Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry

by Bernard Lewis

  For those who live furthest to the north between the last of the seven climates and the limits of the inhabited world, the excessive distance of the sun in relation to the zenith line makes the air cold and the atmosphere thick. Their temperaments are therefore frigid, their humors raw, their bellies gross, their color pale, their hair long and lank. Thus they lack keenness of understanding and clarity of intelligence, and are overcome by ignorance and dullness, lack of discernment, and stupidity. Such are the Slavs, the Bulgars, and their neighbors. For those peoples on the other hand who live near and beyond the equinoctial line to the limit of the inhabited world in the south, the long presence of the sun at the zenith makes the air hot and the atmosphere thin. Because of this their temperaments become hot and their humors fiery, their color black and their hair woolly. Thus they lack self-control and steadiness of mind and are overcome by fickleness, foolishness, and ignorance. Such are the blacks, who live at the extremity of the land of Ethiopia, the Nubians, the Zanj and the like.

  Even the most ignorant peoples, Said goes on to explain, if they are sedentary, have some kind of monarchical government and some kind of religious law. The only people "who diverge from this human order and depart from this rational association are some dwellers in the steppes and inhabitants of the deserts and wilderness, such as the rabble of Bujja, the savages of Ghana, the scum of Zanj, and their like."24 Said does not use such language when speaking of the fairer-skinned barbarians of Europe.

  With the exception of one group, writers on these matters do not normally attempt to lay down rules, or even offer guidance, on the suitability of various races for different tasks and occupations. The one exception is the extensive practical literature on slaves. There is a considerable body of writing, extending over almost a thousand years and written in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, offering what one might call consumer guidance for those who deal in slaves and those who buy them.'s

  The earliest writings of this kind, dating from the tenth century, are physiological, giving guidance on how to judge a slave's state of health from outward signs, and physiognomical, on how to judge his character from his face. Before long, however, writers on how to choose and use slaves offer information and advice on ethnological matters also. Ibn Butlan, an eleventh-century Christian physician in Baghdad, wrote a sort of slavetrader's vade mecum, which is the first of a series of such works.26 He reviews the range of slaves available in the markets of the Middle East, and considers the different kinds, black and white, male and female, classifying them according to their racial, ethnic, and regional origins and indicating which groups are best suited to which tasks. Similar advice on these matters is offered by a number of later writers, sometimes in separate handbooks, sometimes in chapters or sections of books dealing with larger topics.

  The statements made in these books about different races usually consist of conventional and stereotyped wisdom, but they also contain some interesting ethnographic information, notably about the peoples of the Caucasus, the Turkish peoples of the Eurasian steppe and of inner Asia. and the black peoples of eastern as well as of sub-Saharan Africa. By Ottoman times, they even include the Christian peoples of Europe, from among whom the Ottomans and the North African states drew a large part of their slave populations. The Russians, for example, we learn from various authorities, are handsome, blond, and charming, hardworking and obedient, dishonest and unchaste. In earlier times, says one authority, the Russians were famous for their laziness, so that a single Tatar could capture many Russians. But today (mid-sixteenth century) the situation is reversed, and the Russians have subjugated most of the Tatar lands. This is no doubt a reference to the advance of Muscovy and the capture of Kazan, the Tatar capital, by the Czar Ivan the Terrible in 1552. The Franks too, according to the same authority, are handsome, charming, and serviceable, sometimes indeed excellent, but unlike other slaves they are not willing to become Muslims.`''

  In addition to literary essays and practical advice, there is a considerable body of scholarly literature, providing detailed factual information about the different races of mankind, both inside and outside the Islamic ecumene. The Arab exploration of black Africa, the vast expansion of the slave trade in these lands, and ultimately the spread of Islam, all helped to produce a rich Arabic literature of human geography, which constitutes the most important source of information on tropical Africa in the pre-colonial period. The Arab geographers' descriptions of the homelands from which their slaves were brought throw much light on relationships and attitudes.

