quote: Ahmad b. Tulun (d. 884), the first independent ruler of Muslim Egypt, relied very heavily on black slaves, probably Nubians, for his armed forces; at his death he is said to have left, among other possessions, twenty-four thousand white mamluks and forty-five thousand blacks. These were organized in separate corps, and accommodated in separate quarters at the military cantonments. When Khumarawayh, the son and successor of Ahmad ibn Tulun rode in procession, he was followed, according to a chronicler, "by a thousand black guards wearing black cloaks and black turbans, so that a watcher could fancy them to be a black sea spreading over the face of the earth, because of the blackness of their color and of their garments. With the glitter of their shields, of the chasing on their swords, and of the helmets under their turbans, they made a really splendid sight."
The black troops were the most faithful supporters of the dynasty, and shared its fate. When the Tulunids were overthrown at the beginning of 905, the restoration of caliphal authority was followed by a massacre of the black infantry and the burning of their quarters: "Then the cavalry turned against the cantonments of the Tulunid blacks, seized as many of them as they could, and took them to Muhammad ibn Sulayman [the new governor sent by the caliph]. He was on horseback, amid his escort. He gave orders to slaughter them, and they were slaughtered in his presence like sheep."
A similar fate befell the black infantry in Baghdad in 930, when they were attacked and massacred by the white cavalry, with the help of other troops and of the populace, and their quarters burned. Thereafter, black soldiers virtually disappear from the armies of the eastern caliphate.
. . . .
Black soldiers served the various rulers of medieval Egypt, and under the Fatimid caliphs of Cairo black regiments, known as 'Abid al-Shira', "the slaves by purchase," formed an important part of the military establishment. They were particularly prominent in the mid-eleventh century, during the reign of al-Mustansir, when for a while the real ruler of Egypt was the caliph's mother, a Sudanese slave woman of remarkable strength of character. There were frequent clashes between black regiments and those of other races and occasional friction with the civil population.
With the fall of the Fatimids, the black troops again paid the price of their loyalty. Among the most faithful supporters of the Fatimid Caliphate, they were also among the last to resist its overthrow by Saladin, ostensibly the caliph's vizier but in fact the new master of Egypt. By the time of the last Fatimid caliph, al-'Adid, the blacks had achieved a position of power. The black eunuchs wielded great influence in the palace; the black troops formed a major element in the Fatimid army. It was natural that they should resist the vizier's encroachments. In 1169 Saladin learned of a plot by the caliph's chief black eunuch to remove him, allegedly in collusion with the Crusaders in Palestine. Saladin acted swiftly; the offender was seized and decapitated and replaced in his office by a white eunuch. The other black eunuchs of the caliph's palace were also dismissed. The black troops in Cairo were infuriated by this summary execution of one whom they regarded as their spokesman and defender. Moved, according to a chronicler, by "racial solidarity" (jinsiyya), they prepared for battle. In two hot August days, an estimated fifty thousand blacks fought against Saladin's army in the area between the two palaces, of the caliph and the vizier.
Two reasons are given for their defeat. One was their betrayal by the Fatimid Caliph al-'Adid, whose cause they believed they were defending against the usurping vizier: "Al-'Adid had gone up to his belvedere tower, to watch the battle between the palaces. It is said that he ordered the men in the palace to shoot arrows and throw stones at [Saladin's] troops, and they did so. Others say that this was not done by his choice. Shams al-Dawla [Saladin's brother] sent naphtha-throwers to burn down al-'Adid's belvedere. One of them was about to do this when the door of the belvedere tower opened and out came a caliphal aide, who said: "The Commander of the Faithful greets Shams al-Dawla, and says: 'Beware of the [black] slave dogs! Drive them out of the country!'" The blacks were sustained by the belief that al-'Adid was pleased with what they did. When they heard this, their strength was sapped, their courage waned, and they fled."
The other reason, it is said, was an attack on their homes. During the battle between the palaces, Saladin sent a detachment to the black quarters, with instructions "to burn them down on their possessions and their children." Learning of this, the blacks tried to break off the battle and return to their families but were caught in the streets and destroyed. This encounter is variously known in Arabic annals as "the Battle of the Blacks" and "the Battle of the Slaves.'' Though the conflict was not primarily racial, it acquired a racial aspect, which is reflected in some of the verses composed in honor of Saladin's victory. Maqrizi, in a comment on this episode, complains of the power and arrogance of the blacks: "If they had a grievance against a vizier, they killed him; and they caused much damage by stretching out their hands against the property and families of the people. When their outrages were many and their misdeeds increased, God destroyed them for their sins."
Sporadic resistance by groups of black soldiers continued, but was finally crushed after a few years. While the white units of the Fatimid army were incorporated by Saladin in his own forces, the blacks were not. The black regiments were disbanded, and black fighting men did not reappear in the armies of Egypt for centuries. Under the mamluk sultans, blacks were employed in the army in a menial role, as servants of the knights. There was a clear distinction between these servants, who were black and slaves, and the knights' orderlies and grooms, who were white and free.
Though black slaves no longer served as soldiers in Egypt, they still fought occasionally -- as rebels or rioters. In 1260, during the transition from the Ayyubid to the mamluk sultanate, black stableboys and some others seized horses and weapons, and staged a minor insurrection in Cairo. They proclaimed their allegiance to the Fatimids and followed a religious leader who "incited them to rise against the people of the state; he granted them fiefs and wrote them deeds of assignment."
The end was swift: "When they rebelled during the night, the troops rode in, surrounded them, and shackled them; by morning they were crucified outside the Zuwayla gate."
. . . .
Toward the end of the fifteenth century, black slaves were admitted to units using firearms -- a socially despised weapon in the mamluk knightly society. When a sultan tried to show some favor to his black arquebusiers, he provoked violent antagonism from the mamluk knights, which he was not able to resist. In 1498 "a great disturbance occurred in Cairo." The sultan (according to the chronicler) had outraged the mamluks by conferring two boons on a black slave called Farajallah, chief of the firearms personnel in the citadel -- first, giving him a white Circassian slave girl from the palace as wife, and second, granting him a short-sleeved tunic, a characteristic garment of the mamluks: "On beholding this spectacle [says the chronicler] the Royal mamluks expressed their disapproval to the sultan, and they put on their. . . armour. . . and armed themselves with their full equipment. A battle broke out between them and the black slaves, who numbered about five hundred. The black slaves ran away and gathered again in the towers of the citadel and fired at the royal mamluks. The royal mamluks marched on them, killing Farajallah and about fifty of the black slaves; the rest fled; two royal mamluks were killed. Then the emirs and the sultan's maternal uncle, the Great Dawadar, met the sultan and told him: "We disapprove of these acts of yours [and if you persist in them, it would be better for you to ride by night in the narrow by-streets and go away together with those black slaves to far-off places!" The sultan answered: "I shall desist from this, and these black slaves will be sold to the Turkmans."
