Islamic Slavery, Part 10: Sex-Slavery - Concubinage and Ghilman

This is Part 9 of the chapter "Islamic Slavery" from M. A. Khan's book, "Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism and Slavery". The part discusses sexual exploitation of Islamic slaves -- namely female sex-slaves or concubines and sex-boys or Ghilman's for sodomy --- all for the enjoyment of male Muslims (Part 1, Part 9). [warning erotic pictures inside]

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SEX-SLAVERY & CONCUBINAGE

Arab Sheikh checking if she is perfect for sex

The female slaves worked as domestic maids and in the backyards, while the young and pretty ones also had to provide sex to their masters. Thus, they not only provided menial services and pleasure to masters, but also helped swell the Muslim populace through procreation. Sex-slavery is not a negligible institution in Islam; Allah has shown utmost seriousness about its practice by repeatedly reminding Muslims about it in the Quran. Prophet Muhammad himself had taken at least three slave-girls as his concubines, namely Juwairiya of Banu Mustaliq [Bukhari 3:46:717], Rayhana of Banu Qurayza, and Maria, sent by the Egyptian governor to pacify Muhammad after receiving his threatening letter. From his large share of captives, he also distributed slave-girls amongst his companions for keeping as concubines. In one instance, he gave Ali (his son-in-law and the fourth caliph), Uthman b. Affan (his son-in-law and the third caliph) and Omar ibn Khattab (his father-in-law and the second caliph) a slave-girl each.[1] In explaining the institution of slavery on the basis of Quranic verses 23:5–6, brilliant Islamic scholar Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi (d. 1979) wrote:

Two categories of women have been excluded from the general command of guarding the private parts: (a) wives, (b) women who are legally in one’s possession, i.e. slave-girls. Thus the verse [Quran 23:5–6] clearly lays down the law that one is allowed to have sexual relation with one’s slave-girl as with one’s wife, the basis being possession and not marriage. If marriage had been the condition, the slave-girl also would have been included among the wives, and there was no need to mention them separately.[2]

In agreement with the institution of sex-slavery in Islam and its above-mentioned purpose, the Hedayah states that the object of owning female slaves is ‘cohabitation and generation of children.’[3] Accordingly, physical fitness, regular menstruation and absence of disabilities became major considerations in purchasing a female slave. According to Hedayah, odor in the mouth and armpit of a female slave is a defect—obviously because, she is meant for kissing, caressing and sleeping with; but the same does not matter in case of male slaves. The Hedayah further stipulates that when a female slave is shared by two masters, she becomes property of the one, who establishes sexual relationship with her with the consent of the other.[4] Fatwa-i-Alamgiri stipulates that if a purchased female slave has too large breasts, or too loose or wide vagina, the purchaser has the right to return her for a refund—obviously because, the owner cannot get maximum pleasure from sex with such a woman, as she is intended for. Similarly, the purchaser can return a slave on the basis of whether she is a virgin.[5]

These criteria for chosing or judging female slaves come from the time of Prophet Muhammad himself. He was in the habit of choosing the prettiest of captive women for himself. In Khaybar, he chose Safiyah, wife of Kinana, for himself, hearing that she was of exquisite beauty and worthy of himself only. He, thereby, deprived another Jihadi, who had obtained her initially.[6] In another example, after the Prophet had distributed the captured women of the Hawazin tribe among his Jihadi comrades, a deputation from the tribe came to him seeking the release of their women. He agreed to release them for six camels apiece. His disciple Uyayna bin Hisn refused to release a woman of some nobility, fallen in his share, expecting a higher price. To this, Zubayr Abu Surad, another companion of Muhammad, convinced Uyayna to let her go, because ‘her mouth was cold and her breast was flat; she could not concieve… and her milk was not rich.’ When Uyayna complained about this to Al-Aqra, another comrade of the Prophet, he persuaded Uyayna by saying: ‘By God, you did not take her as virgin in her prime nor even full-figured in her middle age!’[7]

Using the female slaves for sex—a norm and a widespread practice throughout the history of Islam—is clearly sanctioned in the Quran, the Sunnah and the Sharia. It has, therefore, received unabashed and overt approval of Islamic jurists, imams and scholars well into the modern age. Apart from the lure of booty, the greed for capturing the women for using as sex-slaves became a significant motivating factor for Muslim Jihadis to take part in holy wars since Muhammad’s time. According to Islamic laws, the slayer becomes the owner of the victim’s wife, children and properties. Sir William Muir thought that the sanction of the sex-slavery in Islam acted ‘as an inducement to fight in the hope of capturing the females who would then be lawful concubines as ‘that their right hand possessed.’’[8]

From Muhammad’s own practice of slave-concubinage, it flourished into a widely practised institution in later periods as captives became numerous. Islam puts no limit on the number of sex-slaves Muslim men can keep; ‘there is absolutely no limit to the number of slave girls with whom a Mohammedan may cohabit, and it is the consecration of this illimitable indulgence which so popularizes the Mohammedan religion amongst the uncivilized nations and so popularizes slavery in the Muslim religion,’ writes Thomas Hughes.[9] Accordingly, writes Lewis, ‘The slave women of every ethnic origin were acquired in great numbers to staff the harems of the Islamic world—as concubines or menials, the two functions not always clearly differentiated… Some were trained as performers—singers, dancers, and musicians.’[10] Ronald Segal also affirms this in saying: ‘Female slaves were required in considerable numbers for musicians, singers and dancers—many more were bought as domestic workers and many were in demand as concubines. The harems of rulers could be enormous. The harem of Abd al-Rahman III (d. 961) in Cordoba contained over 6,000 concubines; and the one in the Fatimid palace in Cairo had twice as many.’[11] Muslim rulers of India did not lag behind either; even enlightened Akbar had 5,000 women in his harem, while Jahangir and Shah Jahan had 5,000 to 6,000 each. In the eighteenth century, Sultan Moulay Ismail had 4,000 concubines in his harem.

