Islam's Black Slaves 0374227748

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iSLom's THE

OTHER

DIASPORA

BLACK

BLOCK R

O N A

L

D

S

E

G A

L

Author

of

the black diaspora

SLQVeS

I

eSSSESSBBOIP U.S.A.

$25.00

Canoda $39.95

A companion

volume

groundbreaking work

The

to

Diaspora,

Block

and

the fascinating

tells

this

horrify-

ing story of the Islamic slave trade. Islam's Block Slaves

documents a centuries-old

and

traces the business of slavery

from Islam's inception in

Spain,

and on

to

and

its

survives,

still

repercussions

the seventh century, through

in

China, India,

history

that

institution

its

and

Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Libya,

Sudan and Mauritania, where, even

today, slaves continue to be sold.

Segal reveals in

this

the

for the

first

time the

numbers involved

trade— as many millions as were transported

Americas-and explores

traffic in

the East

and

to

between the

the differences

the West. Beginning

some

centuries earlier than the Atlantic Trade, the

eight

Islamic

Trade was conducted on a different scale, and pro-

r^ vided slaves more often for domestic— including sexual—

and

military service than

for plantation

slaves rose to positions of authority,

came

rulers.

Because

labor.

and a few even

be-

of specific spiritual teachings,

lam was generally more humane than the West treatment of slaves and their

Some

in its

in

Is-

its

willingness to grant them

numbers

of innocent people,

^

CD

cr CX)

OCT

^-^

CD

JD

DO -
91, after his conquest of Timbuktu, that the Sa'dian ruler

Mansur again brought

militar\' slaves into the

from among the captives. And

Moroccan army,

their descendants are likely to

rule.

became

first

the guardians and then the

selected

have been

part of that great black military' slave force which, for a time

'Alawid dynast)',

al-

a

under the

commanders

of

THE PRACTICE OF SLAVERY Mulay

second

Isma'il, the

'Alavvid Sultan

55

(1672-1727), was himself

the son of a black concubine. Early in his reign, he instituted a system by

which black girls

slave children over the age of ten

were educated and trained

household.

The

learned related

in

were conscripted. The

domestic virtues by the

women

of his

boys worked with carpenters and other craftsmen,

skills

and

also

how

and then

ious martial abilities,

to

handle horses, were trained

in var-

enlisted in the army. Presented with the

now accomplished young women in marriage and with funds to build their own homes, the young men were expected not only to provide militar\' senice but, with their wives, to create a new generation for similar treatment.

The

numbers

A

army was

resultant black slave vary'

widely— from

figure of 150,000, based

as

many

certainly large; estimates of

on the ledgers of the Sultan's chief

might have included black

slaves assigned to public

and

Mulay

efficient,

Isma'il, a ruler as ruthless

who succeeded

kingdom. After

hundred

army

loyal

and troubled

army made and unmade, within

no fewer than seven Sultans from among

sons, until a strong ruler,

to disperse the

as

army gave

as

he was energetic

in uniting at last a long-torn

his death the black slave

a span of thirty years,

and cruel

secretary,

works as well

those devoted to military ser\ace. Whatever the case, this service to

its

as 250,000 to fewer than 50,000."^

his five

enthroned in 1757, recruited an Arab

black one. At the end of the eighteenth century,

however, black slaves were once again being integrated into the army.

And

late in the

nineteenth century, an army of five thousand black slaves

served the ruler of High, a small principality in southern Morocco. "^^

The

uses to

which black

documented. There

is

slaves

were put

in Islam are relatively well

much more uncertainty about the One scholar, Ralph Austen,

bers exported in the trade.

overall

num-

has provided

rough calculations, albeit based mainly on sparse indicative records particular periods. to

These

figures

show

fluctuations that

times of economic expansion or contraction; the

slaves and, alternatively, of white ones;

mand

for

may correspond

availabilitv-

of black

and the growth or decline

in de-

for particular purposes, as for military' service or plantation labor.

Austen's calculations encompass the three sectors of the export trade in black slaves: across the Sahara,

from the coast of the Red Sea, and

from East Africa. For the trans-Saharan trade, conducted along

six

major

RONALDSEGAL

56 he estimates

routes,

4,820,000 for the 950 years between 650

a total of

and 1600. He suggests 1,000 for the period

that this sector

650-800

began with an annual average of

(a total of 150,000);

then tripled

to

an an-

nual average of 3,000 in the ninth century (300,000); almost tripled again, to an annual average of 8,700 in the tenth

and eleventh centuries

(1,740,000); declined to an annual average of 5,500 in the Kvelfth to

fourteenth centuries (1,650,000); declined even further to an annual average of 4,300 in the fifteenth century; then rose again to an annual av-

Red Sea

erage of 5,500 in the sixteenth century (550,000). For the

he estimates

trade,

a

total

coast

of 1,600,000; for the East African one,

800,000, in the period 800-1600.-^6

Another scholar, Paul Lovejoy, has commented: 'The

figures cited

Saharan trade between 650 and 1600 and

here, 4,820,000 for the

Ocean trade between 800 and number actually exported or volume. The time span is so great and

2,400,000 for the Red Sea and Indian 1600, could be twice as

considerably

less

many

than the

slaves as the

total

the supply area so extensive that the estimated figure (7,220,000)

rough approximation indeed;

a range of 3.5 to 10 million

is

is

a

more accu-

rate."^^ It is

estimated that in the seventeenth centur\' 700,000 slaves were ex-

ported along the trans-Saharan routes, 100,000 from the

and another 100,000 from East African 9,000, or 900,000 in are

still

larger:

all.

coast,

an annual average of

for the eighteenth centur\'

700,000 across the Sahara, 200,000 from the Red Sea, and

400,000 from East Africa, 1,300,000."^^

ports, for

Estimated numbers

Red Sea

for

an annual average of 11,300, or

By the end of the eighteenth century,

a total of

therefore, a rough to-

of 9,420,000 slaves might have been dispatched from black Africa to

tal

the markets of Islam.

The

nineteenth centur}' exceeded any of the previous twelve cen-

turies in the is

more

volume of this

trade,

and the related documentar\' evidence

and exact than

extensive

it

is

for

any previous

centur)-.

Some

1,200,000 have been estimated for the trans-Saharan routes, 450,000 for the

Red Sea

route,

and 442,000

nual average of over 20,000, or

added

to the previous

half centuries, of

1

for East African coastal exports:

more than 2,000,000

estimated numbers, makes a

in

all."^"^

total, for

an an-

This figure,

twelve and a

1,512,000, a figure not far short of the 11,863,000 es-

THE PRACTICE OF SLAVERY

57

timated to have been loaded onto ships during the four centuries of the Atlantic slave trade.

Nor was

'^

this the

end.

Raymond Mauvy

black slaves were traded in Islam in the

And

own

his

first

has estimated that 300,000

half of the twentieth century.

estimates for the total of the trade since

exceed Austen's.

He

start substantially

its

has suggested a figure of 100,000 for the seventh

century; 200,000 for the eighth; 400,000 for the ninth; 500,000 for each

of the next four centuries; 1,000,000 for the fourteenth centur}'; and

2,000,000 for each of the following

five centuries

— or,

with his estimate

of 300,000 for part of the twentieth century, a total of 14,000,000.^^

Estimates as enormous as those of Austen or Lovejoy,

Mauvy,

are disputed. Basil Davidson,

let

alone

whose distinguished work on the

history of Africa and, in particular, the Adantic slave trade requires re-

spect for his judgments,

is

one such

Being expensive, they were cherished garded

as individuals, often

they were

re-

as irreplaceable."^-

The

question of expense remains crucial. E.

the mass of his

He argues: "Slaves were exman was able to purchase them.

critic.

pensive. For the most part, only the rich

documents discovered

work on Jewish

social history

ranean area from the tenth

in a

S.

Goitein,

who drew on

Cairo geniza, or storeroom, for

and Islamic

civilization in the Mediter-

to the thirteenth century,

gave the standard

price of a slave in Cairo during the Fatimid period as twenty gold dinars.

Davidson Bakri,

cites this, as well as the report

who, writing

in the western

could cost

a

in

of the Andalusian historian

1067 about the excellence of black female cooks

Sudanic trading

hundred dinars

cit\^

of Awdaghost, added that such a cook

or more.^^ Furthermore, in Islamic Spain,

records of the period 1065-67 reveal that a black slave cost 160 mictals the local term for dinars similar

al-

— while a house

sum, another house

for

in the city of

280 mictals,

Cordoba

a horse for 24,

—

sold for a

and

a

mule

for 60.5^

Against this expense should be set the pressure of need. Goitein himself,

dealing with one aspect of such need, describes

it

as follows:

"This

study shows that the female slaves formed a vital section of the working

population, insofar as they provided domestic help, a

shunned by gets at

free

women. We,

t\'pe

of work

with electricity and gas and coundess gad-

our disposal, can easily forgo the services of a maid. But in the

RONALD SEGAL

58 Geniza period,

as in the

time of our ov\n grandparents, a larger house-

hold could hardly do w ithout domestic help. This explains slaver)-

looms so large

Geniza

in the

why female

papers/'^^

Furthermore, the rich in Islam could be very rich indeed. The tenthcentur\'

Arab

where

good female cook

a

traveler

Ibn Hawqal, visiting the self-same Awdaghost cost a

hundred dinars

ing a check for forty-two thousand dinars

— issued

dred cooks

ownership of

to

merchant

a

in

southern Morocco.'^

slaves, for all their relatively

the economic context.

or more, reported see-

— enough to buy over four hun-

Times and places

And

the

high price, could grow with

set their

own

standards.

In the eleventh century' in al-Andalus, or Islamic Spain, slave cost the equivalent of 160 dinars, there

when

a black

was an economic boom, fed

not only by West African gold flows but by also the export of products

from specialized agriculture and manufacturing. The at

foreign

result

was

inflation

much purchasing power abroad that it dominated some markets. As Thomas Glick writes: "The sale of the Egyptian flax

home and

so

crop in the eleventh centur\' was coordinated with the arrival of Andalusi

merchants

.

.

.

Viewed from

al-Andalus, the Islamic world was a vast

em-

porium where finished products and highly valued raw materials could be purchased for gold."^

one that

so

much

In so far as slaves

prosperit}'

was well able

That price might have been

a

came

to

be

a luxur\,

it

was

to afford.

poor guide

to

numbers

is

strongly sug-

gested by a period and place for which extensive information on the mar-

keting of slaves sales

is

available

— late-nineteenth-centur}'

were by auction, and prices varied according

and condition. Females comprised the

Morocco. Market

to age,

gender, origin,

large majority- of imports, with the

pubescent generally fetching the highest

prices. In 1876, at the

market

in Essaouira, prices

ranged between £10 ($48) and £30 ($144): £10-15

($48-72) for males

five to

ten years of age; £15-20 ($72-96) for males

ten to fifteen years old and females five to ten years old; and £20-30

($96-144)

for

females aged ten

to fifteen.

Once

trained for agricultural,

domestic, or other work, they could then be resold for appreciably higher prices, in

accordance with

their skills

and appearance.

Attractive virgins

could fetch £40-80 ($192-386) and even more.'^

These were serious sums for the slave

market

in

in the

nineteenth centur). Yet tax returns

Marrakesh reveal that the average annual number

of slaves sold there was 3,788 in the period 1876-78 and 4,781 in the

THE PRACTICE OF SLAVERY

59

period 1884-94, with annual peaks of 6,305 in 1890-91 and 6,302 in

1893-94. (These figures apply to the Islamic calendar year, which en-

compasses parts of two years

Some

of these slaves were

Moroccan owners

Era calendar.)

in the Christian

related to the internal trade, sold by their

Morocco by

or speculatively bought elsewhere in

dealers looking to higher prices in the leading market. Certainly, too, the

might well

Marrakesh market was so predominant

at this

have accounted

recorded sales in the urban mar-

kets of

for three-quarters of all

Morocco. But

is

it

likely that

such

period that

it

sales represented at

Even within the

law,

many

sales

by clandestine

taxes

imported slaves were traded in rural or

had

little

or

sales.

were conducted on commission and

never reached the markets for inclusion in the records. Not

ities

a

Muslim law

quarter of the total. Slave dealers were notorious for flouting

and doubtless found various ways of evading

most

tribal areas

where the

On

only intermittent control.

least,

this

many

tax author-

basis,

Daniel

Schroeter states that "a conservative estimate of annual slave imports

from the 1870s

to

1894 would range between 4,000 and 7,000, with an

apparent upward trend until

Many prices

slaves

auctioned in the urban markets might well have fetched

beyond the reach of all but the

and high

ers,

at least 1894."^^

officials.

The

well as to

protection.

Sultan himself contributed mightily to

An

estimated

markets were bound for the royal

Moroccans of no

— mainly merchants, landown-

Yet there were clearly enough of these to sustain a

sizable trade. its

rich

5

household. ^^

great wealth, however,

at a suitable price, in

percent of

its

prosperit}' as

all slaves

There were

who could

sold in the also

many

afford a slave or

two

the major urban markets and especially in the un-

regulated rural or tribal areas.

No

less

relevant to the

argument on the

overall

volume of the Islamic

trade in black slaves are the particular reports of the large

ported or on sale at various times. In the 1570s, a

Egypt found "many thousands" of blacks on days.^^ In eler,

sale in

trans-

visiting

Cairo on market

1665-66, Father Antonius Gonzales, a Spanish-Belgian

trav-

reported seeing eight hundred to one thousand slaves in the Cairo

market on five

numbers

Frenchman

a single day.^^ In 1796, a British traveler reported a

caravan of

thousand slaves departing from Dar Fur.^^ In 1849, the British vice

consul reported the arrival of 2,384 slaves

at

Murzuq

in the Fezzan.^"^

These numbers may seem small alongside Mauvy's estimate of

RONALDSEGAL

60 14,000,000 for the

total

volume of the Islamic black and

that total, spread across thirteen

nual average of 10,370, or

little

some

1

from Dar Fur

1,500,000, based on the Austen estimates for

in the sin-

The

in 1796.

even

an an-

a half centuries, represents

more than twice the number

gle caravan that reportedly departed total of

slave trade. Yet

lower

and

tv\'elve

half centuries, represents an annual average of 9,200. Furthermore,

if

a

the

figure of 2,000,000 for the nineteenth century, hardly disputed even by

the critics of high numbers, were excluded as distortingly exceptional,

the annual average for eleven and a half centuries would have been 8,270.

Nor was demand

simple pleasure of possession were also ture, so driven

and the

necessarily related to need. Status, custom, factors. In today's

Western cul-

by competitive consumption, there can be no

difficulty in

understanding an Islamic culture in which the ownership of slaves was

a

An eleventh-century traveler, visiting man there might own as many as a thou-

form of conspicuous consumption. Awdaghost, reported that a rich sand

slaves. ^^

At the other extreme, a nineteenth-century British

told

by a local shaykh that there were

ous

district

thirty slaves in his

between Tripoli and Ghadames

"how the people could keep

slaves

when

visitor,

poor mountain-

in the Sahara,

wondered

they could scarcely keep them-

selves."^^

Another explanation

for the large

very variety of occupations for

numbers of black

slaves

was the

which they were required. By 1838,

for in-

stance, an estimated ten thousand to twelve thousand slaves were arriv-

ing in Egypt alone each year,

domestic service there or ers for use

as

some of them doubdess bound

for export to

for

undertake similar service, but oth-

concubines, construction and factory workers, porters,

dockers, clerks, soldiers, and cultivators.

Despite the impact of the ninth-century Zanj rebellion in discouraging the large-scale

were

still

engagement of black

slave labor in agriculture, there

times and places of just such an engagement. In the most no-

table instance, during the nineteenth centur)', the

numbers acquired

work on clove plantations on the East African offshore zibar

and Pemba, and other plantations mainly devoted

in the vicinity of

taled

some

Mombasa and Malindi

islands of

to

to

Zan-

growing grain,

along the East African coast,

to-

769,000.^'

I

THE PRACTICE OF SLAVERY Such numbers

61

from the cited volume of the nineteenth-

are excluded

century East African black slave trade, whose

of 442,000 includes

total

347,000 for Arabia, Persia, and India, and 95,000 for the Mascarene lands. ^^

While the use of

slaves at the coast

and on the offshore

was stricdy an aspect of the internal black African trade, recdy connected to the external Islamic network.

conducted by Arab or Afro-Arab

owned by Omani zibari Sultanate.

slavers;

The

it

Is-

islands

was also

di-

trade itself was

most of the plantations were

Arabs; and the sovereign authority was the Zan-

This presents an argument

volume

for raising the total

of the Islamic trade for the nineteenth century and overall.

Where, however,

is

the evidence in Islam today, as there

in the

is

Americas, of a historical trade in black slaves that amounted to so millions?

One

blacks

whose

visible

enough

is

that there are, in fact, considerable

North Africa, from Morocco

across

and from evidence of

States;

where such

slaves

However, the main answer

has written: "Indeed, slaves crossing the

be

Middle

this, in turn,

it

is

a

They

are

Yemen

to Egypt; in

darkening gene in other

were dispatched. is

rate of social assimilation in Islam

Africa, the

numbers of

origin was overwhelmingly in the Islamic Trade.

and the Gulf parts of Islam

answer

many

that there

was simply a

much

than in the Americas. As H.

higher

J.

Fisher

arguable that a considerable majority of the

Sahara were destined to become concubines in North East,

and occasionally even further

which helps

to explain

why

afield.

And

it

may

a flow of slaves possibly

greater in total than that across the Adantic has not led to any

compara-

bly dramatic racial confrontation in North African society, although distinctions there of course are."^'^

The

crucially different

the Islamic Trade

would support

this

vironment were

gender ratios— two females

and two males

to every

to every

female in the Adantic

far

more the means of

assimilation than were

turies,

and

much

male

environment. Further, the higher rate of manu-

mission in Islam and the absence of institutionalized racism

trades

in

one —

argument. Certainly, female slaves in a domestic en-

slaves in the plantation

assimilation so

male

the easier.

And even

if

made

social

the volumes of the two

were roughly the same, the Adantic Trade involved only four cenwhile the Islamic one stretched well beyond

social assimilation

that.

Manumission

were not only more acceptable and widespread

in

RONALDSEGAL

62

Islam for doctrinal reasons but arguably also for the gradual character of the process.

There were two

final factors.

eunuchs among black

Lewis has cited "the high proportion of

and "the high

slaves entering the Islamic lands"

among black slaves in North Africa and the much evidence for the second— as, alreadv m-

death rate and low birth rate

Middle

East."

^

There

is

Court probate records

dicated, for the first— claim.

among

ingly low" birth rate

women

black slave

attest to

in

an "astonish-

Cairo during the

eighteenth century and most of the nineteenth century. Louis Frank, a

French physician who resided

in Tunisia

marked on the high mortality

rate in early

during the early 1800s,

among

childhood

re-

blacks

French physicians reported an exceptionally high

there. In 1834, local

death rate from plague in Alexandria for "Negroes and Berbers." In 1838, a

French government census revealed

a

low reproduction

rate

among

blacks in Algiers.'^

There may be various reasons their initial captivity

for this.

Recent

slaves,

weakened by

and debilitating journey, would have been easy

tims to climate changes and infections. Children were especially at

and the Islamic market demand

American one. Many black

for children

slave

women

or provided with the opportunities for slave

and

free, lived in

with effects on their

it

much

greater than the

were not used

Not

least,

risk,

for procreation

many

blacks, both

conditions conducive to malnutrition and disease,

own

life

infant mortality rate. For scaled,

it.

was

vic-

all

expectancy, the

fertilit}-

of

women, and

the

the heights that Islamic civilization had

lagged increasingly behind the West in protecting public

health.

The

arithmetic of the Islamic black slave trade must also not ignore

the lives of those

men, women, and children taken

curement, storage, and transport.

One

or lost during pro-

late-nineteenth-century writer

held that the sale of a single captive for slavery might represent a ten in the population

deaths of

women and

— from

of

defenders killed in attacks on villages, the

children from related famine, and the loss of chil-

dren, the old, and the sick unable to keep

up with

their captors or killed

along the way in hostile encounters or dying of sheer misery. Terror, suffering,

loss

-

and death did not end with the raiding and wars

that provided the captives.

And

of the subsequent

trials

and dangers

that

THE PRACTICE OF SLAVERY took their

own

of death, there

toll

is

those Western travelers and explorers

were known or their

at least

63

ample evidence

who

in the writings of

witnessed them.

such costs

If

suspected by the purchasers of black slaves in

market destinations,

demand

clearly did not affect the

it

that sus-

tained the markets themselves.

Gustav Nachtigal,

a

German

physician, traveled from 1869 to 1874

through various parts of the black African lished in three storage

volumes from 1879

and transport conditions

to 1889,

interior,

and

pub-

his reports,

include vivid accounts of the

At the marshaling

in the slave trade. ^^

yards of 'Abu Sekkin, the ruler of Bagirmi, newly captured slaves were

kept in chains strips

or,

when

On

no chains

left,

some of them were

of rawhide, even though

scarcely able to move.^"^ ter at

there were

subsequent journey

a

were

so

tied together

weak

marketing cen-

to the

Kuka, on the shore of Lake Chad, Nachtigal accompanied a cara-

van with hundreds of slaves and observed such hardships that slave

who

to escape,

survived,

he estimated that three or four had died

or,

for every

desperate

had disappeared.''

Crossing the Sahara was

more

by

were

that they

likely to

prove

hazardous undertaking and thus

itself a

fatal for slaves in a

weakened condition.

On

his

way

both into and back from the Tibesti region, Nachtigal encountered nu-

merous bleached human bones and the skeletons of camels, the remains of slave caravans that had reached local springs only to find

them

choked.^

Cold could be

as

lethal

as

heat.

The

explorer

Heinrich Barth

recorded that his friend Bashir, wazir of Bornu, while on pilgrimage with

numerous

slaves

he intended

selling, lost forty of

single night, killed by the cold in the

Benghazi.

them

in the course of a

mountains between Fezzan and

^^

Sometimes the caravan ran

short of food, either because the journey

took longer than expected or because the supplies had been stinted at the start to reduce expenses. In such cases, the traders were likely to distribute whatever food

was

still

available with a

mind more

survival than to that of their slaves.

A

one hundred skeletons from

caravan that had

sufficient

food stocks, and

a slave

British explorer

left

to fatten

them

for the

own

Bornu with

recorded that the survivors,

reached Fezzan, were then fed

to their

encountered over

market

when

in-

they

in Tripoli.

^^

RONALD SEGAL

64 Not

was

least, disease

came all

neck

The

them apparently

stricken with smallpox,

neck with twisted

to

as likeK' to spread as

to Zaria, in

and the

of bullock hide.

strips

Richard Lander

British explorer

on the way

across a group of thirty slaves

of

and

a constant threat

quickly in a caravan as on a ship.

men

The

"^

West

Africa,

were bound

distress of

such

groups was often increased by their being shunned along the way, without help or haven.

Some

more than

caravans suffered

One caravan, coast from Manyuema

a single adversity.

with three thousand slaves, proceeding toward the in

East Mrica, lost two-thirds of

its

numbers from

star\^ation, disease,

and

murder. Joseph Thomson, a British explorer, found the remainder surviving

on

and

grass

roots along the western

Other caravans, with

One

have vanished in the Libyan

hundred

altogether,

with two thousand slaves was reported to

desert.^' In 1850, a

caravan of t\vent\-five

thousand slaves was reported by the Sardinian consul

to three

in Tripoli to

numbers of slaves, disappeared

large

without attributable cause.

bank of Lake Tanganyika. ^^

have been

lost

along the route between Wadai and Beng-

hazi.8^

who

For slaves

survived the journey to East Coast,

Red

Sea, or North

African ports, for onward transport, there were further tribulations.

dhows on which they were conveyed were generally small and packed

to cut costs. In

congenial or

less

and India

closely

such conditions, the sea voyage was scarcely more

dangerous than caravan

of a 9 percent mortalit}^ rate Persia,

The

among

travel

had been.

One

estimate

East African slave exports to Arabia,

in the nineteenth centur}-

seems

safe

from any charge

of exaggeration.^^

The

nineteenth century, from which such detailed reports derive,

was

distinctive

and

for the

both for the sheer \olume of the Islamic black slave trade

recorded

with which so

brutalit}'

ducted. Yet the cause and character of

from peculiar

to that centur)-.

and dangers of the This was

of the trade was con-

fatalities in

They were inherent

the reports were far

in the ver\ difficulties

transit routes.

all a far

the respect for

much

cry from the call to compassion, justice, tolerance,

human

dignit\', that

belonged

to the divine design

com-

municated by the Prophet. Though never remotely institutionalized they eventually

became

in the

West,

racist attitudes did

emerge

as

in Islam

I

THE PRACTICE OF SLAVERY as a rationalization or result of the trade in

have developed

titudes should

marketing of Muslim torian,

Ahmad

to

65

black slaves.

And

that such at-

condone even the enslavement and

blacks fired one nineteenth-century

Moroccan

ibn Khalid al-Nasiri (1834-97), to an impassioned denun-

ciation:

It

will

be clear

to

you from what we have related of the

Sudan how

tory of the

far

they are

among

Thus fliction

will

men

to

It

will also

be clear that

the best peoples in regard to Islam, the

most avid

religiously upright, the

most devoted

his-

the people of these lands had

taken to Islam from ancient times.

most

of learning

be apparent

.

