Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry

by Bernard Lewis

  2. On the Mawali, see above, pp. 37ff. and 44ff.

  3. G. Levi Della Vida. "Un'antica opera sconosciuta di controversia Si `ita," Annali dell'Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, n.s., vol. 14 (1964), p. 236.

  4. Summarized by L. P. Harvey, "Arabs and Negroes," in Encounter (London). February 1971, pp. 91-94. The text of this story may be found in Abu]-Layth Nasr al- Samargandi, Tanbih al-Ghafdin (Cairo, 1306/1888-89), pp. 226-27.

  5. Muttagi, Kunz al-`Ummal, vol. 8 (Haydarabad, 1313/1895-96). p. 248.

  6. Ibn 'Abd al-Ra'uf, "Risala," in Thalath Rasa'il Andalusiyya, ed. E. LeviProvencal (Cairo, 1955), p. 80; French translation by R. Arie, Hesperis-Tatnuda, vol. 1 (Morocco, 1960), p. 27.

  7. Mas`udi, Muruj al-dhahah, ed. C. Pellat, vol. 4 (Beirut, 1973), p. 126. Ibn Akwa` was a Companion of the Prophet.

  8. Ibn Habib, Wadiha, as cited by Ibn 'Abd al-Ra'uf, "Risala," p. 81 (Arie, Hesperis-Tamuda, p. 29).

  9. Abu'l-Faraj al-Isfahani, Kitab al-Aghani, 20 vols. (Bulaq. 1285/1868-69); ibid. (Cairo, 1927-)-hereafter Aghani (1868) and Aghani (1927); Ignaz Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, vol. 1 (Halle, 1888), p. 128 (Muslim Studies, vol. I [London, 1967] p. 121); U. Rizzitano, "Abu Mihgan Nusayb b. Rabah," Rivista degli studi orientali 20 (1943), pp. 428-29. On Nusayb's daughters, see Aghani (1868), vol. 1, p. 138, Aghani (1927), vol. 1, p. 347; cf. Ibn Qutayba, `Uyun al-akhbar, vol. 3 (Cairo, n.d.), p. 126; Rizzitano, "Abu Mingan," p. 456; Khayr al-Din al-Zirikli, Al-A`lam, 2d ed., vol. 7 ([Beirut?], 1376/1956), p. 355, where further sources are cited.

  10. Abu'l-'Ala', The Letters of Abu'l-'Ala' of Ma arrat al-Nu man, in Anecdota Oxoniensia, ed. and trans. D. S. Margoliouth (Oxford, 1898), text p. 55, trans. p. 61. Zubayr ibn Bakkar (d. 870), a qadi of Mecca, is quoted as telling a relevant anecdote: "A woman came to Ibn al-Zubayr to complain about her husband, who, she claimed, was sleeping with her maidservant. Ibn al-Zubayr summoned the man and questioned him about his wife's complaint. He replied: 'She is black and her maidservant is black and my eyesight is weak. When night falls I grab whichever is nearest to me' " (Ibn 'Abd Rabbihi, Al-7qd al-Farid, vol. 8 [Cairo, 1953], p. 132).

  11. See H. Lammens, Le Berceau de !'Islam, vol. 1 (Rome, 1914).

  12. Ibn Durayd, AI-lshtigaq, ed. F. Wiistenfeld (Gottingen. 1854), p. 183; ibid., ed. 'Abd al-Salim Harun (Cairo, 1387/1959), p. 302; cf. Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, vol. 1, p. 118 (Muslim Studies, vol. 1, pp. 112-13).

  13. See the biography of Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi in Ibn Khallikan. Wafayat al-a`van, vol. 1 (Bulaq, 1299), pp. 9-10; English translation by MacGuckin de Slane, Ihn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, vol. 1 (Paris, 1843), p. 18. Astonishingly. this episode is quoted by Arnold as evidence that "the converted Negro at once takes an equal place in the brotherhood of believers, neither his colour nor his race nor any association of the past standing in the way" (T. W. Arnold, The Preaching of Islam, 3d ed. [London, 19351, pp. 358-59).

  14. See, further, Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, vol. 1, pp. 121ff. (Muslim Studies, vol. 1, pp. 115ff.); Rotter, Die Stellung des Negers, pp. 75ff., 132ff.