Clearly, Muslim rulers—from Africa to Europe, from the Middle East to India—had accumulated sex-slaves in their thousands. In the heyday of Islam, court officials, nobles, high-ranking generals and provincial governors had dozens to hundreds and even thousands of slaves. Even the poor Muslim households or common shopkeepers used to have many slaves, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers. In general, the young female slaves in all households had to provide sex to their masters as demanded. It appears that capturing the women for keeping as concubines was a major focus of Islamic slave-hunting; because, for every male slave, two females were captured in Africa for transporting to the Muslim world. And for those transported by Europeans to the new world, there were two males for every female.

Niccolao Manucci, who lived in India during Emperor Aurangzeb’s reign, observed of the Muslim infatuation with women and sex that ‘all Mohammedans are fond of women, who are their principal relaxation and almost their only pleasure.’[12] Dutchman Francisco Pelsaert, who visited India during Emperor Jahagir’s reign (1605-27), wrote of the sexual indulgence of Muslim rulers and noblemen in the harems that:

‘…each night the Amir visits a particular wife or mahal (quarter), receives a very warm welcome from his wife and from the slaves [girls], who dressed especially for the occasion… If it is the hot weather, they… rub his body with pounded sandalwood and rosewater. Fans are kept going steadily. Some of the slaves chafe the master’s hand and feet, some sit and sing, or play music and dance, or provide other recreation, the wife sitting near him all the time. Then if one of the pretty slave girls takes his fancy, he calls her and enjoys her, his wife not daring to show any signs of displeasure, but dissembling, though she will take it out on the slave girl later on.’[13]

However, the wife could never get rid of such beautiful slave-girls from the harem, because it was only in the power of the master to free her (Muslim women cannot own slaves).

Similarly Maria Ter Meetelen, a Dutch slave-girl of Moulay Ismail’s palace in Morocco, left an eyewitness account of the sultan’s sensual indulgence with his wives and concubines in the harem. She wrote: ‘‘I found myself in front of the sultan in his room, where he was lying with at least fifty women,’’ who ‘‘were painted on their faces and clothed like goddesses, extraordinarily beautiful, and each with her instrument.’’ Maria added: ‘‘…they played and sang, for it was a melody more lovely than anything I’d ever heard before.’’[14]

In sum, slave-concubinage—the most degrading and dehumanizing form of prostitution—became a prominent hallmark of Islamic tradition well into modern age. The Ottoman sultans maintained a harem full of women until the empire was dissolved in 1921. In the princely state of Bahawalpur in Sindh, first to be conquered by Muslim invaders—the last Nawab, who ruled until 1954 before its incorporation into Pakistan, ‘had more than three hundred and ninety women’ in his harem. The Nawab had become impotent early and used all kinds of tools to satisfy his great multitude of concubines and wives. When Pakistani army took over his palace, ‘they found a whole collection of dildos. About six hundred, some made of clays, some bought in England and battery-operated. The army dug a pit and buried these dildos.’[15] The Arab kings till today maintain sizable harems of some kind.

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EUNUCHS AND GHILMAN

Another extremely cruel, dehumanizing and degrading aspect of Islamic slavery was the large-scale castration of male captives. It has received little attention of critics and historians. Historically, castration did receive little opposition in the Muslim world well into the modern age. But Muslims normally engaged Jews or other non-Muslims to perform the operation on the argument that mutilation of human bodies was prohibited in Islam. (This is hypocritical in the least, since beheading of totally innocent people in large numbers has been a common practice right from the days of the Prophet, while amputation of hands and legs are divine Islamic punishment for certain crimes.) Yet, the employment of eunuchs is clearly sanctioned by Allah, as the Quran instructs Muslim women to cover their body and ornaments with cloaks except ‘to their husbands or their fathers, or the fathers of their husbands, or their sons, or the sons of their husbands, or their brothers, or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their women, or those whom their right hands possess, or the male servants not having need (of women)…’ [Quran 24:31]. Prophet Muhammad had himself accepted a eunuch as gift, says a hadith, which has been excluded from canonical collections.[16]

Castrated males, normally young handsome boys, were in great demands amongst Muslim rulers and elites mainly for three reasons. First, Muslim harems and households used to have a few to thousands of wives and concubines. Naturally, most of these women were left sexually unsatisfied as well as jealous and indignant about sharing their husbands and masters with so many women. Keeping male slaves in such palaces and households was a cause of concern for the husband and master, because those sexually unsatisfied and often indignant women could be tempted into sexual contact with the male-slaves. Attraction of harem women to other men was rather common. For example, when Pellow, not a eunuch, was surprisingly placed as a harem-guard by Moulay Ismail upon a request from one of his favourite wives, his wives showed amorous interest in him. Aware of the consequence of such a tango if the sultan found out, ‘‘I thought it highly prudent to keep a very strict guard upon all my actions,’’ wrote Pellow.[17]

It was, therefore, safer for masters—particularly the rulers and high officials, who kept large harem—to keep eunuchs, instead of virile men, in their households and palaces. It is no wonder that the term harem originated from haram, meaning prohibited—more specifically, "out of bounds" (to unrelated men).

According to John Laffin, black slaves were generally castrated ‘based on the assumption that the blacks had an ungovernable sexual appetite.’[18] From India to Africa, eunuchs were specifically engaged in guarding the royal harems. They kept tab on the passage of men and women in and out of the seraglio and spied for the ruler on the harem women about their behaviour, infidelity in particular. Eunuchs were needed in their thousands to look after huge harems, probably the largest royal department in medieval Islamic kingdoms.