.

for learning

and the

.

you the heinousness of the

to

af-

which has beset the lands of the Maghreb since an-

cient times in regard to the indiscriminate enslaving of the

people of the Sudan and the importation of droves of them every year to be sold in the market places in town and

men

country where beasts

ured

— nay

them

that.

as

one would trade

People have become so

generation after generation, that

believe

folk

trade in

worse than

to that,

mon

the

that

reason

for

in in-

many com-

being enslaved

Law is merely that a man should be and come from those regions. This, by

according to the Holy black in colour

God's

one of the

life, is

upon God's

foulest

religion, for the

lims having the

same

and

gravest evils perpetrated

people of the Sudan are Mus-

rights

and

responsibilities as our-

selves.

Even and

.

.

.

if

you suppose that Muslims are not

that Islam

who among

a majority

and unbelief claim equal numbers

us can

tell

there,

whether those imported are Mus-

lims or unbelievers. For the basic assumption in regard to the

his-

human

species

ing enslaved.

^"^

is

freedom and lack of any cause

for be-

FIVE

THC FORTHCR RCQCHCS

China, India, and Spain represented three different aspects of the black slave experience at the farther reaches of Islamic

In

China black

slavery

was peripheral and connected

but encompassed by Islamic rule

trade. In India, all

ual black slaves

conquest and beyond.

came

to play a

major part

in

at

to the currents of

one time,

individ-

government, and the de-

scendants of black slaves retain a vestigial identity today. In Spain, blacks

— whether slave

or

free— were

with a high distinctive culture, before

and Christian conquest led

to the

a significant part of a civil strife, political

Muslim

state

fragmentation,

expulsion of Islam from the Iberian

peninsula.

CHINA The

Muslim geographer Ibn al-Faqlh described the that "is known between al-Andalus [Islamic Spain]

early-tenth-century

inhabited world as

all

and China."^ Occasional references provide only enticing hints of black presence in China. Joseph Needham's great study, Science Civilisation in

a

and

China, notes: "The Chinese and other Asian nations had

been using negro

slaves for

many

centuries, but the fact that their slavery

RONALD SEGAL

68

Map

1:

lYade routes of the Indian Oeean

in the fifteentli eentiin

THE FARTHER REACHES

69

was basically domestic kept the practice within bounds [short of the massive

imports for plantation labor that dominated the Atlantic Trade.

In the Chronicle of the

Tang

Dynasty, events for the year 724 in-

cluded the presentation of a black

form of tribute

Sung

the Emperor, and the

same

The Chronicle

of the

976 an Arab merchant brought

Dynast}' records that in

K'un Lun

perial court "a black

Then,

girl to

recorded in ninth-century events.

is

]"^

slave with deep-set eyes

in the twelfth century, black slaves

came

to

to the im-

and black body."^

be imported

in larger

numbers.

Chu

In 1119,

Yu, a Chinese scholar of the Sung era, wrote: "In

Kuang-chou [Canton] most of the wealthy people keep nu]y

who

are very strong

Their language and ture

is

lift

[weights of] several

tastes are unintelligible [to the

simple and they do not abscond.

[yeh-jen].

Their colour

and

their teeth white

males and females sea.

and can

is

as black as

their hair curly

among them

.

.

.

They

hundred

and yellow

They

live

catties.

Chinese]. Their na-

are also called 'wild

[Chinese] ink, their [sic].

on the

men'

lips are red,

There

islands

are both

beyond the

^

Canton was the main port of entry and trade,

and though black

other

cities,

Not

distribution center for the

would doubtless have been dispatched stayed in Canton.

Canton and spreading elsewhere,

doorkeepers.

sickness.

slaves

many would have

ion, starting in as

devil-slaves [kuei-

And

all

these,

There was even to

employ black

slaves

was remarked, looked sad from home-

it

blacks or their descendants, however, remained in

nial occupations.

The Asian

to

a fash-

Art

Museum

in

me-

San Francisco possesses

fourteenth-century Chinese painting of a black whose high status

is

a

ap-

parent from his costume and bearing.^

Another Chinese

writer,

Chan

Ju-kua, referred to African slaves in a

work dated 1226. They were, he wrote, "enticed by then caught and carried off from

Pemba

food and

for slaves to the Ta-shi [Arab]

Countries, where they fetch a high price."^ of this trade was conducted by

offers of

The

source suggests that part

Muslim Arab merchants

specifically for

the Chinese market.

Arab

seafarers

were active across the Indian Ocean, and the Arab

geographer al-Mas'udl, writing in the middle of the eleventh century,

mentioned the trade

in

which

slaves, ivory,

and iron were exported from

RONALD SEGAL

70

Mogadishu and Pemba in exchange for potten from China and Persia. The eunuch admiral Cheng Ho, himself a Muslim from the province of Yunnan whose father had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, led seven successive naval expeditions, the first in 1405-7. The fourth expedition, in 1413-15, had Muslim interpreters attached to its staff and visited Hormuz and the Persian Culf. The final three, in 1417-19, 1421-22, and 1431-33, explored the east coast of Africa, including Mogadishu and

Malinda (Malindi). In a subsequent

Chinese

text

from Li-Tai Thung Chien Chi Lan

sentials of Histor}'), Li Hsi-Hsiung, the editor

and compiler

in

(Es-

1767,

"Cheng Ho was commissioned on no less than seven embassies, and thrice he made prisoners of foreign chiefs ... At the same time, the records:

different peoples, attracted

by the

profit of

Chinese merchandise, en-

larged their mutual intercourse for purposes of trade, and there was un-

interrupted going to and fro."^ captives were taken back to

merchants

to

It is

not extravagant to infer that black

China and arrangements made with Muslim

include black slaves in further trade.

From the tw^elfth century to the beginning of the sixteenth centurv, when the Portuguese began displacing them, Muslim merchants from the Persian Gulf, Arabia, and Islamic India controlled the Indian Ocean trade essentially as

African coast

middlemen. Small trading towns along the East

became important merchant

cities,

one of these towns, the Songo Mnara palace

city

Tanganyika, search has yielded "broken glazed area, stoneware crystal

a

much

In the trol

a coral island off

from the Persian

potter\^

mass of Chinese porcelain from

Along with African

ivory,

known

China, slaves may well have been taken there, for so

on

from Burma and Siam, pieces of Cornelian, and amber,

and topaz and

early Ming."^

and from the ruins of

to

late

Sung

to

have been needed in

in part or

whole exchange

porcelain.

first

half of the seventeenth centur}-, the Portuguese lost con-

of the Indian

Ocean

trade routes,

and commercial towns, goxerned

by Swahili-speaking Muslims and trading

in i\ory

and

slaves, flourished

along the east coast of Africa. Sites dating roughly from 1637 to 1810

have yielded "great quantities of Chinese blue and white porcelain."^^ Again, this

may argue

that there

well as ivory for China, though

was some export trade it

is

in black slaves as

also possible that purchasing

such

THE FARTHER REACHES was simply part of

large quantities of porcelain

71

complex

a

pattern.

Mus-

lim merchants might have bought and sold with small regard to particular

imbalances

territorial

goods, since such imbalances could be

in

enough by payment

settled easily

in precious

metals or the related ac-

ceptable coinage.

There

is

one further aspect of the connection between black

and China. In Chinese strength

slaves

folklore, Africans are credited with peculiar

and resourcefulness. In

particular, they are celebrated as capa-

ble of diving to exceptional depths. Indeed, they were used to caulk the

seams of ships

at sea.

Chu Yu, whose

Chu

father,

Fu, had been Superin-

tendent of Merchant Shipping in eleventh-century Canton, wrote Phing-

Chou Kho Than

(Table Talk at Phingchow) in 1119. In

it

he remarked of

seafaring at the time: "If the ship suddenly springs a leak, [the mariners]

mend

cannot

it

from the

inside,

slaves [kuei-nu] to take chisels side, for these

when under

men

water."

but they order their foreign blackamoor

and oakum

are expert

[hsii]

and mend

swimmers and do not

it

from out-

close their eyes

^^

INDIA Islam expanded into India behind the sword, seizing Sind in 712 and the

Punjab

in 986, before spreading eastward

side fluctuations in

power and the

Black slaves were imported in

mainly

its

and southward,

rivalries

wake, for

of various all

Muslim

rulers.

the usual purposes but

Ethiopians were particularly favored; the

for military service.

term Habashi or Habshi—irom the Arabic word be applied

albeit along-

to other Africans as well,

for

Ethiopian

and referred not only

— came to

to the freed

but to their descendants.

Freed blacks, however, upon their conversion ing themselves "Sayyad," or descendants of

known

as Siddis.

were formidable sailors. jira

As early

Muhammad, and became

As a group, they were both cohesive and aggressive, in battle,

and were especially renowned

as 1100, they established

and Jaffrabad

ployed as

to Islam, took to call-

in

kingdoms of

their

as excellent

own

in Jan-

western India. Siddis were also increasingly em-

securit)^ forces for the

Muslim

fleets.

Siddi

commanders even

RONALD SEGAL

72 rose to

become

Mughal Empire,

admirals of the

annual

at

salaries of

300,000 rupees.

That great fourteenth-century visit to

had

traveler Ibn Battuta, during his long

and accompanying sea voyages, embarked on

India

and was "covered with

sixty oars

a roof

a ship that

during battle in order

complement

to pro-

tect the rowers from arrows and stones."

It

rowers and

He commented: "These

fifty

Abyssinian men-at-arms."

are the guarantors of safety

them on

a ship

and

it

By the

on the Indian Ocean;

a

let

of

fifty

latter

there be but one of

be avoided by the Indian pirates and

will

Such men were almost

"had

idolators."

certainly Siddis.

numbers of black

thirteenth century, substantial

slaves

—

still

mainly Ethiopian— were being imported from East Africa, and even larger

numbers

arrived in the fifteenth century. In the late 1300s,

Habshi eunuch, Malik Sarwar, became

Muhammad

and

b. Firuz,

in

vizier to the Sultan of Delhi,

1394 was appointed governor of the turbu-

lent eastern province, with his capital at Jawnpur.

the province but extended

ceeded by title

his

its

one

and was, on

frontier

adopted son, another black

He

not only pacified

his death in

Qaranful,

slave,

1

399, suc-

who

took the

of Mubarak Shah and displayed such effective independence during

his three years of rule as to

eight years,

to

sustain

armed

Ibrahim Shah became

couraged

at his

the striking of his

who succeeded him

brother, Ibrahim Shah,

strength of his

command

own

coinage. His

in 1402, ruled for thirt}-

complete independence from Delhi by the forces. as

He was no mere

renowned

court as for the

many

militarist,

however.

and scholarship he en-

for the art

impressive

new

buildings that dis-

tinguished his reign.

From

the second half of the fifteenth century, black slave soldiers

were increasingly used

in Bengal. Sultan

ruled there from 1459 to 1474,

is

Rukn

al-Din Barbak Shah,

reputed to have had eight thousand of

them, some holding high rank. His successor was assassinated by shi

eunuch who used

his

who

command

of the

army

a

Hab-

to seize the throne.

Dur-

ing the seven tumultuous years that followed, various Habshis ruled for short periods until an Arab vizier took

power and expelled the Habshis

from Bengal. Clearly more valued than feared, they found new homes

in

Gujarat and the Deccan.

Habshis also wielded influence under the Bahmani dynasty

Deccan. Sultan Firuz, who ruled from 1397

to

1422, had

in the

Habshi

THE FARTHER REACHES

73

women in his harem and Habshi men among his personal attendants. One of the latter was responsible for the Sultan's assassination, but eviThe Habshis

dently this did not cause any decline in Habshi fortunes.

were Sunni Muslims and accordingly aligned with the so-called Deccan part\'

against the growing influence of Shi'a

Sultanate.

can

Muslims and Turks

Under Ahmad Shah, who ruled from 1422

to 1435, the

was ascendant, and Habshis were appointed governors

part)^

in the

Dectwo

for

of the Sultanate's four provinces. During the 1480s, another period of

Sunni ascendancy,

a

Habshi was appointed minister of finance.

Gujarat was a maritime power, with corresponding access to black slaves.

Sultan Bahadar,

thousand of them

was Shaykh

Among those

Sa'id, a soldier of learning

who had

a

beautiful

mosque

in

came

ruled from 1526 to 1537, reportedly had five

in his service.

prowess,

that

who

famous

library^

attaining riches

and

taste as well as military

and was responsible

Ahmadabad. Indeed,

a

and power

for building a

Habshi nobility took form

into conflict with the established nobility of Gujarat. Exploit-

ing the division, the

Mughal Empire

in the north

conquered the Sul-

tanate in 1573.^^ It

was

in the

Deccan

in the latter part of the sixteenth century that

the most illustrious Habshi of

Ambar was

1550 in Ethiopia, cessive

owners

in the Hejaz,

evidently failed to provide

agement

to

promoted

dia,

embrace

sold into slavery

Born Shambu, around

and then resold

Baghdad, and Mocha. His

him with

Islam. For

his conversion;

rose to power. '"^

it

either a secure

was only

his

home

to suc-

earlier masters

or the encour-

master in

Mocha who

renamed him Ambar; and, recognizing

his

him something of finance and administration. Then, afmaster died, Ambar was sold to a slave dealer who took him to In-

abilities,

ter his

all

taught

where around 1575 he was bought by Ghingiz Khan, Habshi prime

minister to the Sultan of Ahmadnagar.

Indian

would continue

to

country into three

and Ganges the lands

had long been — and,

historv-

rivers;

be

— dominated

parts: the

the

until the nineteenth century,

by the geographical division of the

northern plains, with the basins of the Indus

Deccan plateau

to the south;

beyond the Krishna and Tungabhadra

and, south of

rivers. In

this,

the sixteenth

century, the

Mughal Muslims

composed of

the Tamil states; and five Sultanates— Ahmadnagar, Berat,

Bijapur, Bidar,

controlled the north; the far south was

and Golconda — emerged

after the collapse of the

Bah-

RONALD SEGAL

74 mani dynasW

command

to

the Deccan. All five Sultanates were within

Islam, but this did not deter

any more than

it

them from contending with one another,

persuaded them

acquiesce in the expansionism of

to

Mughal Empire.

the

The

Khan

death of Chingiz

Ahmadnagar. Ambar was and then

sold yet again,

to the Sultan of Bijapur,

command and way

led to civil dissension in the Sultanate of

the

who

Sultan of Golconda

to the

invested

him with

the military

of Malik, "Kinglike." This display of trust gave

title

to reservations,

first

however.

The

Sultan

came

to resist the

mounting

fi-

nancial costs incurred by Ambar's policy of recruiting Arabs for the army.

Around the year Arab

soldiers.

1

590,

Ambar

them from among the Deccanis, as well as

He

independent

for his

commanded more

mercenaries for one or another

force,

of his

he found

or the indigenous people of the region,

from among the Habshis, who shared

soon

number

deserted, together with a

Then, seeking others

his origin.

than fifteen hundred men, fighting as ruler.

It

was clearly

a force that, left

un-

attached, presented both a temptation and a threat. In 1595, the Sultan

of

Ahmadnagar

established an

army of Habshis, and

Ambar to unite He had no doubt of his

own

himself a Habshi, invited

his

readily agreed.

abilit}' to

mented army and accordingly advance tance to the increasing threat from the

his

prime minister,

force with

his leadership of

made him

Ambar

Deccan

Mughal Empire. His

beating back attacks from that empire

it.

dominate the augresis-

successes in

so powerful that in

1602 he simply imprisoned the Sultan and declared himself RegentMinister.

His army grew into a force of artillery that

thousand horsemen, supported by

sixty

and conducted other disruptive or the design of the great

Ambar then Jahangir.

won

also

cut

distracting missions.

Mughal Emperor Akbar

to

over to his side

Mughal supply Having

lines

frustrated

conquer the Deccan,

dealt just as effectively with the efforts of Akbar's successor,

And,

of the region. his

He who

he obtained from the English.

the naval prowess of the Siddis in Janjira,

intermittently,

Nor was

supremacy.

The

it

he fought and defeated

rivals for

leadership

only his success on the battlefield that secured

rulers of Bijapur

and Golconda, mindful of

his pre-

vious associations with their Sultanates and of his proven abilities, be-

came important For

all that,

allies in

the

common

cause of resisting Mughal might.

by the time of his death

in 1626, there

was spreading

dis-

THE FARTHER REACHES

among

content with his rule, even

men and money much. His mained

from more

son, Fettah

The

drain in

than twenty years of warfare was proving too as Regent-Minister,

but

re-

Malik Ambar's own preeminent achievement

became more evident with peatedly failed to

the officers in his army.

Khan, succeeded him

so only until 1629.

75

The Mughal Empire had

his absence.

conquer the Deccan during

his lifetime.

re-

succeeded

It

after his death.

His outstanding generalship was based on the mobility for which he trained

and equipped

his troops,

along with his recourse to guerrilla war-

whenever circumstances advised

fare sary,

the

Mughal Emperor

Jahangir,

disparage him, not least for his color, tribute, "hi the art of soldiering,"

was unique social,

in his age."^^ Yet

his

most arrogant adver-

who had lost no opportunity to was moved to pay him a belated

he would write

Ambar was

in his

memoirs, "Ambar

scarcely less remarkable for the

economic, and cultural policies he pursued.

Doubriess influenced by his that

Even

it.

own

origin

he experienced especially during

and

color, with the prejudice

the power he had achieved to provide the various ethnic

and

groups in the Sultanate with a sense of having some stake in

Not

surprisingly,

he used

his early years as a slave,

he favored the enlistment of Habshis

religious progress.

its

in the

army—

reportedly he even bought one thousand Habshi slaves for his private

guard

he

— and appointed them, as well

also gave grants of land to

as Arabs, to

high military

Hindus, chose Brahmins

nancial officials and tax collectors, and promoted the

Marathas

in the civil service. Habshis, Arabs,

posts.

But

as his top

fi-

employment

of

and Persians dominated the

sector of small-scale businesses. Arabs

and Persians developed

trade primarily with the Persian Gulf,

though

a foreign

also increasingly with the

English and the Portuguese. Under his rule the Sultanate manufactured

much

and paper which, with swords,

silk

to other parts of India, to Persia,

Given

his

concerned

to

novations.

He

own

training

and

new

and guns, were exported

to Arabia.

and experience

promote efficiency and ready

in administration, to

Ambar was

pursue sometimes bold

in-

introduced and developed a postal service whose messen-

gers ranged throughout the region.

with

axes,

He encouraged

trade

and agriculture

canals and innovative irrigation schemes, levying taxes in kind

on the use of such

facilities.

His taxation policies were, for the age,

markably progressive and responsive

to

changing conditions. Poorer

re-

parts

RONALDSEGAL

76

of the realm paid lower tax rates, as did richer ones stricken

He

ures.

ownership

in the villages;

crop

fail-

but elsewhere, especially in prosperous

he encouraged private ownership

tricts,

b\-

did not interfere with the traditional system of communit}- land dis-

to

promote competitive produc-

capital at Kirkee

and enticed poets and schol-

tion.

He ars,

established a

new

mainly Arab and Persian,

was, he also encouraged

to his court there.

Hindu

scholars

the capital where they could meet.

Devout Muslim

and even provided

And w ith

roads, canals, drains, public gardens,

more

Ambar was a

civic

wide

own tomb, when

readily available, suggests

other sorts of

more than mere coincidence. mark on Indian

certainlv not the last Habshi to lea\e a

though he remained the most notable. In the seventeenth cen-

histor\-, tur\',

his capital with

and buildings. His use of only black

stone for such buildings, including his stone were

he

a center in

planned

a passion for

development and embellishment, he furnished

that

number

Deccan and

of Habshis held high posts in the

in the

Mughal Empire.

In the eighteenth

nineteenth centur\', the Siddi rulers of Janjira land fortress off the west coast of India. forces finally confronted

Muslim

It

and well

commanded

was only

them, destroying the Siddi

courts of the

in

into the

a strategic

is-

1834 that British

fleet

and declaring

the island a colonv. In the mid-nineteenth centur\-, Siddi 'Anbar was

steward

— in

practice,

of Hyderabad.

such

He

effect that

of Hyderabad

Bazar

[sic]

secretar\' or personal assistant— to the Vizier

first

received such recompense or exploited his position to

he came

Cit\-,

to

own

a sizable slice of real estate in the center

an achievement commemorated in the Siddi 'Anbar

there.

Habshi communities

still

reportedly exist in several Indian states,

though widespread intermarriage and the wider

Muslim communitv have

a pressure to

adopt the norms of

accelerated assimilation.

'^

SPAIN Far to the west/ conquering Islam crossed the

Europe

in 711, defeated the

and by 720 commanded

all

Vandal

rulers of

straits

between

Spain in a

.\frica

and

series of battles,

of the Iberian peninsula except Galicia in

THE FARTHER REACHES the

northwest, which remained under Christian control.

querors, having seized

much

Europe, had

right across at

77

it

The con-

of southern France, might well have spread

not been for their defeat by a Prankish army

the Battle of Poitiers in 732. Instead, they consolidated their occupa-

tion of the Iberian

A prince

of the

domain, which they named al-Andalus.

Umayyad

dynasty, escaping the slaughter that

accom-

panied the 'Abbasid conquest of the Caliphate in Damascus, reached

Andalus and established

a rival emirate there.

Reigning from 756

al-

to 788,

made Cordoba his capital. In his palace, named Ar'Abd al-Rahman Rusafa, after one of the former Umayyad palaces in his Syrian homeland, he wrote a poem that concluded with a prayer: I

A palm

tree I

beheld in Ar-Rusafa,

Far in the West, far from the palm-tree land: 1

said: You, like myself, are far

How

long have

You grew up

And

May

like

I

in a

The

my

people!

land where you are a stranger,

myself are living in the farthest comer of the earth:

the morning clouds refresh you at this distance.

And may abundant Islamic

not forever.

away, in a strange land!

been far away from

rains comfort

palm would

And

its

loss

you

forever}'^

flourish wonderfully in

would long be — indeed,

its

still

new home, but is— lamented

in

Arabic literature.

The

invading army was composed

Berbers converted to Islam, and

it

of Arabs than of North African

less

was from among such Berbers rather

than the Arabs that the early colonists of conquest were drawn. Berbers had experienced the scorn of their

The

own Arab conquerors toward

them. They were correspondingly receptive

to Kharidjism, a revolution-

ary sect of political theology within Islam that propagated the principle

of an elected

imam,

or leader of the

Muslim community, without

tinction of race, color, or country, "even

with a

slit

dis-

were he an Abyssinian slave

nose."^'^

Duly incorporated

into the trade routes of Islam, al-Andalus thrived

from an abundance of raw materials, from

a vigorous agriculture,

and

from the development of manufacturing with the deployment of special-

RONALDSEGAL

78 Related to

ist skills.

this

was the

cially

Church

less

Rapid urbanization promoted

mony. Ethnic and

Muslims acquired their Christian

djariyas

concerned with

djariyas, or sla\e

or Jewish

w

less

than with

became

quite

common,

as

who were permitted to retain As M. Talki explains: "Black

ives,

con\ictions.

were appreciated no

charit\-

in-

and communal har-

social mobility-

religious intermarriage

any complex whatsoe\er, mo\ed chy.

from man\ Christians but espe-

from Jews, whose previous treatment had been harsh under the

fluence of a Catholic faith.

Muslim regime, which

relati\el\- tolerant

attracted corresponding support not only

than others, and mulattoes, free from

any

freel\- at

le\el in the social hierar-

19

The

extent of urbanization was remarkable. Ibn Hawqal, the tenth-

centun' Arab geographer, the largest

who had

in al-Andalus, as

cit\-

traxeled wideh", described Cordoba,

ha\ing "no equal in the Maghrib, or in

the Jazira or Syria, or Eg\pt, to approximate the size of tent of

its territory-,

struction of

its

Cordoba

gi\es the

much

in the cit\'s

markets, cleanliness of

its

population, ex-

inhabitants, con-

baths and hostelries."-^^

its

historian, E. Levi-Provencal, has estimated the populain the tenth

centun'

at

one

million.-^

Thomas Click

lower figure of a hundred thousand, but he bases his

number

timate on the

its

mosques, and number of

One modern tion of

area of

its

of male worshippers

es-

who could be accommodated

main mosque." Yet the urban populations of al-Andalus

contained sizable components of Christians and Jews. Furthermore, there were extensive suburbs of Cordoba, along the local commercial

roads or around palaces and military- establishments.-'

excludes from his estimate sla\es

who were

other historian, Philip Hitti, has cited the

teen thousand

homes" and "twenh* one

the higher figure. Yet, even tion of tenth-centur\ that reached by Paris

four centuries

if

borers,

still

least.

Click

Still

"one hundred and

suburbs,"-"^

an-

thir-

which would support accepted, the popula-

is

ha\e been

and more than double

much

larger than

that reached by

London,

later.

Sla\es are estimated to have tion in the

city's

the lower estimate

Cordoba would

Not

not dexout Muslims.

major

cities

composed around

a fifth of the

popula-

of al-Andalus, and they were also used as rural

mainly on the large

central or eastern Europe,

estates.

White

slaves,

la-

from Christian Spain,

and black ones, newly brought from be\ond

THE FARTHER REACHES

Map

2:

Spain and the Maghrib

i

was not only

centur\-, with a

territor\- that

was

lost.

twelfth

high rate of \oluntan conversions and of widespread

termarriage, al-Andalus contained

some

digenous Muslims, out of an estimated

But

By the beginning of the

a decline in

5.6 million total

muwalladun, or

population of 7

inin-

million.'"^

popular allegiance had already begun. Almoravid and

then Almohad intolerance led some Jews and Christians

to take flight.

THE FARTHER REACHES

And

some Muslims,

there were

pression,

who

and stayed

made apprehensive by

alienated or

re-

advance of Christian conquest

resisted less fervently the

in the lost cities rather

87

than retreat

to the contracting territory

came

to

an end, and the Andalusi

The

ruling Nasirid dynast)' sur-

of al-Andalus.