  15. Hassan ibn Thabit, Diwan (Cairo 1347/1929), p. 61; ibid. (Beirut, 1381/1961), p. 36; ibid., ed. Walid N. `Arafat, vol. 1 (London, 1971), p. 364 (cf. vol. 2, p. 266). In the Cairo edition the word mawduna, "short-necked," is replaced by Nuhiyya, "Nubian." See, further, Rotter, Die Stellung des Negers, p. 133, n. 4.

  16. Ibn Rashiq, cited in Ibn Naji, Ma'alim al-Ayman fz ma`rifat ahl al-Qayrawan (Tunis, 1320/1902), p. 15.

  17. Ibn Sahl al-Andalusi, Diwan, vol. 10 (Cairo, 1344/1926), p. 108.

  18. For a striking example of this attitude, from contemporary Egypt, see Mohamed Heikal, Autumn of Fury: The Assassination of Sadat (New York, 1984), pp. 89, 11-12, 25, 181. According to Heikal's extremely hostile account, Sadat's mother was the daughter of a black slave imported from Africa, from whom both she and her son inherited Negroid features. Heikal comments repeatedly on these features, and on the problems-and anxieties-which they allegedly brought.

  19. John Lewis Burekhardt, Travels in Arabia: Comprehending an Account of Those Territories in Hedjaz which the Mohammedans Regard as Sacred (1829; reprint, Beirut, 1972), pp. 182-87.

  20. W. G. Palgrave, Personal Narrative of a Year's Journey through Central and Eastern Arabia (London, 1883), pp. 270-72; Charles M. Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1888), pp. 553-55; C. Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, vol. 2 (The Hague, 1889), pp. 10-24.

  21. Alois Musil, Arabia petraea, vol. 3, Ethnologischer Reisebericht (Vienna, 1908), pp. 224-25; R. P. Antonin Jaussen, Coutumes des Arahes an pays de Moab (Paris, 1948), pp. 60-61, cited in Patricia Crone, Roman, Provincial, and Islamic Law (Cambridge, 1987), p. 137.

  22. J. O. Hunwick, "Black Africans in the Islamic world: An understudied dimension of the black diaspora," Tarikh 5, no. 5 (1978), p. 35.

  23. EI`, s.v. "Hutaym" (by G. Rentz). But cf. Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta, vol. 1, p. 553.

  24. Several of the travelers attest the higher price of white slaves, which they attribute to scarcity and, for women, to sexual preference. One observer, in an extensive treatment of slavery in late-nineteenth-century Egypt, offers another reason for preferring and marrying white women; that they wear better: "white girls ... wear much longer than either native Egyptian ladies or Abyssinians, retaining their fine physique to thirty-five or even forty years of age, while the latter are generally withered and passees before five-and-twenty" (J. C. McCoan, Egypt as It Is [London, 1877], p. 319).

  Chapter 13

  1. In an earlier treatment of this topic I tried to suggest how some of these stereotypes might have arisen and referred in particular to the overwork and undernourishment to which the slave was often subject. A reviewer in a French journal (Genevieve Bedoucha, review of B. Lewis, Race et couleur en pays d'Islam [Paris, 1982], Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines 22, nos. 3, 4 [1987-88], pp. 534-35) found these suggestions "sociologically naive" and also potentially dangerous, in that they could open the way to believing in "the real foundation of the stereotype." The more usual view among sociologists is that stereotypes always contain a modicum of truth, without which they would be neither viable nor usable. In the words of the anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn: "There is almost always a grain of truth in the vicious stereotypes that are created, and this helps us swallow the major portion of untruth" (Mirror for Matz: The Relation of Anthropology to Modern Life [New York, 1949], p. 138).

  2. Abuul-Faraj al-Isfahani, Kitab al-Aghani, 20 vols. (Bulaq, 1285/1868-69), vol. 7, p. 20; ibid. (Cairo, 1927-), vol. 7, p. 269.

  3. Ibn Butlan, Risala fi Shira' al-Ragiq, ed. `Abd al-Salim Harun (Cairo, 1373/ 1954), pp. 374-75, where there are similar or even worse comments on other African groups. Among whites, Ibn Butlan most dislikes the Armenians.

  4. Shihab al-Din Ahmad al-Abshihi, Kitab al-Mustatraf ft kull shay' mustazraf vol. 2 (Cairo, 1352/1933), pp. 75-77; French translation by G. Rat, al-Mostatraf, vol. 2 (Paris, 1902), pp. 151-57.