In the Islamic West black slave troops were more frequent, and sometimes even included cavalry -- something virtually unknown in the East. The first emir of Cordova, 'Abd al-Rahman I, is said to have kept a large personal guard of black troops; and black military slaves were used, especially to maintain order, by his successors. Black units, probably recruited by purchase via Zawila in Fezzan (now southern Libya), figure in the armies of the rulers of Tunisia between the ninth and eleventh centuries. Black troops became important from the seventeenth century, after the Moroccan military expansion into the Western Sudan. The Moroccan Sultan Mawlay Ismaili (1672-1727) had an army of black slaves, said to number 250,000. The nucleus of this army was provided by the conscription or compulsory purchase of all male blacks in Morocco; it was supplemented by levies on the slaves and serfs of the Saharan tribes and slave raids into southern Mauritania. These soldiers were mated with black slave girls, to produce the next generation of male soldiers and female servants. The youngsters began training at ten and were mated at fifteen. After the sultan's death in 1727, a period of anarchic internal struggles followed, which some contemporaries describe as a conflict between blacks and whites.
. . . .
In 1757 a new sultan, Sidi Muhammad Ill, came to the throne. He decided to disband the black troops and rely instead on Arabs. With a promise of royal favor, he induced the blacks to come to Larache with their families and worldly possessions. There he had them surrounded by Arab tribesmen, to whom he gave their possessions as booty and the black soldiers, their wives, and their children as slaves. "I make you a gift," he said, "of these 'abid, of their children, their horses, their weapons, and all they possess. Share them among you.''
. . . .
Bernard Lewis Race and Slavery in the Middle East Oxford Univ Press, 1994
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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I read the piece to the end then saw it was written by an ideological racial hack named Bernard Lewis. Now I don't know what I should believe about the above article.
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Well, bring on supportive or contrary material from other writers who also present translated quotations from primary Arabic texs relevant to the topic so as to round out the picture. That's what this forum is about.
In the meantime, what specifically seems suspect to you after learning Lewis wrote the piece that was OK before?
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quote:Originally posted by alTakruri: Well, bring on supportive or contrary material from other writers who also present translated quotations from primary Arabic texs relevant to the topic so as to round out the picture. That's what this forum is about.
In the meantime, what specifically seems suspect to you after learning Lewis wrote the piece that was OK before?
"I make you a gift of these Blacks, of their children, their horses, their weapons, and all they possess. Share them among you."
Sidi Muhammad Ill Moroccan Sultan 1757
Text may be copied and used consistent with our permissions. Credit should read " Courtesy: Eigen's Political & Historical Quotations." This permission does NOT extend to the pictures and graphics."
Context:
Previous Sultans had developed a large army of Black Moors. Then there was a civil war in Morocco where the light skinned Moroccans fought against those of dark skin. The light skins won and the new Sultan ordered the remnants of the Black soldiers with their families to Larache where he surrounded them by Arabs and simply gave the Blacks to the light skinned Arabs as slaves. Area Designation:
I have to agree with Lamin-- you can do better than this. Quoting Bernard Lewis is like quoting Kipling for history of India. Bernard Lewis' hatred toward Muslims and Arabs is well known. He ranks along people like Robert Spencer, Bat Ye’or, Niall Ferguson, Melanie Phillips and Daniel Pipes. These people belong to the Eurabia gang You are now entering Eurabia
In another words, your article is nothing but Fascist Nazis Zionist propaganda:
MERIP Middle East Report, No. 147, Egypt's Critical Moment (Jul. - Aug., 1987), pp. 43-45 Author(s) of Review: Joel Beinin
In the 1960s,nearly all university students in Middle East history courses read Bernard Lewis' The Arabs in History (1950), The Emergence of Modern Turkey (1961) and The Middle East and the West (1964). Our teachers almost universally admired these books for their professional scholarship and clear exposition. Their attention to economic and social issues, while modest by today's standards, was striking compared to the almost exclusive concern of Lewis' contemporaries with religious and narrowly political topics.
'Ibo decades later, the name of Bernard Lewis is a symbol of the ultra-politicization of Middle Eastern studies. Lewis is perhaps the most articulate and learned Zionist advocate in the North American Middle East academic community, and an important opinion leader outside the ranks of academia. He contributes to the leading mouthpiece of neo-conservative militant Zionism, Commentary, the leading pseudo-liberal journal, New Republic, and the semi-official forum for establishment discussion of foreign policy, Foreign Affairs. He has testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He has praised the nonpolemical objectivity of Israeli Middle East scholars while warning of the baleful effects of Arab money on Middle Eastern studies.' His book on Muslim-Black relations, Race and Color in Islam, was a thinly-veiled effort to undercut the rising sympathy of American and African Blacks for the Arab cause after 1967. He has led the counterattack against Edward Said's critique of Orientalist scholarship and its underlying assumptions.
The reason for Bernard Lewis' appeal 25 years ago is the same as the reason for his disrepute in many circles today. He stands solidly at the center of the values and assumptions underlying Western European and North American imperial culture. Lewis is an unabashed believer in the superiority of Anglo-American liberalism. In Semites and Anti-Semites, the evidence for Anglo- American superiority is the assertion that anti-Semitism has been less virulent in England and the United States (and the Netherlands) than elsewhere in Europe (pp. 82,96-98).
Conversely, Lewis assumes the evil and perfidy of the Soviet Union. Nowhere does he suggest that the consistently anti-Soviet and pro-American stands of the Israeli government and the majority of the world Zionist movement since 1949, despite the vital diplomatic and military contributions of the Soviet bloc to the establishment of the Jewish state, might be a substantial reason for the policies of the Soviet Union and its allies. When recounting the bombing of the Soviet embassy in Tel Aviv in 1953, Lewis makes sure to note that it was a small bomb (244).