For

all that,

Almohad

rule itself

kingdom of Granada had much vived for

more than two and

tian kings with sufficient

divisions with the

to offer.

a half centuries,

payment of

deployment of

its

tribute,

own

sometimes bribing Chris-

sometimes exploiting

military resources,

while presiding over a brilliant intellectual culture from

and gardens

interlinked palaces

The

Muslim

great

Alhambra.

largest

where he found,

at

Malaqa (Malaga),

and most beautiful towns of Andalusia.

unites the conveniences of both sea

and land, and

danriy supplied with foodstuffs and

fruits.

ing sold in

its

dirham, and

no equal

I

its

ruby-coloured Murcian pomegranates have

in the world.

As

for figs

and almonds, they are

the most distant lands.

Its

ex-

outlying districts to the lands

its

tured excellent gilded potter), which

mosque

is

is

manufac-

exported thence to

covers a large area and

has a reputation for sanctity; the court of the

mosque

unequalled beauty, and contains exceptionally .

It

abun-

saw grapes be-

both of the East and the West. At Malaqa there

.

is

bazaars at the rate of eight pounds for a small

ported from Malaqa and

trees

citadel of

its

traveler Ibn Battuta visited al-Andalus in the

dle of the fourteenth century,

one of the

in the

tall

is

of

orange

.

Thence

I

went on

to the city of

Gharnata [Cranada],

the metropolis of Andalusia and the bride of

cities. Its

its

environs have not their equal in any country in the world.

They extend

for the

by the celebrated streams.

Around

space of

river of it

fort)'

miles,

and are traversed

made

Charnata their

a

homes

company

other

side are orchards, gardens,

flowery meads, noble buildings, and vineyards also at

many

Shannil [Xenil] and

on every

their

and mean-

.

.

of Persian darwishes,

there because of

its

.

There

is

who have

resemblance

to their

mid-

RONALDSEGAL

88 native lands.

is

from Samarqand, another from Tabriz,

from Qiiniya [Konia], one from Khurasan, two from

a third

and

India,

One

so on.^'

Christian Spain, united under a single monarchy, secured the surren-

der of Granada in 1492, on the pledge of religious tolerance toward

Muslims. But

this

was

a

monarchy whose

interpretation of the Gospel re-

quired the tortures and burnings of the Inquisition to ensure tance.

It

expelled professing Jews in 1492, and then, despite

professing

no

Muslims ten

its its

acceppledge,

years later. Conversion to Christianity provided

lasting protection. Jews

and Muslims who had converted, but whose

original faiths, practiced in secret,

were discovered or suspected by the

preying Inquisition, were expelled or otherwise eradicated along with

much

else.

There was no

statute of limitations

even

for the inanimate.

For, as Robert Irwin states, "in the centuries that followed,

Muslims and

books written in Arabic were thrown onto the bonfires of the Inquisition."^^

The

loss to the cultural

and economic

life

pulsion of the Jews has long been recognized.

Muslims was

The

of Spain from the ex-

The

Christian reconquest of Spain brought with

black slaves

expulsion of the

scarcely less damaging.

whom

al-Andalus had imported,

ployed in the cultivation of sugar. plished was also the

The

it

the capture of

some of them

certainly

em-

year in which this was accom-

same year Christopher Columbus

set

out on the

voyage that led to European conquest of the Americas. In 1511, the Spanish

Crown

licensed the dispatch of

quered island of Hispaniola, sugar production. Atlantic Trade.

From

initially for

this tiny

fifty

work

black slaves to the con-

in the mines,

and then

for

beginning would develop the immense

SIX

IHTO BLOCK OFRICO

By the beginning of the eighth century,

Islam's conquests

westward across Africa north of the Sahara. tury,

the late eighth cen-

caravans from the north were regularly crossing the desert to trade

Any

with black Africa. ever,

And by

had spread

military invasion there in the cause of Islam,

was avoideduntil,

in 1062, the

Moroccan-based Almoravids

kingdom of Ghana

to subjugate the

with such resistance that

it

in the western

how-

set

out

Sudan. They met

was only in 1076 that they succeeded

in tak-

ing and plundering the capital of the kingdom, and by the beginning of the twelfth century, the conquerors had lost the last remnants of direct control.

Meanwhile, the king and people had become Muslims, and

they remained so after

Ghana

successfully asserted

its

independence.

In 1154, al-IdrlsT (1100-62), one of the great medieval chroniclers,

described

Ghana

as "the greatest

country in the land of the Sudan, the

most populous, and having the most extensive

trade."' Yet all

well with the kingdom. Agriculture around the capital

was not

had not recovered

from the damage done by the Almoravid nomads and their flocks during the occupation.

Faleme

To the

rivers,

The

goldfields of

southeast, at Bure

ing mined.

Bambuk, between

were becoming exhausted

And

it

was

after centuries of exploitation.

on the Upper Niger,

in the

the Senegal and

rich

Upper Niger Valley

new

deposits were be-

that Sundiata, leader of

RONALD SEGAL

90

Map

3:

West Africa

in the

Great Age of Islam

INTOBLACKAFRICA one of the Mande clans

there, set out

on

91

a career of conquest.

was the empire of Mali, over which he reigned

The

for a quarter of a

result

century

from 1230.

The Almoravid conquest had than

been

at least

nominally a convert, and his successors

some of them were

peror) were Muslims, though

In the middle of the fourteenth century,

brated of Mali's rulers, caused a great his

way

to

Mecca, he expended

so

However, these

substantially.

fell

more

had ever reached. Sundiata seems

exercise of control

its

spread Islam farther and

much

to

have

Mansa (Em-

devout than others.

Mansa Musa,

in Cairo,

stir

riches,

less

as

lastingly

the most cele-

where, stopping on

gold that the value of the metal

which spread

his

fame beyond

Islam to the Christian world, were not his only distinction. Visiting the

empire of Mali facility

and

in

1352-53 during Musa's

safety with

which

traders

about, the flourishing agriculture and

reign, Ibn Battuta reported the

and foreigners were able

commerce, and the

to

move

stern adminis-

tration of justice.

By the beginning of the

From

fifteenth century, the

empire was

east of Niani, the capital of Mali, the kings of the

their allegiance.

The

armies of Sonni

more and more of

ing

pansion

initially

successor,

state

1464-92) advanced, turn-

Mali's dependencies into Songhai ones. This ex-

Muhammad

(1493-1528), proceeded

reached northward almost bia River

'All (c.

Songhai broke from

confronted Islamic influence, but then Sonni

The Songhai Empire became

this.

in decline.

Gao, on the Niger bend, some seven hundred miles

their capital at

to

to restore

'All's

and augment

the greatest yet in the region.

It

Morocco, and from the mouth of the Gam-

on the Aflantic coast eastward almost

to

Bornu (Borno), the

encompassing Lake Chad.

Such

a vast

advance of Islam

in black Africa

was due

to factors other

than conquest from the north. Rulers of successive empires in the region

were ready

to

adopt Islam because

their dealings with rulers

much

lent

them

a certain legitimacy in

and merchants of the Maghrib, on which

so

of their trade and prosperity depended. Relatedly, most of the mer-

chants in the region their mobility, they

deed,

it

became Muslims and, given

were especially influential

some merchants were

sponding respect

also

Muslim

their prestige as well as

in the spread of Islam. In-

clerics

and accorded

for the supernatural sanctions that they

a corre-

were believed

RONALD SEGAL

92

able to invoke. Ricliard Jobson, a seventeenth-century Englishman trav-

Gambia, reported of these mercantile

eling in the free recourse tries

through

are at vvarres

all

and up

Mar)'bucke [marabout]

places, so that

howsoever the King and Coun-

armes, the one against the other, yet

in

and many follow

a privileged person,

is

"They have

clerics:

still

the

his trade

or course of travelling, without any let or interruption of either side."^

Furthermore, and perhaps above

all,

Islam provided or promised a so-

problem of expansionist

lution to the central

rule.

A

ruler traditionally

and primarily relied on the allegiance of those related to him, by such

came from

kinship as pire

were

set,

leaders might

a

common

ancestor.

The wider

the bounds of

em-

however, the farther such allegiance was stretched. Local all

too easily invoke local kinship loyalties to raise resis-

members

tance. Appointing

of the ruling family to serve as governors,

along with a suitable supply of soldiers, raised the

risk that

such gover-

nors might form a rebellious alliance with disaffected subjects for an

attempt to capture the imperial throne. Emperors took instead to ap-

among

pointing provincial governors from

those of their slaves

who

pos-

sessed the necessary qualities as well as personal allegiance to a principle

beyond

that of kinship.

Such

qualities

and allegiance were found among those,

who were educated leges in the region, Yet,

if

at the

slave or free,

growing number of Muslim schools and

which

attracted scholars

the rulers were generally successful in

from elsewhere

col-

in Islam.

making use of Islam

to or-

ganize and maintain an effective administration of government and trade, they

proved

to

be

less successful at

the lower, popular level. For

there, Islam did not, at least until the nineteenth century,

permeate

Traditional kinship allegiances reasserted themselves

eties.

soci-

and revealed

the vulnerability of empires.^

Gold and

slaves traveled directly northward,

from the successive Su-

danic empires of West Africa to Morocco. But this was

far

from being the

only route or destination. In the ninth century, there was a diagonal route from

seems

to

and

C'airo.

to

Gao and

then across the Sahara

have gradually declined

from Mali tury,

Ghana to

Upper Egypt,

in

rose to

to Egypt.

This

importance, while another route,

prominence

in the sixteenth centur\', yet

in the fourteenth cen-

another one, from Timbuktu to

INTO BLAC

AFRICA

K

93

sixteenth-centuty travel writer al-Hasan ben

The Wazzan

es Zayyati,

known

Leo

also as

Muhammad

el

Africanus, recorded of certain Sa-

haran oases along the route that their inhabitants were wealthy from the trade

between Egypt and Gaogao (Gao) and were black. Some of these

may

people

other slaves

been Songhai merchants,

well have

who had

posts in the slave trade.

their slave agents, or

and secure such staging

settled there to exploit '^

Another early and important route reached from the central Sudanic belt to Tripoli,

oases

on the Mediterranean

through the complex of

coast,

the Fezzan, where Zawila was the principal staging post. With-

iii

out the gold that was a crucial component in the trade from West Africa,

were the staple export. As early

slaves

as the late ninth century,

al-

Ya'qubl, a contemporary Arab geographer and historian, reported that

Zawila was important to the slave trade and a stronghold of the Ibadi

who were

Berbers,

also trading farther south. Al-Istakhrl, a tenth-century

from various

writer, in contrasting slaves

those

who

arrived from the central

the route north were blacker

"The

writes:

and

parts of Africa, asserted that

Sudan and passed through Zawila on

better than the others. As H.

J.

Fisher

slave revolt in Iraq, late in the ninth century, particularly as-

sociated with Zanj slaves,

may have

given

all

those from eastern Africa a

bad name, and correspondingly heightened the demand

for those

from

the central Sudan."^ It

is

probable that the central Sudanic kingdom of Kanem, which

emerged trade.

in the ninth or tenth century, did so in response to the slave

What

is

certain

is

that the formation of the state involved military

conquest. In the eleventh century, a

Muslim

missionary,

Mani, converted the Mai Humai of Kanem, and received, for the

Muhammad in gratitude

Koranic instruction he had given the monarch, alms of a hundred

slaves, a

hundred camels,

Subsequent

Muslim height of

rulers

hundred gold and

a

were renowned

a

for their

hundred

devotion to Islam, and

divines enjoyed a privileged position in the its

power

silver coins.

in the early thirteenth century,

kingdom. At the

Kanem conquered

the

Fezzan, probably to control or secure the trade route across the Sahara,

and even opened

a hostel in

Cairo

for

Kanemis

in that city.

Then,

in the

middle of the fourteenth century, the kingdom came under serious pressure,

from quarrels over the succession within and from Arabs

in the east

RONALDSEGAL

94

who were seizing Kanemi Muslims to sell as slaves. In the last decade, the Mai (King) fled with his court and followers into Bornu, southwest of Kaneni, and established there a new

sun i\e unconquered

Man\

which expanded and would

until late in the nineteenth centun-.

Sudan were

of the black slaves exported from the central

North

tined for militan- senice in

nuchs

state,

for

emploNment

Africa.

harems or

in

in

The

government

slaves for sale as concubines. Ibn Battuta,

service,

and female

w ho crossed the Sahara

middle of the fourteenth centun- and tra\eled w

des-

trade also supplied eu-

ith a

cara\an of

in the

six

hun-

dred female slaves, wrote fa\orabl\ of both the eunuchs and the slave girls

from Bornu. The trade supplied many other slaves

purposes.

for

more menial

others were not provided to the trade but used as the cur-

Still

rency of tribute or of

from the King of

In 1257, for instance, a contingent was sent

gifts.

Kanem and

the Lord of

Bornu

to the ruler in the east-

ern Maghrib.

sene the trans-Saharan demand but

Slaves were procured not onl\ to

Sudanic rulers

also for central

and ers

who

sought them

as a

source of prestige

demonstration of wealth, for employment in retinues, or

a

with or without special

as labor-

Moreo\er, population decline from

skills.

drought and famine, epidemic and war, was an intermittent pressure. Slaves

were needed

to

Hausa,

who had been

a sla\e in

Bornu — I

From

am

replenish

telling the truth

969,

when

independent

Mrican

A

nineteenth-centur\-

Bornu, would remark: "The countn' of is

a countr}- of slaves."^

and through

Awubids and Mamluks — a period

of five and

— Eg\pt developed from a mere pro\ince of empire to an

state

and then the paramount power

the south, in Nubia, cient

losses.

the Fatimids conquered the country-,

the successive dynasties of a half centuries

—

such

where

civilization,

tv\o

in the

Near

East.

To

Christian kingdoms were heirs to an an-

Muslim merchants

settled in separate quarters

of the towns to conduct a trade with Eg\pt based on the export of cattle, ivory, ostrich feathers,

Nuha as

and, above

or al-Sudan (blacks),

all, slaves.

were sought

concubines or nurses; the males

as

These

slaves,

known

for \arious purposes: the

domestic sen ants

or,

as al-

females

mainly, as

sol-

diers.

They were imported lation of

in

such numbers that the

relatixely sparse

popu-

Nubia could hardly ha\e provided them, and the likelihood

is

INTOBLACKAFRICA that man)',

if

not most, of them

came from

95

the large area to the south

that reached westward from the border of Ethiopia

yond.

The end

mand

for black military slaves,

to the

for

not least because they had proved so loyal its

By the

interest.

However, the

''Nubian" slaves, to provide domestic and other services,

many

continued for markets not only in Eg\pt but in tries.

Darfur and be-

of the Fatimid dynast}' led to a sharp decline in the de-

Fatimid cause that they rebelled in

demand

to

late fourteenth centuty,

tian markets with slaves from the

some

included, to his protests,

Arab

raiders

vicinit}'

other Islamic coun-

were supplying Egyp-

of Lake Chad; these even

relatives of the

Muslim king

of Bornu.

Egyptian merchants were also active in Ethiopia, trading both with the independent Christian

of

it.

They supplied

and returned with

kingdom and with Muslim

linen, cotton,

ivory, spices,

and

silk textiles as

and especially

slaves.

states to the

These

highly prized throughout Islam for their reputed reliability;

were eunuchs, exported mainly from Hadya

where they were brought

after

south

well as weapons, slaves

were

among them

southwest Ethiopia,

in

having been castrated elsewhere in the

re-

gion.

The advance mainly by shifts

of Islam southward along the East African coast

a sea route

came

long established in conformity with the annual

in the direction of the

monsoons. As Hippalos,

a first-centupy-

Greek, had obsened, for four months of the year around winter, the northeast winds carried ships from Arabia and northw^est India to the east coast of Africa,

and

for six

months of the year around summertime,

southwest winds carried ships in the opposite direction. Written

at

some

time in the second century by an anonymous Egyptian Greek, The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea reported that slaves

the

Horn of Africa and

that southern Arabs

were

were exported from

settled

African coast.^ These Arab settlers were joined by

along the East

Muslims

late in the

seventh century; and by the ninth century, Islam had rooted the coastal regions.

Muslim

settlements, established

itself in

and developed by

merchants from Arabia and countries around the Persian Gulf, were strengthened by intermarriage between the newcomers and the indige-

nous people of the Horn, tinguish

who were

called Berbers or sometimes, to dis-

them from the Berbers of North

geographers.

Africa, "black Berbers" by

Arab

RONALDSEGAL

96

A

foreign,

tions of the

mainly Arab, component infuses the genealogical

Somali people today. These

inscriptions, date the

first

half of the eighth centun'.

Arab settlement

The

first

settlers.

Mogadishu was

tanate of

was attracting regular

and

Mogadishu

at

second

to the

and was followed by other waves

By the thirteenth

established, this

when

centur\',

the Sul-

prominent commercial port

by merchants from India

visits

tradi-

confirmed by Arabic

major migration, however, occurred

in the early years of the tenth centur\',

of Arab and Persian

traditions,

Arabia

as well as

Persia to transact business with local traders.

Northward along the African coast and across the Gulf from Aden was the Somali town of Zeila, whose inhabitants were Muslim. So dominant did this port

become

in the

Muslim communities along ern Ethiopia were,

and Egypt

commerce

al-IdrlsT

grated

establish

to

described Zeila as

''a

known

town of small

been the departure point

Muslim communities and even

years of development,

many

in Syria

of these polities

size

but

who

mi-

silver."^^

for those

Ethiopian region. By the early fourteenth centur)',

hundred

the

Already in the twelfth centur}-, the

highly populated," whose "export consists of slaves and Zeila might well have

all

the trade routes into central and southeast-

the fourteenth centur\', collectixely

b\'

as "the countr}- of Zeila.'"^

Moroccan scholar

of the region that

polities

after still

in

the

perhaps two existed.

Most

were mereK' minor sheikhdoms, but several were sizable kingdoms, and Ifat,

the predominant one,

between the Ethiopian these

Muslim

rate with

polities

commanded most

interior

and Zeila on the

were more disposed

kingdom. In

fact,

with the Christian

kingdom by becoming

its

of the fourteenth centur), war bet\\ een that latter's

extinction as an independent

Arab geographers divided the the

to collabo-

a reinvigorated and mili-

Muslim Hyda,

of the slave trade in the thirteenth centur\,

coast. Yet, big or small,

compete than

to

one another, despite the threat from

tant Christian

the

of the long-distance trade

already a regional center

made

a

preempti\e peace

tributary.

And by

kingdom and

Ifat

the end

resulted in

Muslim power.

east coast of Africa into four regions:

Land of Barbar, which reached around the Horn and ended north of

Mogadishu; the Land of Zanj, which extended southward

Pemba but

short of Zanzibar; the

Land of

Sofala,

to

be\ond

which ended probably

mouth of the Limpopo River; and, beyond that, the little-known Land of Waq-Waq. Al-Mas'udi journeyed from Oman to Qanbalu, as

at the

INTO BLACKAFRICA Pemba was then

called, in

Muslims, with

Muslim

and

that

rule in

a

ruling family

who

spoke the Zanj language,

Baghdad, or roughly 750.

Manda,

there

markable

is

for the

a third of the

way northward up the

coast of Zanj, at

archaeological evidence of a ninth-century town, re-

apparent extent of

which was

of coral stone,

up

wrote that the island contained

Muslims had conquered the place around the end of Umayyad

Approximately

ing

He

916-17.

97

also

used

its

Some of its buildings were made of large blocks weigh-

riches.

for walls,

probably against encroachments by the

to a ton each,

Not

sea.

only Chinese stoneware and porcelain have been discovered but im-

much

ported pottery

found

like that

That an extensive trade

Persian Gulf.

and the Gulf, and elephants were

particularly with Siraf,

common on

on the eastern

at Siraf

existed at the time

seems

side of the

between Manda Since

virtually certain.

the mainland then, as they are today,

it

may

reasonably be supposed that ivory acquired there was a major export

from Manda. ^^

To the south of Pemba, on the

island of Zanzibar, discoveries have in-

cluded Islamic pottery of the ninth and tenth centuries and gold coins,

one of which,

by a vizier of Harun al-Rashld,

a dinar struck

is

dated the

equivalent of 798-99. In the middle of the twelfth century al-IdrlsT wrote that the inhabitants of

the one he

duced

had

an island (Zanzibar seems, from the context,

coast.

The

such reputed excellence that people from Java ers—transported tional quality.

to India,

it

It is

be

mind) were mainly Muslims, and that iron was pro-

in

middle area of the Sofala

in the

to

where

it

was used

unlikely, however, that iron

to

iron,

he added, was of

— clearly,

visiting trad-

make swords

of excep-

would have been the only

export from the region.

This

first

been limited

phase in communication with Islam seems largely to have to trade

and

traders,

the early eleventh century,

but was no

not

if

still

less influential for that.

By

earlier, a distinctive coastal lan-

guage, Kiswahili, was emerging from a Bantu language core, and around 1

100, a related

and

distinctive Swahili coastal culture

in various settlements.

there was a

During

marked increase

this

began developing

second phase, roughly 1100

to 1300,

and commercial wealth,

a corre-

in trade

spondingly augmented use of coral stone for buildings, and the spread of Islam by contact with Middle Eastern and Indian merchants. Early in the twelfth century, for instance, the

first

stage of the Great

RONALDSEGAL

98

Mosque at Kilwa was constructed, and in the Kvelfth and thirteenth centuries, Lamu, MaHndi, Mogadishu, Mombasa, and Zanzibar town became major

coastal settlements. Associated with this

Arab clans from "iemen, series of

Arab

in particular to

Mogadishu, which acquired

ruling dynasties, developed a flourishing coastal

merce, and earned renown

Muslim

as a center of

which acquired, near the end of the thirteenth of

Yemeni

was the migration of

sharifs (asserted

learning;

and

a

com-

to Kilwa,

centur\', a ruling dynast\-

descendants of the Prophet) and dominance

of the gold trade from Sofala. In the third phase,

roughly 1300 to 1600, which would

come

to

be

called the golden age of coastal history-, the region reached a peak of prosperity-,

the north,

with half of all known coastal settlements being founded. To Mombasa and Malindi became prosperous commercial cen-

challenging Kilwa 's dominance. Direct trading contacts, until then

ters,

mainly w

ith

the Persian Gulf,

became

part of the wider Indian

Ocean

network, extending from Eg}pt to the Far East. Philip Curtin writes: "A before

little

1

500, the annual northward flow of gold into the general

commercial s\stem of the Indian Ocean on the average. This linked Zimbabwe based on gold and

silver, just as

through the trans-Sahara cowries, ports,

lains

.

.

reached

to the

the western

at least a

metric ton

world economic system

Sudan had already joined

trade."'- In addition, i\or\-, skins, ambergris,

and agricultural products were dispatched from East African

which recei\ed

spices, jewels, silks, brocades, celadons,

and porce-

from China and ^Malacca.

Islam rate

.

became

the

dominant

coastal religion. Larger

mosques were constructed with

and more elabo-

varieties of coral. Yet the culture, far

from being an imposed foreign one, remained

distincti\el\- Swahili. In-

digenous Mrican social traditions of matrilineal inheritance seem

to

have successfully withstood the influence of Islamic patrilineage in the northern

cities

idence that

They

before the seventeenth centur\-. There

women,

is

considerable ev-

not least as queens, were prominent in public

participated in important ceremonies, attended

with men, and were encouraged to sciences {elimu).

become

They enjoyed equal

ownership with men, and

in

some

literate

and

life.

mosques along to study Islamic

rights of inheritance

and

property-

coastal settlements, succession to rule

proceeded through female members of the roval lineage.

i

The

NTO BLACK AFRICA were

coastal settlements

One

threat

came under

was from ''northern" Arabs

arrive

suddenly by sea

to pillage

ment. Another came from the

pursue their pros-

not, however, left to

perity in peace. Increasingly, they

would

99

interior,

pressure from two sides.

as well as the Portuguese,

and

to seize

people

where some indigenous peoples

One

attacked Swahili agricultural communities along the coast.

Portuguese commentator remarked

war but seldom

at

them owns

terland because the Kafirs do not allow

at

of them.

For

this

them

a yard of land in the hin-

have

to

and they are

it,

in

reason their towns are surrounded by

Walls had not been a feature of Swahili towns in the previous

walls." '^

phase, but by 1505, both Kilwa and the

early

were "oft-times

that Swahili towns

peace with those of the mainland"; another observed

of the coastal towns that "none of

fact afraid

who

for enslave-

known major towns along

One

Mombasa

to the

south and most of

the northern coast had defensive barriers.

reason could have been that some,

if

not

all,

of the coastal

set-

tlements were involved in slave trading and even slave raiding. That there were slaves in their populations

is

certain.

Muslim

dinary.

The

clothes, silk as well as cotton,

ver jewelry

remarked not only on the

early Portuguese

worn by

slaves.

as extraor-

luxur}^ of the

and the impressive amount of gold and

worn by the upper

the loincloths

would

societies

have regarded the absence rather than the presence of slaves

classes in the coastal towns,

sil-

but also on

^^

Ibn Battuta, having visited the region in the middle of the fourteenth century, described Kilwa as "a large its

inhabitants are Zanj, jet-black in colour, Its

tions, for their

country

the time of gifts

a

and

my

visit

generosity-.

is

majority of

and with tattoo-marks on

used to devote the

fifth

doubdess represented

at least part

sultan at for his

part of the boot}'

and charitable purposes."^' as

The

who was noted

was Abd'l-Muzzafar Hasan,

He

prime purpose of such military expeditions,

The

The

contiguous to the heathen Zanj.

his expeditions to pious

slaves

coast.

inhabitants are constantly engaged in military expedi-

their faces ...

on

town on the

it

If

made

slaving was not

might well have been,

of the booty.

existence of protective walls did not signifv isolation.

