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African Military Slaves in the Medieval Middle East: The Cases of Iraq (869–955) and Egypt (868–1171)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Jere L. Bacharach
Jere L. Bacharach
Affiliation:
University of Washington SeattleWashington
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Extract

Islamic military slavery has been the subject of a number of studies in recent years. The central theme of these scholarly works has been the dominant role played by Turks, imported as slaves and trained as cavalry, for whom the term “Mamluk” is used to denote both racial background and occupation. A second aspect, which has not been as systematically studied, is that most Muslim armies were composed of cavalry and infantry units organized into units based on racial identities. The theory was that their racial affinities were the cohesive element within a unit; that the natural rivalries between these groups would bring strength to a ruler's position as they tried to outdo one another on the field of battle; and that these racial jealousies would create a balance which would prevent any one military/racial group from dominating the government.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , November 1981 , pp. 471 - 495
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

NOTES

Author's note: The research for this study was partly funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Program and l am most grateful for their support. I wish to thank my colleagues in the University of Washington's History Research Group and Professors Caroline Bynum and Judah Bierman for their constructive comments.

1 The many excellent works of David Ayalon reflect this approach. A number of his articles can be found reprinted in Ayalon, D., The Mamluk Military Society (London, 1980),Google Scholar and his “Preliminary Remarks on the Mamluk Military Institution in Islam,” in War, Technology and Society in the Middle East, Parry, V. J. and Yapp, M. E., eds. (London, 1975) pp. 44–58.Google Scholar

2 Bosworth, C. E., “Recruitment, Muster, and Review in Medieval Islamic Armies,” in War, Technology and Society, pp. 159–177,Google Scholar is a very fine introduction. A detailed study of the Abbasid army can be found in Lassner, Jacob, The Shaping of 'Abbāsid Rule (Princeton, 1980), pp. 116–136.CrossRefGoogle ScholarCrone, Patricia, in Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Policy (Cambridge, 1980), does not deal with the question of the origins and development of Muslim armies in terms of the role and use of infantry.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPipes, Daniel, Slave âdiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Military System (New Haven, 1981), was not available when this study was submitted.Google Scholar

3 Ayalon, David, “On the Eunuchs in Islam,” in Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, I (1979),109–122,Google Scholar as well as a number of his earlier works; Lewis, Bernard, Race and Color in Islam (New York, 1970).Google Scholar One recent survey which includes references to the secondary literature is William, McKee Evans, “From the Land of Canaan to the Lord of Guinea: The Strange Odyssey of the Sons of Ham,” American Historical Review, 85 (1980), 15–43.Google Scholar The new journal Slavery and Abolition, 1 (1980), contains a major bibliographical survey in its first issue.Google Scholar

4 Although over three centuries are covered, only this one aspect of the African experience in the Islamic world is analyzed. Not investigated in the following pages, for example, are the exact sub-Saharan origins of these troops which cannot be determined from the Arabic sources. Since the origins, development, and characteristics of prejudices associated with Africans in the Near Eastern Islamic lands have been detailed by other scholars, including the work by Professor Lewis, this study presupposes that by the third century A.H./ninth century A.D. there existed prejudices and stereotypes, in which the African was seen as relatively inferior to the non-African. Finally, the careers of individual Africans, some of whom became very powerful leaders, are related to the degree that their actions affected the fate of the military units composed of Africans.

5 Lewis, , pp. 69–74.Google Scholar

6 Pipes, Daniel, “African Troops in Early Islamic Armies,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 13 (1980), 94.Google Scholar

7 ibid.; Pipes, , Slave âdiers and Islam, pp. 159–194.Google Scholar

8 Popovic, Alexandre, La Rávolte des esclaves en Iraq au II siácle, IXe siácle (Paris, 1976).Google Scholar

9 ibid., p. 25t; Noldeke, T., Sketches from Eastern History (London and Edinburgh, 1892), p.153;Google ScholarWansbrough, John, “Africa and the Arab Geographers” in Language and History in Africa, Dalby, D., ed. (New York, 1970), p. 91.Google Scholar

10 al-ṬabarĪ, Kitāb akhbār al-rusul wa-al-mulūk, de Goeje, M. J. et al. , eds. (Leiden, 1901), III, 1864, 1903, 1905, 1920, 1977, 2020, 2047, 2056, 2080, 2091 and 2096.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., III, 2036–2038.

12 1n Ramaḍān, 276/April, 881, the number of Zanj requesting safe conduct reached 5,000 (Noldeke, p. 161, Wansbrough, p.99).