Semites and Anti-Semites is structured as a comparison of the liberal progressive West, where anti-Semitism was once widewidespread and is now on the decline, with the Islamic East, where anti-Semitism was historically of minor significance but is now becoming widespread. The Eastmest dichotomy of Orientalist discourse is fused with the Eastmest demarcation between the Soviet Union and the United States. Lewis speaks of "the two Easts, European and Islamic" (68) and compares the treatment of Jews in Russia and in the Ottoman Empire (65, 72), even while admitting the fundamental difference in the status of Jews in the two empires and the more favorable conditions of Ottoman Jewish subjects. By associating the two Easts, Lewis appeals to the most popular political currents in the US-Arab and Muslim bashing and anti-Soviet hysteria. The liberal West can condemn the leading anti-Semites of the contemporary world who are, in Lewis' view, conveniently associated with each other.
Twenty years ago, cold war liberalism was still a viable intellectual stand; it enabled one to feel superior and progressive at the same time. The mainstream of the Zionist movement was an integral part of liberal imperial ideology and practice-rooted in the view that progress resided in the West and that domination by the West was a small price to ask non-European peoples to pay in exchange for the benefits of modernization. The progressive content of the Zionist project was effectively questioned outside the Arab and Muslim world only after the June 1967 war.
Since the 1970s, in response to the related challenges to Zionism and the imperial superiority of the West, Bernard Lewis appears to have adopted a more openly polemical writing style and a paranoid view of the world which is at points profoundly out of touch with reality. He is convinced that it is "fashionable" to be a leftist or progressive (247). He believes that in the West "a large section of opinion, especially in the media, and in the literary and academic worlds" has been won over to "an anti-Israel pro-Arab stance" (188). Critics of Zionism in academia, according to Lewis, have been welcomed in departments of Arabic studies by their anti-Semitic colleagues (249).
In Semites and Anti-Semites the big question is: Is anti-Zionism or criticism of Israel, whether by Arabs or others, a form of anti-Semitism? Lewis appears to answer unequivocally in terms that may disappoint the Commentary and New Republic crowd:
quote: It is unreasonable and unfair to assumethat opposition to Zionism or criticism of Israeli policies and actions is, as such and in the absence of other evidence, an expression of anti-Semitic prejudice. The Arab-Israeli conflict is a political one-a clash between states and peoples over real issues,not a matter of prejudice and persecution(20).
But much of the second half of Semites and Anti-Semites is devoted to cataloging and analyzing what Lewis does consider valid evidence of Muslim and Arab anti-Semitism. Thus Lewis gives with one hand a judicious statement of principle, but takes with the other hand by rehearsing a long list of anti-Semitic statements by anti-Zionist Arabs. (Collecting expressions of Muslim and Arab anti-Semitism has become a cottage industry among Israeli and Israeli-oriented Middle East scholars. The Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University is putting nearly every periodical published in the Arab world into a computer bank. This wonderful research tool is regularly abused for this purpose.)
The second half of Semites and Anti-Semites is an extension of the argument advanced earlier in The Jews of Islam (Princeton University Press, 1984). Historically the status of Jews under Islamic rule, while not one of full equality, was on the whole much better than under Christian rule. There was almost no religiously based anti-Semitism of the type prevalent in medieval Christian Europe. Modern anti-Semitism was introduced to the Middle East by European missionaries and diplomats. Christian Arabs were quicker than Muslim Arabs to embrace anti-Semitism as a defense mechanism in the second half of the 19th century when competition between non-Muslim minorities intensified as European power spread across the Middle East and dislocated established economic and social relations. After the 1956 and 1967 wars, Arab anti-Semitism increased significantly. Today Arab anti-Semitism has reached "tidal proportions" (139) and "some Arab countries, now joined by Iran, have become the main centers of international anti-Semitism." (195)
Anyone who used "international Judaism" as an analytical category would probably be branded by Lewis and others as an anti-Semite, and rightly so. Why, then, is "international anti-Semitism" any more acceptable? In this context it clearly betrays anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism. Lewis offers no evidence to demonstrate that there is an organized anti-Semitic campaign that is coordinated in or by Arab or Muslim countries. Are all the inhabitants of those countries anti-Semites? How significant a social force is Arab or Muslim anti-Semitism? How representative of popular and elite opinion are the expressions of anti-Semitism which are cited? Which Arabs or Muslims are more likely to exhibit it and why?
These questions are not well answered by Lewis. His method is to produce texts which do indeed contain disgusting expressions of anti-Semitism. Lewis concludes that these are representative of Arab and Muslim opinion and that European-style anti-Semitism is now widespread in the Arab and Muslim world. The underlying context for almost all of the expressions of anti-Semitism cited by Lewis, however, is the Arab-Israeli dispute. Lewis acknowledges this, and consequently the political as opposed to the religious, racial or social character of Muslim and Arab anti-Jewish sentiment. But he is so anxious to demonstrate the congruence between European and Arab anti-Semitism that he seems to forget his own arguments about the difference in historical circumstances. He thus becomes incapable of making sense of much of the evidence of Arab anti-Semitism that he cites here.
It is true that the Palestinian Arab leader, al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni, spent World War I1 in Berlin as a guest of the Nazis.Amin al-Husayni's leadership of the Palestinian Arab national movement is symptomatic of its weakness and part of the explanation for its failure to prevent the establishment of the state of Israel, but Palestinian Arab opposition to Zionism had little in common with Nazi anti-Semitism. Since Lewis does not adequately explain why sympathy with Germany and Italy was widespread in the Middle East during the 1930s and 1940s, he can not explain the political trajectory of some of those who held such sympathies.
For example, Lewis reserves some of his choicest denunciations for the anti-Semitic writing of the Egyptian journalist Anis Mansur (213, 216-17). Lewis acknowledges that Mansur was "close" to Anwar Sadat, but does not pause to ponder the contradiction between this fact and Sadat's peace overtures to Israel. Mansur was not only close to Sadat, but was one of his most trusted unofficial advisors and editor of the main propaganda organ of the Sadat regime, October.Sadat himself, as Lewis acknowledges, collaborated with the Nazis during World War 11. Lewis, however, can not quite bring himself to call it that and relies instead on an extensive quote from Sadat's memoirs, Revolt on the Nile, to describe the circumstances of Sadat's German connection (159). Lewis does not explain why these notorious anti-Semites braved the wrath of the entire Arab world to sign a peace treaty with Israel.