  5. Fazil Bey, Huban-name and Zenan-name (Istanbul, 1255/1839), pp. 11-12, 62-64. On Fazil Bey and his works, see J. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte der Os- manischen Dichtkunst, vol. 4 (Pest, 1838), pp. 428-53, esp. 435; E. J. W. Gibb, A History of Ottoman Poetry, vol. 4 (London, 1905), pp. 220-42: Ell, s.v. " Fadil bey" (by J. H. Mordtmann). A somewhat inaccurate French translation of the Zenan-name was published by J. A. Decourdemanche, Le Livre des femmes (Paris, 1879).

  6. Mas'udi, Muruj al-dhahah, vol. 1, pp. 166-67: Charles Pellat, Les Prairies d'or, vol. 1 (Paris, 1962), p. 70.

  7. Ibn Butlan, Risala, p. 374.

  8. For examples, see Muhammad ibn Sasra, A Chronicle of Damascus 13891397, ed. and trans. W. M. Brinner (Berkeley and Los Angeles. 1963), pp. 211ff. 278ff.; G. Rotter, Die Stellung des Negers (Bonn, 1967), pp. 179-81.

  9. See Fatna A. Sabbah, Women in the Muslim Unconscious (New York. 1984), pp. 37-43; Rotter, Die Stellung des Negers, pp. 178-79.

  10. Jahiz, Rasa'il al-Jahiz, vol. 1 (Cairo, 1385/1965), p. 214 (0. Rescher, Beitrage zur arabische Poes
ie, sec. 6 [Istanbul, 1956-58], p. 175); variants in Ibn 'Abd Rabbihi, Al-7qd al (arid, vol. 7 (Cairo, 1953) p. 89, and Ibn Abi 'Awn, Kitah al- Tashhihat, ed. M. Abdul Mu'id Khan (Cambridge, 1950), p. 235; cf. Rotter, Die Stellung des Negers, p. 173. Ibn Abi `Awn gives other examples of erotic verse about black women (Kitab al-Tashhihat, pp. 235ff.). A short collection of Arabic verses on the merits of whites, blacks, and browns is mainly concerned with the attractions of black women (Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti, Nuzhat al-`Umr fi'1-tafdil bayna'l-Bid wa'I-Sad wa'1-Sumr [Damascus, 1349/1930-31]). For a discussion of this work and a translation of Suyuti's somewhat equivocal preface, see Akbar Muhammad, "The image of Africans in Arabic literature: Some unpublished manuscripts," in Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa, vol. 1, Islam and the Ideology of Slavery, ed. J. R. Willis (London, 1985), pp. 59-60.

  11. Rotter, Die Stellung des Negers, pp. 165, 173-74. For some modern parallels on Jewesses, see E. Kedourie, The Chatham House Version (London, 1970), pp. 334-35.

  12. But, it may he noted, a fourteenth-century Egyptian author (Qalgashandi, Subh al-a`sha, vol. 2 [Cairo, 1331/1913]. pp. 8-9) cites it, in the course of a discussion of colors, to prove his point that white is good and black is had. He goes on to remark that many people, nevertheless, have begun to find beauty in the blacks and "incline toward them." For an earlier assertion of the presumed superiority of whiteness over blackness, see Sharaf al-Zaman Tahir Marvazi (ca. 1120 A.D.), Sharaf al-Zaman Tahir Marvazi on China, the Turks, and India, ed. and trans. V. Minorsky (London. 1942), pp. 54-55. Marvazi, however, allows that "blackness, though a defect, has its use in some instances: (such as) its physical utility, through its usefulness for sight, for it collects light and narrows the opening of the eye, and consequently does not allow light to spread: (such as) its political and moral utility, as when the government agents dress in black in order to inspire the subjects with awe and fear."

  13. For a discussion of these, see Minoo Southgate, "The negative images of blacks in some medieval Iranian writings," Iranian Studies 17, no. 1 (1984), pp. 3-36.