13 The most thorough study of the power struggle is Waines, David, “Caliph and Amir: A Study in the Social and Economic Background of Medieval Political Power,” Ph.D. diss., McGill University, 1974.Google Scholar Some of his arguments are included in his“The Pre-Buyid Amirate: Two Views from the Past,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 8 (1977), 339–348.Google Scholar

14 Lewis, , p. 70.Google Scholar

15 “There were first of all a group of former slaves of varying origins, white such as Daylamis and Berbers, or black such as Nubians and former Zandj prisoners taken by al-Muwaffaq during the preceding reign, who were employed to form a line of troops (maṣāff) in the reception rooms and who were probably the origins of the corps of the Maṣāfiyya mentioned below. There were also others brought especially by al-Mu'taḍid to be on duty in the “halls” (ḥujar) of the Palace, from which they took their name (al-Ḥujanyya), and placed under the cammand of eunuchs called ustādhs” (Sourdel, D., “Ghulam,” E.I.2, II, 1080).Google Scholar

16 Miskawaih, , Kitāb tajdriāal-umam wa-ta'āqib al-himan, Amedroz, H. F.and Margoliouth, D. S., eds. and trans. (London, 1920–1921), IV, 227.Google Scholar

17 ibid., IV, 228; ArĪb, b. Sa'id al-QurṭubĪ, Silat tārĪkh al-ṬabarĪ, de Goeje, M. J., ed. (Leiden 1897), p. 50;Google Scholaral-HamadānĪ, , Takmila tārĪkh al-ṬabarĪ, Kana'an, A. J., ed. (Beirut, 1961), p. 63.Google Scholar

18 Miskawaih, , IV, 380; al-HamadānĪ, p. 95.Google Scholar

19 Jere, L. Bacharach, “The Career of Muhammad Ibn Ṭughj al-lkhshĪd: A Tenth-Century Governor of Egypt,” Speculum, 50 (1975), 599–600.Google Scholar

20 Michael, C. Dunn, “The Struggle of 'Abbāsid Egypt,” Ph.D. diss., Georgetown University, 1975.Google Scholar

21 The standard works in Western languages are Hassan, Z. M., Les Tulunides (Paris, 1933);Google ScholarGrabar, Oleg, The Coinage of the Tulunids (New York, 1957); and various articles in the Encyclopaedia of Islam.Google Scholar

22 Hassan, A. M., “Ṭūlūnids,” El2, I, 278:Google Scholaral-YaqübĪ, , TārĪkh (Leiden, 1883), II, 505–506;Google ScholarIbn, al-Dāya, SĪra Aḥmad b. Ṭūlūn (Berlin, 1894), p. 11.Google Scholar

23 The term “Sudan” has been translated in the most general sense of African. (Hannan, Y. F., The Arabs and the Sudan [Edinburgh, 1967]Google Scholaral-MaqrĪzĪ, , al-Mawā'iz wa-al-i'tibār bi dhikr al-khiṭāṭ wa-al-āthir [Khiṭaṭ] [Cairo, n.d.; repr. of Bulaq, 1853], II, 315;Google Scholaral-BalawĪ, , SĪra Aḥmad b. Ṭūlūn [Damascus, 1358/1939], p. 51).Google Scholar

24 al-TabarĪ, III, 2080; al-MaqrĪzĪ, , Khiṭaṭ, II, 315.Google Scholar

25 A Christian chronicle relates that lbn Ṭūlūn squeezed the Coptic Church in order to raise funds to buy troops (SawĪris, b. al-Muqaffa', History of the Patriarchs of the Egyptian Church, Yassa “Abd al-MasĪḥ, Burmester, O. E. N., and Atiya, A. S., eds. and trans. [Cairo: Society of Coptic Archaeology, 1943], II, ii; Eng., p. 104).Google Scholar For a more favorable view of Aḥmad b. Ṭūlūpn's actions see Atiya, A. S., “Kibt”, E.l.2, V., 94.Google Scholar

26 al-MaqrĪzĪ, , Khitat, II, 315;Google ScholarIbn, TaghrĪ BirdĪ, al-Nujūm al-zāhira fi mulūk Miṣr wa-al-Qāhira, III, 15.Google Scholar

27 Dr. Yaacov Lev, “Fatimid Policy towards Damascus (358/968–386/996): Military Political and Social Aspects” (MS), p.8.Google Scholar Also see al-QalqashandĪ, , ṣubḥ al-a'shā (Ciaro, 1914), III, 471;Google Scholar and Ibn, Iyās, Kitāb tārikh Miṣr (Bulaq, 1311/1893), 1, 37.Google Scholar