Pierre Gemayel, who founded the Phalange after returning to Lebanon impressed by the performance of the Hitler youth in the 1936 Berlin Olympic games, is omitted from the list of Arab political leaders who held pro-German sentiments in the 1930s and 1940s (148). Pierre's son, Bashir Gemayel, led the Phalange when it was an ally of Israel in Lebanon. This too, is beyond the scope of Lewis' explanatory powers. The pro-fascist sentiments of some revisionist Zionists, their cooperation with Mussolini and even expressions of admiration and willingness to cooperate with Hitler, are also omitted from Lewis' account of fascist influence in the Middle East in the 1930. What could have been explained as a widespread rejection of British and French imperial rule and of hypocritical Western liberalism appears simply as increasing Arab susceptibility to Western-style anti-Semitism.
This is not the only flaw in Lewis' understanding of political currents in the Arab world. Anyone who could term the official Egyptian government daily al-Jumhuriyah a "widely read religious daily" (230) lacks some of the basic tools necessary to analyze contemporary Arab politics. The main connection between al-Jumhuriyah and Islam that I have observed during several periods of residence in Egypt is that people are as likely to spread it on the ground as a prayer mat as to read it.
When it comes to Zionist texts, Lewis is much more discerning. The colonialist and imperialist ethos of Theodor Herzl and many of the early Zionists is acknowledged, but excused as simply part of the tenor of the times and, coincidentally, useful in winning British support for the Zionist project (175). Lewis quotes a passage from Herzl's utopian novel Old-New-Land to demonstrate that Herzl "was not a racist, and showed concern for black suffering that is unusual in 1902" (176). Concern for indigenous non-European peoples is less apparent in Herzl's more realistic and programmatic The Jewish State, where he speaks of Zionist settlement in Palestine as an outpost of civilization against Asian barbarism. Herzl's diary, which presumably records his private opinions accurately, explicitly advocates expulsion of the Arab inhabitants of Palestine. The diary also indicates that Herzl knew that the activities which he considered necessary to carry out the Zionist colonization of Palestine would put the Zionist movement "in bad odor" with world opinion.6 Lewis does not mention these well-known and widely quoted expressions of Herzl's concern for Palestinian Arab suffering.
More virulent and more current expressions of anti-Arab racism in contemporary Israel receive only passing mention. Lewis refers to Meir Kahane, Raphael Eitan and Menachem Begin, but not by name. He acknowledges that the vicious racist remarks they have made about Arabs do exist, but he does not see fit to report them. In a classic case of blaming the victim, Lewis attributes the responsibility for Israeli anti-Arab racism, which according to him has become a significant phenomenon only in the 1980s,on prior Arab anti-Semitism. "Racism," he says, "is an infectious disease" (212). Even if Lewis' highly improbable version of the emergence of anti-Arab racism in Israel were true, he should at least have the intellectual honesty to inform his readers that the unquoted statements by unnamed Israeli political leaders to which he obliquely refers currently represent the views of at least a third of the Israeli voting public and very nearly a majority of Israel's youth.
Had he done that, Lewis would have been drawn dangerously close to reconfirming one of his original theses: that Arab anti-Semitism is a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict and not a cause of it. It would then be clear that on both sides the virulence of the conflict has given rise to racist sentiments which should be unequivocally disavowed by decent people everywhere. Having established that, it would be necessary to disassociate the Arab- Israeli dispute from the history of anti-Semitism in Europe. But to do so would be to deprive Zionism of its most powerful cultural and ideological lever in Europe and North America. Lewis therefore intentionally reinforces the Nazi/Arab equation, arguing that "Nazi-type anti-Semitism came to dominate Arab discussions of Zionism and Judaism, as well as of the state of Israel" after the Arab defeats in the 1956 and 1967 wars (240).
Arthur Hertzberg's review of Semites and Anti-Semites noted some of the same problems identified here, but in the context of a much more magnanimous reading of the text. Hertzberg could not believe that a great scholar like Bernard Lewis intentionally meant to omit Zionist and Israeli anti-Arab racism from the story. He therefore concludes that by "masterly indirection" Lewis's book is intended as "a sermon to the Jews who are thepeople most likely to heed his voice." While intended as a great compliment, this remark confirms Bernard Lewis' status as a select participant in the insider discourse of the cultural elite. When Lewis writes a book which many will regard as inflammatory in tone and deeply flawed in content, Hertzberg takes this as a sign of mastery of the insider style that is required to convince Jews to reject the racist extremism of the Zionist ultras.
I sincerely hope that Semites and Anti-Semites succeeds in this task. It is formidable. But this kind of insular writing, rooted in the assumptions of domination, ultimately explains much more about the author and his intended audience than its ostensible subject.
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question for takruri what is the source for lewis's book Race and Slavery in the Middle East Oxford Univ Press, 1994 It seems like scattered info from various tuwareekh.
-------------------- لا اله الا الله و محمد الرسول الله Posts: 495 | From: anchorage, alaska | Registered: Feb 2007
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So far in support of one piece of primary text Dr. Winters offered a translation that matches Lewis' save that Lewis left abid untranslated while Winters' source substitutes blacks.
Abid means slave and nearly everywhere Islam is the religion of the rulership, black and slave have become synonymous in the Arabic word abd.
We have plenty of posts on the subject of the denotation and connotation of the term.
posted
While presenting no relevant sources Arwa uses ad homina to imply Lewis' writing is meritless. I take it Arwa thus posits the following points:
Ahmad b. Tulun did not employ 45,000 blacks as soldiers and accomodate them in seperate quarters .
Khumarawayh did not have a procession of 1000 black soldiers in his immediate train .
Black soldiers were not faithful to the Tulunid dynasty and were not summarily dispatched by the ibn Sulayman .
Black foot soldiers were not killed by white cavalry in Bagdad. .
There was no such thing as the Abid al-Shira military wing under the Fatamids .
al~Mustansir's Sudanese slave mother was never the real ruler of Egypt .