Secondly, the castrated men, with no hope of a family or offspring to look forward to in their old age, were likely to show greater fidelity and devotion to the master in order to earn their favor and support when they grew old. The castrated slaves, devoid of sexual distractions, could also devote themselves exclusively to work relatively easily in the usually sexually-charged Islamic culture.

The third reason for the high demand for eunuchs was homosexual infatuation of many Muslim rulers, generals and nobles. Eunuchs, kept for carnal indulgence, also called ghilman, used to be handsome young boys. They used to wear ‘rich and attractive uniforms and often beautified and perfumed their bodies in effeminate fashion.’ The concept of ghilman comes from the following verses of the Quran, which describes heavenly male attendants (ghilman) in paradise:

• ‘Round about them will serve, (devoted) to them, young male servants (handsome) as Pearls well-guarded.’ [Quran 52:24]
• ‘There wait on them immortal youths, with bowls and ewers and a cup from a pure spring.’ [Quran 56:17–18]

Anwar Shaikh in his essay Islamic Morality describes ghilman as follows: ‘Paradise is the description of the luxurious surroundings dwelt in by Houris and Ghilman. Houris are the most beautiful ever-young virgins with wide, flexing eyes and swelling bosoms. Ghilman are the immortal young boys, pretty like pearls, clothed in green silk and brocade and embellished with bracelets of silver.’[19] The concept of ghilman in Islam may have been prompted by the dominant culture of sodomy that existed amongst Arabs during Muhammad’s time as discussed already (see p. 174–75). Sodomy was also prevalent in Persia. According Hitti, ‘We read of ghilman in the reign of al-Rashid; but it was evidently the Caliph al-Amin, who, following Persian precedent, established in the Arab world the ghilman institution for the practice of sexual relations. A judge of whom there is record used four hundred such youths. Poets did not disdain to give public expression to their perverted passions and to address amorous pieces of their compositions to beardless young boys.’[20]

Castration was not performed on the black captives alone, but on captives of all shades and races: be it the blacks of Africa, the browns of India, the yellows of Central Asia or the whites of Europe. In the Middle Ages, notes Segal, Prague and Verdun became castration centers for white eunuchs, while Kharazon near the Caspian Sea for Central Asian eunuchs. Islamic Spain was another center for producing white eunuchs. At the beginning of the tenth century, Caliph al-Muqtadir (r. 908–937) had assembled in the Baghdad palace some 11,000 eunuchs: 7,000 Blacks and 4,000 Whites (Greek).[21]

It is noted already that there was widespread castration of slaves in Bengal during Mughal Emperor Jahangir, which had become a widespread practice across India. It appears that since Bakhtiyar Khilji’s conquest of Bengal in 1205, it had become a leading source of enslavement and castration for supplying eunuchs. On his way back to Venice from Kublai Khan’s Court, Marco Polo visited India in the late thirteenth century; he found Bengal as a major source of eunuchs. Duarte Barbosa in the late sultanate period (1206–1526) and Francois Pyrard in the Mughal period (1526–1799) also found Bengal as the leading supplier of castrated slaves. Ain-i-Akbari (compiled 1590s) also affirms the same.[22] Some 22,000 individuals were emasculated in 1659 in Golkunda during Aurangzeb. Said Khan Chaghtai of Jahangir’s reign owned 1,200 eunuchs. Even kind-hearted Akbar employed eunuchs in large numbers. According to Ain-i-Akbari, Akbar’s harem ‘contained 5,000 ladies, each of whom had separate apartments… watched in successive circles by female guards, eunuchs, Rajputs and the porters at the gates…’[23]

Sultan Alauddin Khilji had engaged 50,000 young boys in his personal services, while Muhammad Tughlaq had 20,000 and Firoz Tughlaq 40,000. Many, if not most, of these slave-boys were likely castrated. Even Malik Kafur, Alauddin’s famous commander, was a eunuch. Khusrau Khan, Sultan Kutbuddin Mubarak Khilji’s favorite commander, who killed the sultan in 1320 and occupied the throne briefly, was a eunuch too. Medieval Muslim historians—namely Muhammad Ferishtah, Khondamir, Minhaj Siraj and Ziauddin Barani et al., have recorded stories of infatuation of other illustrious sultans, namely Mahmud Ghazni, Qutbuddin Aibak and Sikandar Lodi—for handsome young boys. Sikandar Lodi had once boasted, ‘If I order one of my slaves to be seated in a palanquin,[24] the entire body of nobility would carry him on their shoulders at my bidding.’[25] Sultan Mahmud had infatuation toward charming Tilak the Hindu, his favorite commander.[26]

Castration of male captives was performed on an unprecedented scale in order to meet the demand of eunuchs in the Muslim world. It was Muslims, who inaugurated the practice of castrating male slaves on a grand scale. Most of the male slaves of the Muslim world—particularly, those captured in Africa—were castrated. While eleven million African slaves were transported to the New World (West Indies and Americas) during the 350-year trans-Atlantic slave-trade, a larger number of them ended up in the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, India, Islamic Spain and Ottoman Europe during the thirteen centuries of Islamic domination. However, if compared the Diaspora left by black slaves in the New World with that in the Islamic world, it becomes evident that the overwhelming majority of the black slaves of the Islamic world were castrated; therefore, they failed to leave a notable Diaspora behind.

The fate of the millions of European, Indian, Central Asian and Middle Eastern infidels—reduced to wearing the shackles of Islamic slavery—might not have been much different. Marco Polo (1280s) and Duarte Barbosa (1500s) witnessed large-scale castrations in India; the same was occurring in the reign of Abkar (d. 1605), Jahangir (d. 1628) and Aurangzeb (d. 1707). Castration, therefore, was a common practice in India throughout the Muslim rule. It might have contributed to some extent to the decrease in India’s population from about 200 million in 1000 CE to 170 million in 1500 CE (discussed earlier).