  Muslim geographers-and to a much lesser extent Muslim historians-have something to say about all these various peoples beyond the frontiers of the Islamic ecumene. About Western Europe-remote and, in their perspective, unimportant-they knew little and cared less, and it was not until Ottoman times that Muslim writers began to pay some attention to European peoples and states.' Even then, it is very little. Medieval Muslim writers have rather more to say about the Slavic and Turkic peoples in the Eurasian steppe, immediately to the north of the lands of Islam. But it was with black Africa that the Muslim lands, from Morocco across to Arabia, developed the closest and most intimate relations.'

  In the earliest Arabic references, black Africans are either Habash or Sudan, the former designating the Ethiopians and their immediate neighbors in the Horn of Africa, the latter (an Arabic word meaning "black") denoting blacks in general. It sometimes includes Ethiopians, but not Egyptians, Berbers, or other peoples north of the Sahara. Later, after the Arab expansion into Africa, other and more specific terms are added, the commonest being Nuba, Bujja (or Beja), and Zanj. Nuba, "from Nubia," usually designates the Nilotic and sometimes also the Hamitic peoples south of Egypt, that is, roughly in the present area of the republic of the Sudan; the Bujja were nomadic tribes between the Nile and the Red Sea; Zanj, a word of disputed origin, is used specifically of the Bantu-speaking peoples in East Africa south of the Ethiopians and sometimes more loosely of black Africans in general.3 The term Bilad al-Sudan-"lands of the blacks"-is applied in classical Arabic usage to the whole area of black Africa south of the Sahara, from the Nile to the Atlantic and including such West African black states as Ghana and Songhay. Sometimes it is even extended to the countries of South and Southeast Asia, inhabited by relatively dark-skinned people.

  Some authors distinguish carefully between the different groups of black Africans; others tend to lump them together under the general heading of Sudan, blacks. The Zanj are the least respected; the Ethiopians, the most. The Nuba and Bujja occupy an intermediate position. Some geographical writers distinguish between different African races on grounds of color, noting that some, such as the Ethiopians, are of lighter complexion; others, such as the Zanj, of darker. The term Ifriqiya, an Arabic borrowing from the Latin "Africa," is used in classical Arabic only of the Maghrib, usually just the eastern Maghrib.

  From the ninth century onward, Arab and other Muslim writers provide information about the movement of slaves from the black lands toward the North and the East-across the Red Sea and Indian Ocean to Arabia, Iraq, and Iran, down the Nile to Egypt, and across the Sahara to the slave markets of North and Northwest Africa.

  "They export black slaves," says Ya`qubi (ninth century), speaking of Zawila, "belonging to the tribes of Mira, Zaghawa, Maruwa, and other black races who are near to them and whom they capture. I hear that the black kings sell blacks without pretext and without war. ,4

  "To the Zanj," says Mutahhar ibn Tahir al-Maqdisi (tenth century), "food and clothing are exported; from them come gold, slaves, and coconuts.i'

  "The Zanj," says Idrisi (1110-65),

  are in great fear and awe of the Arabs, so much so that when they see an Arab trader or traveler they bow down and treat him with great respect, and say in their language: "Greeting, 0 people from the land of the dates!" Those who travel to this country steal the children of the Zanj with dates, lure them with dates, and lead them from place to place, until they seize them, take them out of the country, and t
ransport them to their own countries. The Zanj people have great numbers but little gear. The ruler of the island of Kish in the sea of 'Uman raids the Zanj country with his ships and takes many captives.

  In a detailed account of West Africa, he notes that the Moroccan merchants in Takrur "bring wood, copper, and beads, and take away gold ore and [castrated] slaves."' "From this country," says Ibn Battuta (1304-77), speaking of Tagadda in West Africa, "come excellent slavegirls, eunuchs, and fabrics dyed with saffron." When he left Tagadda for the North, on September 11, 1353, he traveled "with a large caravan which included six hundred women slaves."'