The non-existant Abid al-Shira of course could not have incidents with other regiments or civilian locals .
Under the Fatamid caliph al~Adid, blacks did not have power in the palace .
Saladin did not execute the chief black eunuch so such non-act could not have led to 50,000 black troops battling Saladin's army .
Since none of the above took place of course al~Adid could not have betrayed the black troops who not ever existing could not have formerly been loyal to him .
Mameluk sultans did not deploy black soldiers as menials for their own white cavalry .
Black stablehands never tried to restore the Fatamid dynasty .
The Farajallah incident never happened so their was no mameluk extreme jealousy directed at blacks .
Blacks did not serve as cavaliers in the Maghreb and al-Andalus .
Tunisia never imported blacks for their military units .
Muley Ismail did not create an all black army by either mandatory draft or purchase .
Sidi Muhammed III couldn't have put black troops into the hands of his new 'Arab' army because there never were any black troops to start with
Finally, all the following translated quotes are mere fabrications and there are no primary Arabic texts for them because Lewis is playing a political game and made all his stuff up out of thin air
by a thousand black guards wearing black cloaks and black turbans, so that a watcher could fancy them to be a black sea spreading over the face of the earth, because of the blackness of their color and of their garments. With the glitter of their shields, of the chasing on their swords, and of the helmets under their turbans, they made a really splendid sight. .
Then the cavalry turned against the cantonments of the Tulunid blacks, seized as many of them as they could, and took them to Muhammad ibn Sulayman [the new governor sent by the caliph]. He was on horseback, amid his escort. He gave orders to slaughter them, and they were slaughtered in his presence like sheep. .
Al-'Adid had gone up to his belvedere tower, to watch the battle between the palaces. It is said that he ordered the men in the palace to shoot arrows and throw stones at [Saladin's] troops, and they did so. Others say that this was not done by his choice. Shams al-Dawla [Saladin's brother] sent naphtha-throwers to burn down al-'Adid's belvedere. One of them was about to do this when the door of the belvedere tower opened and out came a caliphal aide, who said: "The Commander of the Faithful greets Shams al-Dawla, and says: 'Beware of the [black] slave dogs! Drive them out of the country!'" The blacks were sustained by the belief that al-'Adid was pleased with what they did. When they heard this, their strength was sapped, their courage waned, and they fled. .
If they had a grievance against a vizier, they killed him; and they caused much damage by stretching out their hands against the property and families of the people. When their outrages were many and their misdeeds increased, God destroyed them for their sins. .
incited them to rise against the people of the state; he granted them fiefs and wrote them deeds of assignment. .
When they rebelled during the night, the troops rode in, surrounded them, and shackled them; by morning they were crucified outside the Zuwayla gate. .
On beholding this spectacle [says the chronicler] the Royal mamluks expressed their disapproval to the sultan, and they put on their. . . armour. . . and armed themselves with their full equipment. A battle broke out between them and the black slaves, who numbered about five hundred. The black slaves ran away and gathered again in the towers of the citadel and fired at the royal mamluks. The royal mamluks marched on them, killing Farajallah and about fifty of the black slaves; the rest fled; two royal mamluks were killed. Then the emirs and the sultan's maternal uncle, the Great Dawadar, met the sultan and told him: "We disapprove of these acts of yours [and if you persist in them, it would be better for you to ride by night in the narrow by-streets and go away together with those black slaves to far-off places!" The sultan answered: "I shall desist from this, and these black slaves will be sold to the Turkmans. .
I make you a gift of these 'abid, of their children, their horses, their weapons, and all they possess. Share them among you.
Is that right Arwa? Is that what you're saying about African blacks enslaved in Islam armies, that there was just no such thing because Lewis said there were and Lewis is a bad guy so what he says is merely balderdash not an accurate historical accounting?
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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I read the post and was struck by the article's usage of "black" and "white" slaves. Now what would the translations--if accurate--mean by "white"? Do they mean people who look like West Europeans, or people who look like Iraqis or Turks?
I have read Lewis in the past and I always detected that he was an unmitigated anti-African racist. Now he's exposed a 100% fanatically myopic Zionist--somebody who would have supported Israel's support of the Apartheid regime in South Africa.
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I am no fan of Bernard Lewis. But that is beside the point. What Middle Eastern historians/writing have challenged his factual assertions and/or conclusions regarding the role of blacks in the Egyptian-Islamic State?
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Do you know who the mameluks were? What colour are Circassians?
Do you dispute the 17 points and the 8 translations posted above.
If so, why? If not, why not?
Is either choice based on anything more substantial than feelings?
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posted
In an effort to move the discussion forward, I came across the following review of a collection of essays on slavery in the middle east. I haven't read it but if somebody here has maybe he/she can share some tidbits.
quote:The history of slavery and slave trading among Muslims in Africa and the Middle East has received little attention in relation to the history of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery in the Americas..In this context, the edited volume Slavery in the Islamic Middle East makes an important contribution to a growing literature that counteracts this imbalance. While we must wait a little longer for a full-length historical survey of slavery in North Africa and the Middle East similar to the recently published Slavery in the History of Muslim Black Africa, by Humphrey J. Fisher (New York: New York University Press 2001), or the well-established works of Paul E. Lovejoy (Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1983) and Patrick Manning (Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990), a collection of essays such as this brings together a preliminary sampling of the multiple contexts in which slaves played a part in the history of the Islamic world.
[snipped]
After this introduction, Marmon's essay on domestic slavery in the Mamluk Empire takes as its starting point the legal parameters that determined free and unfree status in Egypt and Syria from the late thirteenth century to the end of the fifteenth century. The Mamluk ruling elite was itself made up of former military slaves, a phenomenon that has attracted considerable scholarly attention, but Marmon chooses to focus instead on the less glamorous but more ubiquitous ranks of household and artisan slaves in the urban centres of the empire. Marmon also discusses the legal ramifications and social realities of manumission and of client-patron relations between former slaves and their masters. The emphasis on theory and nomenclature in this essay suggests its more general usefulness as an introduction or as a teaching tool, but a lack of precision about certain key translated terms and some conceptual assumptions weakens its analytical impact. For instance, while Marmon defines the Arabic word 'abd as 'chattel slave' at the beginning of the essay (pp. 1-2), she translates the same word in subsequent quotations as 'slave', 'black slave' and 'black domestic slave', without indicating whether the additional modifiers appeared in the original Arabic as separate adjectives or should be understood as connotations established by fourteenth- and fifteenth-century usage. Nevertheless, as a case study of non-military slavery in the Mamluk Empire, Marmon's chapter is not only extremely relevant to the volume at hand, but also a much-needed corrective to the emphasis on military slavery in the medieval Middle East.
