Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry (3 page)

not a single slave is to be found among them, but all are free, exchanging
services with each other, and they denounce the owners of slaves, not merely
for their injustice in outraging the law of equality, but also for their impiety in
annulling the statute of Nature, who mother-like bore and reared all men alike,
and created them genuine brothers, not in mere name, but in very reality,
though this kinship has been put to confusion by the triumph of malignant
covetousness, which has wrought estrangement instead of affinity and enmity
instead of friendship."

This view, if it was indeed held and put into practice, was unique in the
ancient Middle East. Jews, Christians, and pagans alike owned slaves and
exercised the rights and powers accorded to them by their various religious
laws. In all communities, there were men of compassion who urged slaveowners to treat their slaves humanely, and there was even some attempt to
secure this by law. But the institution of slavery as such was not seriously
questioned, and was indeed often defended in terms of either Natural Law or
Divine Dispensation. Thus Aristotle defends the condition of slavery and even
the forcible enslavement of those who are "by nature slaves, for whom to be
governed by this kind of authority is beneficial";'' other Greek philosophers
express similar ideas, particularly about enslaved captives from conquered
peoples." For such, slavery is not only right; it is also to their advantage.

The ancient Israelites did not claim that slavery was beneficial to the
slaves, but, like the ancient Greeks, they felt the need to explain and justify
the enslavement of their neighbors. In this, as in other matters, they sought a
religious rather than a philosophical sanction and found it in the biblical story
of the curse of Ham. Significantly, this curse was restricted to one line only of
the descendants of Ham, namely, the children of Canaan, whom the Israelites
had subjugated when they conquered the Promised Land, and did not affect
the others.14

The Qur'an, like the Old and the New Testaments, assumes the existence
of slavery. It regulates the practice of the institution and thus implicitly accepts it. The Prophet Muhammad and those of his Companions who could
afford it themselves owned slaves; some of them acquired more by conquest."

But Qur'anic legislation, subsequently confirmed and elaborated in the
Holy Law,16 brought two major changes to ancient slavery which were to
have far-reaching effects. One of these was the presumption of freedom; the
other, the ban on the enslavement of free persons except in strictly defined
circumstances.

The Qur'an was promulgated in Mecca and Medina in the seventh century,
and the background against which Qur'anic legislation must he seen is ancient
Arabia. The Arabs practiced a form of slavery, similar to that which existed in
other parts of the ancient world. The Qur'an accepts the institution, though it may be noted that the word `abd (slave) is rarely used, being more commonly
replaced by some periphrasis such as ma malakat aymanukum, "that which
your right hands own." The Qur'an recognizes the basic inequality between
master and slave and the rights of the former over the latter (XVI:71;
XXX:28). It also recognizes concubinage (IV:3; XXIII:6; XXXIII:50-52;
LXX:30). It urges, without actually commanding, kindness to the slave
(IV:36; IX:60; XXIV:58) and recommends, without requiring, his liberation
by purchase or manumission. The freeing of slaves is recommended both for
the expiation of sins (IV:92; V:92; LVIII:3) and as an act of simple benevolence (11: 177; XXIV:33; XC:13). It exhorts masters to allow slaves to earn or
purchase their own freedom. An important change from pagan, though not
from Jewish or Christian, practices is that in the strictly religious sense, the
believing slave is now the brother of the freeman in Islam and before God,
and the superior of the free pagan or idolator (11:221). 17 This point is emphasized and elaborated in innumerable hadiths (traditions), in which the Prophet
is quoted as urging considerate and sometimes even equal treatment for
slaves, denouncing cruelty, harshness, or even discourtesy, recommending the
liberation of slaves, and reminding the Muslims that his apostolate was to free
and slave alike."