  Muslim authors sometimes discuss the ethnic origins and native lands of their black slaves. They have some slight information about Nubia, with which arrangements for the regular supply of slaves to Egypt were set up at an early date. About the Zanj they know rather less. Ibn Khurradadhbih (820-912/ 13), the earliest original Muslim geographer whose work is extant, mentions the Zanj country as one of those from which goods-unspecified, but presumably slaves-reached Aden. He records only two facts about the land of the Zanj: that it is on the Eastern Ocean, and that anyone who goes there will inevitably get the itch.' Ibn Qutayba (d. 889) notes that the blacks live on fish and for this reason sharpen their teeth like needles, so that the fish should not stick to them. In another work he observes that the Zanj have the bestsmelling mouths of all mankind, even though they do not brush their teeth; this is because they have much saliva.9

  On the blacks in general, Mas`udi (d. 956) quotes Galen, who, he says:

  mentions ten specific attributes of the black man, which are all found in him and in no other; frizzy hair, thin eyebrows, broad nostrils, thick lips, pointed teeth, smelly skin, black eyes, furrowed hands and feet, a long penis and great merriment. Galen says that merriment dominates the black man because of his defective brain, whence also the weakness of his intelligence.10

  This description is repeated, with variations, by later writers. Most geographers speak of the nudity, paganism, cannibalism, and primitive life of the black peoples. Of the neighbors of the Bujja, Maqdisi had heard that

  there is no marriage among them; the child does not know his father, and they eat people-but God knows best. As for the Zanj, they are people of black color, flat noses, kinky hair, and little understanding or intelligence."

  A Persian treatise on world geography, written in 982 A.D., devotes barely five out of two hundred pages to the black lands:

  As regards southern countries, all their inhabitants are black on account of the heat of their climate. Most of them go naked. In all their lands and provinces, gold is found. They are people distant from the standards of humanity.

  On the Zanj: "Their nature is that of wild animals. They are extremely black." Of Zabaj: "This country and its inhabitants are all like the Zanj, but they are somewhat nearer to humanity." On the Sudan:

  Most of them go about naked. Egyptian merchants carry there salt, glass and lead, and sell them for the same weight in gold. A group of them wanders in this region of theirs, camping at the places where they find more gold ore. In the southern parts there is no more populous country than this. The merchants steal their children and bring them with them. Then they castrate them, import them into Egypt, and sell them. Among themselves there are people who steal each other's children and sell them to the merchants when the latter arrive.12

  The attitude to black Africans remains on the whole negative. Some Muslim authors give balanced and factual accounts, based on personal knowledge, of the black kingdoms; a few even write pious treatises to defend the dark peoples against their detractors. Such defense was clearly felt to be necessary, because of the survival of old prejudices." Even the great geographer Idrisi, in concluding his account of the first climate (geographical zone) with some general remarks on its inhabitants, repeats the old cliches about furrowed feet and stinking sweat and ascribes "lack of knowledge and defective minds" to the black peoples. Their ignorance, he says, is notorious; men of learning and distinction are almost unknown among them, and their kings only acquire what they know about government and justice from the instruction of learned visitors from farther north. The thirteenth-century Persian writer Nasir al-Din Tusi remarks that the Zanj differ from animals only in that "their two hands are lifted above the ground" and continues, "Many have observed that the ape is more teachable and more intelligent than the Zanji."14 A century later, a similar point was made by Ibn Khaldun. Distinguishing between white slaves and black slaves he remarks:

  Therefore, the Negro nations are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because [Negroes] have little [that is essentially] human and have attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated.15