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[1]. Ibn Ishaq, p. 592–93; Al-Tabari (1988 imprint) The History of Al-Tabari, State University of New York Press, New York, Vol. IX, p. 29

[2]. Maududi SAA, The Meaning of the Quran, Islamic Publications, Lahore, Vol. III, p. 241, note 7

[3]. Lal (1994), p. 142

[4]. Ibid, p. 145,147

[5]. Ibid, p. 145

[6]. Ibn Ishaq, p. 511; Muir W (1894) The Life of Mahomet, Voice of India, New Delhi, p. 377

[7]. Ibn Ishaq, p. 593

[8]. Muir, p. 74, notes; also Quran 4:3

[9]. Huges, p. 600

[10]. Lewis (2000), p. 209

[11]. Segal, p. 39

[12]. Manucci N (1906) Storia do Mogor, trs. Irvine W, Hohn Murray, London, Vol. II, p. 240

[13]. Lal (1994), p. 169–70

[14]. Milton, p. 120

[15]. Naipaul VS (1998) Beyond Belief: The Islamic Incursions among the Converted Peoples, Random House, New York, p. 332

[16]. Pellat Ch, Lambton AKS and Orhonlu C (1978) Khasi, In The Encyclopaedia of Islam, E J Brill ed., Leiden, Vol. IV, p. 1089

[17]. Milton, p. 126

[18]. Segal, p. 52

[19]. Shaikh A, Islamic Morality, http://iranpoliticsclub.net/islam/islamic-morality/index.htm

[20]. Hitti PK (1948) The Arabs : A Short History, Macmillan, London, p. 99

[21]. Segal, p. 40–41; Hitti (1961), p. 276

[22]. Moreland, p. 93, note 1

[23]. Ibid, p. 87–88

[24]. Palanquins were used for carrying the women, especially the newly married brides, in medieval India.

[25]. Lal (1994), p. 106–09

[26]. Elliot & Dawson, Vol. II, p. 127–29

Islamic Slavery, Part 9: Fate of Slaves

This is Part 9 of the chapter "Islamic Slavery" from M. A. Khan's book, "Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism and Slavery". The part discusses employment of slaves in 1) Construction, 2) Army, 3) Royal Factories, 4) Palaces, 5) Households and Agricultural farms. Those, who think Islam showed great generosity to slaves by giving opportunities to take position in the army, should read this part (Part 1, Part 8).

FATE OF SLAVES

When Prophet Muhammad died in 632, he had left behind a few thousand dedicated Muslim converts, who mainly engaged in raiding and plundering for making a living as well as for expanding the Muslim territory. This rather small band of Muslim warriors embarked on a stunning mission of conquest bringing vast territories of the world under their sway within a short time. In the process, they enslaved great multitude of the vanquished infidels, a large majority of whom involuntarily became Muslim.

Upon entering Sindh with only 6,000 Arab soldiers, Qasim had enslaved approximately 300,000 Indian infidels in three years. Similarly, Musa (698–712) had enslaved 300,000 Blacks and Berbers in North Africa. The early community of Muslims in Sindh consisted of a larger number of slave Muslims and a much smaller number of their Arab masters. Combined together, they formed the administrative machinery of the new Islamic state. Running such an enterprise needed a large amount of manpower in that non-technological era. Consequently, large numbers of these infidels, turned Muslims through enslavement, had to be engaged in many kinds of activities—as sex-slaves to the expansion of the military. In India, ‘There was no occupation in which the slaves of Firoz Shah were not employed,’ noted medieval chronicle Masalik.[1] This was the case under all Muslim rulers, not only in India, but also everywhere else. In Southeast Asia under the Muslim rule, slaves were also engaged in ‘almost every conceivable function.’[2] Indeed, almost entire work-force in Islamic Southeast Asia consisted of slaves as already noted.

Employment in building and construction: One major task Muslim invaders and rulers undertook in conquered lands was the construction of outstanding buildings for mosques, minarets, monuments and palaces. These were intended for declaring the might and glory of Islam, overshadowing the achievements of the native infidels. According to Chachnama, Qasim, informing of the building initiatives undertaken by him in Sindh, wrote to Hajjaj, ‘…the infidels converted to Islam or destroyed. Instead of idol temples, mosques and other places of worships have been built, pulpits have been erected…’[3] Qutbuddin Aibak had started construction of the impressive Qwat-ul-Islam (might of Islam) mosque in Delhi as early as 1192, more than a decade before establishing Muslim rule in India (1206). According to Ibn Battutah, the site of the Qwat-ul-Islam mosque ‘was formerly occupied by an idol temple, and was converted into a mosque on the conquest of the city.’[4] Aibak started the construction of the magnificent Qutb Minar—a minaret for announcing the Islamic call to prayers—in Delhi in 1199. The Qutb Minar ‘has no parallel in the land of Islam,’ wrote eyewitness Battutah.[5]

The undertaking of these huge ventures in India, ahead of establishing a firm foothold for Islam, affirms that the declaration of the might and glory of Islam was an urgent and focal mission of the conquest. To undermine and degrade the achievements of the infidels further, materials from destroyed temples, churches, synagogues etc. were used in the construction of Islamic structures. A Persian inscription on the Qwat-ul-Islam mosque testifies that materials from twenty-seven destroyed Hindu and Jain temples were used in its construction.[6] Similar materials were used in the construction of Qutb Minar, about which, writes Prof. Habibullah, ‘the sculptured figures (of Hindu gods, goddesses etc.) on the stones being either defaced or concealed by turning them upside down.’[7]