  14. See Rudi Paret, "Sirat Saif ibn Dhi Jazan," ein Arabischer Volksroman (Hanover, 1924).

  15. Examples in R. W. Hamilton, Khirbat al Mafjar, an Arabian Mansion in the Jordan Valley (Oxford, 1959), pls. 44, nos. 2, 4, 5; 53, no. 2; R. Ettinghausen, Arab Painting (Cleveland, OH, 1962), pp. 82, 93, 108, 121, 151; B. Gray, Persian Painting (Cleveland, OH, 1961), pp. 119, 131; E. J. Grube, The Classical Style in Islamic Painting (Venice, 1968), pls. 31, nos. 1, 6; 32; 36, nos. 1, 3; 37; 59; 66; 73; idem, Muslim Miniature Painting (Venice, 1962), pl. 58; Ivan Stchoukine, Les Peintures des manuscrits Timurides (Paris, 1954), pl. 76; A. U. Pope, Survey of Persian Art, pis. 889, 891, 912; B. W. Robinson, Persian Miniature Painting (London, 1967), pl. 28; Rachel Arie, Miniatures hispano-musulmanes (Leiden, 1969), pl. 41, fol. 71, verso of Ibn Zafar al-Sigilli, Kitab al-Sulwanat fi musamarat al-khulafa' wa'I-sadat (Ms. Monastery St. Lawrence of Escurial, no. 528); O. Lofgren, Ambrosian Fragments of an Illuminated Manuscript Containing the Zoology of Al-Gahiz (Uppsala, 1946), pls. 3, 6, 9, 10.

  Chapter 14

  1. Alfred von Kremer, Aegypten: Forschungen uber Land and Volk wahrend eines zehnjahrigen Aufenthalts (Leipzig, 1863), pp. 82-110.

  2. C. Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka in the Latter Part of the Nineteenth Century (Leiden and London, 1931), p. 14 (German original, Mekka [The Hague, 1889], pp- 15-16). The Soviet scholar I. P. Petrushevsky (Islam in Iran, trans. Hubert Evans [Albany, NY, 1985], p. 155) observes with obvious disapproval that "not a few Western orientalists, scholars and travellers-Edward Lane, Snouck Hurgronje and J. L. Burck- hardt among them-have been prone to expatiate on the mildness and humanity of Muslim slavery" and then goes on to paint a somewhat somber picture of reality.

  3. Report from the British Consulate, Baghdad. April 28th 1847. Published in Charles Issawi, The Fertile Crescent 1800-1914: A Documentary Economic History (New York and Oxford. 1988), pp. 192-93.

  4. See Gabriel Baer, Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt (Chicago, 1969), pp. 161-89 (chap. 10, "Slavery and Its Abolition").

  5. Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka (1931), p. I l (Mekka [18891, p. 12).

  6. See B. Lewis, "Gibbon on Islam," Daedalus 105 (1976), pp. 89-101; idem, Islam in History (London, 1975), pp. 133ff. For it modern example of such use, see Claude Levi-Strauss, Race et histoire (Paris, 1961), pp. 47-50.

  7. E. W. Blyden, Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race (London, 1888); T. W. Arnold, The Preaching of Islam, 3d ed. (London, 1935). pp. 356ff.

  List of Documents

  1. A Discussion of National Character (Late Tenth Century). Translated from Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi, Kitab al-Imta`wa'l-Mu'anasa, ed. Ahmad Amin and Ahmad al- Zayn, vol. 1 (Cairo, 1939), pp. 70-80.

  2. The Rights of the Slave (Late Eleventh to Early Twelfth Century). Translated from Muhammad al-Ghazali, lhya' `Ulurn al-Din, vol. 2 (Cairo, 1387 A.H./1967), pp. 279-91.

  3. A Legal Ruling (Fifteenth Century). Translated from Ahmad al-Wansharisi, Kitab al-Mi 'ybr al-Mughrib, vol. 9 (Fes, 1313 A.H./1896), pp. 171-72.

  4. Correspondence Concerning Slavery between Consul General Drummond Hay and the Sultan of Morocco (1842). Public Record Office, London, Foreign Office 84/427.

  5. Report on Slavery from the Persian Gulf (1842). Enclosures to Bombay Secret Letters, vol. 50, India Office Records, London L/P&S/5/412.

  6. Letter from the Sultan to the Vizier Mehmed Nejib Pasha, Governor of Baghdad (9 Safar 1263 A.H./January 27, 1847). Translated from Hamdi Atamer, "Zenci Ticaretinin Yasaklanmasi," in Belgelerle Turk Tarihi Dergisi 3 (1967). p. 24.

  7. Draft of a Letter from the Grand Vizier Mustafa Reshid Pasha to the Governor of Tripoli (Libya) (21 Muharrem 1266 A.H./November 28, 1849). Translated from Hamdi Atamer, "Zenci Ticaretinin Yasaklanmasi," in Belgelerle Turk Tarihi Dergisi 3 (1967), pp. 24-25.