28 Ibn TaghrĪ BirdĪ, 111,59; al-MaqrĪzĪ, II, 318; Lewis, , p.70.Google Scholar

29 Ibn, TaghrĪ BirdĪ, III, 137–138.Google Scholar

30 Lewis, , p. 70.Google Scholar

31 Ibn, Sa'Īd, Kitāb al-mughrib fi ḥulā al-Maghrib, Tallquist, K. L., ed. (Helsingfors-Leiden, 1899), p.7;Google ScholarIbn al-'AdĪm, , Zubdat al-ḥalab min tārĪkh Ḥalab, Dalan, S., ed. (Damascus, 1951), 1, 92;Google ScholarIbn, TaghrĪ BirdĪ, III, 135.Google Scholar

32 Ehrenkreutz, A. S., “Kāfūr,” E.l.2 III, 418,Google Scholar and Issawi, Charles, “al-Mutanabbi in Egypt (957–962),” in Medieval and Middle Eastern Studies in Honor of Aziz Suryal Atiya, Hanna, Sami, ed. (Leiden, 1972), pp. 236–239.Google Scholar

33 Hassan, , Arabs and the Sudan, pp. 45, 57;Google ScholarRotter, Gernot, “Die Stellung des Negers in der islamisch-arabischen Gesellschaft bis zum XVI Jahrhundert,” Ph.D. Diss., Bonn, 1967, p. 65;Google Scholaral-QalqashandĪ, , III, 467.Google Scholar

34 An example of the type of data available was documented in Bianquis, Thierry, “La prise du pouvoir par les fatimides en Egypte (357–363/968–974),” Annales Islamologiques, 11 (1972); 49–108,Google Scholar and Lev, Yaacov, “Fatimid Conquest,” pp. 6–12, especially p. 11.Google Scholar

35 Ibn, Sa'Īd, p.44;Google ScholarLev, , p. 8.Google Scholar

36 An account of his campaigns can be found in Bacharach, pp. 599–609.

37 al-NuwayrĪ, , Nihāyat al-'Arab; MS Dār al Kutub Miṣriyya, Ma'ārif 'āmmah No. 549, XXVI, 19.Google Scholar

38 Bianquis, , p. 72;Google Scholaridem, , “Les derniers gouverneurs ikhchidides de Damas,” Bulletin d'átudes orientales, 23 (1970), 183;Google ScholarLev, , p. 11.Google Scholar

39 ibid.

40 The most thorough study is Ayalon, , Eunuchs, pp. 67–124. Only the first part of his study has been published.Google Scholar

41 Ibn, TaghrĪ BirdĪ, IV, 42–49;Google ScholarIbn al-DawdārĪ, , Kanz al-durar wa jāmi' al-ghurar(Cairo, 1961), VI, 141.Google Scholar

42 Rotter, , pp. 65ff.Google Scholar

43 Ibn, al-AthĪr, aI-Kāmil fi tārĪkh (Beirut, 1965–1967), VIII, 656–661;Google ScholarKathr, Ibn, al-Bidya wa alnihya (Cairo, 1348 A.H.), XI, 380;Google Scholar one of many discussions on the qualities of the Turks can be found in Bosworth, , “Recruitment,” p. 64,Google Scholar and Ayalon, , “Preliminary Remarks,” p. 56.Google Scholar

44 Lev, , p. 13.Google Scholar

45 Ibn, al-DawādārāĪ, VI, 226.Google Scholar

46 al-MaqrĪzĪ, , Itti'ẓmacr;z al-ḥunafā' bi-akhbār al-a'inima al-Fāṭimiyyin al-khulafā” (Cairo, 1971), II, 12;Google ScholarIbn, al-QalānisĪ, Dhayl tārĪkh Dimaskh (Beirut, 1908), pp. 48–49;Google Scholarlyas, Ibn, 1, 53.Google Scholar

47 al-MaqrĪzĪ, , Itti“āẓ, II, 110;Google ScholarIbn, KathĪr, XII, 9;Google ScholarIbn, al-JawzĪ, al-Muntaẓam fi tārikh al-mulūk wa al-umam (Hyderabad, 1938), VIII, 299–300.Google Scholar

48 Ibn, al-AthĪr, IX, 315, is an excellent example of one account.Google Scholar

49 Ibn, TaghrĪ BirdĪ, IV, 181.Google Scholar

50 lbn, KathĪr, XII, 9.Google Scholar

51 ibid.