Muslim invaders of India started with the building of such magnificent mosques, minarets, citadels, and mausoleums of their religious significance; to these, they later added outstanding palaces and other buildings across India. Their constructions were often completed in double-quick time. In excessive enthusiasm, Barani informs us that a palace could be built in two to three days and a citadel in two weeks during Sultan Alauddin Khilji. Although an exaggeration, it nonetheless tells us that a large number of people, invariably slaves, were employed in these works of great endeavor; and they had to work under tremendous pressure to complete those ventures in the quickest of time in that non-technological era. It is little wonder then that Sultan Alauddin had accumulated 70,000 slaves, who worked continuously in buildings. Qwat-ul-Islam mosque and Qutb Minar were projects of great endeavor, since materials from destroyed temples had to be dismantled with great care for reusing them. Nizami records that the temples were demolished using elephants, each of which could haul a stone, for which 500 men would be needed. Much of the delicate work, however, was done by human hands and a large number of slaves must have been employed.[8]

Furthermore, there was little respite in building new cities, palaces and religious structures. Many often, after a new Sultan ascended the throne—happened frequently because of ceaseless uprisings and intrigues, which so characterized the Islamic rule in India—he would construct a new city and palace in order to leave an enduring legacy of his own. Abandoning Iltutmish’s old city, Sultan Ghiysuddin Balban (r. 1265–85) built the famous Qasr-i-Lal (Red Fort) in Delhi. Likewise, Kaiqubab built the city of Kilughari. Battutah testifies that ‘It is their custom that the king’s palace is deserted on his death… and his successor builds a new palace for himself.’[9] He noted of Delhi that it was ‘the largest city in the entire Muslim Orient,’ made up of four contiguous cities, built by different sultans.[10]

Moreover, congested cities, with no modern sewage and garbage management systems, used to get dirty and uninhabitable quickly and a new city used to be built to replace it. Battutah and Babur recorded the destruction of old cities because of moisture, which necessitated shifting to a new city where everything was clean and tidy. Hindus, enslaved in large numbers, were engaged in cleaning up the dirt and in constructing new cities for the largely city-dwelling Muslims. As already cited, Sultan Firoz Tughlaq had assembled 180,000 slaves for his services. Of these, a contingent of masons and builders with 12,000 slaves may have been engaged in stone-cutting alone, estimates Lal. Emperor Babur recorded that ‘[only] 680 men worked daily on my buildings in Agra…; while 1491 stone-cutters worked daily on my building in Agra, Sikri, Biana, Dulpur, Gwalior and Kuli (Aligarh). In the same way there were numberless artisans and workmen of every sort in Hindustan.’[11]

Throughout Islamic rule, Muslim rulers of India built great mosques, monuments, mausoleums, citadels, palaces and cities as well as repaired them. Indisputably, the greatest Muslim achievements in India were the great architectural monuments; their glares draw numerous visitors to India from around world even today. And it is the great multitude of enslaved Indians, who supplied unconditional labor as well as skills at all levels of their construction, with Muslim masters on watch with whips (Korrah) in their hands.

A similar pattern in building palaces, monuments and cities of exquisite stature existed in other parts of the Islamic world. In Morocco, previous rulers had built great capital cities in Fez, Rabat and Marrakesh with stunning palaces and monuments. When Sultan Moulay Ismail captured power in 1672, he decided to build a new imperial city at Meknes, which was to surpass the scale and grandeur of all great cities in the world. He ordered to pull down all houses and edifices clearing a huge area for building a stunning palace, whose walls stretched many miles. The palace compound was to feature ‘various interlocking palaces and chambers’ extending in ‘endless succession across the hills and valleys around Meknes. There were to be vast courtyards and colonnaded galleries, green-tiled mosques and pleasure gardens. He (the sultan) ordered the building of a huge Moorish harem, as well as stables and armories, fountains, pools and follies.’[12]

Sultan Moulay Ismail had wished to build a palatial city greater than that of King Louis XIV at Versailles, the greatest palace in Europe. In reality, he much outdid the Versailles palace. A British entourage, led by Commodore Charles Stewart, on a diplomatic mission to sign a peace treaty with Sultan Moulay Ismail and to free the English captives, visited the palace; they found it far larger than any building in Europe. Even the greatest and most opulent palace of King Louis XIV was much tinier. The most stunning edifice was the al-Mansur palace, which stood 150-feet high and was ‘surmounted by twenty pavilions decorated with glazed green tiles.’[13]

The sultan’s palace was built exclusively by European slaves, aided by bands of local criminals. The palace was four miles in circumference and its walls were twenty-five feet thick. According to Windus, ‘‘30,000 men and 10,000 mules were employed everyday in the building of the palace.’’ Every morning the sultan would appear to oversee the construction and give idea for the days work. Slaves would work meticulously to finish the allotted work in time. As soon as he finished one project, he would start another. The scale of the building project was so huge that ‘‘Never had such a similar palace been seen under any government, Arab or foreign, pagan or Muslim,’’ wrote Moroccan historian ez-Zayyani. Some 12,000 soldiers were needed to guard the ramparts alone.[14]

There was no respite in the building activity in Sultan Moulay Ismail’s palace. Rarely satisfied with finished buildings, he would order their demolition for rebuilding all over. In order to keep his slaves busy, he would order them to demolish twelve miles of the palace wall for their reconstruction at the same place. When inquired about this, the sultan replied, ‘‘I have a bag full of rats (slaves); unless I keep that bag stirring, they would eat their way through.’’[15]

