Islamic Slavery

Recovering Biographies of Enslaved Africans in Nineteenth-Century Iran: A First Attempt

Anthony A. Lee
Lecturer, UCLA 

Abstract

African slaves were brought to Iran in large numbers in the nineteenth century as part of the Eastern slave trade. While there are no definite historical statistics on the number of slaves exported from Africa to Iran, estimates among scholars for the Indian Ocean trade during the nineteenth century vary from between one and two million.  Possibly two-thirds of these slaves were women and girls.  In Iran, these Africans were almost always destined for residence in Iranian households as servants, eunuchs, and concubines.
Little scholarship has been undertaken on the history of Africans in Iran.  There are enormous gaps in our knowledge of slavery in Iran and of the influence of African people and culture on Iranian history.  More than a decade ago, Edward Alpers called forcefully for the study of the history of Africans in the northwestern Indian Ocean.  However, his pioneering call for more research, for the most part, has not been taken up by other scholars.  This paper is a first attempt to discover the individual biographies of slaves in nineteenth-century Iran and to reconstruct at least a part of their lives. 
  Scholars of Middle Eastern slavery have warned about the limited value of Western legal distinctions between slavery and freedom when applied to the Muslim world.  Such binary, legal concepts of slave vs. free presuppose a secular state that is able to protect the lives and property of individuals based on their claim to citizenship.  They are unhelpful when discussing societies which are not built around the power of the state, but rather on concepts or kinship, belonging, religious authority, and hierarchies of dependence. 
This paper will examine four cases of slave experience in Iran in an effort to demonstrate the widely varying conditions of enslaved persons during the nineteenth century.  First, Bahrazian Khanum and Nur Sabbah Khanum, two sisters who found their freedom in 1892, but who in the absence of protectors were quickly re-enslaved.  Second, Haji Mubarak and Fezzeh Khanum, servants of the middle-class merchant and Babi (later, Baha’i) Prophet, Mirza ‘Ali-Muhammad Shirazi, the Bab (1819-1850).  The former an educated eunuch entrusted with his master’s business affairs; the latter a lifelong companion to the Prophet’s wife who became a holy figure in her own right.  Third, Khyzran Khanum and a young boy named Walladee, two slaves who fled to the British consulate in Lingeh in 1856 seeking freedom, but found no protection.  And, fourth, Gulchihreh Khanum, captured and enslaved as a child in the late 1800s.  She became a servant in a wealthy Iranian home and the beloved nanny of the family’s children, but continued to protest her enslavement to the end of her life.

Tussen de 8ste en 20ste eeuw zijn miljoenen Europeanen als slaaf weggevoerd naar islamitisch gebied. Daaronder waren ook veel Nederlanders. De slavenjachten door Moren, Saracenen, Turken, Tataren en Barbarijse zeerovers hebben grote impact gehad op zowel de directe slachtoffers als op de achterblijvers die het konden navertellen. Hun verhalen hebben zich in de loop der tijd omgevormd tot volksverhalen en tradities.

This essay compares and contrasts the institution of slavery in late antiquity as opposed to the Islamic era, from the advent of Islam in Arabia to the rise of the Islam as a dominant polity in the Middle East and beyond. As part of this essay I have verified how the Islamic civilization has impacted the institution of slavery particularly in Persia in response to the following questions: Did slavery exist in the ancient Persia prior to the advent of Islam? Did the rise of Islam make positive or negative changes to the institution of slavery? Did the magnitude or nature of slavery change after the advent of Islam in Persia?  Did Islamic slavery include any ethnic/religious discrimination against the Iranians (as a defeated nations)?

To the modern mind, very few practices can be more morally unsettling than the concept of slavery. For Muslims, this becomes acute as the Quran - the word of God and the foundation of their moral ontology – fails to disrupt slavery. Worryingly, this practice has been used by twisted ideology that is ISIS to take slaves in the modern era. However, the Quran alone is not alone in this silence; throughout human history literally nobody condemned this “moral evil”. Not even those who we hold as our intellectual forebears in the West. Herein lies the slavery conundrum: Given our past has moral authority over us, why didn’t anyone condemn it? The book explores how the abolitionist movement has been successful in arguing for ending slavery through a discourse that condemned all its forms based on legal definitions (not conditions).

One of the more controversial topics in the modern study of Islam, concerns the relative status of women and the treatment and civil rights of non-Islamic minorities within the context of Islamic law.  This qualitative research project will look at a very narrow topic within Islamic law which addresses both issues.  The aim of the research is to bring to light Muhammad’s teaching and practice on this subject through reading and analysis of primary source document references to al ‘azl and its rejection in the proper treatment of non-Muslim captive women.  If religious law (Sharia) is to change in the modern context, it must surely begin with the more problematical pronouncements found in the foundational texts of Islam.  The purpose of this study is to illustrate one such practice while attempting to answer the question, how is this aspect of the Prophet’s behavior (Sunnah) to be interpreted in the modern age?  My hope is that this study will benefit liberal Muslims who seek to reform Islam for the 21st century context.  It is not my purpose to offend any Muslim readers by this project, but to illustrate that all religions must find a way to deal with their darker texts in a globalized world where universal human rights across cultural and religious barriers will become the  most important issue of the 21st century.

Achter het zwarte masker gaat een vergeten geschiedenis schuil. Deze omvat de feestelijkste hoogtepunten en diepste angsten van vele generaties Nederlanders en Europeanen.
Deze geschiedenis, die loopt van de middeleeuwen tot aan het begin van de 20e eeuw, ontbreekt in de officiële Nederlandse canon.
Het sinterklaasfeest is als een tijdmachine die de verbinding legt met de culturele historie van Nederland.
De wetenschap verdraait de geschiedenis van slavernij en de relatie met het sinterklaasfeest uit ideologische motieven. De ontmaskering van deze grootschalige misleiding zal het aanzien van de wetenschap voorgoed veranderen.

Fezzeh Khanom (c. 1835–82), an African woman, was a slave of Sayyed ‘Ali-Mohammad of Shiraz, the Bab. Information about her life can be recovered from various pious Baha'i histories. She was honored, and even venerated by Babis, though she remained subordinate and invisible. The paper makes the encouraging discovery that a history of African slavery in Iran is possible, even at the level of individual biographies. Scholars estimate that between one and two million slaves were exported from Africa to the Indian Ocean trade in the nineteenth century, most to Iranian ports. Some two-thirds of African slaves brought to Iran were women intended as household servants and concubines. An examination of Fezzeh Khanom's life can begin to fill the gaps in our knowledge of enslaved women in Iran. The paper discusses African influences on Iranian culture, especially in wealthy households and in the royal court. The limited value of Western legal distinctions between slavery and freedom w...

This workshop aims to explore forms and functions of slavery represented in textual sources from the early-Islamic empire, ca. 600-1000 CE. It addresses questions about the realities of slavery. E.g., what makes a person slave? How does (un)freedom  affect an individual’s social status? To what extent did slavery and related practices differ across historical, cultural, and geographic contexts?  Hence, is it appropriate to use generic terminology, such as ‘slave’ and ‘slavery’, when we speak of forms of unfreedom throughout the Islamicate world? By integrating textual sources from the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, Egypt, the Near East, Arabia, Persia and Central Asia, this workshop aims to better understand the complexity of slavery in the early-Islamic empire.