52 The incident is used in this case as an example where racial elements, if the central issue, should have led to a serious problem for African troops but did not. It is not only necessary to show that racial attitudes were critical when Africans were attacked but also to explain why they were not critical at other times.

53 al-MaqrĪzĪ, , Itti'āẓ, II, 137, and 169–170.Google Scholar

54 ibid., pp. 169–170.

55 Professor Lewis included the following story from the ninth/fifteenth century historian Ibn TagrĪ BirdĪ for the year 428/1036. “The Blacks used to wait in the alleys, catch women with hooks, strip off their fiesh, and eat them. One day a woman passed through the Street of the Lamps in Old Cairo. She was fat and the Blacks caught her with hooks and cut a piece off her behind. Then, they sat down to eat and forgot about her. She went out of the house and called for help, and the chief of police came and raided the house. He brought out thousands of bodies, and killed the Blacks” (Ibn, TaghrĪ BirdĪ, V, 17,Google Scholar and Lewis, , p. 71).Google Scholar The story illustrates two areas of research that must still be systematically investigated. First, is there a significant correlation between anti-Black stories and a particular school of historians; specifically, do ninth/fifteenth century historians include more anti-Black material than existing earlier sources? Second, was cannibalism a widespread phenomenon? The following examples are presented to illustrate the problem. In 439/1047 word reached Cairo from Mosul that due to the plague people were eating corpses (Ibn, TaghrĪ BirdĪ, V, 43); even more gruesome tales are related for Egypt and the impact of the 462â1069 famine. “There appeared a man who killed his children and wife and buried their heads and extremities and âd their flesh. Then he was killed and his flesh was eaten”Google Scholar (Ibn, KathĪr, al-BĪdāya, XV, 99).Google Scholar There are variations on these tales and others in Ibn, KathĪr, XV, 99;Google Scholaral-DawādārĪ, , VI, 371;Google ScholarIbn, al-JawzĪ, al-Muntaẓam, VIII, 257–258;Google Scholaral-'AynĪ, , “Iqd al-jumān fĪ tāarikh al-zamān, MS Dār al-Kutub Miṣriyya, TārĪkh No. 1084, XIX, 527–529.Google Scholar

56 A number of sources touch on his career but the best study is Walter Fischel, J., Jews in the Economic and Political Life of Medieval Islam (New York, 1969; repr. of New York, 1937 ed.), pp. 68–89.Google Scholar

57 Cited by Fischel, , pp. 79–80.Google Scholar

58 Lewis, Bernard translation in Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople (New York, 1974), 1, 217.Google Scholar See also Nasir-i, Khosrau, Sefer Nameh: Relation du voyages de Nasiri Khosrau, Schefer, Charles, ed. and trans. (Amsterdam, 1970; repr. of Paris, 1881 ed.), p. 138.Google Scholar

59 Another example of a racially mixed military Unit was the Maṣāffiya. See above pp. 475–476.

60 In other cases the terms abĪd and' AbĪd al-shurā have referred to African infantrymen. Here the term probably refers to cavalry.

61 al-MaqrĪzĪ, , Itti'āẓ, II, 265–267, has a long account of the civil war.Google Scholar

62 A long notice on Nāṣir al-Dawlah is in Ibn, al-AthĪr, X, 80–87.Google Scholar

63 The caliph's mother relied on the support of the wazir “Abd Allah b. Muḥammad aI-BāblĪ. Another wazir, Muḥammad b. Ja'far b. al-Ḥusayn al-MaghrabĪ, tried to mediate between the Africans and the Turks. For a more critical view see Hasan, , The Arabs and the Sudan, p. 48.Google Scholar

64 al-'AynĪ, , XV, 204–205;Google ScholarIbn, al-AthĪr, X, 80–87.Google Scholar

65 al-MaqrĪzĪ, , Itti'āẓ, II, 273–274;Google ScholarSibṭ, ibn al-Jawzi, Mirāt al-Zamān, XII, 98a.Google Scholar

66 al-MaqrĪzĪ, , Itti'āẓ, 11, 275–278;Google Scholaral-'AynĪ, , XV, 243–244;Google ScholarSibṭ, ibn al-Jawzi, XII, 1376.Google Scholar

67 Muḥammad, ḤamdĪal-ManāwĪal-Wizāra wa al-wuzarā' fi al-'aṢr al-Fāṭimiyyin (Cairo, n.d.), pp. 177–178;Google ScholarCanard, M., “Notes sur les Armeniens en Egypte à l'ápoque fatimide,” Annales de l'Institut d'átudes Orintales, 13 (1955) 144.Google Scholar