  8. Letters from Benghazi Concerning the Traffic in Slaves (1875). Public Record Office, London, Foreign Office 195/1082.

  9. Instructions Concerning the Trade in Slaves (1936). Translated from Umm al-Qura (Mecca, 16 Rajab 1355 A.H./October 2, 1936).

  1. A Discussion of National Character (Late Tenth Century)

  He said: Which do you consider superior, the foreigners or the Arabs?

  I said: Scholars take account of four nations: the Byzantines, the Arabs. the Persians, and the Indians. Three of these are foreigners, and it would be hard to say that the Arabs alone are superior to all three of them, with all that they have and all their diversity.

  He said: I just mean the Persians.

  I said: Before I give my own judgment, I shall relate what was said by Ibn al- Mugaffa',' a noble Persian and a distinguished foreigner, outstanding among men of culture. . . . Shabib ibn Shabba said . . . We were received by Ibn al-Muqaffa', who asked us: "Which is the wisest of nations?" We thought he meant the Persians, so we said, trying to ingratiate ourselves with him: "Persia is the wisest of nations." "Certainly not," he said, "they cannot claim this. They are a people who were taught and learned, who were set an example and copied it, who were given a start and followed it, but they have neither originality nor resource." We suggested the Byzantines, and he said, "No, it is not with them either. They have firm bodies, and they are builders and geometers. They know nothing else, and excel in nothing else."

  "The Chinese," we said. "People of furnishings and handicrafts", he replied, "with neither thought nor reflection." "The Turks," we said. "Wild beasts for the fray," he replied. "The Indians," we said. "People of fantasy," he said, "of legerdemain and conjuring and tricks." The Zanj." we said. "Feckless cattle, he replied.

  So we turned the question back to him; and he said: "The Arabs," at which we exchanged glances and whispers. This made him angry with us. He turned pale and said: "You seem to suspect me of trying to flatter you. By God, I dearly wish that you did not have this privilege; but even if I have lost this privilege, I would disdain to lose the truth as well. . . . The Arabs are the wisest of nations because of their sound character, balanced physique, pre
cise thought, and keen understanding."

  He said: How well Ibn al-Muqaffa' spoke, and how well you relate it. And now give as your own version, both what you have heard and what you have thought of yourself.

  I said: What [Ibn al-Muqaffa'] said is sufficient. To add to it would be superfluous, to repeat it useless.

  He said: . . . This question-I mean the relative merits of nations-is one of the main topics about which people contend and argue and on which they never reach agreement.

  I said: Inevitably, since it is not in the nature or custom or innate qualities of the Persian to admit the merit of the Arab, nor is it in the character or usage of the Arab to affirm the merits of the Persian, and likewise the Indian, the Byzantine, the Turk, the Daylami, and the rest. Recognition of merit and honor depends on two things: one is that which distinguishes one people in its prime from others, in the choice between good and evil and in sound or faulty judgn ent and in study from beginning to end. On this basis, every nation has merits and defects; and every people has committed good and evil deeds: and every community of men, in its works and in its doing and its undoing, has both perfection and shortcoming. In consequence, good and had qualities are spread among the whole of mankind and implanted in all of them.

  The Persians have statecraft, civility, rules, and etiquette; the Byzantines have science and wisdom; the Indians have thought and reflection and nimbleness and magic and perseverance; the Turks have courage and impetuosity; the Zanj have patience and toil and merriment; the Arabs are intrepid, hospitable, loyal, gallant. generous, protective, eloquent, and cogent.

  These qualities are not found in every individual of these nations but are widespread among them. Some, however, may be bereft of all these qualities or even marked by their opposite. Thus there are Persians who are ignorant of statecraft, lacking in civility-ruffians and rabble; there are Arabs who are cowardly, boorish, fickle, miserly, and tongue-tied; and likewise with the Indians, the Byzantines, and the others. And so, if the people of merit and excellence among the Byzantines are compared with those among the Persians, they meet on the Straight Path and differ only in the dimensions of merit and extent of excellence; and this does not distinguish but unites them. Likewise, if the flawed and vicious of one nation are compared with the flawed and base of another, they meet on one track; and they differ only in the magnitude and scope of their defects. . . . It is clear that all nations have their share of merits and defects, by both innate compulsion and intellectual choice. The rest is mere argument among people, according to their places of origin, their inherited customs, and their aroused passions.