Sultan Moulay Ismail’s successor Moulay Abdallah was as cruel as his father. In order to subject his slaves to hard labor and keep them busy, he ordered the stunning palace buildings built by his father—"the pride and joys of Meknes"—be razed down and reconstructed by his European slaves. And he took sadistic joy at the suffering and even death of his slaves while they worked. ‘‘While the slaves were working,’’ wrote Frenchman Adrian de Manault, ‘‘one of his pleasures was to put a great number of them at the foot of the wall which were about to collapse, and watch them be buried alive under the rubble.’’ He treated his slaves in ‘‘a most grievous and cruel manner,’’ wrote Pellow.[16]

Engagement in the army: Another major enterprise, in which, slaves were employed in large numbers was the Muslim army. Musa in North Africa had drafted 30,000 slaves into the military service. Late in the eighteenth century, Sultan Moulay Ismaili had a 250,000-strong army of black slaves. Muslim slave armies, 50,000 to 250,000 strong, were normal in Morocco, Egypt and Persia. The dreaded Ottoman Janissary Regiment that brought down Constantinople in 1453 consisted exclusively of slave soldiers. Qutbuddin Aibak, the first sultan of Delhi, was a slave of Sultan Muhammad Ghauri. The sultans of Delhi until 1290 were all slaves. Their army also consisted mostly of slaves, imported from foreign lands.

Many Muslim and non-Muslim historians and commentators have sought to sell this policy of employing the slaves in the armed forces as an ennobling and liberating act on the part of Muslim rulers. This noble exercise, they argue, enabled slaves to reach the highest rank in the military; they even became rulers. It is true that many slaves rose to the top in the military; and some, through cliques and intrigues, even rose to the position of rulers. But this, for Muslim rulers, was never a gesture of their generosity. Instead, it was, for them, a necessity to continue the conquest for their own interest: for expanding their kingdoms and for acquiring more plunder, slaves and revenues from the vanquished. It also became a tool for continued brutality, mass-slaughter and enslavement of the infidels. Every slave, who happened to reach the height of power, paved the way for the brutalization and destruction of tens to hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. Every slave, who became a normal soldier, destroyed a few to many innocent lives.

After capturing Debal in 712 with 6,000 Arab warriors, Qasim could not take his conquest further without expanding the army. Hence, after taking a city, he had to take time to consolidate power and expand the military, for which, some of the enslaved were unconditionally drafted in.[17] Once the military power improved, he could send forward a new expedition while keeping the already-conquered territories secure. He made about half-a-dozen major expeditions after arriving in Sindh and gradually his army swelled to 50,000 soldiers. A part of the new recruits came from enslaved Indians. ‘Kingship is the army and the army is the kingship,’ wrote Barani, implying the central importance of a powerful army in the plunderous Muslim rule and conquest. The engagement of slaves in the army, therefore, was not a favor by Muslim rulers to the enslaved, but quite the opposite. It was not a generous act of liberation and elevation of slaves by Muslim rulers; it was a compulsion for their own good fortune. Most of all, joining the Muslim army was not a free choice for slaves, but a compulsion. And every slave drafted into the army paved the way for the destruction and brutalization of the lives of scores of innocent non-Muslims, normally their coreligionists of the yesteryear.

After suffering reverses in the battle of Tours (France) in 732, Islamic conquests became somewhat subdued. The Jihadi spirit of the Muslim army was probably dwindling. With vast territories conquered and huge wealth accumulated, the Arab and Persian soldiers had probably lost their zest for engaging in further bloodletting wars, which risked their lives. This time, the North African black and Berber slaves formed the bulk of the Muslim army that continued Jihadi expeditions in Europe. On the eastern borders of the Islamdom, Muslim rulers found another people, the Turks, with an unceasing zeal for wars and bloodbath. The Abbasid caliphs, especially Caliph al-Mutasim (833–42), started drafting the Turks in the army in large numbers, replacing the lackadaisical Arabs and Persians. Most of these Turks were enslaved in wars. They were also imported at young age as Dewshirme-style tributes and trained for serving in the army. This trend continued under subsequent caliphs, making Turks the major force in the army; the supremacy of the Arabs and Persians in the military was dismantled.

Some of these powerful Turk commanders later revolted against the caliphs and declared their independence. The first independent Turk dynasty was established in Egypt in 868. On the eastern front of Islamdom, there arose a Turk slave ruler, named Alptigin—a purchased slave of Persian (Samanid dynasty) King Ahmad bin Ismail (d. 907) of Transoxiana, Khurasan and Bukhara. For his military excellence, Alptigin was appointed in the charge of 500 villages and about 2000 slaves by the Samanid governor Abdul Malik (954–61). Alptigin later became an independent chief in Ghazni. He purchased another Turkish slave, named Subuktigin, who, after Alptigin’s death, prevailed in acquiring power. Subuktigin ‘made frequent raids into Hind in the prosecution of holy wars,’ wrote al-Utbi. However, it was the son of Subuktigin, Sultan Mahmud Ghazni, who launched devastating holy wars against the infidels of India. About one-and-half centuries later, another band of slave sultans, the Afghan Ghaurivids, launched the final blow to India’s sovereignty, establishing the Muslim sultanate in Delhi. Qutbuddin Aibak, Sultan Ghauri’s Turkish slave turned military commander, became the first sultan of Delhi. The Delhi sultans used to maintain an army, consisting mainly of slaves of foreign origin during the early period. Slaves from various foreign nationalities—Turks, Persians, Seljuqs, Oghus (Iraqi Turkmen), Afghans and Khiljis—were purchased in large number and drafted into the Ghaznivid and Ghaurid army. Black slaves, purchased from Abyssinia, became the dominant force in the army of Sultana Raziyah (r. 1236–40), the daughter of Sultan Iltutmish.