The

coastal

settlements continued to absorb immigrants from southern Arabia, along

with Africans fleeing from danger, persecution, warfare, or simply drawn

by the reported prosperity and associated delights of coastal society, for

RONALDS EGAL

100

assimilation into the distinctive Swahili culture. This proved to be both

resourceful and resolute. In the sixteenth century, Islam south of the

creasing pressure from the Portuguese,

Ocean and whose

nated the western Indian

Horn came under

control of the

well as commercial aggressiveness of the Portuguese

and repressive

as

Zambezi

religious as

— whose

Inquisition

counterpart in Spain

its

route

The

cut the coastal trade for gold and ivory through Sofala.

proved as intrusive

in-

whose naval power now domi-

— only

strengthened the resistance of the coastal societies, which would defy

and

finally defeat

them. The very failure of

conquer Christian

a jihad to

Ethiopia was a factor in the growth of the region, for migrants from Arab clans,

who mainly

settled

it

brought new

on the Pate and Lamu

off-

shore islands. These developed into major trading centers, through the

commercial contacts that such clans enjoyed

as far east as Indonesia,

the wealth accordingly generated drew older coastal clans

wana, or

— the

and

waung-

townspeople of the coast with their Swahili lan-

free, "civilized"

guage, learning, and traditions. In Pate

and Lamu,

the rich Arabs and sions," as

ing order,

waungwana

and eighteenth centuries,

built "magnificent, multi-storied

man-

symbols of their social dominance. ^^ Below them, in descend-

came

the wageni

Muslim

in the seventeenth

the middle layer of poorer

(Muslim newcomers or

waungwana, such

as artisans,

"foreigners"), the washenzi (non-

These served not

"barbarians"), and, at the bottom, the slaves.

only as concubines and servants in the households of their owners but as laborers

on the mainland

agricultural estates that provided

material for trade. Randall Pouwels states that at centur)', for instance, the trading

extensive mainland plantations

peoples on the mainland

links with settled

augmented by the

of the

in the eighteenth

wealth amassed by certain clans

and

— "was

Lamu

much

— from

Somali and other

acquisition and

em-

'^

ployment of huge numbers of slaves."^ In coastal society, wealth

was the decisive

tributes of status as the size of

house and

liances, religious duties. Indeed,

a

plutocracy

wedded

lowable onlv to Muslims.

atal-

It

Pouwels adds, "even genealogy changed

fluidK with the achievement of wealth."^^

This was

brought such

of household, family

factor.

style

There was only one

to religion. Social

barrier.

advancement was

al-

NTO BLACK AFRICA It

was in

this period, too, that the

and

affect coastal society

Omani

101

Arabs began substantially to

enabled them suc-

politics. British assistance

cessfully to confront Portuguese

power

much

in

of the region.

By the

won

control

middle of the eighteenth century, the Busaidi dynasty had

Oman

not only of

but of Zanzibar

itself

as well.

in the early

who would

1800s, the Busaidi ruler, Sayyid Said b. Sultan,

reign for

half a century from 1806, set out from the strategic bases of

more than

Zanzibar and Kilwa

to

conquer the

coast.

It

would prove

to

be a pro-

engagement, with resistance from other clan and factional

tracted

Mombasa,

ests.

Then,

was not captured until 1837. But by the

for instance,

time of his death, in 1856, he had wrested control of coastal towns.

It

would

still

inter-

all

the principal

take until 1895 before Busaidi authority over

the whole coastal strip was recognized,

and by then,

power was

real

wielded by Britain. Meanwhile, the trading towns had retained substancontrol over their

tial

own

affairs.

The

Sultans had been

more suzerains

than sovereigns over the conquests. Resistance to the Sultans surfaced intermittently until the 1880s.

even in Zanzibar,

to

which Sayyid Said had moved

his capital

and

And

court,

the Sultan's writ might be defied by nobles from rival clans. As Richard

Burton observed: "Sometime

a noble,

zibar, has collected his friends,

One

Salim

used

to

b.

wage

Abdallah,

a petty

armed

who had

a

when ordered his slaves,

and

into arrest at fortified his

Zan-

house.

gang of 2,000 musketeer negroes,

war with the Sayyid's

servile hosts."^*^

Sayyid Said used his power to amass riches, and his riches to maintain his power. His revenues Britain, France,

were immense. Commercial

and the United

States supplied

treaties

him with

with

a 5 percent

duty on goods brought by their nationals into coastal ports, while an excise

not,

duty of

5

however,

satisfied to

traded on his behalf. every year a hundred family, Sayyid Said

profitable for his

He was He had agents who

percent on exports supplied another lucrative flow.

enough

be

just a tax collector.

One American reported that the Sultan dispatched men to collect ivory. Along with members of his -^^

was heavily involved

in itself

in the slave trade,

which was

but especially important as the source of labor

prime enterprise: the cultivation and export of cloves, centered on

Zanzibar, where he personally

owned numerous

plantations.

Questions remain over the extent and duration of the Islamic slave

/^

RONALDSEGAL

102

trade from East Africa south of the Horn. Historical records leave

room to

for

doubt that

work on

it

was the black slaves known southern Iraq,

irrigation projects in

great rebellion in the ninth century there.

come

have

though

it is

It

is

from the East African coastal area also possible that others

from

as the Zanj,

no

mainly put

who had mounted

the

likely that they

would

known by

name,

that

wider region were associated

a

dominant group. What seems certain

with

them

as the

able

sla\ e

trade from East Africa existed at least as far back as the ninth

centur\ and ,

many

that a consider-

references to Zanj slaves in medieval writings strongly

suggest that the trade in Zanj slaves continued, trated

is

not in such concen-

if

numbers.

The

historian

and archaeologist Gervase Mathew,

period from the twelfth century

dominated the Indian Ocean

in discussing the

to the fifteenth century,

when Muslims

trade, has written that the trading

towns

along the East African coast provided two particular exports eastward: "African ivory was

much needed

in

China and much prized

in India,

while in Islamic India and in Mesopotamia [Iraq] there was an insatiable

demand

for slaves."-^

that a slave trade

The

from East Africa was already

century, asserts that there north, from

what

Horn continued

historian Neville Chittick, while accepting

is

to

now

is

very

''It

seems most

be the main source of slaves;

shorter voyage from the

by the ninth

evidence for exports except in the

the Somali coast:

paratively expensive to transport

It is

little

in existence

and subject

human

to loss

likely that the

beings are com-

by disease, so that the

Horn would have been advantageous.""

not improbable that both historians are right, and that Zanj slaves

were transported overland case, there

to the

Horn and shipped from

there. In

any

was certainly a flow of black slaves from the east coast of

Africa to various parts of Islam over the centuries, large overall as that in the

Red Sea

land trade across the Sahara,

it

trade, let

and

if it

was not

as

alone the predominant over-

involved very considerable numbers.

SEVEN

OTTomon

THC

Of all

the empires that rose and

largest

and most enduring. At

from

east of the Black

Sea

its

to the

fell

within Islam, the

greatest extent,

and the Hijaz,

across Egypt, along the coastal region of last

of

its

The empire

derived

conquer and

its

the

reached, in the north,

North

to

include Yemen; and

Africa, to the border of

Sultans was thrust from his throne almost

centuries after the death of

nomadic Turkish

it

Ottoman was

border of Austria; in the south, from the

Persian Gulf, through Iraq, Syria,

Morocco. The

cmpiRC

its

progenitor in 1324.

name from Osman

tribes that

six

I,

a clan leader

among

the

had swept from the plains of central Asia

settle in Anatolia.

Within

slightly

more than

to

a century, al-

Ottoman rule. Then,^ 1453, known as the Queen of Cities, and the report of the capture was received by the Doge and Senate of Venice as "the darkest day in the history of the world."'; The fall of most

of Anatolia had

all

Mehmed

II

succumbed

to

captured Constantinople,

Constantinople marked the end of the Byzantine Empire, heir Classical a

and then Christian heritage of the ancient

thousand years

The

after that empire's collapse in the

Christian powers, for

all

their

to the

Roman Empire

for

West.

expressions of distress, soon

demonstrated that they were more dedicated

to

doing business with the

Ottomans than with supplying any material support

for the

summons

RONALDSEGAL

104 from the Pope

no

new

to a

crusade.

Mehmed

himself, meanwhile,

II

made

was intended

secret of the ultimate purpose that his latest conquest

to

sene. To a voung Venetian, he declared that "he would go from the East to the

West

as the

world, he says, must be one, one faith unit\',

there

The Empire of the and one kingdom. To make this

Westerners had gone to the East.

no place more worthy than Constantinople. "-

is

who had

Western Christians

carried the sword along with the cross

eastward in the Crusades and would, sometimes on the pretext of saving souls,

subsequendy

scarcely in a moral position to

condemn

religious imperialism. Indeed, in religions, the

than

much

much

out colonies across

car\'e

its

of the world, were

Muslim

their

counterparts for

dealings with the adherents of other

Ottoman Empire proved

of Christendom showed

good deal more tolerant

overall a

Jews

itself to be.

who were

from Spain, and who found few havens in Europe open to settle in

the empire,

where they received

a ready

to

expelled

them, chose

welcome. Neither

they nor even Christians, the historical adversaries since the Crusades,

who were encompassed by Ottoman

conquests or

who

simply settled in

the empire, encountered serious discrimination against the practice of

commercial

their faith or their

Along with

this

productive tolerance, the empire's vast domestic mar-

ket in three continents

and

trade relations with countries

its

borders should have enabled

ment

enterprise.

it

pioneer or

to

at least exploit the

of capitalism and the industrial revolution

became

beyond

develop-

promoted. Instead,

it

its

it

the victim of both. Already by the seventeenth centur\-, the Ot-

toman economy was being confronted by the West's of sugar, cotton, and tobacco in the Americas.

American plantations put an end Egypt. Increasing

demand

Even

trade in coffee,

Ottoman

of

refineries in

damage on an Ottoman

Cairo's seventeenth-centurv'

much

Cheaper sugar from

for cotton fabrics, within the

the West, inflicted further difficulties.

to

colonial production

it

from

Yemen

for

silk

Cyprus and

empire

as well as

trade already in

command

of the transit

markets in the empire and

elsewhere, was gone by the middle of the eighteenth centur\, because of the competition from cheaper

The

American

supplies.

West's colonial production was not the only problem.

early sixteenth century', the Anatolian

cit\'

By the

of Bursa had developed

flourishing silk industr\-. This was soon confronted by

a

mounting compe-

OTTOMAN EMPIRE

THE

Map

4:

The Ottoman Empire,

c.

1550

105

RONALDSEGAL

106 tition

from the products of mechanized

With correspondingly reduced labor able to pa\' still

more

raw

for

silk

northern

Italy.

price internationally— while

its

exporting fabrics cheaper than those produced in the empire. For-

from

a

mixture of

the empire but were the

in

manufacturers were

costs, Italian

— dri\'ing up

eign manufacturers also took to exporting rics

reeHng

silk

Ottoman

silk

still

and cotton. These

lower-priced, lighter fab-

fabrics

became popular

palace, the single most important customer for high-qualit\'

fabrics. Paradoxicalh-, the difficulties of the industry'

were augmented by

the reliance of

man\ Ottoman manufacturers on

slave labor,

profitable only

when

profits

more

tightly

in

by the craftsmen in Bursa and rejected by

resisted

profit

squeezed

margins were high. As

in the late seventeeth

which was

came

and eighteenth

to

be ever

centuries,

the silk industr}' in Bursa declined unremittingly.^

One element

of the

Ottoman Empire's long economic decline

is

evi-

dent here. There are varying opinions on the importance of the slave trade

and the

and the

institution of slavery itself to the

industrial re\olution in the West.

that the Atlantic slave trade

development of capitalism

What

is

certain, however,

is

was a markedly profitable commercial oper-

ation, that part of these profits

was rein\ested

in

an industrial growth

al-

ready being promoted by the provision of barter goods for the trade, and that large profits

came from

the use of slaves, defined and treated as units

of labor, in the commercial plantations of colonial agriculture. Slaves in the

Ottoman Empire were

In conformity with Islamic teaching

stipulated rights. In practice,

\ants

who were

enslavement,

who

and

many— for

slaves of the Sultan

nors. Indeed, there

differently regarded

law, slaves

and

treated.

were people who had

example, soldiers and

civil ser-

— rose to become generals and gover-

were free-born Muslims, doctrinally protected from

bribed or otherwise insinuated their wa\ into becom-

ing slaves of the Sultan, for the related prospect of attaining high office.

A

slave

concubine whose son became the Sultan acquired accordingly

an institutionalized high status and large financial resources of her own. Certainly, there were countless other slaves

sometimes

brutal. Yet a

whose

fate

was menial and

populous and productive peasantry' preempted

the need for sla\c labor in agriculture, and though there were slaves

the great estates of

such purposes that mulation.

Ottoman they-

landlords,

it

was not

in

such numbers or

on for

provided the profits for significant capital accu-

OTTOMAN EMPIRE

THE

Essentially, the distinction

107

between Western and Ottoman — indeed

Islamic— slavery was that between the commercial and the domestic. This

not to ignore the existence of domestic slaves in the Western

is

colonies, any

more than one can ignore the use of slave labor

of commercial

activities in the

Ottoman Empire. But

West was, simply, the economic exploitation of

in the

Ottoman Empire,

slave labor. In the

the slaves provided personal services.

While

the West was directed to the productive economy, in the pire

in a variety

the basis of slavery

slavery in

Ottoman Em-

was a form of consumption.

it

As such, the marketing of slaves was closely regulated. Along with certain designated precious goods, such as silk

and arms,

slaves

had

to

be sold only through officially appointed brokers in the bazaar, so as to ensure that buyers were not cheated and that a

thermore, from the

late sixteenth

century onward, the state

creasingly hostile to the accumulation of

commercial

where speculative gains were suspected — since rather than benefit the

other merchants

who

price was paid. Fur-

fair

community. Successful

this

capital

became

in-

— especially

was held

to exploit

slave dealers might, like

attracted suspicion, be conscripted to provide par-

ticular ser\dces notorious for the risks of large financial loss that they en-

Supplying camels

tailed.

for the

Hijaz caravan was one such costly

punishment. This points to

to a related reason for the failure of the

keep pace with,

West.

let

The empire was

Ottoman Empire

alone outstrip, economic developments in the a religious construct,

and Islam, while

far

from

indifferent to the benefits of trade, did not itself rate trading high in the

order of

human

pursuits.

The advancement of the faith, through scholmuch more meritorious calling.

arship or soldiering, was considered a

Nationalism, which the

community of Islam confronted, promoted more

material priorities in the West. There, not least in it

its

colonial extension,

provided both incentive and opportunity for the advancement of capi-

talism.

And

the prime beneficiaries, the merchants and industrialists,

exercised increasing influence over government,

adapted

The

to

correspond ever more closely

contrast presented by the

been more

striking.

The concept

the faith and expressing

The

its

whose

policies

were

to their interests.

Ottoman Empire could of the state as a

scarcely have

means of promoting

moral principles was profoundly formative.

doctrinal charge to serve the welfare of the

whole community,

for

RONALDSEGAL

108

economic

instance, infused such

practices as the regulation of markets,

the fixing of prices, and the restraint of profit, to ensure the provision of necessities to the populace. Crucially, in this last regard, the state largely

denied

itself

such protectionist devices

own

countries to promote their

open

to

were employed

as

industries.

Western

in

Ottoman markets were

cheaper foreign cloth because the poor might not be able

left

to af-

ford the domestic products available.

In the

Ottoman Empire,

a

major

repositor\' of capital

were the chari-

table foundations established by successive Sultans. Their function as a

source of venture capitalism was severely restricted, however, by their primarv' obligation to spend their revenues

ing mosques, supporting schools, social distinction

ligation widely

and

and

on good works, such

distributing alms.

as build-

The dynamic

of

religious directives ensured the spread of this ob-

among

the rich,

who were

given to establishing charita-

ble foundations of their own.

Yet this early autocracy,

Muslim

version of the welfare state was also an absolute

whose elaborate

isolation

might have been designed

mote the waywardness and corruptions of stance of this was the

had three

courts, of

new

palace, built by

rule.

to pro-

Both symbol and sub-

Mehmed

II,

in the capital.

which only the outermost was accessible

to the

It

pub-

lic,

and then only on holidays or when the Sultan's divan, or council,

was

in session.

Few

of the thousands of palace guards and servants were

permitted to penetrate farther, except on rare occasions. Beyond

through the Gate of Salutation, was the second court, with

its

this,

Hall of the

Divan, sumptuously furnished to represent the power and riches of the Sultan. There, his acceptable officers of state

him, sometimes

in his visible

hearing as he

behind

third, all

sat

innermost court,

him

met

religion

to advise

presence and sometimes merely in his

a curtained grille.

Then, beyond

a palace within the palace,

but the Sultan himself and those

with

and

whom

this,

was the

haram (forbidden)

he allowed

to

be associated

to

in the seclusion of his greatness.

His singularit} was demonstrated as well as secured by the character of his servants and guards.

These were young male white

slaves,

mainly

acquired as tribute from the conquered Christian peoples of the empire,

who were pages,

circumcised and converted to Islam, gi\en the status of royal

and trained

for a variety of offices

and functions,

military

and

OTTOMAN EMPIRE

THE

the service of the Sultan. In time, as the era of conquest gave

civil, in

way

to

109

one of containment and then contraction, the supply of suitable

white slaves sharply diminished, and the ranks of royal pages were

re-

plenished by inheritance from father to son. White eunuchs, most of

them bought from were responsible palace, It

for

much

Circassia,

of the domestic administration in the

and had particular charge of the

royal pages

and

new

their training.

was in the old palace, inherited from the Byzantine Empire, that

harem of the

the

Europe and

castration centers in Christian

Sultan's

women

was

nuchs, who had undergone the most

initially situated.

There, black eu-

form of castration and were

radical

accordingly considered most suited to their sensitive responsibilities,

were the only male

employed. Their duties went

slaves

far

beyond

They came

the domestic ones of attendance and watchfulness.

to

be

charged, for instance, with administering the various properties and in-

vestments of the Sultan's mother, favorite

known

as the Valide Sultan, of his

concubine, and of his daughters and

eunuch, or

sisters.

The

chief black

wielded power and

kizlar agasi, in particular, eventually

in-

fluence of an extent that can only be understood in terms of the peculiar role played

The

by royal

women

in the system.

use of slave concubines as reproductive partners, in addition to

commonly

the doctrinally allowable limit of four wives, was a practice

pursued by Muslims ception,

and

women more

who could

Muslim

afford them.

their wealth often

enabled them

to

representative of status than need.

were no

rulers

afford

ex-

numbers of

The Ottoman

dynasty

took the practice to an extreme. After those children mothered by the wives of the

first

two Sultans,

virtually all children of Sultans

were born

of concubines. Indeed, marriage was avoided as a rule, with rare exceptions presented to

by an especially beloved concubine or the need formally

bind some Anatolian tribe or clan. Marriage

Anatolian house ran the

and marriage with

risk

women

of

endowing

as conferring

dynasty

could gain by the alliance.

Given the nity

with ideas beyond

distinction

patriarchal nature of political

was no barrier

woman

of another its

station,

from other ruling dynasties, Muslim or not,

more

was regarded itself

it

to a

to inheriting the

on them than the Ottoman power

Ottoman

in Islam, slave mater-

Sultanate.

The

very extent

of royal reproduction through concubines, however, led to frequent dis-

RONALDSEGAL

110

putes over the succession,

some

of

which in\ol\ed

preclude such disputes, from the middle of the

new

cession of a

and

their sons.

costly conflict.

To

fifteenth centuty, the ac-

Sultan was confirmed by the execution of his brothers

Then,

in the

second half of the sixteenth century, further

measures were taken. The practice of appointing princes governorships was abandoned, since

to provincial

pro\ided presumptive claimants

it

with a power base on which to build, and the Sultan's sons, whatever

were confined

their age, less

and

The it

to the

succeeded

until the\'

first

And,

to the throne.

practice of royal fratricide, though, grew to be so unpopular that

was abandoned. WTien

the

palace and forbidden to father a child un-

Ahmed

I

died in 1617, he was succeeded, for

time in fourteen generations of Ottoman rule, by his brother.

as Leslie Peirce has written: "In the t\vent\-t\vo generations of the

Ottoman

dynast}^ that followed

eldest living

Ahmed

the throne always passed to the

I,

male Ottoman, and onl\ three times did

father: for the

most

part, sultans

were followed by

frequently by nephews, and once by a cousin.""^

pectancy

was subject

rate that

to ever}-

sudden

a

son succeed his

their brothers, less

Given

a princely life ex-

start

of suspicion, jeal-

ousy, or resentment in the Sultan's mind, the principle of succession by seniorit}-

must have been

at least as

much

a source of

apprehension

as of

pleasurable anticipation to the next in line.

For

all

its

intermittent internal turbulence, the dynast}^ was consid-

ered so sacred that close to

its

its

right to rule

was never seriously questioned,

republican conclusion in the twentieth centur\-. Yet

until

this sa-

credness did not preclude connections that must have seemed bizarre,

not abhorrent, to royalt} in the West. century, princesses

married

to

who were

high

— daughters or sisters of the

officials in

Sultan

the slave military' and

already or might then be

viziers, sons-in-law,

if

From the middle of the fifteenth

made grand

— were

ci\il

commonly

administration,

viziers.

These damad

though sometimes brothers-in-law, of the Sultan,

many respects the male women who rose to the top of

as

Leslie Peirce explains, "were thus in

parallels of

the sultan's concubines, the

the female

slave hierarchy."'

own grand hundred

They were commensurately enriched and had their One was said to own thirteen

establishments in the capital.

slaves, another,

se\enteen hundred.

governor-generalships or given arm\- or

na\'\

Some were

invested with

commands. But

their very

THE eminence was

OTTOMAN EMPIRE

also invested with risk,

One

wives could not protect them.

another

in 1614,

111

from which the

royalty of their

grand vizier was executed in 1536,

both for having provoked the Sultan by their supposed

pride.

more important and powerful than any

In practice, often

the favorite concubine of the Sultan. She had her

come and the assurance of supreme among the women status

and

role

went

far

princess was

own high

tide

and

a corresponding retirement allowance. in the

in-

But

empire was the Valide Sultan, whose

beyond simply being the Sultan's mother. She

was the imperial matriarch, symbol of the dynasty's legitimacy and responsible for ensuring

its

continuity by promoting the birth of princes for

the succession and preventing as far as possible their execution by too

wary or wayward

a Sultan.

The

Valide Sultan generally acted as Regent

when he went abroad, and some played a constandy active role in statecraft. They corresponded with foreign rulers, especially when these were women; they advised the Sultan; and, when he was away, they kept him informed of developments at home. when

the Sultan was a child or

Since she was granted large stipends and properties that provided additional revenues, the Valide Sultan

charitable works, such as building

had ample resources

mosques and schools,

her independent popularity. Indeed, alone perial

harem, she was entitled

to leave

it,

among

the

that

to

perform

augmented

women

in the im-

and even the palace

itself,

for

public appearances. Her prime domain, however, was the harem, and

her sway there became increasingly influential as the Sultanate, after era of imperial conquest,

became

a sedentary one, with the Sultan

its

no

longer leading his army in batfle and seldom emerging from the palace.

The

black eunuchs, not only the guardians and attendants of the

Valide Sultan and the royal concubines but the managers of their financial affairs,

reign of

were crucially placed

Suleiman

I

(1520-66), their role was

after a fire in the old

much augmented.

palace, followed by the

albeit so gradually that the transfer

was completed only by

The

early impact, however, with

the installation of the Valide Sultan in particular, was

palace

In 1541,

new

to live in the

the middle of the seventeenth century.

new

and during the

palace that housed the imperial harem, Suleiman

brought his favorite concubine

whole harem,

to exercise influence,

became

the center of the Sultan's private

immense. The

life as

well as of his

RONALDSEGAL'

112

public one, and this close coexistence force of the former over the

Black eunuchs came

to

latter.

occupy

strategic positions of authority

from the heart of government. Already

Mehmed

III,

in 1595, the

the ascendancy of the chief black

he was given the

their vast

first

to

ac-

and

year in the reign

eunuch was such

that

then held by the chief white eunuch, of

office, until

administering the supreme holy places

Medina— with

and

were the very valves controlling the flow of blood

cess, until they

of

but inevitably promoted the

all

— the

mosques of Mecca and

annual revenues. His office was subsequendy

re-

sponsible for administering the charitable foundations established by the Sultans themselves.

Some

continuing tax revenues:

all

of these foundations were beneficiaries of

non-Muslims

in Istanbul paid their

head

taxes to the foundation of

Mehmed

of the major trade

the Balkans served to finance that of Ahmed

(1604-17). All in

fairs in

all,

the

Conqueror (1451-81), while one

a substantial sector of

Ottoman public

I

finances was

placed under the chief black eunuch's control. His essential sphere remained the imperial harem, while the grand vizier,

whose sphere was the

and ranked second only state

— more

state,

was the equivalent of chief minister

to the Sultan. Yet,

so even than France's

where the Sultan was the

King Louis XIV envisaged, since the

Sultan was indivisibly the religious as well as secular the empire

— the

of

him provided could mean

influence that access to

more than any formal

embodiment

conveyed. Living in such proximity, and

status

with virtually unrestricted access to the Sultan, the chief black eunuch effectively lic

came

close to being his private chief minister. In fact, his pub-

role as councillor

in [he

and administrator was formalized by membership

imperial divan.