68 al-MaqrĪzĪ, , Khiṭaṭ, II, 3;Google ScholarBeshir, B. J.. “Fatimid Military Organization,” Der Islam, 55, (1978), 40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

69 al-ManāwĪ, , p. 189.Google Scholar

70 al-MaqrĪzĪ, , Itti'āẓ, III, 149.Google Scholar

71 Usamah, ibn Munqidh, Kitāb al-I'tibar, Philip Hitti, K., trans. (Princeton, 1931), p. 30.Google Scholar

72 al-QalqashandĪ, , III, 482, 502;Google Scholaral-Manawi, , p. 178;Google ScholarWickens, G. M., “al-dḤāfiẓ,” E.I.2, III, 54.Google Scholar

73 al-Dawādāri, , VI, 514–515.Google Scholar

74 According to al-DawādārĪ he killed many of them (VI, 515).

75 al-MaqrĪzĪ, . Itti'āẓ. 111, 155;Google ScholarMuyassar, lbn, Akhbār Miṣr (Cairo, 1919). pp. 79ff.Google Scholar

76 lbn, al-AthĪr, X, 48;Google ScholarMuyassar, Ibn, p. 86.Google Scholar

77 lbn, al-AthĪr, X, 49;Google ScholarMuyassar, Ibn, p. 88.Google Scholar

78 Ibn, Wāṣil, Mufarrij aI-kurāb, Gamāl, al-DĪn al-Shayyal, ed. (Cairo, 1953), 1, 174.Google Scholar

79 Canard, , pp. 143–157.Google Scholar

80 Andrew, S. Enrenkreutz, Saladin (Albany, N.Y., 1972), pp. 4–9 and 263–273.Google Scholar More recent biographies have not added significantly to our knowledge of Saladin with the exception of Stephen Humphrey's, R. chapter in From Saladin to the Mongols (Albany, N.Y., 1977), pp. 15–39.Google Scholar

81 Ibn, al-AthĪr, XI, 345–347.Google Scholar

82 Numerous chronicles include these events: Ibn, KathĪr, XII, 287–288;Google ScholarIbn, Wāṣil, II, 16–17;Google ScholarIbn, al-AthĪr, XI, 414;Google ScholarIbn, Khallikān, Wafayāt al-A 'yān, 1, 286.Google Scholar Among others, there is also a secondary account in Hasan, , The Arabs, p. 98.Google Scholar

83 Ehrenkreutz, , pp. 76–79.Google Scholar

84 Lewis, , p.72.Google Scholar

85 Ehrenkreutz, , pp. 78–79.Google Scholar

86 Sir Hamilton, A. R. Gibb, “The Armies of Saladin,” in Studies on the Civilization of Islam, Shaw, Stanford J. and Polk, William, eds. (Boston, 1963), pp. 74–88Google Scholar (reprinted from Cahiers d'Histoire ágyptienne, sár. 3, fasc. 4 [Cairo, 1951], (304–320).Google Scholar

87 The temporary use of African military slaves by the Mamluk sultan Muḥammad b. Qayitbāy “901–903/1496–1498” only confirms the prejudice held against infantry as well as the stereotyping of Africans for this role “Ayalon, David, Firearms and Gunpowder in Mamluk Egypt [London, 1956], pp. 67–71).Google Scholar

88 Ayalon, David, “Aspects of the Mamluk Phenomenon,” Der Islam, 53 (1976), 196–225, for a more detailed discussion of some of these issues.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

89 A different view on the impact of these developments is found in Sundiata, I. K.,“Beyond Race and Color in Islam,” The Journal of Ethnic Studies VI, no.1 (Spring, 1978), 1–24.Google Scholar

90 While Ibn Khallikān included both the pro- and anti-Kāfūr poetry composed by al-MutanabbĪ in his biography of Kāfūr, lbn TaghrĪ BirdĪ included only the negative verses. See nn 31 and 32;see also Ibn, Khallikān (Beirut, 1968), IV, 100,Google Scholar and Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, Baron MacGuckin de Slane, trans. (Paris and London, 1843–1871), II, 525.Google Scholar

91 Grabar, Oleg, “The Architecture of Power: Palaces: Citadels and Fortifications,” Architecture of the Islamic World, Michell, George, ed. (London, 1978), pp. 48–79, esp. p. 54.Google Scholar