When the Khilji dynasty (1290–1320), the first non-slave rulers in India, came to power—the Indians, enslaved and forcibly converted to Islam, started appearing in the army, much to the annoyance of orthodox Muslims, who detested the inclusion of the lowly Indians into the armed forces. But the Mongols had been attacking India’s northwest frontier at this time. The Sultan needed a powerful army, which necessitated the inclusion of slave Muslims of Indian origin. Moreover, the Khiljis had captured power by ousting the Turks, who had been raising constant revolts. Hence, the Khiljis could not employ the Turks heavily in the army because of the loyalty issue. Later on, Sultan Firoz Tughlaq (r. 1351–88), sensing an impending invasion by the Islamized Mongols (which, indeed, came in 1398 with Timur’s barbaric assaults), needed to assemble a large army. As a result, the Hindus were allowed to be drafted into the Muslim army for the first time in India. Similar Muslim opposition against the employment of the conquered infidels turned Muslims into the army also existed elsewhere. In Egypt, the native Coptic Christians, who converted to Islam, were not included into the army for a long time.

Role of Indian soldiers: In the army, the Indian soldiers (mostly converted slaves), known as paiks, were normally engaged in lower ranks. They belonged to the infantry. They were drawn from slaves captured in expeditions or obtained as tributes; some Hindus also joined the army at later stages to secure a livelihood. The paiks performed all kinds of sundry jobs, such as looking after the horses and elephants; they were engaged in personal services of the higher-ranked cavalrymen. Muslim sultans and emperors in India kept a huge army; and in the reign of Akbar, ‘A Mogul army in the field had on the average two or three servants for each fighting man,’ notes Moreland.[18] Naturally, numerous slaves were engaged in the army in different capacities during later periods. When on a military campaign, the paiks cleared jungles and prepared roads for the marching army. When halted or arrived at the destination, they set up camps and fixed tents—sometimes on lands, as much as 12,546 yards in circumference, records Amir Khasrau.[19]

In the battle-field, the paiks were stationed at the frontline on foot to absorb the initial assaults. They could not escape from the frontal onslaught, because, ‘horses were on their left and right… and behind (them), were the elephants so that not one of them can run away,’ writes Alqalqashindi in Subh-ul-Asha. Portuguese official Duarte Barbosa (1518) records in his eyewitness account, ‘‘(paiks) carry swords and daggers, bows and arrows. They are right good archers and their bows are long like those of England… They are mostly Hindus.’’ Some Indian-origin slave soldiers (converted Muslims)—such as Malik Kafur, Malik Naik, Sarang Khan, Bahadur Nahar, Shaikha Khokhar, and Mallu Khans et al.—also rose to positions of power through their military valor and loyalty to the sultans.[20]

In general, Indian slaves in the army did all kinds of sundry jobs, including acting as servants to soldiers, caretakers of the stable of horses and elephants, in clearing jungles and setting up tents and camps. In battle-fields, they stood in the frontline on foot with daggers and swords, bows and arrows and bore the brunt of enemy attacks.

A similar trend existed in the employment of native soldiers elsewhere. When the Egyptian Coptic converts to Islam had to be drafted into the army after the initial resistance, ‘they were enrolled in the foot-soldier brigades, which meant that, in case of the army’s victory, they were entitled to receive only half the horsemen’s share of the war spoils.’[21] The European captives turned Muslims in Morocco, the most hated ones among the slaves, were employed in the army to do difficult battles against deadly rebels. They had to lead the first wave of attack against the enemy; and they had no way to escape but take the enemy assaults on their bodies. In the battle, if they tried to betray or give way, they were cut up in pieces.[22]

Employment in royal factories: Another major enterprise for employing slaves in large numbers was the royal karkhana (factory/workhouse), which existed throughout the Sultanate and Mughal periods in India. These workhouses used to produce and manufacture goods of every conceivable royal usage: articles of gold, silver, brass and other metals, textiles, perfumes, armors, weapons, leather goods and clothes, saddles for horses and camels, and covers for elephants.[23] Thousands of slaves trained as artisans and craftsmen worked in running these factories, watched by senior Amirs or Khans. Firoz Shah Tughlaq had 12,000 slaves working in his karkhanas. They produced articles of excellent quality for every need of the sultans and emperors, and their generals, soldiers and nobles—including weapons for warfare, and gifts for sending to overseas kings and overlords. Commodore Steward and his entourage, visiting Sultan Moulay Ismail’s workhouses in Morocco, found them ‘‘full of men and boys at work… making saddles, stocks for guns, scabbards for cymiters [sic] and other things.’’[24]

Employment in palaces and royal courts: Following is a summary of Lal’s account of the employment of slaves in royal palaces and court.[25] Slaves were used in large numbers in various departments of the royal courts. Large numbers of them acted as spies; thousands were needed in the Revenue and Postal Departments for collecting revenues and carrying official communications, respectively. At the palace, slaves were also needed in very large numbers. Emperor Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan had 5,000 to 6,000 women (wives and concubines) in their harems; and each one of them had a few to many bandis (slave women) to care for them. They lived in separate apartments and were guarded by female guards, eunuchs, and porters in successive circles.

There were also large bands of slaves playing trumpets, drums, and pipes etc. Slaves were engaged in fanning the royal persons and driving away mosquitoes. In the services of Sultan Muhammad Shah Tughlaq (d. 1351), wrote Shihabuddin al-Omari:

‘…there are 1,200 physicians; 10,000 falconers who ride on horseback and carry birds trained for hawking; 300 beaters go in front and put up the game; 3,000 dealers in articles required for hawking accompany him when he goes out hunting; 500 table companions dine with him. He supports 1,200 musicians excluding about 1,000 slave musicians who are in charge of teaching music, and 1,000 poets of Arabic, Persian and Indian languages. About 2,500 oxen, 2,000 sheep, and other animals were slaughtered daily for the supplies of the royal kitchen.’