[snipped]
The third essay in the volume, John Hunwick's 'Islamic Law and Polemics over Race and Slavery in North and West Africa (16th-19th Century)', tackles the complex and highly charged question of the relationship between black skin and slave status. This elegantly written chapter analyses original documents written over four centuries by jurists and rulers on both sides of the Sahara debating the legal criteria determining who could be enslaved. Hunwick's original research and historically specific case studies deepen existing analyses of attitudes toward race in the Middle East (see especially Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle East, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1992) and broaden our knowledge of the centuries-long intellectual and material interchange between Africans north and south of the Sahara.
[snipped]
A pioneering scholar of military slavery in the Islamic world, David Ayalon authored the final essay on the role of slave warriors in Middle Eastern history shortly before his death. He opens by underscoring the importance of military slavery to the spread and defence of Islamic civilisation and then moves on to a sweeping history of ten centuries of military conflict between Islam and the West. Ayalon concludes that while military slavery assured the survival of Islam in conflicts on land with Christian Europe for centuries, ultimately it condemned the Islamic world to technological obsolescence and inferiority vis-a-vis the West. Broad and certainly debatable in its conclusions, this chapter represents more a posthumous tribute to Ayalon's distinguished career in scholarship than it does a reinforcement of the thematic unity of the edited volume. Slavery in the Islamic Middle East makes available five interesting perspectives on a topic that is beginning to generate the scholarly attention it deserves. The tension between Islamic legal theory and social reality receives complex and original analysis in several of the essays that make up this volume. Furthermore, the translations and discussions of primary sources included in most of the chapters elucidate the ideas and practices that shaped the multiple experiences of slaves and that gave flexibility to the boundary between slavery and freedom in different regions and periods of the history of the Islamic world.
I read the post and was struck by the article's usage of "black" and "white" slaves. Now what would the translations--if accurate--mean by "white"?
Interesting observations. Would be helpful if we learnt about the actual terms used to imply such, aside from untranslated "Abid".
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I read the piece to the end then saw it was written by an ideological racial hack named Bernard Lewis. Now I don't know what I should believe about the above article.
Pending examination of *primary* texts on which Bernard and his potential references based their narrations, the general theme therein doesn't necessarily seem farfetched to me, given the stigma attached to "blacks" in the so-called "SW Asian" world, notwithstanding the reality of sections of populations therein tracing their lineage to a most recent common "black" ancestor. I've always had the impression that the anti-black mentality in that part of the world has little to do with European brainwashing, and more to do with the sort of situations mentioned in the intro note. Although, as to the question you put forth about certain *translated* terms, to which I reacted above, pending examination of actual texts, I suppose that it could well be the choice of words of the author, to the extent that this has the potential of making the situations in the narrative even more inflammatory - by way of appealing to "racial" [social sense obviously, as used by the author] wedge observed today between the peoples so-described along those lines. Again *tentatively* speaking in absence of primary texts, it is certainly possible that the political bias of the author may well find expression in the drive to relate the anti-black sentiments of the said people as acutely as possible to the audience. Yet, would this in itself take away from the authenticity of the narrative's theme? Not necessarily. To demonstrate this, one would have to dismiss the events so-described, putting aside translated terms like "white" or "black"; it goes without saying, that dismissing is never enough by itself without supporting evidence to the contrary.
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posted
The Mamluks were basically Eastern European from the Balkans! The word Circassian is a generic term which include Greeks, Serbs, Croats and others not necessarily know but basically they were European!
Many DNA studies show that when the Turks arrived in Byzantium (European Turkey) the base population were either forcibly Islamized, OR accepted the better opportunities of social mobility/advancement and a way to escape their primitve ways vis a vis the social structure of Islam.
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posted
I agree that mameluks were European white people enslaved by the Islamic rulership of Egypt. So "white," as used nowadays is perfectly apopro to describe mameluk in counterpoint to abid, i.e., mamluk = white European slave 'abid = black African slave.
I'm under the impression that Circassian applies to * a particular place * the people living there * the language spoken by that people
quote:the mountainous region of the Black Sea--the purported birthplace of the Caucasian race. As the "purest" type of white person, Circassian women [clickable link] were said to be the most beautiful on earth, prized by Turkish sultans for their harems.
explaining the whites anger at the high ranking black receiving that woman and their insignia.
I don't think DNA study can show forcible Islamization.
quote:Originally posted by yazid904: The Mamluks were basically Eastern European from the Balkans! The word Circassian is a generic term which include Greeks, Serbs, Croats and others not necessarily know but basically they were European!
Many DNA studies show that when the Turks arrived in Byzantium (European Turkey) the base population were either forcibly Islamized, OR accepted the better opportunities of social mobility/advancement and a way to escape their primitve ways vis a vis the social structure of Islam.
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Until the very recent era of "free labour" most larger societies world-wide used a division-of-labour based on what is now called "slave labour". Whether it was China, India, Greece, Rome, etc. there were very large slave castes. There was widespread slavery in Europe until th end of the feudal era. In fact, one could argue that European serfdom was a kind of slavery. That was the norm: for the majority of society either one was of aristocratic birth or one was a memeber of some aristocratic household as "unfree labour". Individuals became members of households or monarchical ruling groups by w ay of acquisition. But the big difference between that kind of "slavery" and the more modern versions--as practiced in the Americas--is the racial animus and cruelties that went along with the practice. The basis for the attitudes was a biological one: Africans were biologically inferior hence could be treated with extremely cruelty and disregard.
The racial theory that eventually developed to support this practice was that the African, on account of his biological inferiority--was a natural slave. Thus, there was nothing unusual about the trans-Atlantic and American(North and South) experiences.