Though slavery was maintained, the Islamic dispensation enormously improved the position of the Arabian slave, who was now no longer merely a
chattel but was also a human being with a certain religious and hence a social
status and with certain quasi-legal rights. The early caliphs who ruled the
Islamic community after the death of the Prophet also introduced some further reforms of a humanitarian tendency. The enslavement of free Muslims
was soon discouraged and eventually prohibited. It was made unlawful for a
freeman to sell himself or his children into slavery, and it was no longer
permitted for freemen to be enslaved for either debt or crime, as was usual in
the Roman world and, despite attempts at reform, in parts of Christian Europe until at least the sixteenth century. It became a fundamental principle of
Islamic jurisprudence that the natural condition, and therefore the presumed
status, of mankind was freedom, just as the basic rule concerning actions is
permittedness: what is not expressly forbidden is permitted; whoever is not
known to be a slave is free.'9 This rule was not always strictly observed.
Rebels and heretics were sometimes denounced as infidels or, worse, apostates, and reduced to slavery, as were the victims of some Muslim rulers in
Africa, who proclaimed jihad against their neighbors, without looking closely
at their religious beliefs, so as to provide legal cover for their enslavement.
But by and large, and certainly in the central lands of Islam, under regimes of
high civilization, the rule was honored, and free subjects of the state, Muslim
and non-Muslim alike, were protected from unlawful enslavement.

Since all human beings were naturally free, slavery could only arise from
two circumstances: (1) being born to slave parents or (2) being captured in
war. The latter was soon restricted to infidels captured in a jihad.

These reforms seriously limited the supply of new slaves. Abandoned and
unclaimed children could no longer be adopted as slaves, as was a common practice in antiquity,'" and free persons could no longer be enslaved. Under
Islamic law, the slave population could only be recruited, in addition to birth
and capture, by importation, the last either by purchase or in the form of
tribute from beyond the Islamic frontiers. In the early days of rapid conquest
and expansion, the holy war brought a plentiful supply of new slaves, but as
the frontiers were gradually stabilized, this supply dwindled to a mere trickle.
Most wars were now conducted against organized armies, like those of the
Byzantines or other Christian states, and with them prisoners of war were
commonly ransomed or exchanged.'' Within the Islamic frontiers, Islam
spread rapidly among the populations of the newly acquired territories, and
even those who remained faithful to their old religions and lived as protected
persons (dhimmis) under Muslim rule could not, if free, be legally enslaved
unless they had violated the terms of the dhimma, the contract governing their
status, as for example by rebelling against Muslim rule or helping the enemies
of the Muslim state or, according to some authorities, by withholding payment
of the Kharaj or the Jizya, the taxes due from dhimmis to the Muslim state.

In the Islamic empire, the humanitarian tendency of the Qur'an and the
early caliphs was to some extent counteracted by other influences. Notable
among these was the practice of the various conquered peoples and countries
which the Muslims encountered after their expansion, especially in provinces
previously under Roman law. This law, even in its Christianized form, was still
very harsh in its treatment of slaves. Perhaps equally important was the huge
increase in the slave population resulting first from the conquests themselves,
and then from the organization of a great network of importation. These led to
a fall in the cash value and hence the human value of slaves, and to a general
adoption of a harsher tone and severer rules. But even after this stiffening of
attitudes and laws, Islamic practice still represented a vast improvement on that
inherited from antiquity, from Rome, and from Byzantium.

Slaves were excluded from religious functions or from any office involving
jurisdiction over others. Their testimony was not admitted at judicial proceedings. In penal law, the penalty for an offense against a person, a fine or
bloodwit, was, for a slave, half of that for a freeman. While maltreatment was
deplored, there was no fixed shad a penalty. In what might be called civil
matters, the slave was a chattel with no legal powers or rights whatsoever. He
could not enter into a contract, hold property, or inherit. If he incurred a fine,
his owner was responsible. He was, however, distinctly better off, in the
matter of rights, than a Greek or Roman slave, since Islamic jurists, and not
only philosophers and moralists, took account of humanitarian considerations. They laid down, for example, that a master must give his slave medical
attention when required, must give him adequate upkeep, and must support
him in his old age. If a master defaulted on these and other obligations to his
slave, the qadi could compel him to fulfill them or else either to sell or to
emancipate the slave. The master was forbidden to overwork his slave, and if
he did so to the point of cruelty, he was liable to a penalty which was,
however, discretionary and not prescribed by law. A slave could enter into a
contract to earn his freedom, in which case his master had no obligation to pay for his upkeep. While in theory the slave could not own property,. he could be
granted certain rights of ownership for which he paid a fixed sum to his
master.