The

extent to

which the

status

and

prestige of the chief black eu-

nuch could be deployed was demonstrated and

it

was not his eldest son,

who mounted

in 1617,

Osman — nor any

when Ahmed

the throne, but his brother Mustafa.

historian Ibrahim Pegevi ascribed this

first

I

died,

of his other five sons

—

The contemporary

break with the principle of

succession from father to son to the influence of the chief black eunuch,

Mustafa Agha,

who persuaded

young— although,

at fourteen,

leading statesmen that

he was the same age

at

Osman was which

had become Sultan. Mustafa Agha's motive was allegedly

his

too

his father

determina-

THE tion to retain the

OTTOMAN EMPIRE

power he had wielded under

113

Ahmed

I,

when

all affairs

of state had been committed to his management.^

When

a chief black

especially

if

eunuch was not able

to influence the

Sultan

di-

with the Valide Sultan could be formidable enough,

rectly, his alliance

the Sultan was young, weak-willed, or unpopular. Moreover,

other black eunuchs were so situated as significantly to affect the course

came

of events. This, along with the power of the Valide Sultan,

to

be

demonstrated most dramatically in the seventeeth century.

Murad

who

IV,

reigned from 1623 to 1640, was one of the

army

tans to lead his

into battle,

and Kosem,

last

Sul-

mother, was the greatest

his

of the Valide Sultans, in the range and quality of her statecraft. Both

were

Murad, indeed, disposed of

ruthless.

Ibrahim,

who

survived only because

all

his brothers

but one,

Kosem had persuaded Murad

that

Ibrahim was incapable of governing and accordingly posed no threat.

Having secured

his eventual succession,

ing Ibrahim to father an heir.

He responded

excesses earned

him

rampant

had implications

libido

Kosem

the historical

title

set

about encourag-

so readily that his sexual

of Ibrahim the Debauched. This

Kosem's own domi-

that threatened

nance. She dealt with the ascendancy of one favorite concubine by

invit-

ing her to a feast and having her strangled there. Ibrahim, however, had

no fewer than eight

favorites,

and by 1648, he was so

beyond

far

his

mother's control that he exiled her to one of the capital's imperial gardens.

Kosem

set

out to remove him, and his increasing unpopularity

provided her with the means. She enlisted the support of the janissaries (royal guards),

along with a fatwa (judgment) from the religious authori-

ties stating that a

madman

was disqualified from

rule.

Ibrahim was de-

posed and shortly afterward murdered, leaving the way clear seven-year-old grandson to

mount

the throne as

Mehmed

for

Kosem's

IV.

This concluded Kosem's role and authority as Valide Sultan, an fice to

of-

which Turhan, the mother of the new Sultan, now acceded. But

given the relative youth of Turhan,

who was

still

in her early twenties,

and Kosem's own developed network of allies, which must have included the chief black eunuch,

Kosem secured

the necessary support to have

herself declared Regent.

This was such a breach of custom that

and Turhan was encouraged

it

became

in her resistance

a source of scandal,

by Siileyman Agha, the

RONALDSEGAL

114

head of the black eunuchs

Kosem planned

her service. Suspecting a conspiracy,

in

a preemptive strike.

She would have her

eldest grandson

displaced on the throne by his younger brother, whose mother, she was satisfied,

was

likely to

prove more submissive than Turhan.

One of Kosem's maidservants, however, betrayed this plan to Turhan, who might well have sanctioned — if not instigated — what ensued. Siileyman Agha and the other black eunuchs under his command murdered Kosem. The popular response

in the capital to the killing of

erable personage was to shut the

mourning.

Yet, in the

Ottoman

mosques and markets

such a ven-

for three days of

system, status was sacred.

However wide-

spread the belief in her complicit)' might have been, Turhan was Valide

Sultan and

now became

eunuch. His, however, proved

office of chief black

power.

He was

Regent, while Siileyman Agha was raised to the

some nine months

dismissed

later,

to

be a short tenure of

when Turhan began

to

regard his political objectives as in conflict with her own.

Turhan was the

last

role of Valide Sultan

nuchs

remained

and the influence of the black euto time,

continued

to

conduct of government. While they certainly were the most

prominent black

slaves in the empire, they

minute proportion of the

A

vital,

however attenuated from time

in the palace,

affect the

of the Valide Sultans to act as Regent, but the

customs

total

number

register for the port of

were never more than

a

of blacks there.

Antalya in 1359 reveals that

among

the considerable variet\- of exports from Eg\pt by sea, "Black slaves, both

male and female, constituted the bulk of the slaves exclusively."' talya

ment

Some

in the labor-intensive

demand

ships carried

who were imported through Ancities, among them Bursa, for employ-

manufacture of heavy brocades. Declines

modes of production were

for black slaves

Many

black slaves

probably went to Anatolian

particular

traffic.

likely to

in

be met by increases in the

elsewhere in the economy. Such

demand

in-

creased markedly in Cairo, for instance, during the second half of the

seventeenth century,

when merchants and

artisans

enjoyed a particular

period of prosperity.

Black slaves and freedmen were so numerous in the Aegean province of Aydin by the

last

quarter of the sixteenth centur\' that an edict was dis-

patched from the capital proscribing their assemblies, perhaps because

some

of the

rites

or customs they practiced were regarded as religiously

OTTOMAN EMPIRE

THE suspect.^

The

frequent mention of black slaves and freedmen in the ju-

dicial registers of

them on

115

Cyprus suggests that there were sizable numbers of

the island.

And

the trade continued to flourish in the empire

during the eighteenth century. Wealthier households of every ally

had

slaves,

and demand was conditioned by

"Greeks are said

ties:

to

faith usu-

different ethnic priori-

have preferred Bulgars

as slaves,

while Turks

preferred Africans.'"^ In the absence of adequate records, there are grounds only for guess-

work on the magnitude of the Ottoman demand tainly, the reliance

the

start.

strict

As early

controls

on

on as

slaves,

1453,

And

the

as the

Conqueror

imposed

actually

supply of white slaves declined,

Ottomans became more dependent on

the

Cer-

both white and black, was extensive from

Mehmed

their export.

for black slaves.

slaves

from black

Africa. In

down on the sodomestic purposes. They were

the great households of the rich, and even in those lower cial scale,

blacks were sought for various

used for large building projects and in transportation, as well small workshops of artisans. militar}' slaves in

to the

also

came

increasingly to be used as

one or more regions.

The continuous demand obedience

They

as in the

for black slaves

Koran, with

its

was effectively sustained by

encouragement of manumission,

either

through gratuitous acts of benevolence or through limited ser\qce contracts

by which slaves bought their freedom with their earnings. There

evidence that

Moreover, slaves,

it

was extensive in the

this practice

was not

who appear

uncommon

empire.

and

women

for masters to free

in estate inventories

is

craft sector of the

marr}'

under the patronymic

"b.

Abdul-

its

preten-

lah."io

The sions,

cost of sustaining the Sultanate in a style suitable to

and of waging war

to

maintain an empire whose enrichment by

conquest receded ever further into the

budget of 1669-70,

for

instance,

past,

when

drained tax revenues. In the warfare was limited to the

Ukraine, 62.5 percent of expenditure went on military purposes and no less

than 29.5 percent on the Sultan and his palaces. ^^

One

devious and

dangerous way of meeting the huge financial costs of the military machine was the issuance of pay treasury instead of vizier

money.

tickets or promissory^ notes

by the Ottoman

In 1782, an inspection ordered by the grand

found that only 10 percent of the names on these pay

tickets cor-

RONALDSEGAL

116 responded

who could be brought

people

to real

to battle.'-

not sur-

It is

prising that the royal janissaries were in intermittent re\olt, as their pay

more than two

fell

on paper than

While

years in arrears, or that the

army was more formidable

in the field.

and, above

social, political,

all,

economic innovation swept the

West, the Ottoman Empire remained steeped in

sterile

ceremonial.

The

color of robes and of slippers, the cut of sleeves, the shape of turbans, the

length of beards defined in scrupulous detail the difference between one of officials and another.

set

(1808-39)

for a

dress with a

took until the reign of

It

modernizing Sultan

new uniform

them

keep

to

II

to replace the ornate distinctions of

for officials: a

black

Expecting particular trouble from the

fez.

Mahmud

coat and red conical

fi-ock

Mahmud

clerg\-,

their traditional flowing robes

and

permitted

Even

large turbans.

so,

demonstrations and rioting accompanied the abandonment of custom for a

costume associated w ith the w orldly West.

Modernizing the economy, however, was modernizing the

dress. Later in the

rowed from the main

whose

interest costs

capital

from

nineteenth centur\-, the empire bor-

industrial states of

and

a ver}- different matter

Western Europe large sums,

repayment inevitably led

to

borrowing

even larger sums on ever more costlv terms. This made pressure from

more

Britain against the sla\e trade

market

in Istanbul

houses. In 1855,

toman Empire Mecca,

was closed, though

moves

led

difficult to resist. In 1846, the slave

to

impose

a

sales

were then held

in private

ban on the trade throughout the Ot-

Shaykh Jamal, head of the Muslim community-

to issue a fatwa declaring that the

ban was

a

breach of Islamic

holy law and that the Turks w ere apostates and heathens against

whom

was

fast,

obligator)- to

though

it

wage holy

war. Revolt in the Hijaz followed

1857, expressly exempted the Hijaz from

from which

to operate,

its

it

and

was defeated by June 1856, the ban, when promulgated

slave traders a base

in

in

provisions. This gave the

and the flow of black

slaves to

Arabia and the Gulf continued, although the numbers diminished as

Western

states

extended their conquests and control

and supply routes

Wars and

catchment areas

to

in Africa.'^

rebellions, directly or indirectly involving

the so-called great powers

— Britain,

sia—deprived the empire of

its

F'rance,

Germany,

richest provinces,

one or more of

Austria,

weakening

and Rusit

further

THE

OTTOMAN EMPIRE

and quickening the pace of

its

117

dismemberment. Then,

judgment, the empire chose the losing side in World

from the war

when

awhile on

to linger

the republic of Turkey

its

came

in a final mis-

War

I.

It

emerged

deathbed and was buried in 1923, into being.

The

formal abolition of

the Caliphate and the inception of a secular state followed in 1924. Slavery

abolished by the government in 1889 but

itself,

lamic jurisdiction, For

all

within a

its

lost

its

last

protection.

oppressions and corruptions, the

Muslim ascendancy, pursued

still

legal

under

Ottoman Empire had,

in general a policy of religious

tolerance by which other confessional communities coexisted in parative

The

peace.

process and aftermath of

accompanied, most notably

in

Is-

^"^

its

com-

contraction were

the Balkans, by the development of

contending nationalisms and confessional adherences that developed an ethnic or fects.

^^

''racial" ferocity that

For Islam

itself,

would be

lasting

terrible in

its

ef-

the secularization of Turkey was the gravestone

on the Caliphate, which had long been the state uniting the

and

community

of the faithful.

last living

symbol of a global

EIGHT

THC

Nowhere more

"HCRCTIC" STOTC: IROH

else in Islam

successful than in Iran, or Persia,

Sunni (orthodox) far

was the early emergent Shi'a

from

spiritual

trivial,

which came

strain as the heretic state.

since

it

The

to

be seen by the

doctrinal difference was

involved no less than the nature of Islam's proper

and temporal government. The association of

what amounted

(separatist) sect

to a Persian nationalism

claim that Husayn, son of the "martyred" the Persian king Yezdigird

Arab conquest— and that

— of the

it

this dissent

was expressed in the

'All,

had married

a

Shi'ite

daughter of

Sassanid dynasty swept away by the

was only from among

their descendants that

the imamate, or divinely ordained succession to the spiritual ral

with

and tempo-

leadership of Islam, could come.

As one historian has described

this

development: "In the

field of reli-

gion, the Persians resisted conversion to Islam for a long time and, in the

end, devised a

new

religion of their

did not want to profess the

devised "Shiaism"

is

same

own, Shiaism, perhaps because they

religion as the Arabs."

surely a patriotic fantasy, but

one

^

That the Persians that, in so far as

it

was believed, proved particularly potent. Certainly, unlike so

many

other peoples and cultures engulfed by the

seventh-century Arab conquests in the cause of Islam, the Persians to resist

came

Arab rule through the Caliphate and the resultant dominion of

RONALDSEGAL

120

The

Arabic as the holy language in which the Koran had been revealed. efforts

of the Umayyad Caliph 'Abdul Malik (685-705)

which surfaced

affection,

preachers.

Then,

in successive uprisings

in 747, the

with Persian support, led by

from

a

wide breach

An Umayyad rival

Umayyads were challenged by

their

own

Shi'ite

a rebellion,

cousins, the 'Abbasids, descended

in Islam.

dynasty would

The

Caliphate there.

Africa, too.

promoted by

dis-

an uncle of the Prophet. The success of the rebellion

al-' Abbas,

opened

impose Arabic

to

language throughout the empire fomented Persian

as the official

come

to rule al-Andalus

and

Meanwhile, the establishment of the 'Abbasid

Baghdad brought

closer to the ideas

it

establish a

'Abbasid Caliphate lost control of North

and

capital in

traditions of the East,

most

markedly the Persian. The 'Abbasid Caliphs assumed more of the powers

and

dignities of Persian kings

than those of Arabian sheikhs, and their

court was distinguished by the promotion of the arship.

According

to Hitti in

The Arabs: "In two

arts,

science,

fields

and schol-

only did the Ara-

bian hold his own: Islam remained the religion of the state and Arabic

continued

be the

to

The adoption satisfy

Sistan,

official

language of the

of Persian wine,

state registers."-

women, and song

did not, however,

Persian or Shi'ite aspirations. In Persia, from his base as ruler of

Ya'qub (died 879) went

failed to defeat

it,

to

war against the 'Abbasid Caliphate.

He

but he had already promoted a revival of the Persian

language, and the Samanid dynasty (900-1229), which ruled most of Persia, presided over a florescence in Persian arts it

was only

in the sixteenth

imam, would

set

century that another Persian dynasty, the

who claimed

Safavids (1499-1736),

and scholarship. But

direct descent

from the seventh

out to unite Persia as a Shi'a state and separate

from Sunni domination. This came

Ottoman Empire, by then

to involve a series of

it

finally

wars with the

the greatest power in Orthodox Islam.

And

it

was the decisive victory of Persian forces in 1603, during the reign of

Shah 'Abbas

I,

that not only restored to Persia

its

so-called lost provinces

but secured the identity of a Shi'a Iran.

Such turbulence Iran for black slaves. in the practice of

ously confined

is

unlikely ever to have interrupted the

Shah 'Abbas himself,

demand

rather than training his sons

arms that he himself had so profitably employed,

them

to

in

harems and the tutelage of eunuchs.'

It

jeal-

would

J

THE ''HERETIC" STATE: IRAN not have been remarkable Africa.

The

fact

is,

some of

if

121

these eunuchs had

however, that relatively

little is

come from

known about

black

slaves in Iran.

An American a

scholar, Joseph Harris, researching in the late 1960s for

book subsequently published under the

title

The African Presence

in

Asia: Consequences of the East African Slave Trade, experienced particular difficulties in

the black slave glish or

acquiring information on the Iranian involvement in

He found

trade."^

virtually

no published material

in

En-

French on the subject, and there was no Iranian who knew of

any such study

A history of Iran,

in Arabic or Persian.

published in 1961,

provided brief references to African slaves and small settlements of African descendants such as Zanjiabad (village built by Africans), Gala-

Zanjian stan,

near the

(castle of Africans)

and Deh-Zanjian

Then

there

of modern

is

(village built

Kenya and Tanzania, the

so-called Zanj,

were imported

on the sugar plantations

in the

in Khuzistan.^

the success of the late-ninth-century Zanj rebellion in spreading

from Iraq the large

to Persia,

where

numbers of Zanj

it

captured the province of Ahwaz, was due to

laborers,

who were

ing conditions on the sugar plantations there. tifies

of the Blacks" in Baluchi-

enticing evidence that black slaves from the coastlands

early centuries of Islam for labor

And

"Mount

by Africans) in Kerman Province.^

disaffected by

One

work and

liv-

scholar, indeed, iden-

the leader of the rebellion as Persian.''

Recenriy, an

American

scholar,

Thomas

Ricks, has provided invalu-

able further information from his research.^ In 936, an Iranian slave trader reportedly

had

as

many

as twelve

thousand black

slaves.^

And

the fifteenth century, there were hundreds of black slaves in Bam.^^

in

Shah

Sultan Husayn (died 1722), with his entire court, visited the markets in Isfahan on the icler

first

days of the Iranian

estimated that,

among

New Year. A contemporary chron-

the five thousand from the royal

harem

accompanying him, there were "100 white eunuchs and 100 black eunuchs."^

^

Eighteenth-century accounts

make

it

clear that black slaves

were sometimes entrusted with various, even high, administrative sponsibilities in the provinces. In 1717, for instance, tified as a

re-

Ya'qub Sultan, iden-

black slave in one such contemporary account, was appointed

Governor of Bandar Abbas, the principal port serving southern and central Iran.'^

RONALDSEGAL

122 was long

jiruft

slaves,

market center

a

and Harris found

li\

ing near

members, he supposed, were chants and

slaves.

it

for a trade that

included .\frican

a separate black

community whose

ver\- likely

They spoke

the descendants of African mer-

most Iranians did not under-

a dialect that

stand and that ma\' have accounted for their declared "strangeness."

Another black community'

living near the port of

Bandar Abbas would

have been descended from the black slaves employed on dhows or on

No

date plantahons in the \icinit\.

such community- existed

but some people there recalled reports of black slave

who accompanied

Iranian

in Shiraz,

men and women

Muslims returning from the pilgrimage

to the

holy places in .\rabia.''

The Encyclopaedia Treating of militias,

slavery- in

of Islam yields other, albeit

the Middle

.-^ges,

it

meager, information.

refers to "the

enormous

slave-

black or white, frequentK in ri\aln, which speediK reinforce or

replace the Arab, Berber and Iranian fighting-men."^"^ Subsequendy, "[in]

modern

been

practised.

Persia,

it is

essentially in the

domestic form that

There one meets w ith the general

slavery-

has

characteristics already

noted: usually good treatment, integration in the family, ease of enfiran-

chisement, with some modifications belonging to Imami Sh'ite law." Seventeenth-centur\ Europeans traveling in Iran w ere struck b\ the high

number and

of eunuchs and the power the\ had, both at the Safavid court

in the

houses of the great, though the majority of them were white.

The Enc^dopaedia

continues: "In the

der the Kadjars, white sla\es gether, except for the preth

harims

.

.

.

first

half of the 19th centur\, un-

became few and soon disappeared

Caucasian

girls

who continued

alto-

to enter the

The numbers of the black sla\es had increased; the\ were eiwho had crossed Arabia, or Zand) of east .\frica who

ther Ethiopians

came by way

of Zanzibar, Mascat and Bushire ... to draw custom to the

market of Shiraz."^' 1 he "usually good treatment" of

Mary Eleanor

Sheil, writing

spective of the British embassy,

she was dealing w

I

ith

and

Iran

it

is

clear

in

is

confirmed by Lady

1849-30 from the per-

from her obser\ations that

the treatment of black slaves:

hey are highly esteemed

intelligent,

sla\ es in

about the country

as

being mild,

faithful,

brave and

and are generally confidential ser\ants

sian households. Ill-treatment

in Per-

must of course sometimes

THE 'HERETIC STATE: IRAN when

take place

and

there

unlimited power on one hand,

is

on the

entire submission

the occasional instances in

Mission

in the [British]

masters.

which

The

fact

is

proved by

have taken refuge

sla\'es

escape from punishment by their

customary- treatment

is

similar to that of the other servants

when

of a famih, or e\en something better, particularly

happen

they

[Ethiopians].

Nubees

be

to

even

cruelt}', or

practised towards slaves in Persia. Their

rarel\-

is

other.

believed that in general,

Still it is

harshness,

to

123

They

[Nubians]

employed

are never

their occupations being confined

Habeshees

as field labourers,

the

to

or

duties

of the

household.

She "Thev

pointedl\- contrasted their condition with that of American slaves:

are not treated with

them

laws to hold to

freedom, and

contempt

as in

America; there are no special

in a state of degradation; they are frequently restored

when

this

happens, they take their station in societ\

without any reference to their colour or descent."

She even addressed the ported from the

They

difficult

question of numbers annuall) im-

Red Sea and Zanzibar:

certainly are not

seen in the

numerous, judging by the few

streets of the large

towns in the north of

to

be

Persia.

In those of the south they are doubtless in greater numbers,

and .

.

.

particularly in the low, level tract bordering the coast

The

difficult}

subject, arises

Persian

of forming a correct calculation on the

from the practice of each

Gulf being an importer

from the

slaves

being landed

in his

at a variety-

extending over a great length of coast.

posed not

whom

to

pett\'

chief in the

own

vessels,

and

of small harbours

The number

is

sup-

exceed two or three thousand annualh', of

a great man\' die after leaving the hot region of the

Persian coast. ^^

Lad\' Sheil's

comments on

the absence of color discrimination in Iran

must be considered alongside the

more than

a century later,

ver\' different

evidence adduced, albeit

by Joseph Harris. Conducting interviews

at

RONALDSEGAL

124

Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, and Bandar Abbas in 1967, Harris encountered attitudes that

seemed

similar to those

among

northern Indians of Aryan

complexion

origin: a color consciousness that identified a fair or light

human

the ideal of

as

beauty and attached a corresponding stigma to black-

came across proverbial Someone neglected by rela-

ness. In widely separated parts of the country, he

expressions that attested to such prejudice. tives or friends

And

might

issue the

irresponsibilit}^ or lack of

criticism "It

is

like putting a

rebuke ''Am

I

your child of a Negress?"

sound judgment might be castigated

sword

in the

hands of

in the

drunken Negro."^^

a

Iranians of African descent, such as those in the black

community

liv-

ing near Bandar Abbas, complained to Harris of the scorn directed at

them, and he attributed such scorn

to the legacy of centuries:

Asians, like Europeans, were primarily interested in exploit-

ing African labour; therefore they nourished ideas in support of social

and

perpetuated those

political

systems that protected and

provided the

interests. In Asia, Africans

labour for the date plantations and the pearl-diving industry;

they were the principal stevedores, crew hands and do-

mestics, the troops of Asian rulers,

concubines of Asian psychological, social,

elites. All

and the eunuchs and

of these roles satisfied the

and economic needs of the Asian

slaveholder and contributed to the devaluation of the worth of Africans. •^

This view seems incompatible with that of Lady Sheil. Yet ble that each provided a different side of the truth. that the treatment of slaves

other servants "particularly" there

Lady Sheil observed

when

they were Nubians or Ethiopians, and to Iran

within Islam in a color

more "Negroid"

prejudice that differentiated between the less and the

complexion and other features among African

no need of

slavery.

slaves.

asserting

its

superiority of color.

— as

it

And

it is

in

Lady Sheil may

formed her impressions from an Iranian upper

prejudice intensified

possi-

was "even something better" than that of

would have been nothing peculiar

also have

it is

social class in

arguable that color

did in the United States

— after

the end of

THE ''HERETIC STATE: IRAN Certainly, color prejudice, whatever Iran as elsewhere in Islam, the

frequent freeing and, for lation.

some

humane

125

extent, did not preclude, in

its

treatment of black slaves, their

at least, the relative ease of social assimi-

Indeed, Iranians had a special reason for treating their slaves hu-

manely.

During the eighteenth century and Iran itself was a source of slaves.

were subjected

numbers were slaves

Its

part of the nineteenth century,

people in Khurasan and Gurgan

by the Turkmens, and large

to continual slave raiding

Uzbeks. Large numbers, too, were taken

slaves of the

by the Ottomans,

as

evidenced

for instance

by

a treaty in

as

1736 that

provided for the return of several thousand Persian slaves to Iran from

Ottoman

Iraq.^^ Iranians in their turn seized Christian

Georgians in border raids or warfare, though

manchai Iran

after the

Armenians and Treaty of Turk-

and

in 1828, the supply of Christian slaves declined sharply

became

ever

more dependent on black

slaves.

Sparse figures exist, for particular periods, in reports to the British

number

Foreign Office. In 1842, the

of African slaves

and

sian ports was estimated at 1,080,

who landed

at Per-

a questionnaire elicited the re-

sponse that about 3,000 slaves (roughly 2,000 males and 1,000 females) arrived in Bushire each year, with only 170 or 180 sold locally

According

to

(Khurramshahr) and Basra. -^

Muhammarah

large majority dispatched to

and the

such dispatches, the trade in Ethiopian slaves was espe-

cially profitable.