The problem with historians like Lewis is that they are committed to the racial paradigm that states that "blacks found outside their small villages communities in Africa were necessarily slaves in whatever society they found themselves and were looked on with antipathy whether among Asians(Arab or Turkish) or Europeans".
I do not deny that Africans were "slaves"(i.e. individuals brought in as labour and military acquisitions in ruling group households)in Islamic world but what I have a problem with is the tacit assumption that Africans were more disposed to be slaves than others and that there was some kind of natural antipathy that other peoples felt towards Africans but not toward Europeans and others.
Lewis is the kind of author who would fight tooth and nail to deny that the Ancient Egyptians were "blacks" and w ould w ant to argue instead that "blacks" who lived in Ancient Egypt were slaves. That's what I am getting at.
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posted
The only question I have at the moment is whether these black slaves were non-Muslims.
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quote:The problem with historians like Lewis is that they are committed to the racial paradigm that states that "blacks found outside their small villages communities in Africa were necessarily slaves in whatever society they found themselves and were looked on with antipathy whether among Asians(Arab or Turkish) or Europeans".
I don't see how you can fairly reach that conclusion after reading a single book that focused on race and slavery. I guess you can charge any historian who writes about black enslavement with subscribing to a 'racial paradigm'. To be fair, one has to view Lewis' writing on the subject in the context of countering a equally suspect racial paradigm that maintains racial harmony was and is the norm in Islamic societies.
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Until the very recent era of "free labour" most larger societies world-wide used a division-of-labour based on what is now called "slave labour". Whether it was China, India, Greece, Rome, etc. there were very large slave castes. There was widespread slavery in Europe until th end of the feudal era. In fact, one could argue that European serfdom was a kind of slavery. That was the norm: for the majority of society either one was of aristocratic birth or one was a memeber of some aristocratic household as "unfree labour". Individuals became members of households or monarchical ruling groups by w ay of acquisition. But the big difference between that kind of "slavery" and the more modern versions--as practiced in the Americas--is the racial animus and cruelties that went along with the practice. The basis for the attitudes was a biological one: Africans were biologically inferior hence could be treated with extremely cruelty and disregard...
I'm quite aware of much of what you've said here [heck "Slave" derives from the name applied to certain Europeans (Slavs) at some point under servitude], and the need to distinguish between the idea of a "slave" in say, certain parts of Africa prior to European imperialist antics of colonialism and the type practiced under European imperialism in the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade era; however, is there really anything out there to suggest anything remotely humane about slaves under the Arab and Islamic world of "SW Asia"? Don't get me wrong, the idea of anyone being a "slave", whether in a less brutal fashion of being treated not too far from being considered a part of 'family', OR the very brutal and humiliating fashion of being treated less than human as that practiced by Europeans in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade era, is still inhumane, notwithstanding obvious great disparities in maltreatment in the nature and type of servitude at hand. However, distinctions have to be made, and it is worthwhile to note the type occurring under the watch of the sort of folks that Lewis notes in his narrative. Were these of not the very brutal kind, prior to European practice of slavery in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade period?
^Notwithstanding, what got the golden era of the Arabic and Islamic world going in the "Middle Ages", was the collective intellectual power of the blatant *diversity* of the people from distinct geographical entities, geopolitical and/or otherwise. Africa was certainly a very important part of this growth.
quote:Originally posted by lamin:
...The racial theory that eventually developed to support this practice was that the African, on account of his biological inferiority--was a natural slave. Thus, there was nothing unusual about the trans-Atlantic and American(North and South) experiences.
The problem with historians like Lewis is that they are committed to the racial paradigm that states that "blacks found outside their small villages communities in Africa were necessarily slaves in whatever society they found themselves and were looked on with antipathy whether among Asians(Arab or Turkish) or Europeans".
I do not deny that Africans were "slaves"(i.e. individuals brought in as labour and military acquisitions in ruling group households)in Islamic world but what I have a problem with is the tacit assumption that Africans were more disposed to be slaves than others and that there was some kind of natural antipathy that other peoples felt towards Africans but not toward Europeans and others.
Lewis is the kind of author who would fight tooth and nail to deny that the Ancient Egyptians were "blacks" and w ould w ant to argue instead that "blacks" who lived in Ancient Egypt were slaves. That's what I am getting at.
There is certainly a noticeable element within scholarly circles of the Eurocentric world and in some parts of the 'non-African' world who perpetrate this sort of mythology, which necessitates that one be wary about such popping up at some time or another.
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posted
Songhai, Lewis has not written just one book on "blacks in the Islam". He has published a number of books and articles on the subject.
Mystery Solver, I argued in above posts that slavery, i.e., unfree labour, was the norm in all societies beyond a certain size, until the dawn of the industrial era. The main reason being that the ideology of the new economic system wanted to gain access to the unfree labour of feudal and slave systems. Hence, the slogan of the growing European capital owners: "Free the serfs". And "Liberty, Fraternity and Equality"--the slogan of the anti-feudal French Revolution".
Which means that the large scale societies that one would find in areas outside Europe--where slavery flourished for centuries--as in Asia and Africa there was "unfree labour" in the form of slavery. So obviously there would be slavery in the Islamic world in which there would be slaves of European and Asian extraction along with those from Africa.
My point is that Western historians approach this history with blatant racial bias when they seek to make the argument that the Africans in those societies were automatically slaves or that they were enslaved because they were black. There is the tendency to view those blacks who were not slaves as something other than black.
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quote:Songhai, Lewis has not written just one book on "blacks in the Islam". He has published a number of books and articles on the subject.
Lamin,
The number of book and articles is not all that important, unless of course they were intended to give a comprehensive view of blacks in Islam. In fact, Race and Slavery in the Middle East grew out of previous writing(s) in the late 1960s that revolved around a single thesis: Arab-Islamic civilization was never "color-blind" in practice.(So you can imagine Bernard Lewis probably got a good chuckle when Malcolm X returned from Hajj extolling the virtues of Islam as a color-blind religion)
Question: Can you give an example where Lewis assumes that person A, who is black, was a slave when in fact A was not?
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quote:Western historians approach this history with blatant racial bias when they seek to make the argument that the Africans in those societies were automatically slaves . . .
Straw man.
