'an, 2d ed. (Beirut, 1961), p. 63;
Miskawayh, Kitab Tajarib al-Umam, ed. H. Amedroz, vol. 1 (Oxford and Cairo, 1332/
1914), pp. 202-3 (English translation by D. S. Margoliouth, The Eclipse of the Abbasid
Caliphate, vol. 4 [Oxford, 1920], pp. 227-28): Ibn al-Athir, Ktanil, anno 318, ed.
Tornberg, vol. 8 (Leiden, 1862), pp. 159-60; ibid.. ed. 'Abd al-Wahhab al-Najjar, vol.
8 (Cairo, 1353), p. 208 (hereafter Ihn al-Athir, Kinnil [Tornherg] and Ihn al-Athir,
Kamil [Cairo]). Cf. H. Bowen, The Lite and Times of Ali ibn'Isa "The Good Vizier"
(Cambridge, 1928). p. 290.

16. The fullest account is that of Ihn al-Sabi' (d. 1056), cited by Ihn Taghri Birch,
Nujum, vol. 4, pp. 180-83. Cf. Muhammad `Abdallah `Inan, Al-Hakim bi 'antr
illah . . . . 2d ed. (Cairo, 1379/1959), pp. 207-8; S. Lane-Poole, A History of Egypt in
the Middle Ages, 2d ed. (London, 1914), p. 133. Another atrocity story is recorded
under the year 428 of the Hijra, corresponding to 1036-37, the time of the great
famine in Cairo: "The blacks used to wait in the alleys, catch women with hooks, strip
off their flesh and eat them. One day a woman passed through the Street of the Lamps
in old Cairo. She was fat, and the blacks caught her with hooks and cut a piece off her
behind. Then they sat down to eat and forgot about her. She went out of the house and
called for help, and the chief of police came and raided the house. He brought out
thousands of bodies and killed the blacks" (Ihn Taghri Birdi, Nujtini, vol. 5, p. 17).
There are other stories of cannibalism, especially in times of famine, without any racial
implication. See Bacharach. "African military slaves," p. 494, n. 55, where examples
are cited.

17. Ihn al-Athir, Kamil, anno. 564 (Tornberg), vol. 9, pp. 228-93; ibid. (Cairo),
vol. 9, p. 103.

18. Abu Shama, Kitab al-Rawdatavn, ed. Muhammad Hilmi Muhammad Ahmad,
vol. 1, pt. I (Cairo, 1962). p. 452; cf. Maqrizi, Khitat, vol. 2, p. 3.

19. The chief Arabic sources are Ibn al-Athir; Abut Shama, Kitab al-Rawdatayn,
vol. 1, pt. 1, pp. 450-55; Maqrizi, Khitat, vol. 2, pp. 2-3. 19; lhn Wasil, Mufarrij al-
kurub, ed. Jamal al-Din al-Shayyal. vol. 1 (Cairo, 1953). pp. 176-78. See, further, S.
Lane-Poole. Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (New York, 1898), pp.
101-3; H. A. R. Gihb, "The rise of Saladin," in A History of the Crusades, ed. K. M.
Setton, vol. 1, The First Hundred Years, ed. M. W. Baldwin. 2d ed. (Madison, 1969),
pp. 565; N. Elisseeff, Nur ad-Din, an grand prince musulman de Syrie au temps des
Croisades, vol. 2 (Damascus, 1967), pp. 642-44; 'Abd al-Mun'im Majid. Zuhur
khilafat al-Fatimivvin wa-suqutuha (Cairo. 1968), pp. 482-83.

20. Maqrizi, Khitat, vol. 2. p. 19.

21. D. Avalon, Gunpowder and Firearms in the Mam/uk Kin,gdorn (London,
1956), pp. 66ff.

22. Maqrizi, Kitah al-Suluk, ed. Muhammad Mustafa Ziyada, vol. 1 (Cairo, 1934), p. 440 (French translation in E. Quatremere, Histoire des sultans mamlouks tie
l'Egypte, vol. 1, pt. I [Paris. 18371, pp. 122-29). See, further, A. N. Poliak, "Les
Revoltes populaires en Egypte a I'epoque des mamelouks et leurs causes econom-
iques," Revue des etudes islamiques (1934), pp. 241-73, esp. 254-72.

23. Slightly variant accounts in Ibn Taghri Birdi, Hawadith al-Duhdr, ed. W. Popper, vol. 8, pt. I (Berkeley, 1930), pp. 19-20; al-Sakhawi, A/-Tihr al-masbuk ft dhavl
al-Suluk (Cairo, 1896), p. 126; Ibn Iyas, Badd'i` al-zuhur, vol. 2 (Bulaq, 1311/189394), p. 28. See also Poliak, "Les Revoltes populaires," pp. 272-73; 1. M. Lapidus,
Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, MA, 1967), pp. 171-72.

24. Ansari, cited and translated from an unpublished manuscript by D. Ayalon,
"Gunpowder," p. 70.

25. Andrew Handler, "The `abid under the Umayyads of Cordova and the muluk
al-tawa'if," in Occident and Orient: A Tribute to the Memory of Alexander Scheiher, ed.
Robert Dan (Budapest and Leiden, 1988), pp. 229-39. M. Brett, "Ifriqiya as a market
for Saharan trade from the tenth to the twelfth century A.D.," Journal of African
History 10 (1969), pp. 354-56. On black slaves in medieval Tunisia, see also H. I. Idris,
La Berberie orientate sous les Zirides: Xe-X//e siecles (Paris, 1962), pp. 575-76, 68485; M. Talbi, L'Emirat aghlabide 184-296/800-909: histoire politique (Paris, 1966), pp.
193-247.

26. Ramon Lourido Diaz, "La rebelion de los 'Abid, en 1778, y su desintegracion
como milicia especial," Cuadernos de historia del Islam 5 (1973), pp. 99-149: Nicola
Ziadeh, "Al-Mawlay Ismail Sultan al-Maghrib, 1082-1139/1672-1727," Al-Ahhath 17
(1964), pp. 155ff.: Allan R. Meyers, "Class, ethnicity, and slavery: The origins of the
Moroccan 'Abid," International Journal of African Historical Studies 10 (1977), pp.
427-42; Henri Terrasse, Histoire du Maroc, vol. 2 (Casablanca, 1950), pp. 256-57:
Ch.-Andre Julien, Histoire de l'Afrique du Nord, 2d ed. (Paris, 1961), pp. 229-30. The
relevant passages from Nasiri's chronicle were translated into French by Eugene
Fumey and published in Archives marocaines 9 (1906), pp. 74-78, 94-96.