A

girl

bought

(£8 sterling) could fetch as

on other African Cent." Almost

all

Berbera for 40 Maria Theresa dollars

at

much

as

150

at

slaves reaching Bushire

Bushire. Yet even the profits

were

''never less than 50 per

such sources agreed that once these slaves arrived

their ultimate destination, "their condition

was

little

at

worse than that of

the free population around them."-^ British pressure against the slave trade in the region intensified

1821 onward and achieved

from the Sultan of Muscat Barrett Kelly recorded, "the

its

most notable success

to collaborate in

as great as

clusion of the 1845 and 1847 treaties," offset

by the

in

rise in

it

an agreement

suppression. Yet, as John

volume of slaves imported

tween 1848 and 1850 was almost

Zanzibar was

its

from

into the

Gulf be-

had been before the con-

when

the

fall

in exports

from

those from Ethiopia.^- Lewis specifi-

cally cites the Arabia-Iran connection:

"Thanks

to the

exemption from

RONALDSEGAL

126

the ban on the slave trade, the flow of slaves from Africa into Arabia and

through the Gulf into Iran continued

Thomas

long time."^^

Ricks draws on contemporary nineteenth-centur}^ accounts

community within

nature of the slave

to indicate "the extensive

... as a result of long-term slave trading and

societysla\'e

for a

Iranian

new demands

for

labor within the Iranian economy."^"^ In 1868, a census in Tehran

found

that, of the

vants,

and 756 were male black

147,256

civilians, 12

slaves

percent were black slaves or

ser-

(ghulam) and 3,014 female ones

(kaniz), or 2 percent of a population which, with 8,480 military troops,

totaled 155,736.-' But only urban

household members were counted

in

the census. Slaves used in agricultural work, in the irrigation systems

within and outside the

and

cit\',

in the gardens

surrounding

it

were

ex-

cluded. Ricks concluded that the census of Tehran might well have

represented "a fraction of that

numbers, such a

as

city's

and with other

slave population,"

roughly seven thousand in the Gulf region, he suggests

probable figure of

eight}-

thousand

for the ''overall

number

of slaves in

mid-1 9th centur\' Iran."-^

The number counted

of blacks

as serx^ants rather

the religious center in

Tehran,

is

left

than

slaves. In 1877, a

management

He mentioned

almost certainly

high-ranking officer of

Mashad, leaving home on

instructions for the

lage land in his absence.

Some were

another matter.

a business trip to

of his household and

in particular the "black servants"

in his

household, of whose well-being he was clearly solicitous.-

same

year, the principal financial officer of Isfahan,

survey associations and properties in the tion of

Male and Female

fahan, there are

many

cit\',

In the

commissioned

reported on

"The

Some

are free,

majorit}' are children of slaves [khanehzad].

many were brought

some remain

At one time

as slaves.

when

to

Associa-

Slaves" in the following expansive terms: "In

slaves.

\ il-

Is-

The

the sale of

sold. All of

them

have reproduced [among themselves] while some of them are

half-

slaves

.

.

.

flourished,

breeds.

While

few are

[still]

It

it

took until

Britain,

is

some

years

brought into 1882

this

now

slaves

and

that the sale of slaves

is

forbidden, a

region from Ethiopia and Zanzibar."-^

for Iran to

and even then,

to Isfahan

renounce the trade

continued

to

in a treat)- with

be smuggled into Iran with

the collaboration of bribed officials. Gertainlv, slaver\- itself sur\'ived. In

1898, the Anti-Slaver)' Societ)' reported an estimate, from

its

correspon-

THE ''HERETIC" STATE: IRAN dent in Iran, of between twenty-five and

thousand black slaves

and eunuchs, not necessarily

in the country;-^ still

fifty

127

all

of

them

freed,

still

were

^° a feature of Iranian upper-class establishments in the 1890s.

Subsequently, a certain Dr. A. Miller, after serving as Russian consul in Sistan, reported in a

tan they

sell slaves,

book published

white and black, delivered openly in Baluchistan and

headman

other regions. Almost every village

male

slave.

The

price of a strong

50 to 80 tumans.

Petersburg in 1907: "In Sis-

at St.

The female

young male

in Sistan has a

slave in Sistan

is

male or

fe-

an average

slaves are cheaper. Relations with slaves are

humane."^^ Only in October 1907 did the newly established National

Assembly enact

a

"fundamental

law'' in favor

of individual freedom. ^^

There remains the vexed and vexing question of numbers. The mean vestiges of black survival in

of imports for

which there

which Lady Sheil to the "great

other.

referred

modern is

many" who died

relation to the extent

hot region of the coast, an-

Islam deals with the issue in exclusively rate

which overtook these coloured

prevented their forming an important element in the pop-

ulation."^^ Ricks has a slaves:

little

ease of social assimilation to

after leaving the

The Encyclopaedia of

in Persia

The

would provide one explanation; her reference

male terms: "The high mortality

men

Iran bear

evidence.

broader answer to the disappearing numbers of

"High mortality among

dren—since Muslims married

slaves

slave

and

failure to

women who

reproduce slave

chil-

bore them children and

freed the offspring— reduced the surviving slave population."^"^ Since assimilation was easier for those

who were

planation would account as well for the of a black diaspora in Persia.

free than for slaves. Ricks 's exall

but complete disappearance

NINE

THC LiBvon connccTion

In the

fifth

The

B.C., the

Fezzan (situated

in the

desert

century

Greek

southern Libya)

in

and used four-horse chariots

ancient

historian Herodotus wrote of people

who went

south into the

chase "Troglodyte Ethiopians."^

to

Greeks distinguished two categories of color among

Africans. Libya was the that of the dark.

homeland of the

light-skinned,

and Ethiopia was

Hence, the charioteering Garamantes were Libyans,

while the "Troglodyte Ethiopians" were not actually Ethiopians but were

probably the Teda, or Tubu, nomadic black people of Tibesti in the Sahara. Herodotus's reference

was long discounted on the grounds that

there was no evidence of horse-drawn chariots ever having reached so far south. Recently discovered Saharan cave paintings of such chariots, ever, suggest that

how-

Herodotus might well have been accurately informed,

in that respect at least.-

Nonetheless, the lack of other records, such as relevant Africa's

artifacts in

southern savannah, suggests that any trade across the Sahara in

ancient times was small and

rare. It

was the spreading use of camels dur-

ing the third and fourth centuries of the Ghristian Era, and then the

Is-

lamic conquest of North Africa in the seventh century, that promoted a flourishing trans-Saharan trade.

century, four

main

routes

And by

the beginning of the eleventh

had developed, one of which reached from

RONALDS EGAL

130

on the North African

Tripoli

through the Pezzan,

coast,

to

Hausaland

and the region of Lake Chad.

The

fourteenth-century Islamic traveler Ibn Battuta visited the area of

Tagadda, along the town, he

this trade route

met

he had

chief. "In place of a saddle

wearing

from

Tripoli. At

one

day's journey

from

the "Sultan," v\ho seems to have been a Tuareg tribal a

gorgeous saddle-cloth, and he was

and turban,

a cloak, trousers,

all

in blue,"

he reported.

"I left

Tagadda on Thursday 11th Sha'ban of the year [seven hundred and] fift\-four

[September

hundred

women

1353] with a large caravan which included

11,

slaves."^

countr\' of Haggar,

who

The caravan

spent a

month

are a tribe of Berbers: they

are a rascally lot""^— before Ibn Battuta left

it

at

Buda

in

six

Ahaggar— "the

wear face

veils

and

in the west, to join

another caravan for the journey to Sijilmasa and onward to his Moroc-

can home. The caravan with

bound,

its

female slaves was evidently elsewhere

for Tunis, Tripoli, or farther east, via the Awjila oasis south of

Benghazi,

to Cairo.

Ibn Battuta 's account points to two essential features of the medieval trans-Saharan trade that would persist in the following centuries. Black slaves

were the dominant export

notes, the traders relied

on

a

to the north,

and, as Magali Morsy

"working partnership with the nomads

who

were the masters of the desert and were therefore necessar\-

for safe trav-

These nomads, mainly Berbers but Bedouin Arabs

as well, not

eling."^

only protected the caravans, or at least abstained from attacking them,

but even provided guides and camel drivers. Furthermore, their militar)

prowess might be directed against black Muslim states in the south, to supply the caravans in their

tireless

quest for slaves.

Muslim goxernments in the north accordingly tended to concede the autonomy and respect the institutions of the various tribal confederacies in the Sahara, treating these as agents or allies rather

The more

powerful Sudanic black kingdoms in the south, controlling

the markets to

which the Saharan nomads needed

own accommodation,

using

some

in warfare, or in raiding other

The and

men

central Sahara was

dialect

than adversaries.

were related

rather than the

of the tribal confederacies as associates

Sudanic peoples and

home

access, reached their

to the

Berber Tuareg, whose traditions

to the culture of

women wore

veils,

states.

ancient Libyan

and

their

societ}'.

The

costume, which was

THE LIBYAN CONNECTION made

of cloth dyed dark blue, gave

them

131

the popular

name

of the "Blue

People." Their various tribal confederacies were so strong that

some of

them came

was the

respectfully to be distinguished as "Sultanates."

It

pragmatic accommodation between these Tuareg and Tripolitania

from the seventeenth century on, and especially tury,

that,

in the nineteenth cen-

contributed to the mounting importance of the trade route between

and two major Sudanic slave-supplying markets: Bornu

Tripoli

Kanem),

in the region of

Lake Chad, and the Hausa

(later

states to the west.

Long-distance trade across the Sahara required both camels and the

The Libyan

date-producing oases for stations along the way.

Ghadames, and Kufra provided such

Awjila,

across the Sahara not only

Sudan

or

Morocco

from south

to north

Nomads

east to Egypt.

camels that could be hired or bought

stations for

oases of

moving

slaves

but also from the western

in the vicinity

to furnish

new

had numerous

caravans or replen-

ish those in passage.

The

commercial center of Ghadames was an independent mu-

great

with a settled

nicipality,

and with

community swollen by sojourning merchants,

official representatives

of the authorities in Tripoli backed by

an occasional reinforcing military expedition. Though the Tuareg controlled the

surrounding

territory

the sales or purchases on

night within

its

ing center at

tonomous

and

visited the

which they

town

relied, they

"avoided spending the

walls."^ Likewise, the Sultanate of

Murzuq and

status

at their pleasure, for

Fezzan, with

its

trad-

with Tuareg roaming the region, had au-

under hereditary

rulers of

its

own, but paid tribute

to a

suzerain Tripoli.

The

greater entity of Tripolitania

emerged from the

early-fifteenth-

century conflict between Christian Europe and Ottoman Islam for control

of the North African ports. Tripoli

itself fell to

Spain in 1510, but was

then conquered in 1551 by the Ottoman Empire and became the capital of an expanding state. pire, Tripolitania

Though

designated a western province of the em-

was functionally autonomous, with power wielded by a

Turkish pasha and a diwan, or ruling assembly, drawn from

among

the

resident Turkish officer class. Gradually, Tripolitania spread eastward,

encompassing the whole of Cyrenaica, up

to the desert

border with

Egypt.

The

Turkish military rulers generally excluded indigenous Libyans

RONALDSEGAL

132

from holding government them, and, with slave

office,

in particular, preferred sexual relationships girls to

those with indigenous

largely ineffectual, however, except

increasing

discouraged social integration with

numbers of the

in

— and marriage —

women. Such

policies proved

promoting resentment among the

so-called kulughlis, the progeny of the rela-

women and Turkish men, who were denied ac1711, Ahmad Qaramanll, one such kulughli, took

tionships between local cess to high office. In

advantage of a quarrel between the pasha and his admiral to

mount

a

successful coup. Popular support for the ensuing regime led in 1722 to

an Ottoman decree that recognized Qaramanll line of pashas to

as the first in a hereditar\'

govern Tripolitania.

The Qaramanll

dynasty would survive until 1835, despite sometimes

murderous feuding within the family,

and pestilence, and

a formidable

social unrest in periods of

but failed attempt in 1793

drought

to restore the

substance of Ottoman sovereignty where there was only the semblance of

it.

This turbulence did nothing

reduce the importance of the

to

Libyan connection in the trans-Saharan slave trade.

Yusuf Qaramanll, who ruled from 1796

to 1832,

sought direct control

of that trade and in 1810 dispatched a military expedition to that secured for a while the submission of the

followed this in

Muhammed

by military backing

1811

Tuareg for

a

Ghadames

in the region.

Tripoli

He

merchant,

al-Mukani, to depose the five-hundred-year-old black ruling

dynast)- of the

Fezzan and

autonomous Sultanate

triple the tribute the

and

traditionally paid to Tripoli.

Al-Mukani had the

likely successors all strangled,

and was appointed Bey of Fezzan, with the

title

of Sultan only to be used

In 1818, Captain G. F.

enhfic expedition

bound

when

ruler

in residence.

Lyon of the Royal Navy joined

for the

his nearest

Fezzan.

When

he arrived

a British sciin Tripoli,

he

recorded that al-Mukani (or "el-Mukni," in his version), having established himself in power,

"waged war on

and annually carried

4000 or 5000

off

all his

slaves.

defenceless neighbours

From one

of these slave-

Kanem he had just returned to Tripoli, with a numerous body captives and many camels, and was, in consequence, in the highest

hunts into of

favour with the Bashaw

The

[

Pasha].

"^

journey from Tripoli to Murzuq, capital of the Fezzan, by the

Sultan and his caravan, to which Lyon was attached, took thirty-nine

CONNECTION

THE LIBYAN

133

and "the road, with the exception of the immediate

days,

vicinity of the

towns, was a dreary desert, having but few wells, and those of

Nothing could have been more fortunate than our

salt water.

travelling with the

Sultan; our difficulties must otherwise have been very great/'^ This says

something of the

risks that slave

caravans, less well provisioned

and more

impatient in their progress, must have run in the journey from

Murzuq

to Tripoli.

In

Murzuq (which he

spells

"Morzouk"), Lyon learned that the Sul-

tan had in his establishment "about very comely

.

.

.

guarded by

five

occasionally beating them."*^

[Tuareg]

came with

eunuchs,

To

their slaves

fifty

young women,

who keep up

the town,

"many

and

carr\' off

tribes of

their authority

parties of

them, are always

at

after

"The Tuarick,

war with the Soudan

from them incalculable numbers of

They

slaves.

by

Tuarick

and goods."^^ And, Lyon reported,

describing their complexion, costume, and customs:

more properly

black and

all

or

states,

are so

completely masters of their weapons, and so very courageous, that they are

much

dreaded, which enables

them

very small bodies, countries full of clearly based

doubt

its

armed

on what Lyon had been

unmolested, and in

to traverse

told,

people."^

This report was

^

but there

is

no reason

accuracy. Personal observation informed another report:

At the end of this month [August 1819], a large Kaffle avan]

of Arabs,

Tripolines,

[car-

and Tibboo, arrived from

Bornou, bringing with them 1400 slaves of both sexes and of

ages, the greater part being females. Several smaller

all

parties

had preceded them, many of

slaves.

We

them

whom

rode out to meet the great

enter the town

—

it

also

kaffle,

brought

and

to see

was indeed a piteous spectacle!

These poor oppressed beings were, many of them, so

ex-

hausted as to be scarcely able to walk; their legs and feet

were

much

swelled,

and by

striking contrast with their

their

enormous

size,

formed a

emaciated bodies. They were

borne down with loads of firewood; and even poor children,

worn

to skeletons

little

by fatigue and hardships, were

obliged to bear their burthen, while

man

all

many

of their inhu-

masters rode on camels, with the dreaded whip sus-

to

RONALDSEGAL

134 pended from

which

their wrists, with

from time

they,

to

time, enforced obedience from these wretched captives.

Care was taken, howexer,

hair of the females

that the

should be arranged in nice order, and that their bodies should be well oiled, whilst the males were closely shaven,

them

to give

Nor were

a

good appearance on entering the town.^-

means

the hardships by an\-

at

an end:

All the traders speak of slaves as farmers

do of

cattle.

Those

recentlv brought from the interior were fattening, in order that they

might be able

go on

to

to Tripoli,

Benghazi, or

Eg\pt: thus a distance of 1600 or 1800 miles

to

is

be

tra-

versed, from the time these poor creatures are taken from their

homes, before they can be

settled; whilst in the Inte-

doomed to pass through the masters, who treat them well or ill, ac-

they may, perhaps, be

rior

hands of eight or ten

cording to their pleasure. These devoted victims fondly

hoping that each new purchaser ma\- be the haps that they have again

to

commence

long and drear\' with the one they have a

a

last,

find per-

journey equally

just finished,

under

burning sun, with new companions, but with the same

miseries.^'

L\on was indignantly aware of how

far

the slaving acti\

ities

served the Libyan trade were conducted in breach of Islamic law expressly said that

Moslems may

lieve in Islamism;

but that they should

their refusing to

same law

take or destroy first

endeavour

who

be taken captixe or sold. Nothing, howexer,

Mohammedan, ing to convert

than to instruct the Negroes:

them

own advantage This his

men

is

infinitely

in his faith, is

and on

more

so; for

this

is

is

slaves.

The

Moslems cannot

further from the idea of a for,

instead of endeavour-

he appropriates and

sufficiently unjust, but the

towns where the only religion

Mosques; and

to instruct,

are already is

is

not be-

acknowledge the Koran, then make them

distinctly teaches that those

that "It

who do

those

all

:

sells

them

for his

conduct of Mukni and

they seize on the inhabitants of w hole that of the Koran,

without scruple or remorse."^"^

and where there are

CONNECTION

THE LIBYAN Lyon had no doubts about the

135

Sultan's personal responsibility for

such practices and worse, with the recruitment of Arabs, Bedouin, and

"some of the Tibboo of Tibesty and Gatrone," drawn

"in hopes of ob-

taining a share in the plunder," to conduct his warfare:

on

are ever allowed to go

lanimous

to

military excursions, being considered too pusil-

be trusted; but they pay deeply

wars in which the Sultan

is

called

state of the

upon

who

not to fight

A

men them

force

There

are

no

to the

southward, are

therefore annually sent,

is

make any

the Negroes cannot

(for

do.

engage; but his love of gain,

to

Negro kingdoms

temptations too strong to be resisted.

exemption from

for their

bearing arms, by being obliged to support those

and the defenceless

"No Fezzaners

resistance against horse-

with fire-arms) but to pillage these defenceless people, to carry off as slaves,

and

their crops,

burn

inflict

their towns, kill the

aged and

infants, destroy

on them every possible misery. These inroads

have sometimes been conducted by Mukni in person, and in his absence, by

some of his

principal men."^^

Nonetheless, as Lyon observed, slaves

— once

their masters rather

than their captors and dealers were in possession of

them— were

treated

relatively well in the Sultanate:

The

better class of the people, or those

property'

.

.

.

have great power

inferiors; yet are as free

and

associate as

down

much

to oppress

who have some and

ill

treat their

with their slaves as with each other,

with them.

A slave

will

come and

sit

with his master, though not on the same mat, and

join in the conversation,

amusement,

out a shirt on his back;

when

clothes, however,

he

is

or meal, even with-

the master wears his best

too dignified to permit such free-

dom. ^^

He

also noted:

Morzouk about a tenth of the population are slaves, though many have been brought away from their countries In

so

young

as hardly to

be considered

spect to the household slaves,

perceived between

little

in that light.

or

With

no difference

them and freemen, and they

is

to

re-

be

are often

RONALDSEGAL

136

entrusted with the affairs of their master. These domestic slaves are rareK sold, to

and on the death of any of the family

which they belong, one

or

more of them

when, being accustomed

libert}',

recei\e their

to the countr\',

having any recollection of their own, they

and not

marr\', settle,

M\

and

are

consequendy considered

for

an unlimited time, unless when a religious feeling of

the master induces festival,

ii

him

as naturalized.

to set a

on the occasion of

bondsman

a death, or,

free

slavery-

is

on any great

which not unfre-

quently happens, from his wish to show approval of the slave's services.^

In

marked

recorded

March

contrast was the brutalit}- of the dealers,

among

which Lyon

the last of his obser\ations on returning to Tripoli in

1820, one year after his departure from there:

None were

of the owners ever

in constant use; that of

so than the rest: in fact,

poor

moved without

slaves, that

Drinking too

I

Hadje

[sic]

their whips,

Mohammed more

he was so perpetually flogging

was frequenfly obliged

much

to

water, bringing too

falling asleep before the

which

his

disarm him.

little

wood, or

cooking was finished, were consid-

ered nearly capital crimes, and

it

was

in vain for these

poor

creatures to plead the excuse of being tired; nothing could at all avert ill

the application of the whip.

or unable to walk; but

when

No

slave dares to

the poor sufferer dies, the

master suspects there must have been something 'wrong side,'

and

regrets not

remedy of burning the

be

in-

having liberally applied the usual belly

w ith

a red hot iron; thus rec-

onciling to themselves their cruel treatment of these unfor-

tunate creatures.'^

hi Tripoli

itself,

piastre, a silver

The Swedish

for dealing in slaves,

coin weighing nine drachmes, or a

little

over one ounce.

consul there from 1822 to 1828 recorded the prevailing

cal prices for slaves as for

Arab traders favored the Spanish

an adult male; 70

650

to

80

to

750

piastres for a black

for a vouth;

40

to

eunuch; 90

to

lo-

100

50 for a bov under ten; 120

CONNECTION

THE LIBYAN to

150 for a

woman; 90

to

100 for a

girl;

and 50

137 60

to

for a girl

under

ten.i^

Al-Mukani had

clearly

been serving the Libyan connection well with were

such supplies. Yet either these

still

insufficient to satisfy the appetite

deemed to be taking too large a cut for himself, beremoved him in 1820 and appointed another subordinate

of Tripoli or he was

cause Tripoli

Sultan. Moreover, in response to increasing French

and

British imperial

ambitions in North Africa, Yusuf Qaramanll sought a countervailing

and aggrandizement south of the Fezzan. In 1821, he sent an

liance

army

al-

campaign along with the

to

brought Tripoli

some

six

an expedition that

forces of Bornu,

thousand slaves with a similar number of

camels. Further such campaigns followed until 1824, but with unex-

pected consequences.

The

'Abd

al-Jalil,

commander

leader of the powerful

moned

promoted the repute and

very success of the campaigns

tions of

his

aspira-

of Tripoli's army in the south and

Awlad Siilayman Arab

tribesmen to revolt and seized

tribe. In

Murzuq

1830, he sum-

in 1831, declaring

an

independent Sultanate of the Fezzan, and though driven out in 1832, he continued

to

campaign through southern Libya and

still

farther south to

the region of Lake Chad.

Meanwhile,

in 1830,

French forces had attacked

war of conquest that would eventually take

all

Algiers, initiating a

of Algeria.

A

French

squadron, dispatched to Tripoli, imposed humiliating treaties upon the Pasha, requiring a limit on the size of his creditors,

and the payment of and

rebellion, disaffection,

of his son

While

a

'All

war indemnity. In 1832, confronted by

intrigue,

Yusuf Qaramanll abdicated

had the support of local

Yusuf 's nephew

citizens, the religious

in favor

appointing

'All as

and military

and the French consul, the contending claim of

Muhammad

was advanced by the British consul and by

an important community of kulughlis.

its

the satisfaction of French

'All.

authorities in Tripoli,

with

fleet,

Pasha, did

little to

An Ottoman

decree of 1834,

quell the opposition to him;

prestige dangerously at stake, in 1835, the

Ottoman Empire

patched ten warships and an equal number of troop

carriers.

A

and dis-

further

imperial decree swept aside both contenders and reduced the status of Tripolitania to that of a

mere province.

The Ottoman occupying

force encountered such widespread

armed

RONALDSEGAL

138 opposition that

it

w ould take seven years before the region of Tripoh

it-

was subdued, another year before Ghadames and the Fezzan were

self

brought under control, and another

fifteen years before the last of the re-

and executed

sistance was crushed. 'Abd al-Jalil himself was captured

some

1842, but

mand

Under

of his tribal followers refused to submit.

Muhammad,

of his son

the

in

com-

thousand warriors mo\ed southward

a

along the trans-Saharan trade route, pursuing the traditional predator}practices of this trade

A more came from

and eventually seizing control of Kanem

in 1870.'^^

formidable challenge to Ottoman authorit\- in the region

Muslim mo\ement founded by Muhammad

the reformist

bin 'All al-SanusT (1787-1859). Born in an Algerian village, al-SanusT

became

a

poet,

mathematician, historian, theologian, and traveling

preacher. His message of universal brotherhood was Prophet's ideal communit}', but took into account a

modeled on the

modern world whose

challenges could be mastered only by the force of personal faith and dividual effort.

He

attracted disciples in Arabia

Then,

he

finally settled at

in 1853,

Jaghbub

in-

and across North Mrica.

in eastern Cyrenaica,

the cara\'an route from the west and that from the south

met on

where

the

way

to Eg}pt.

Al-SanusT had wells dug, roads made, and a tow n built where Saharan

nomads and caravan

traders could stay

and

store their

goods

in

its

ware-

houses. Tribal pacts were promoted or negotiated to secure the safe passage of merchandise, there, to stay

and

and

visitors

were influenced by what they learned

become holy men

study,

themselves, and carr\ the

SanusT message to others. All this had a militant— even military —political

dimension. IncreasingK', the settlements of SanusT teachers and mis-

sionaries developed into fortified monasteries.

have enough weapons

were supposedly directed the secrecy surrounding

Ottoman

arm

to

at

Jaghbub was reputed

three thousand men.-^

Such preparations

confronting Western imperial expansion, but

them suggested

Al-SanusT's

ow n mistrust of the

authorities.

B\ the time of al-SanusT's death in 1859, his influence

throughout the Sahara, engaging such confederations. port

to

under the

The

fraternity

command

tribal forces as the

continued

to

grow

in

had spread

major Tuareg

numbers and sup-

of al-SanusT's two sons, one a scholar and the

other a warrior. B\ the 1880s, the SanusT order was belie\cd to haxe

al-

THE LIBYAN most three million followers and twenty-five thousand

CONNECTION

139

be capable of deploying some

to

armed tribesmen, including

fifteen

hundred horse-

men.

By the

Benghazi on the Mediterranean, through the oases of Kufra, Awjila, to

from

early twentieth century, the value of the trade south

Wadai beyond the Sahara, was estimated

sterling, or just

under $1 million

at

200,000 pounds

contemporary exchange

at the

and

Jalu,

rate,^^ to

the considerable profit of the SanusT order, which controlled the oases.