  As Muslim power and the Islamic religion advanced farther into black Africa and a succession of black kingdoms became an accepted part of the House of Islam, such extravagant accounts of African manners and customs became less and less frequent.16 But the perception remained, disputed but widespread, that African Muslims were somehow different from other Muslims and that Africa was a legitimate source of slaves. A unique letter, preserved by an Egyptian historian, vividly illustrates how black African Muslims must have felt. The letter, dated 794 A.H. (= 1391-92 A.D.), was sent by the black king of Bornu, now in northern Nigeria, to the sultan of Egypt. The king, his family, and his people were free Muslims and therefore by Muslim law not enslavable. To strengthen this status, he claims that his tribe was founded by an Arab, of the Prophet's tribe of Quraysh. Yet despite this, Arab tribesmen "have devastated all our land, all the land of Bornu ... they took free people among us captive, of our kin among Muslims . . . they have taken our people as merchandise." These raiders carried off free women, children, and infirm men. Some they kept as slaves for their own use; the rest they sold to slave dealers in Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere. The king urges the sultan of Egypt to send orders to his governors, judges, and inspectors of markets, to search out these captives and restore them to freedom and Islam."

  No answer to this letter has been preserved; and it is unlikely that the sultan of Egypt, whose power did not extend to the Western Sudan, would have been able to do much about it, even had he wished. The enslavement of free Muslims was of course totally forbidden by the Shari'a, and from time to time voices were raised, urging the slaveraiders to desist from this offense and to direct their efforts against pagans in other places. But the practice continued, especially in Africa.

  The Qur'an gives no countenance to the idea that there are superior and inferior races and that the latter are foredoomed to a subordinate status; the overwhelming majority of Muslim jurists and theologians share this rejection. There are some early traditions, and early juridical opinions and rulings citing them, which assign a privileged status to the Arabs, as against other peoples within the Islamic community. The Caliph `Umar is even quoted, improbably, as saying that no Arab could he owned. Some pagan Arabs were in fact enslaved by the early caliphs and even by the Prophet himself, and the idea of Arab exemption from the normal rules regarding enslavement was not approved by later jurists.'

  Such an opinion did indeed reflect the social realities in the early centuries of the Islamic Empire, created by Arab conquests. By the ninth century, however, this privileged status had for all practical purposes ended. Some jurists, citing early traditions and the Qur'an itself, totally reject the idea of Arab or any other ethnic privilege. Even those who grant some limited acceptance to the idea, do so on the basis of kinship with the Prophet and reduce it to a kind of social prestige, of limited practical significance. At no time did Muslim theologians or jurists accept the idea that there may be races of mankind predisposed by nature or foredoomed by Providence to the condition of slavery.

  Such ideas were, however, known from the heritage of antiquity and found echoes in Muslim writings, the more so when they began to correspond to the changing realities of Muslim society. Aristotle, in his discussion of slavery, had observed that while some are by nature free,
others are by nature slaves. For such, the condition of slavery is both "beneficial and just," and a war undertaken to reduce them to that condition is a just war.`

  This idea, along with others from the same source, was taken up and echoed by a few Muslim Aristotelians.3 Thus the tenth-century philosopher al-Farabi lists, among the categories of just war, one the purpose of which is to subjugate and enslave those whose "best and most advantageous status in the world is to serve and be slaves" and who nevertheless refuse to accept slavery.' The idea of natural slavery is mentioned, though not developed, by some other Aristotelian philosophers. Al-'Amiri, for example, follows Aristotle in comparing the natural superiority of master to slave with the equally natural superiority of man to woman.'

  Aristotle does not specify which races he has in mind, merely observing that barbarians are more slavish (doulikoteroi) than Greeks, and Asiatics more so than Europeans. That, according to Aristotle, is why they are willing to submit to despotic government-that is, one that rules them as a master (despotes) rules his slaves.' By the tenth and eleventh centuries, some Muslim philosophers were more specific. The great physician and philosopher Avicenna (980-1037) notes as part of God's providential wisdom that he had placed, in regions of great heat or great cold, peoples who were by their very nature slaves, and incapable of higher things-"for there must be masters and slaves."7 Such were the Turks and their neighbors in the North and the blacks in Africa. Similar judgments were pronounced by his contemporary, the Ismaili theologian Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani (d. 1021), who was chief of missions of the Fatimid Caliphate in Cairo. In a philosophical work, he dismisses "the Turks, Zanj, Berbers, and their like" as "by their nature" without interest in the pursuit of intellectual knowledge and without desire to understand religious truth.'