The number of slaves needed for these huge undertakings on a daily basis and all other chores of the royal palaces are not available, but not impossible to guess. Numerous staffs were employed for amusements and sports: hunting, shooting, pigeon-flying and so on. Sultan Alauddin Khilji had 50,000 pigeon-boys in his collection. Slaves were engaged even to train the fighting instinct of a variety of animals ‘down to frogs and spiders,’ recorded Moreland. Emperor Humayun’s rival Sher Shah, a not-so-powerful and well-established ruler, had employed 3,400 horses in postal communications and maintained about 5,000 elephants in his stable. Seven slaves were engaged to look after each elephant. Emperor Jahangir records in his memoir that four slaves looked after each of his dogs brought as presents from England. According to Moroccan chronicler Ahmed ben Nasiri, Sultan Moulay Ismail had about 12,000 horses in his stable and two slaves were employed to look after every ten stallions.[26] According to Pellow, who briefly acted as a harem-guard, Sultan Moulay Ismail’s huge harem had 4,000 concubines and wives.[27] Obviously a large number of slaves were engaged in guarding the harems.

Employment in household and agricultural works: In royal palaces, slaves were employed in tens of thousands. The nobles, provincial governors and high-ranking generals employed slaves in hundreds to thousands in activities of the courts and household chores. One official of Emperor Jahangir had 1,200 eunuch slaves alone. From expeditions, Muslim soldiers used to get many slaves as their share. Some of them used to be sold away, while the rest were employed in the household and outdoor chores and activities to provide the masters every comfort.

According to Islamic laws as enshrined in the Pact of Omar, non-Muslims could not purchase slaves belonging to Muslims. Therefore, only Muslims could legally buy slaves in the markets of Islamdom. This restriction was likely implemented strictly in the early periods of Islam. The Muslim population was small during the early decades and centuries of Islam, while the yield of slaves for sale was very large because of the rapid success in conquests. This oversupply of slaves enabled even ordinary Muslim households to own many slaves as already noted. The yield of captives in certain campaigns was so large that they had to be sold in batches as did Caliph al-Mutasim in 838.

What were these slaves, from a few to many, doing in the household of the ordinary, even poor, Muslim owners? Obviously, they were employed in every conceivable type of labor and chores possible: household works of every kind and anything that required physical exertion, such as herding the animals and working in the backyards and farms. The slaves, thus, enabled their owners to lead a life of comfort, ease and indulgence free of labor. According to Lewis, ‘Slaves, most of them black Africans, appeared in large number in economic projects. From early Islamic times, large numbers of black slaves were employed in draining the salt flats of southern Iraq. Poor conditions led to a series of uprisings. Other black slaves were employed in the gold mines of Upper Egypt and Sudan, and in the salt mines of Sahara.’[28] Segal adds: ‘(They) dug ditches, drained marshland, cleared salt flats of their crust; they cultivated sugar, and cotton in plantations; and they were accommodated in camps that contained five hundred to five thousand each.’[29] Because of these deadly uprisings, Muslim rulers, later on, were cautious about employing slaves in large congregations on specific projects.

In Islamic Guinea and Sierra Leone, the masters of "slave town" employed their slaves in agricultural farms in the nineteenth century.[30] The slaves of Sultan Sayyid Sa’id (d. 1856) in East Africa ‘labored in the great clove plantations on Zanzibar and Pemba islands…’[31] Segal quotes Nehemia Levtzion that ‘‘In the fifteenth century, slaves were in great demand for expanding plantation agriculture in Southern Morocco.’ In the nineteenth century, adds Segal, ‘when the demand for cotton was high and supply of slaves from Sudan was plentiful, they were used to increase production of crop in Egypt, while large numbers of slaves… were used for grain production on the East African coast and in the clove plantation on the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba.’’[32] In the nineteenth century, some 769,000 black slaves were engaged in the Arab plantations of Zanzibar and Pemba, while 95,000 of them were shipped to the Arab plantations in the Mascareme Islands from East Africa alone.[33]

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[1]. Lal (1994), p. 97

[2]. Reid A (1993) The Decline of Slavery in Nineteenth-Century Indonesia, In Klein MA ed., Breaking the Chains: Slavery, Bondage and Emancipation in Modern Africa and Asia, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, p. 68

[3]. Sharma, p. 95

[4]. Gibb, p. 195

[5]. Ibid

[6]. Watson F and Hiro D (2002) India: A Concise History, Thames & Hudson, p. 96

[7]. Lal (1994), p. 84

[8]. Ibid, p. 84–85

[9]. Ibid, p. 86,88

[10]. Gibb, p. 194–95

[11]. Lal (1994), p. 88

[12]. Milton, p. 100–01

[13]. Ibid, p. 102

[14]. Ibid, p. 104–05

[15]. Ibid

[16]. Ibid, p. 240–41

[17]. Large numbers of volunteer Jihadists from the Islamic world, seeing new opportunities for engaging in holy war against the infidels, also poured into Sindh to join Qasim’s army.

[18]. Moreland, p. 88

[19]. Lal (1994), p. 89–93

[20]. Ibid

[21]. Tagher J (1998) Christians in Muslim Egypt: A Historical Study of the Relations between Copts and Muslims from 640 to 1922, trs. Makar RN, Oros Verlag, Altenberge, p. 18

[22]. Milton, p. 135–36

[23]. Lal (1994), p. 96–99

[24]. Milton, p. 186

[25]. Lal (1994), p. 99–102

[26]. Milton, p. 132

[27]. Ibid, p. 120

[28]. Lewis (2000), p. 209

[29]. Segal, p. 42

[30]. Rodney W (1972) In MA Klein & GW Johnson eds., p. 158

[31]. Gann L (1972), In Ibid, p. 182

[32]. Ibid, p. 44–45

[33]. Ibid, p. 60–61