Furthermore, that relied

this

was only one among several trans-Saharan trade routes

on the protection provided by the SanusT. According

to Philip

Curtin: "Another from Tripoli through the Fezzan to Zinder (now in

Niger) and on to northern Nigeria carried goods of even greater value."^^

The

SanusT attitude to slavery was scarcely ambivalent. Certainly,

al-

SanusT himself bought slaves from Arab traders, educated them in his

community, and then freed them with the charge of returning sionaries to their

homelands. Yet neither he nor

his leadership intervened against the slave trade.

pacts

between various

tribes

as mis-

his sons in succession to

Indeed, by promoting

and even providing guardians

for the safe

passage of caravans, the SanusT order manifestly facilitated and fostered the trade. Moreover, there

is

evidence that slaves were employed

as agri-

cultural workers in the Saharan oases controlled by the order.

Henri

Duveyrier, a French traveler, estimated the slave population at

Cyre-

naican headquarters alone

at

two thousand in

its

1883.^"^ Clearly,

with

SanusT influence so strong, the slave trade continued to flourish.

On

the pretext of spreading the faith, the Sultanate of

Wadai

in the

Central Sudan preyed on the pagan peoples to the south for slaves.

While other routes came under increasing surveillance and pressure by European and European-influenced Ottoman power, the Wadai-

Benghazi route was partly protected by but also by the

facilities

and peaceful

its

very remoteness

transit

and hazards,

through nomadic

tribal ar-

eas that the SanusT provided.

This was a trade that took manufactured goods, mostly arms,

Wadai and brought back some raw tent of the ity

materials but mainly slaves.

The

to

ex-

arms trade may be assessed by both the quantity and the qual-

of the guns that successive Sultans of

Muhammad

al-Sharif (died

1858)

Wadai accumulated. Sultan

owned onlv

three hundred; Sultan

RONALDSEGAL

140 (1858-1874),

'All

thousand

four

(1902-1909), some ten thousand

which included breech-loading

through Benghazi was roughly 1,000

between 2,000 and 2,400

tur}',

rifles,

Dudmurra

Sultan

and Winchesters. The average annual export

Colts, Remingtons, slaves

and

muskets;

and declined toward the

in mid-centur}',

close of the centur\^ not for lack of supplies, but because

through the Mediterranean was becoming increasingly

The

oasis of Jalu, a six-day

from Wadai. From Cyrenaica or

jalu, traders

to the oasis of Siwa,

found

working

slaves

passing through on the

way

to

for traders

them

from

as well as

slaves either to northern

where they could deal

clandestine marketing in Egypt or beyond. in 1898,

Libyan con-

Bornu and the Fezzan,

might move

of their stocks for local use, or restore

Siwa

its

journey south of Benghazi,

was an important station along the trans-Saharan route, the states along the Niger bend, from

shipment

difficult.-'

This was by no means the end of the desert trade and nection, however.

in

in the early nineteenth cen-

condition for

to a suitable

A

dispose

illicifly,

British traveler, visiting

in the fields, living in the town,

and

Alexandria and Istanbul.-^

In 1858, the British Consul-General in Tripoli estimated that the slave trade constituted

across the Sahara.-'

"more than two-thirds of

The German

eled from Tripoli to the Fezzan, Bornu, and

mated

met

slave exports

from Wadai

daily small caravans

at fifteen

had been

The Governor

ounces of

a

decade

rate of

more than

— some

transit toll

five

down

applied to officials lower

less

later, esti-

edicts against the slave

Libyan region.

on

income of up

thousand

to fort}'

which

repre-

one and

a half

sla\es,

dollars, or

this

was

easy to see

why

Since

slaves. ^^

the Governor's annual salar),

he treated the relevant edicts with

trav-

to Tripoli.-'^

Ottoman

two Maria Theresa

per slave

who

thousand.-^ In 1869, Nachtigal

of the Fezzan, he reported, had an

silver,

considerably

the caravan trade"

issued, but evidently to small effect in the

thousand marks a year from the

sented—at the

Wadai

en route from Murzuq

B) the time of Nachtigal's travels, trade

all

physician Gustav Nachtigal,

it is

than due respect;

and the same

the line. In the Pczzan, during Nachti-

gal's travels there, directives against

the slave trade were delayed

when-

ever a caravan was due, until the slave tax had been paid.''

Indeed, connivance to

at

the highest level of

and complicity with the

Ottoman

slave trade extended

rule over Libya

and beyond. The

THE LIBYAN Governor-General van

first

141

commissioned Bu Aischa, head of the

in Tripoli

which Nachtigal

in

CONNECTION

cara-

crossed the Sahara, to collect a few eunuchs

Bu Aischa acquired in Kuka, the capital of Bornu, a considerable number of slaves, for both the Governor-General and himself. ^^ When Bu Aischa left Tripoli more than two years after setting out on his expedition, he took with him many slaves, including euOttoman

for the

Sultan.

nuchs and dwarfs. ^^ Despite these evasions of the law, the Islamic export trade in black slaves

from Tripoli was declining

as Britain in particular exerted pressure

on the Ottoman government and French imperial power spread slave

catchment areas

in Africa. Edicts

could not without

tantly disregarded. Nachtigal estimated that

eight thousand slaves a year

between

risk

major

to

be too bla-

thousand and

five

had previously been taken through the Fez-

number had fallen by at least two-thirds. A caravan proceeding northward from Kuka with as many as fourteen hundred slaves in it and reaching the Fezzan after Nachtigal's own arrival there ^"^

zan, but by 1869 this

was greeted cline was

as a rare event. ^'

still

But the event was

itself

evidence that de-

not disappearance.

Ralph Austen, one of the few scholars undaunted by the assessing the

volume of black

that the Libyan connection

Saharan

sector:

tion—the

major slave

slaves in the Islamic Trade,

century onwards

outlet. In fact,

tative observations

is

convinced

was long of prime importance in the

'Tor those periods in which

late sixteenth

difficulties of

—

we have

it is

richer

trans-

documenta-

clear that Libya was the

while the few pre-seventeenth century quanti-

which

cite areas are

almost entirely limited

western Maghrib and adjacent Saharan zones,

we know from

to the

extensive

non-quantitative evidence that even in medieval times the Fezzan was the principal Saharan entrepot for Sudanic slaves,

many

of

whom

must

thus have exited Africa via Tripoli, the closest Mediterranean port."^^

Austen distinguishes four periods in his estimates of

from the middle of the sixteenth century For the

first

period

(1

traffic to

Libya

to the early twentieth century.

550-1699), he suggests there was an annual average

of 1,500, or 225,000 overall; for the second (1700-1799), an annual av-

erage of 2,700, or 270,000 overall; for the third (1800-1856), an annual

average of 3,100, or 176,700 overall; and for the

nual average of 2,000, or

1

last

(1857 on), an an-

13,000 overall. This represents a grand

total,

RONALD SEGAL

142 from 1550

to 1913, of

784,000.

On

his estimate of

an overall 20 percent

death rate during the transport of the slaves, about 942,000 were caught

by the Libyan connection from the middle of the sixteenth century.^^

Austen suggests that

man,

for the period

from 1857, when the Ottoman

fir-

or decree, against the slave trade was formally in force throughout

the empire except for the Hijaz, exports to and from Libya did decline,

though

it is

difficult to

know by how much, since the decree "suppressed more effectively than it affected the sub-

the official record-keeping far

stance of the trade."^^ Given the widespread evasion of such record keeping, Austen's estimated

annual average of two thousand

for the

ensuing

period seems credible.

That such numbers did not lead slave population of Libya

easy

is

enough

scarcely tapped natural resources

discoxered and exploited

— with

paratively small population.

to a

— the

to explain.

in the black

Libya was a region of

rich resewes of oil

were yet

and

relatively little agriculture

The domestic demand

and most of the

spondingly small,

comparable growth

slaves

for slaves

in 1850, and,

to the

com-

was corre-

Ottoman

officials

ordered in 1848 to take no part in the slave trade, 1,474 slaves are

have been exported from Tripoli

be

imported were speedily

dispatched to other markets in Islam. Even after

to

a

to

Levant

in 1849,

were

known

another 2,733

M. Abun-Nasr writes: "slaves continued to reach Ottoman empire from Tripoli, even after the abolition

as Jamil

other parts of the

of slavery in Turkey

itself in 1889."^^^

1 here were other reasons for the lack of growth in the black slave population. Traditionally, there was a high rate of manumission, often ter

af-

only seven years of slavery. Black children fathered by the owners of

their

tuted the majorit}' of imported black slaves, largely

because of a

British consul in

black

who

mothers were generally freed quickly. Black women,

sla\ cs in

susceptibilit}' to

had

a

low reproduction

Mediterranean

six

thousand

whole of Libya. "^^

Al-SanusT reportedly once predicted that Tripoli would

people of

rate,

diseases. In 1891, the

Benghazi estimated that there were only

the

consti-

Naples.""*' hi 191

1,

Italy

Ottoman Kmpire and invaded

pounced on

Libya.

a pretext for

By the following

fall

to "the

war with the

year, Italy

had

wrested recognition of her sovereignty' there, but exercised control over

only the coastal region. In large measure due to the strength of the

THE LIBYAN

CONNECTION

143

SanusT order, the further advance of effective ItaHan rule was slow and costly. It

took a series of military campaigns from the mid-1920s to 1932

before the conquest of Libya was considered complete.

Meanwhile, the its

own

course and ouflets. At the

British visitor,

now than

slave trade, less a flow start

a trickle,

of the 1920s, Rosita Forbes, a

saw in Jalu "smuggled slave boys and

years/"^^ Prices

still

rose

availability of supplies.

and

An

fell

was finding

girls

with the pressure of

of eight to ten

demand and

the

Egyptian traveler, Hussanein Bey, had been

offered a slave girl for the equivalent of £5 sterling ($24) in 1916. At

Kufra in 1923, the price was the equivalent of between £30 ($137) and

£40 slave

($183).^^

A

Danish Muslim

visitor to

Libya in 1930 reported that a

market was held every Thursday in Kufra and that a good slave

there cost the equivalent of £15 ($73). "^

TEN

THC TCRRIBLC CCHTURV

In

all

many

the

centuries of the Islamic trade,

it

century that the largest numbers of black men,

were enslaved and the

largest

numbers of other blacks

process. This was the case despite

Western pressures against the for slaves at

were conducted on

was in the nineteenth

women, and

children

killed in the

— or, arguably, because of— increasing

trade. Certainly, the raiding

a scale

and with

and warfare

a ruthlessness that

seemed

times to be frantic. In 1808, Britain decided to withdraw from the Adantic slave trade

and directed her states.

While the

began early

efforts to

promoting the withdrawal of other Western

Atlantic Trade was her prime preoccupation, Britain

to exercise pressures against the Islamic

one

as well.

Here,

however, the campaign required more circumspection. Muslim susceptibilities

and accordingly

relations with

Muslims everywhere were

in-

volved.

EAST AFRICA Omani

Arabs had been trading for slaves along the East African coast for

centuries.

An

Italian physician, serving at the royal court in

Muscat from

RONALD SEGAL

146 1809 slave

almost

to 1814, vvTote that

around 1840, an estimated one slaves a year

its

came from

entire revenue

the tax on

and of Oman's eight hundred thousand inhabitants

imports;^

was black.- At

in three

Oman,

were absorbed internally by

least

two thousand

while those that

re-

mained from the imported numbers were dispatched elsewhere, many for sale

along the Makran coast.

During the eighteenth century, Kilwa had become East cipal

drawn

port for the export of slaves,

Africa's prin-

from southeastern

initially

Tanganyika and then increasingly from the region of Lake Nyasa. The

Omanis on

the coast were based at Zanzibar and, after taking control of

Kilwa in the mid- 1780s, diverted slaves

and

ivory.

By 1834,

to that island the

exports of slaves

bulk of the trade in

drawn from the mainland had

reached an annual figure of 6,500. By the 1840s, the annual numbers had risen to

slaves

between thirteen thousand and

were destined

for

fifteen

Some

thousand.

of these

markets in the Middle East. Most, however, were

designated for Zanzibar, where the labor-intensive cultivation of cloves

had begun soon

after

1810 and was expanding rapidly

growing world demand

for cloves.

might have included no fewer than

The

By the sixty

in response to the

1850s, the island's population

thousand

slaves.^

Oman, Sayyid Said ibn Sultan, transferred his court to 1840. The island had become, as a result of his policies, the

ruler of

Zanzibar in

most rewarding part of his realm: the paramount port on the western

side

of the Indian Ocean, the source of virtually the entire world supply of cloves as well as the ket in the East."^

main

From

sales outlet for ivory,

that

tended his authority over the mainland coastal towns formally lost

its

its

largest slave

some

one

after

mar-

greatly ex-

another of the

independence, however, the consolation.

in particular, flourished. Its rich agricultural hinterland,

open beaches suitable

Zanzibar made

coast. If

traditional

benefits of increasing trade provided

Bagamoyo,

and the

base of riches and power, Said

it

for the arrival of

dhows, and

its

proximity to

the predominant mainland outlet for the slave trade.

Coastal caravans to the interior relied on porters, and

contained an estimated

thirt\' to forty

thousand

at

Bagamoyo alone

peak season. Most of

these ventures were financed by local Asians from India, a majorit)' of

them Mushms, who had zibar

settled in the coastal

and who provided trade goods on

Those conducting the

town but mainly

credit at

in

Zan-

high rates of return.

trade included Arabs;

it

was

to the so-called

THE TERRIBLE CENTURY

147

northern Arabs, or Omanis, that the more ferocious aspects of slaving in the region

came

be ascribed. In

to

fact,

perhaps most of the leading

were Afro-Arabs, or the progeny of inter-ethnic unions, and the

slavers

trade itself

became

Certainly,

many

slave dealers,

increasingly a Zanzibari rather than an

of the

were

as

main

slavers,

many

one.

of the regional

black as their victims.

In the last resort, Said relied

Arab contenders

along with

Omani

for his rich

on

British

power

realm (indeed,

to protect

him

against

was British power which

it

forced the retreat of Egyptian armies in 1839) and the threat that other principally the French, might seek to devour

European imperial powers, it.

He was

not inclined, however, to surrender the enormous tax rev-

enues accruing

to

him from

he was personally invested

family,

members

the slave trade. Along with

and was,

in the trade

of his

besides, mindful

of the revolt by powerful subjects that his agreement to suppress the trade might provoke.

ment

The

British

government,

too, despite

its

commit-

against the trade, was reluctant to antagonize an ally or so imperil

that ally's position that

The

result

found

itself

having to deal with someone worse.

was a slow diplomatic dance of pressure, resistance, con-

cession, subterfuge, treaty that

it

and connivance

until, in

1845, Said agreed to a

outlawed the sea trade from the coast between the ports of

Lamu

in the north

and Kilwa

slaves

from one

another part of the Sultan's African domains.

to

open export trade

in the south, except for the transport of

shifted to Kilwa,

and

slaves,

brought

to

Zanzibar

The

for

its

supposed domestic needs, were then exported through any gap in British naval surveillance to different markets in Islam.

when Zanzibar became independent of Oman, throne his son Majid, who proved less amenable to British

Said's death in 1856,

brought

to the

pressure. In 1859 alone, nineteen thousand slaves

ing at Zanzibar, but this

were recorded

number was based on customs

returns

therefore excluded those imported, free of duty, by the Sultan bers of his family, as well as the large island. In 1868, the British

number

remainder sent

to

and

and

mem-

of slaves smuggled to the

consul reported that thirty thousand slaves,

most from the region of Lake Nyasa, were annually arriving that two-thirds of

as arriv-

them were then shipped northern ports in

Oman

at

Kilwa and

directly to Zanzibar, with the

or

smuggled elsewhere. The

report also estimated that for every slave arriving at Kilwa, another

died in the course of procurement and transport.^

had

RONALDSEGAL

148

The dead were

At Zanzibar, the slaves were unloaded hurriedly.

thrown overboard

The

sick

house

to drift

and weak were

tide, until

they rotted in their passage.

on the beach,

left to lie

wade

to

ashore, given food

taken to the slave market for

sale.

The remainder

and water outside the customs

who

house, and dispatched to their temporary owners,

few days of recuperation. Oiled and

customs-

to save the

case they died before they could be sold.

tax, in

were made

with the

them

kept

for a

were then

attractively clothed, they

Sometimes, however, greed or anxiety

did not allow time for adequate recuperation.

Captain Colomb of the Royal Navy, assigned the

Dryad

three

one evening

visit

hundred

slaves

to

command

traders in the Indian

for operations against slave

recorded his

1868

in

to the slave market,

were being auctioned:

separate group,

and

selling

away

of these strongly attracted

as

my

hard

as possible

attention

.

.

.

young boys and

girls,

some of them mere

a .

.

.

His "lot" appeared to be lately imported; they were

amongst them

Ocean,

where upwards of

There were perhaps twenty auctioneers, each attending

One

of

babies;

and

it

all

was

that the terribly painful part of the slave sys-

mean the miserable state, apparently of starvation, in which so many of the poor wretches are sometimes landed. The sight is simply horrible, and no tem was

to

amount

of sophistry or sentiment will reconcile us to such

be seen.

I

a condition of things. Skeletons, with a diseased skin

tight over falling

them, eyeballs

left

drawn

hideously prominent by the

away of the surrounding

flesh, chests

shrunk and

bent, joints unnaturally swelled and horribly knotty by contrast

with the wretched limbs between them, voices

hard, and "distantly near" like those of a nightmare are the characteristics

when

plump

same batch, some of these as possible. In this very

Along with other

so.

skeletons,

group

it

and

— these

of the negroes

imported. All, however, are by no means

seen, in the ers as

which mark too many

dr\'

was

I

have

and othso.^

hostile observers of the Islamic slave trade

ing David Livingstone,

who was

— includ-

the most impassioned and influential of

THE TERRIBLE CENTURY

149

them — Colomb drew a distinction between the horrors involved in the supply of slaves and their subsequent treatment by their Arab owners. Indeed, he confessed that he was unable to discover

Zanzibar was in any respect better off than the

The owner labour of

slave:

days a week. In return he gives

least houses, feeds,

him

the free black in

of the country estate takes from his slave the

five

land as he can cultivate.

allows

if

The owner

him

as

much

of the town slave at

and clothes him; but more generally he

besides,

all

that

he can make by

his labour over

about fourpence a day. In

all cases,

the Arab noble

pendents, and offers

them

is

the feudal chief of his de-

we understand by

the protection

the term."

It is

not certain that the lives of

Zanzibar were

as

congenial as

all

— even

Colomb

most— slaves

perhaps

in

considered them to be. Yet the

weight of evidence elsewhere does support the view that the treatment of slaves

by their owners was markedly more

humane

than the treatment

accorded by those engaged in procuring and transporting them. Traditionally in Islam, slave trading was not an despite the fact that even the morally fastidious to

pay for

to

be

its

products, and those

among

conducted

honored occupation,

seemed

who were engaged

in

likely

movement of mercame to be increas-

chandise rather than persons. Not

least, as

the trade

threatened by enactments and related enforcement measures

against

life.

were not

the most honorable traders. Procurement was frequently

for the dealers the

trade

enough

in the lawless, brutalizing conditions of raiding or warfare,

and subsequent transport involved

ingly

it

willing

it,

any remaining humanitarian

restraints vanished.

had always involved violence and

The

cruelties, suffering

Islamic

and

loss of

In this regard, the nineteenth century proved to be exceptional only

in the extent of

its

horrors.

As the supply of white slaves from Circassia and Georgia sharply declined, the Egyptian market turned increasingly to the

of black slaves from the region of the

Upper

Nile.

abundant source

Assembled

at

El

Fasher and other oases, the slaves were then transported along the ancient

and

still

often hazardous routes to the great market at Es Siout,

1

Nordiska

10:

&:

Copxright Frederick Cooper.

Reprinted by permission from \iauritania

9:

p.

& Co.

Sweden, 1993. Copyright

p. 3,

published by Sudan Up-

Sudan Update, P.O. Box

64X, United Kingdom.

\\a\-\\.

10,

Hebden

sudanupdate.org. Copyright Su-

HDCX

'Abbas,

al-,

120, 150

employment

paid

in, 180; in

Somalia,

'AbbasI, Shah, 120

189; Svvahili, 99; see also plantation

'Abbasid dynasty, 22, 77, 120

bor

Abboud, General Ibrahim, 214

Ahmadnagar, Sultanate

'Abd al-Rahman

I,

'Abd al-Rahman

II,

Ahmad Ahmed

'Abd al-Rahman

III,

Abdallah, Salim

b.,

77 80 24, 39, 82

al,

1,

Ottoman Emperor,

Akbar,

Mughal Emperor,

'Alawid dynasty, 54-55

'AbiiBakr, 11,20

Albanians, 54

Abu-Nasr, Jamil M., 142

Alexander the Great, 17

Abyssinians, 50-51

Algeria, 62, 137

al-,

24

African Liberation Forces of Mauritania

(FLAM), 209 African Presence in Asia, The (Harris), 121

'All,

21,22, 29, 119

'All,

Muhammad,

'Ali,

Muhammad

'Ali,

Afro-Arabs, 49, 61, 150, 157, 160, 161,

'All,

Sultan,

'Ali

ibn Nafi,

173

Aghlabid

196-97

112-

74

54

(Ottoman Viceroy of

Sonni, 91

139-40

Abu

1-Hasian, 80

Almohad Empire, French

Ottoman Empire,

33,

Al-Ma'mun, 28

dynast)', 53

agriculture, 81, 89, 91, 166; in

colonies, 186; in

110,

Egypt), 150

Africanus, Leo, 93

Afro-Shirazi Party (ASP),

74

AIDS, 235 222

Abraham, 17

Afdal,

73,

Shah, 73

13

101

Abdin, Al Tayib Zain

of,

la-

Almoravid dynasty, 106;

54,

54,

Ambar, Malik, 73-76

85-87 84-86, 89, 91

INDEX

264 Amnest)' International, 216, 217

Ayyubid dynasty,

Amr

Azerbaijan, 28

ibn al-'As, 21

'Anbar, Siddi, 76

AndalusT, Said

Azhar,

48

al-,

94

54,

University

al-.