A slave could marry, but only by consent of the master. Theoretically, a
male slave could marry a free woman, but this was discouraged and in practice
prohibited. A master could not marry his own slave woman unless he first
freed her.

Islamic law provides a number of ways in which a slave could be set free.
One was manumission, accomplished by a formal declaration on the part of
the master and recorded in a certificate which was given to the liberated
slave."` The manumission of a slave included the offspring of that slave, and
the jurists specify that if there is any uncertainty about an act of manumission,
the slave has the benefit of the doubt. Another method is a written agreement
by which the master grants liberty in return for a fixed sum. Once such an
agreement has been concluded, the master no longer has the right to dispose
of his slave, whether by sale or gift. The slave is still subject to certain legal
disabilities, but in most respects is virtually free. Such an agreement, once
entered into, may be terminated by the slave but not by the master. Children
born to the slave after the entry into force of the contract are born free. The
master may bind himself to liberate a slave at some specified future time. He
may also bind his heirs to liberate a slave after his death. The law schools
differ somewhat on the rules regarding this kind of liberation.

In addition to all these, which depend on the will of the master, there are
various legal causes which may lead to liberation, independently of the will of
the master. The commonest is a legal judgment by a qadi ordering a master to
emancipate a slave whom he has maltreated. A special case is that of the umm
walad, a slave woman who bears a son to her master, and thereby acquires
certain irrevocable legal rights.`'

Non-Muslim subjects of the Muslim state, that is, dhimmis, were in practice allowed to own slaves; and Christian and Jewish families who could afford
it owned and employed slaves in the same way as their Muslim counterparts.
They were not permitted to own Muslim slaves; and if a slave owned by a
dhimmi embraced Islam, his owner was legally obliged to free or sell him.
Jews and Christians were of course not permitted to have Muslim concubines,
and were indeed usually debarred by their own religious authorities-not
always effectively-from sexual access to their slaves.21 Jewish slaves, acquired through privateering in the Mediterranean and slave raiding in Eastern
Europe, were often redeemed and set free by their local co-religionists.' The
vastly more numerous Christian slaves-apart from West Europeans, whose
ransoms could be arranged from home-were for the most part doomed to
remain. Sometimes, Christian and Jewish slaveowners tried to convert their
domestic slaves to their own religions. Jews were indeed required by rabbinic
law to try to persuade their slaves to accept conversion with circumcision and
ritual immersion. A form of semi-conversion, whereby the slave accepted
some basic commandments and observances, but not the full rigor of the
Mosaic law, was widely practiced. According to Jewish law, a converted or even semi-converted slave could not be sold to a Gentile. If the owner in fact
so sold him or her, the slave was to be set free. Conversely, a slave who
refused even semi-conversion was, after a stipulated interval of time, to be
sold to a Gentile.26 Muslim authorities, both jurists and rulers, took different
views of this. Conversion from Islam was of course a capital offense, and some
jurists held that only conversion to Islam was lawful. Others, however, saw no
objection to conversion between non-Muslim religions, provided that the
converted slaves had reached the age of reason and changed their religion of
their own free will.27

Though a free Muslim could not be enslaved, conversion to Islam by a
non-Muslim slave did not require his liberation. His slave status was not
affected by his Islam, nor was that of a Muslim child born to slave parents.

There were occasional slave rebellions and, from the rules and regulations
about runaway slaves, it would appear that such escapes were not infrequent.
Slaves from neighboring countries might have some chance of returning to
their homes, and examples are known of European slaves in the Ottoman
lands escaping to Europe, where some indeed wrote memoirs or accounts of
their captivity.2' The chances of a slave from the steppe-lands or from Africa
finding his way back were remote.