29

of,

Azizieh, 155

Anglo-Egyptian Convention (1877), 152 anti-Semitism,

234-39

Anti-Slavery Reporter,

Bade people, 167

1

54-56

Baggara

Anti-Slavery Society, 126-27, 202, 203,

205,219 apartheid,

221,223

Mamluk

122; plantation labor in, 44;

SanunsT order

movement 42-45;

rule

military slaves in, 150; pilgrim-

to,

in,

Whahhabi

138;

in,

5,

162; Zanj rebellion in,

34, 122, 135, 149, 166;

137; Bedouin, 130;

in black Africa,

93-96, 98-100; 195-97;

China, 69; color prejudice

French colonies, 199;

76; in Libya, 136, 139;

of,

in

preoccupation with honor

of,

Bales, Kevin, 206,

207

Bambara, 165

Barbak Shah, Sultan Rukn al-Din, 72 Barbar,

Land

of,

96

Bari people, 153

Barth, Heinrich, 63 Bashir,

61, 101,

119-20; 39-40;

slave raids by, 37; in Spain, 77, 83, 86; in

225

Balali,

in

Omani, to,

72-74

46-47;

in India, 75,

145-47; Persian resistance

dynasty,

Baker, Samuel, 151

Baptists, 10

Awlad

of,

British colonies, 192,

Bahmani

Bantu language, 97

see also Saudi Arabia

Siilayman tribe

in

167-68

Balkans, 32, 54, 117

Arabiclanguage, 120, 164,208 Arabs,

of,

Bahadar, Sultan, 73

153; Iran and, 125-26;

ages

154,219

Bagirmi, 63

Arabia, 13-17, 20, 61, 70, 95, 125-26,

of, 31;

tribe,

Baghirmi, 41; Sultanate

Sudan, 154, 214, 216, 2\S; see also

Afro-Arabs

Omar Hasan

al-,

222

Bashir, wazir of Bornu, 63 Battle for

God, The (Armstrong), 241 87-88, 91, 94, 99,

Battuta, Ibn, 41, 72,

130 Baybars, 31, 32

Bedoum, Bello,

32, 130, 135

Muhammad,

164

Arabs, The {Hi\{i), 120

Benadir Company, 187

Armenians, 28, 125

Benyamine, El Hassan Ould, 206

Armstrong, Karen, 241

Berat, Sultanate of,

Aryans, Indian, 124

Berbers, 23, 29, 30, 37, 62, 122, 130;

Asian Art

Museum

(San Francisco), 69

assimilation, social,

Atlantic Trade,

241; as

61-62

3, 4,

for,

106;

Sudan

Ottoman Empire and,

Awf, 'Abd al-Rahman bin, 35

Awlad Siilavman Arab

tribe,

Bey, Hussanein, 143 Bible, 6, 225, 227,

228

Bidar, Sultanate of,

171

Austen, Ralph, 55, 57,60, 141-42 Austria, 33;

"black," 95; Ibaql, 93; in Spain, 77, 82,

83,85,86

49, 57, 61, 88, 145,

Ottoman Empire and,

catchment area

73-74

Bijapur, Sultanate 1

16

73-74

Bint m'Bareck, Salkha, 205 Biro, Caspar, 221

137

73-74

of,

birth rate, 62

INDEX Black Muslims, see Nation of Islam

bonded

labor,

Borger, Julian,

Ethiopian, 14, 96, 100; identification of slavery with blackness by, 49;

205

mad

240-41

Bornaway, Hadji Aly

el,

37-38

Muslim

and, 15, 17;

and, 19;

7, 10; original sin

matism and,

of,

6-

Ottoman

Empire and, 103-4, 108-9,

70 Brahmins, 75

131; Qar-

29; in Spain, 67, 77, 78,

81,83-88;Sudanese, 214, 218

Brazil, 7, 10

Britain, 10, 59, 101, 202; African colonies

137, 171, 178-80, 188, 190-97; In-

37, 140; nineteenth-century slave trade

125-26, 141, 145, 147-57,

by,

159-62; Ottoman Empire and, 116; Persia and,

122-23, 125-27;

220 Fu, 71

ChuYu,69,

of

71

Circassians, 54, 149 civil rights

War

in

Christian Solidarity International (CSl),

Chu

132-

dia Raj, 34, 76, 162; Libya and,

opposed

Muham-

alliances

with, 33; opposition to slave trade

Bornu, 37, 41, 63, 91, 94, 137, 151, 165-

of,

265

movement, 229-30

clove plantations, 146,

191-92

coffee, transit trade in, 104

1812,225

Buchanan, John, 161

Cold War, 197

Buganda, 160

Colomb, Captain, 148-49

Bulgars, 48

color prejudice, 8, 9, 46-49,

Bunyoro, 160

Colucci, M., 188

Burckhardt, John Lewis, 37-38, 50-53

Columbus, Christopher, 88

Burma, 70

Comer, Lord, 153

Burton, Richard, 101

Companions, 46

Busaidi dynast), 101

concubines,

123-24

38-39, 49-51,

4, 24,

55, 60,

Butlan, Ibn, 38

100; in British colonies, 179, 180; eu-

Byzantine Empire, 16-17, 23, 30-32,

nuchs

as,

41; in

Nubian, 94;

103,109

French colonies, 187;

Ottoman Empire, 109-

in

11, 113; in Spain,

80

Congressional Black Caucus, 235 capitalism,

development

of, 4,

castration, 40, 80, 95, 109,

Catholics,

5,

104, 106

170-71

Cooper, Frederick, 191, 194-96 Copts, 28 cotton, 104

156

Chan Ju-kua, 69 Cheng Ho, 70

crime: in British-controlled Zanzibar, 191;

China, 25,67-71,81,98, 102

Crone,

Chingiz Khan, 73, 74

Crusades, 30-31, 104

in

chivalry. Christian

code

Christians,

20,

African kingdoms

Patricia, 16, 17

Currie, Elliot,

Chittick, Neville, 101

3, 5, 9,

United States, 239-41

of,

39

239-40

Curtin, Philip, 34,98, 139

25-26, 239, 241;

of,

94-96; black,

10,

225, 226, 228, 232; castration per-

dalldl (slave broker), 38

formed

Danaqli, 152

by, 40;

Crusades

code of chivalr\'

of, 30;

of, 39;

and empire of Mali,

91; enslavement of, 125, 154;

Darfur, Sultanate

Davidson,

Basil.

of,

57

151

266

N DEX

Deccan

partv,

73

111-14;

Denmark, 33

120-21, 127;

in Persia,

in

Spain, 80

Depression, 195

denish movement, 188

Dinkapeople, 218, 219

Fadlallah, Rabih, 151

djariyas (slave v\i\es), 78

Faqlh, Ibn

Djatts,

domestic

al-,

67

Fard,Wallace, 226-27, 233

28 slaves, 38, 39, 42,

57-58, 100,

176; in British colonies, 180; in Egypt,

m

60,94, 150, 152;

Spain, 80

Farrakhan, Louis, 231-37, 241 Fascists,

Faso,

189

Mohamed

El,

212

Doyle, Mark, 211

Fatima, 21,29

Drew, Timothy, 225-26

Fatimids, 22, 29, 30, 39, 51, 53, 54, 57,

Dudmurra, Sultan, 140

94,95

Dutch, 33

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),

Duvevrier, Henri, 139

226,231 Fettah Khan, 75

Fezzan, Sultanate East African slave trade, 55, 56, 61 East India

Firuz, Sultan,

Company, 34

Fisher, H.

Eber>-,Brahim Quid, 213

Ayyubid

60-62, 150-

dynast}-, 54; Britain

sades

Fatimid dynasty

timids; importation of to,

94-95;

Mamluk

Oromo

Ottoman Empire, plantation labor

in,

138, 149-50;

wealth

in,

Elizabeth

II,

dan, 164-66

France, 77, 101; African colonies

"Nubian"

slaves

31-32,

53-54;

slaves in, 154; in

44; slave market in,

92-93, 98, 131,

Tulunid

Usman

Cru-

32, 103, 104, 114;

59; trade routes to,

Fodio,

Forbes, Rosita, 143

in, see Fa-

dynasty' in,

37, 52, 54; military slaves in,

Nasserist, 201;

61,93

and,

147, 153, 155; castration in, 40; in, 31;

dynast)- in, 54;

24 of England, 199

of,

62,

137, 141, 151, 154, 166, 171, 173, 175,

180-85, 199, 209; Ottoman Empire and, 33, 116 Frank, Louis, 62 fratricide,

110

Frescobaldi, Leonardo, 32

From Slaves

to

Squatters (Cooper), 196

Fruitoflslam, 229, 232 Fulani, 162, 164-65, 168, 169

fundamentalism,

Queen

131-38

Fodio, Abdullahi dan, 164

Eg>TDt, 20, 21, 23, 44, 46, 52,

52;

J.,

of,

72-73

1

Futa people, 174

emancipation, 35-37

Encyclopaedia of Islam, 122, 127

England, 34, 75

Calen, 48

Ethiopia, 17, 46, 48, 95, 125, 129; Chris-

Cambia,92, 174

tians in, 14, 96, 100; Italian invasion of,

189; slaves from, 16, 50, 71-73, 26, 152,

123-

154-55,202

170; in China, 70; in India, 72; in

Ottoman Empire,

Garvey, Marcus, 228, 231 Gates, Henry- Louis,

eunuchs, 39-41, 52-53, 62, 94, 95, 156,

Libya, 133; in

Gao, 92-93

109,

Jr.,

238

Georgians, 125, 149

Germany: African colonics 9,

of,

162; Nazi,

239; Ottoman Empire and,

1

16

INDEX Ghana,

89, 92

267

Hitler, Adolf,

235

Giriama, 194, 196

Hitti, Philip K., 32, 78,

Glenny, Misha, 122

Hodgson, Marshall G.

Glick,

Thomas,

global

economy, bonded labor

Goitein, E.

Holocaust,

78

58,

in,

205

237-38

Goitein, S. D.,

Golconda, Sultanate gold, 23-25, 42,

S.,

40-42

234, 239

41-42

homosexuality, Hor, El, 208

57

S.,

9,

120

of,

Hubbard, Mark, 19

73-74

Humanism,

81-82, 89, 90, 92, 93,

Human

19,

20

Rights Watch/Africa, 204

Hungary, Ottoman conquest

98

Gomez, Michael, 225

33

of, 32,

Husayn, 119

Gonzales, Antonius, 59

Gordon, Charles, 152 Greeks, ancient, 95, 129; homosexuality

among, 41-42

Ibadl Berbers, 93

Ibn Saud, King of Saudi Arabia, 201

Guild of the Teachers and Students of the

Ibrahim the Debauched, 113 Ibrahim Shah, 72

University of al-Azhar, 29

Guinea, 173

51,89,96,97

IdrTsT,al-, 50, Ifriqiya,

53

Ikshidid dynasty, 52

Habshis,

71-76

Ilorin,

emirate

Hacker, Andrew, 240

imams

hadith (Prophet's sayings), 17-18, 35

India, 61, 67,

of,

165

(leaders of Islam), 29, 77

70-76, 95, 102;

in, 34, 76, 162;

Hakam

merchants from,

II, al-,

24

Halpulaar people, 213

159, 196;

Hammody of Atar, 186-87

76

British Raj

color prejudice

haji (pilgrimage), 18

Mughal

Indonesia, 34

Hapsburgs, 33

industrial revolution, 4, 104, 106 el,

guards

of,

infant mortality, 62

53

harems, 24, 39, 153, 156; eunuchs

as

39-41; in Ottoman Empire,

109, 111, 112; in Persia, 120, 121 Harrieff,

Hasan, 231

Harris, Joseph,

121-24

Hasan, Abd'l-Muzzafar, 99 Hasan,

al-,

21

Inquisition, 88, 100

International Labor Organization, 205 Iran: color prejudice in,

Iraq, 20, 21,

80-81; court manners

80-81; eunuchs in, 28;

Mongol

in,

invasion

Hawqal, Ibn, 58, 78, 80

24; Zanj rebellion in,

Herodotus, 129

of, 30; in

Ot-

103, 125; wealth in,

42-44, 93, 102,

121 iron,

in,

41; messianism

toman Empire,

Muhammad, 200

123-24; see also

Persia

Hausaland, 164, 167

Heikal,

124;

72-

rule of, 33, 34,

Hanafi Muslims, 233

Haram, Sheikh

in,

in East Africa, 146,

97

hijra (migration), 15

Irwin, Robert, 88

Hindus, 33, 75, 76

Isma'il, 'Alawid, 55

Hippalos, 95

Isma'llT strain of Shi'a,

29

268

N D EX conquest of Libya

Italy:

trol

by,

142-43; con-

of Somalia by, 187-90;

silk

indus-

106

trv'in,

Khusraw,

Nasir-1, 54

King, Martin Luther, Kinta,

Jr.,

229, 230, 236

175-76

Kiswahili language, 97

Koran,

150-51

Ja'aliyyin,

Mughal Emperor,

Jahangir, Jalil,

'Abd

al-,

10,

5, 6,

17-20, 35-36, 40, 93,

115, 120, 134, 160, 164, 184,203,226, 74, 75

239, 241

Kosem, Valide Sultan, 113-14

137, 138

Jamal, Shaykh, 116 Jennifer (slave), 203 Jews, 6, 9, 20, 21, 26, 51, 57, 241; castration

performed

by, 40; Christian attacks

demonized by Nation of Islam,

on, 30;

234-39;

Muhammad

Ottoman Empire, movement,

and, 15, 17; in

104; in

Qarmat

29; in Spain, 40, 78, 80, 81,

Laffin, John, 52,

199-200,202

Laing, Alexander Gordon, 168

Lander, Richard, 64 Lapidus,

20

Ira,

Lebanon, 203-4 Levi-Provengal, E., 78 Levtzion, Nehemia, 44, 86

84, 86, 88

jihads (holy wars), 20, 100, 164-67, 173

Lewis, Bernard, 46, 62

Johnson, Lyndon, 239

Libya, 64,

Johnson, Robert, 92

Li Hsi-Hsiung, 70

Johnston, Harry, 161

Livingstone, David, 148, 159

Justice

Department, US., 240

129-43,200

Lombard, Maurice,

Long Wars,

24, 29

33

Louis XIV, King of France, 112 Lovejoy, Paul, 56, 57

Ka'ba, 14

Kababash

tribe,

1

Lugard, Lord, 178

54

Lyon, Captain G. K, 132-36

Kadjars, 122

Kafus,Abul-Misk, 52

Kamara, Cheich Saad Bouth, 213

Kanaml,

Muhammad

al-Amln, 165, 167,

Kanem, 93-94 Kedourie, Elie, Kelly,

MaBa,

173

Maghrib, 29

168

John

Maghribi Caliphate, 85 1

Barrett, 125

Mahadi, Abdullahi, 167, 171

Mahdi, 28

Kemal, Mustafa, 34

Mahmud

Kennedy, John R, 230

Majid, 147

Kenya, 160, 190, 192, 195

MalcolmX, 228-32, 235

Kepel, Gilles, 226

Mali, empire

Khadafi,

Muammar, 237

Ottoman Emperor, 116

11,

of,

91

Malik, 'Abdul, 120

Khadijah, 14

Malinda, 70

Khaldiin, Ibn, 49

Mamlukdynast), 31,37,

Khamis, Ismail, 217

Mande clans, 91 Mani, Muhammad,

Kharidjism, 77

Khartoumers,

1

51

Mansur,

al-,

54

93

52,

54,94

1

3

1

N DEX Mansur, al-Zubair Rahma,

1

269

miscegenation,

5

83

7,

manumission, 61, 142

Mlozi, 161-62

marabouts, 173

Mogadishu, 70; Sultanate

Maraka people, 174

Mongols, 30-32

Marathas, 75

Montgomery bus

Marzouk, 201

Moors, 173-75, 183, 185-86

Mascarene

Masmuda

Morocco,

Islands, 61

tribes,

85

48, 69,

al-,

boycott, 229

25, 61, 86, 92, 131, 175, 183;

55; plantation labor in, 44; slave

96-97

in,

Mathew, Gervase, 102

58-59

Morsy, Magali,

Mau-Mau

Mossi people, 174

rebellion, 195

Mauritania, 11, 174, 175; French rule

183-87; persistence of slaver}-

in,

204-

in,

Rights Association,

213

1

30

Moustapha, 205-7

Mu'awiya al-Marwanl, 'Abu Bakr

mad

13,222

Human

b.,

Muham-

81

Mu'awiyah, 21 Mu'izz, 53

Mauv)',

Raymond,

Mbarak,

57,

Mohamed

Mu um,

59-60

'Abd

al-,

85

Mubarak Shah, 72

ould, 205

72-76

Mbaye, Fatima, 213

Mughal Empire,

McDougall, Ann, 176, 186

Muhammad

McMurdo,

Muhammad, Ahmad b., 165-66 Muhammad, 'All ibn, 43, 44 Muhammad, Elijah, 227-34 Muhammad, Khallid Abdul, 235-36 Muhammad, Prophet, 11, 13-20, 29,

Captain, 153

Meccan Trade and

the Rise of Islam

(Crone), 16

medicine, ancient, 48

Mehdi, Sheikh

Mehmed

II

Muhammad, 200-201

(the Conqueror),

Ottoman

Emperor, 103, 104, 108, 112, 115

Mehmed Mehmed

35,40,46,64,71,98, 120, 138,

III,

Ottoman Emperor, 112

Muhammad,

IV,

Ottoman Emperor, 113

muhtasib (policing

Mukani,

Mesopotamia, Lower, 28

Wallace, 233

slave),

Murad

Mijikenda, 194

Musa, Mansa, 91 45-46, 53-55, 166;

in

Egypt, 150; in India, 74-75; Nubian,

Ottoman Empire,

115; in Spain, 80

Miller, A., 127

Million

Man

March, 236

dynasty, 70

al-,

38

132, 134, 135,

36

Methodists, 10

in

official),

Muhammed

mukataba (contract between owner and

Messoud, Boubacar Ould, 206, 213

military slaves, 4,

165,

137

Messianism, 28

94-95;

33, 34,

(Songhai emperor), 91

169

Menelik, King of Ethiopia, 155

Ming

54-

market

Morris, James, 200

matrilineal inheritance, 98

Mauritanian

96

castration in, 41; military slaves in,

Masonic movement, 29 Mas'udl,

of,

54,

1

10,

IV,

Ottoman Emperor,

Muscat, Sultanate

of,

1 1

125, 202

musicians, slave, 38

Muslim Mosque,

Inc.,

231

Mustafa, Ottoman Emperor,

Mustafa Agha, 112-13 Mustansir,

al-, 5

Muwaffaq, 43, 44

1

12

INDEX

270 Nachtigal, Gustav, 63, 140, 141, 170

Ahmad

Nasiri,

ibn Khaiid

65

al-,

Nasirid d\nash', 87 Nasser,

Page, Clarence, 237 Palestine, 25 Part>

Gamal Abdel,

200, 201

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Kingdoms, 83-84

167-68

Pasha, Yusuf,

(NAACP), 234

Pe^evi, Ibrahim,

12

1

Pehlevi Shahs, 34

National Black United Fund, 234

Peirce, Leslie, 110

National Council on Crime and Delin-

Pemba,

quency, 240

of,

National Democratic .\lliance of Sudan,

222

60, 70, 97, 162, 197; British rule

190, 196; plantation labor on, 45,

192; slaves exported to

China from,

National Islamic Front (NIF), 216, 218,

219

Pentecostalism, 10 Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, The, 95

Nation of Islam, 225-41

119-27, 155; Chi-

Persia, 5, 21, 25, 61,

239

nese trade with, 70; color prejudice

Joseph, 67

47-48; homosexualitv'

in,

Neustadt, David, 238

and, 75; Qajar dynast\-

in, 34;

Ngoni, 161

dynast}- in,

Nazism,

9,

Needham,

Nigeria.

178-80

Nubia, 37-38; Mro-.^abs conquest

Petherick,

in, 150;

150; gold

of,

Mamluk

49-52,94-95,

42; India

Safavid

Empire,

Egyp-

mines

of,

rule of, 31; slaves from,

123, 124

Numeiri (President of Sudan), 214 Nyerere, Julius, 197

J.,

150

Pipes, Daniel, 45

plague, 32, 62 plantation labor,

3, 4,

42, 44, 49, 60, 100,

174, 179; in Egvpt, 152; in

Ottoman

Empire, 106;

191-92

in Zanzibar,

Poitiers, Battle of,

77

Portuguese, 33-34, 70, 75, 99-101; .\frican colonies of,

Oman, 17,61, 101, 145-47,202 Omdurman, Battle of, 153

primogeniture, 6

Organization of .\fro-American

prostitution, 186,

Unit\',

Protestants,

Oromo, 154 I,

162

Pouwels, Randall, 100

231

Osman

207

5

Protocols of the Elders ofZion, 235

103

Ottoman Empire, 32-34, 103-17,

162,

171; charitable foundations in, 6, 108;

Qajar d\nast\, 34

economy

Qaramanll, Ahmad, 132

of,

104-8; Libya and, 131,

137

132, 137-42; militar)' slaves in, 54, 110,

Qaramanll,

'.All,

115; nineteenth-centurv' British opposi-

Qaramanll,

Muhammad,

tion to slave trade in,

Qaramanll, Yusuf, 132, 137

1

50,

1

52, 155;

Persia and, 120, 125; rulers of,

Qaranful, 72

108-14

Qarmat movement,

Oyo

empire, 165

17,

23, 24^ 119

Nubapeople, 216-19, 221

23, 42;

in,

32-34, 120, 122; Samanid

dynast}- in, 120; Sassanid

Nkonde, 161-62

tian

69,

70

Qasim

28,

137

29

al-QarauT. Ibrahim

b. al-,

80

INDEX

17

Qatar, 199

Senate, U.S., 235

Quran. See Koran

Senegal, 173, 174, 186,209,211-12

Quraysh

tribe,

14-16

1

shahddah, 18

Shambu, 73 Shari'a (Islamic law), 84, 217

Rabah,

Bilal ibn,

46

Sheil, Mar\' Eleanor,

racism, 6-11, 64-65, 228; Black

Muslims

and, 231,234-37, 239

Ramadan, Ransom,

fast of,

Red Sea

al-,

Roman Empire,

97

1

19,

Leone, 203

Sierra

Sikasso, 173, 175 silk industry', 104,

106

Slavery Convention (1926), 218

121, 126, 127

Slavs, 48, 54

48, 103

M,

Rosenthal, A.

21, 22, 28, 33, 34, 73,

71-72, 74, 76

Siddis,

24, 28,

coast slave trade, 55, 56

Thomas,

Mushms,

139

Siam, 70

18

Revolt ofthe Naked, 28 Ricks,

Shi'a

al-,

122-24, 127

120, 122

Oliver, 202

Harun

Rashld,

Muhammad

Sharif, Sultan

Rabah, Nusayb ibn, 47

smallpox, 64

220

Rouej, Naji ould, 205

Societa agricola italo-somala (SAIS), 189

Russia, 116

Sofala,

Land

of,

96

Sokoto Caliphate, 168, 178 Somalia, 96, 100, 187-90; slaves from,

202

Sa'dians, 54

Safavid dynast), 32-34, 120, 122

Songhai Empire, 91-93

Said, Nasires, 201

SOS-Slaves, 206, 213

Sa'id,

Shaykh, 73

South Africa, 221,223

Sa'id,

'Umar

Spain, 131; Inquisition

b.,

166

in,

100; Islamic,

Said ibn Sultan, Savyid, 101, 146-47

22,25,38,39,45,48,51,57,58,67,

Salahuddln (Saladin),

76-88, 202; Jews

30, 31

in,

40, 104

^aldi (ritual prayer), 18

Stanley, H. M., 157

Saljuq Turks, 30

State Department, U.S., 237

Samanid

dynast}',

120

Sudan,

Samori, 173-75 SanusT,

Muhammad

bin 'All

al-,

138, 142

SanusI order, 139, 143 SaqatT,

al-,

11, 29,

30,44, 57, 65, 152-53,

174; Atlantic Trade and, 171; BriHsh

control of,

38

of,

153-54; Egyptian conquest

150; French, 180-83; gold

23; jihads in,

mines

Saruar, Malik, 72

of slavery in, 213-22; slaves exported

Sassanid Persian Empire, 17, 23, 24, 119

from, 94, 131; see also Bornu; Hausa-

Saudi Arabia, 199-203

land

Sudan

Schroeter, Daniel, 59

Science

and

Civilization in

ham), 67 segregation, 8

of,

164-67, 173; persistence

China (Need-

People's Liberation

Army (SPLA),

216,218

Sudan

People's Liberation

Movement,

222

Segu, 174, 175

Sufism, 85

Sekkin, 'Abu, 63

sugar plantations and refineries, 104, 152

NDEX

272 Siihaym, 47

TCilun,

Ottoman Emperor, Sule\man .'\gha, 13-14 Suleiman

I,

Ahmad

53-54

b.,

Muhammad

Tumart,

1 1

b.,

85

Tunisia, 53, 62

1

Sultan, Ya'qub, 121

Turabi, Hassan

Sultan Husayn, Shah, 121

Turhan, Valide Sultan, 113-14

Sundiata, 89, 91

Turkey, 34; secularization

Sung

dynast)-, 69,

sunnah

Turkmanchai,

70

(collection of Prophet's sayings),

36

17,

Supreme Court, Suwaida, Ishraq

U.S.,

33, 73, 119, 120

Mamluk

Empire,

Ottoman

Empire

Uganda, 152, 160 Ukraine, 115

Syria, 13, 16, 21, 23, 37, 77;

in,

Turkmens, 125

240

156, 157

J.,

117

as-, 5

SwahiH, 70,97-100, 192, 194

31;

of,

Treat)- of (1828), 125

Turks, 29, 30, 54, 73; see also

SunniMuslims, 21,30,

Swann,A.

216, 222

al-,

Crusades

in,

Ottoman Umayyad dynasty

rule of, 29; in

32, 33, 103;

'Umar, 20, 21

Uma)yads, 21,22,

umma

77, 81,97, 120

(communit)' of Muslims), 154

Union of Democratic Forces (UFD), 212

97

United Nations, 199, 203; Commission

on

Human

Rights,

221-22; Working

T'ang dynasty, 25, 69

Group on Contemporary Forms

Tadjakan, 175

Slavery,

Talki, M.,

Tamil

78

states,

Universal Declaration of

Human

Rights,

199, 222

73

Universal Negro Improvement Associa-

Tanganyika, 146 Tanzania, 197

tion,

228

Universities Mission to Central Africa,

tariqah (Islamic orders), 188

159

Tashfln, Ibn, 84, 85

TashfTn,Yusufb., 54

Urban

Teda people, 129

urbanization, 25-26; in Spain, 78

Theodore, Emperor of Ethiopia,

Thomson,

1

54

Tobu

1

II,

Uthman,

Uthman

Joseph, 64

Thousand and One Nights, 40

Tippu Tip,

Pope, 30

17

ibn Idrls, King of Bornu, 37

Uzbeks, 125

57

people, 129

trans-Saharan slave trade, 55-56, 129-31,

139-42, 167-68

Valide Sultan, 109, 111, 113 Vandals, 76 Vidal, John, 217

Tripolitania, 131

Tuareg, 130-33, 138, 166, 168, 173, 175,

176

139

Tucker, Bishop, 160

Wadai, Sultanate

Tucolor, 162

wageni (foreigners), 100

Tughi,

Muhammad

Tukulor people, 166

of

219

b.,

52

of,

Waller, Horace, 159

Waq-Waq, Eand

of,

96

INDEX War of 1812, 225 War on Poverty, 239

Yemen,

mad

el,

Muham-

Ottoman Em-

104

Yezdigird, King of Persia,

al-Hasan ben

es Zayyati,

16, 17, 61, 98; in

pire, 103,

washenzi (barbarians), 100

Wazzan

273

1

19

Yoruba, 165

93

Whah-habi movement, 162 white slaves, 49, 149; eunuchs, 52; in Ot-

toman Empire, 108-9,

112; in Spain,

Zahiri,Khalilal-,

31-32

zd^df (almsgiving), 18 Zanj, 42-45, 47, 49, 60, 93, 99, 102, 121;

78,80

Land

white supremacy, 8 Wilberforce, Lord, 202

wine, drinking

World Bank

of,

Atlas,

96-97

162; British control of, 190-92,

81

20^ in the

122, 123, 125, 126; Sultanate

World War

I,

World War

II,

9, 117, 182,

194

186, 189, 195

B., 153,

156

Zeila,

96

Zimbabwe, 98 Zinder, emirate

169-70

of,

Zirids, 53

Ziryab,

80-81

Zoroastrians, 20, 47

Ya'qub, 120 al-,

of,'

61

Zanzibar National Party (ZNP), 196-97

West, 233

Ya qubl,

195-

97; plantation labor on, 45; slaves from,

World Community of al-lslam

Wylde,A.

of,

Zanzibar, 60, 96, 97, 101, 146-49, 159,

93

Yahya, SherifGhaleb,

Zotts, 5:

28

Zubayr, Rabih

al-,

173

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