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I do not argue that "Arab-Islamic civilization was never color-blind" as you put it. As long as those groups that had the Arab language and culture imposed on them during the expansion of Islam and Arabism into places like Iraq, Iran, North Africa, Turkey, Afghanistan and beyond saw themselves as phenotypically and culturally distinct--in the negative sense-- from those Africans that were acquired as slaves then obviously there would be distinctions based on ethnicity, phenotype, etc.
What I am saying is that the antipathies against Africans that Lewis describes would have applied to any non-African("black") brought also brought in as a slave.
The Turks acquired lots of slaves from Slavic lands and I am sure that those slaves would have been seen in similar negative light. Point is that apart from cultural differences seen negatively or positively there is nothing about the African phenotype that would automatically lead to antipathy. Greek and Roman writers noted that the Ancient Egyptians looked different from them(cf. Herodotus's observation that the AEs were "black-skinned and woolly haired". I note as an exception though that Aristotle associated "blackness of hue" with cowardice then referenced the AEs and Kushites(Nubians). But that designation could be due to Alexander's conquest of Egypt).
What Lewis and other historians like him do is to assume that there was some natural basis for antipathy against blacks based just on phenotype. Let's face the facts: there is nothing intrinsically attractive in terms of phenotype about the Islamised and Arabised peoples of West Asia and North Africa. Historical culture is the normal intermediary lens through which judgments of that nature are made.
I don't have Lewis's book(s) in front of me right now, but what I said is that the general approach on race by people like Lewis has been to argue that blacks who were not slaves and held prominent positions were not really black--or that if admired, were admired in spite of being black. That's the general impression I get from reading them.
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quote:What I am saying is that the antipathies against Africans that Lewis describes would have applied to any non-African("black") brought also brought in as a slave.
and
quote:What Lewis and other historians like him do is to assume that there was some natural basis for antipathy against blacks based just on phenotype.
Lamin,
The following paper would suggest there was a particular antipathy against enslaved Africans that didn't extend to non-African slaves to the same degree.
While the author begins by noting that Arabs had no grounds for equating blackness with servitude, two noteworthy observations/propositions suggest that they did nevertheless:
1) Generally speaking, blacks in Arabia before and after Islam were socially marginalized from the nerve centers of Arab tribal power (see the extended quotation of Abduh Badawi's "The Black Poets and their Distinctive Characteristics in Arabic Poetry" -- I immediately thought of the distinctiveness of Hip Hop culture and Rap as an indictment of what one scholar called "the false universal")
2) Many Arab writers reserved some of their most racist language to describe blacks. (see the quote of Ibn al-Faqıh al-Hamadh as representative of the popular literature and attitude among Arabs)
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Mystery Solver, I argued in above posts that slavery, i.e., unfree labour, was the norm in all societies beyond a certain size, until the dawn of the industrial era. The main reason being that the ideology of the new economic system wanted to gain access to the unfree labour of feudal and slave systems. Hence, the slogan of the growing European capital owners: "Free the serfs". And "Liberty, Fraternity and Equality"--the slogan of the anti-feudal French Revolution".
Which means that the large scale societies that one would find in areas outside Europe--where slavery flourished for centuries--as in Asia and Africa there was "unfree labour" in the form of slavery. So obviously there would be slavery in the Islamic world in which there would be slaves of European and Asian extraction along with those from Africa.
My point is that Western historians approach this history with blatant racial bias when they seek to make the argument that the Africans in those societies were automatically slaves or that they were enslaved because they were black. There is the tendency to view those blacks who were not slaves as something other than black.
Have you overlooked my reply where I mentioned that I'm aware of what you were getting at, AND a very concise question about...?
However, distinctions have to be made, and it is worthwhile to note the type occurring under the watch of the sort of folks that Lewis notes in his narrative. Were these of not the very brutal kind, prior to European practice of slavery in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade period?
^See, very direct question that merits an equally direct answer.
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posted
By all means the forum should take this thread (within limits) as far as it can go. But know that I didn't broach it to indict Arabs or Islam as fanatically anti-black. Nor did I do it to in anyway intimate that the role of blacks was only that of slave soldiery.
What I thought the snippets showed was the power of black manhood as disciplined soldiery worthy of personal guard status to Islamic rulers in both Egypt and Morocco in particular.
In Egypt the military seems to have been mostly non-native and imported slaves from inner Africa and the Caucasus and Balkans. This was clear in the snippets that the whites were as much slaves as the blacks in these military forces.
We have seen that both in Egypt and in Morocco for certain periods in time it was the black army who decided who sat the throne.
That whites from Europe would have antipathies based on employment rivalry should come as no surprise. Neither should it be very alarming that intriguing 'Arab' rulership would pit the one against the other lest either unseat the ruler.
I strongly suggest a perusal of J. A. Rogers Sex and Race v1 and World's Great Men of Color as well as the Van Sertima edition Golden Age of the Moor.
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quote:I don't think DNA study can show forcible Islamization
which I will agree but mapping the historical truth with DNA of a base population of Turkey showing Croat/Serb/Greek maternal ancestry, I am taking a leap to say that it was forced in many instances. Not to say that groups did not seek to become Muslim but it was a better opportunity for those who saw a way to rise above their present position.
I would add that social Islam was always backward and remains so regarding ethnicity and race but if we follow the present schema based on the past, then Arabs of the peninsula would be at the bottom of the social ladder. There are some positives, nonetheless, but if we follow the premise of the day, then the former mawali, who are now numbered as brothers, would be rated as follows: 1. Turks 2. Persians 3. Syrian 4. Lebanese (3 and 4 can also be seen as 1) 5. Nuristani 6. Berber 7. Baluchi 8. Rest of North Africa 9 .Indonesians 10. Saudis 11. East Africa 12. Egyptians 13. Bilad e sudan (sun-saharan Africa)
This is an interchangeable list and should not be taken as gospel!
The author who stated that the military slavery was of less(er) importance is only stating the obvious. It was important becasue it was how the more martial conscripts were added to the realm, whether they were Eastern European or African! The Turks choice of the Balkans was an excellent one because they choose similiarity of peoples to be their proxy. Choosing Africans for the Turkic groups, would be more labour intensive so the choice was obvious!
Same with Arabs choosing the more numerous groups in Africa, people native to the area and a close source of supply!
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: The only question I have at the moment is whether these black slaves were non-Muslims.
The reason I ask of course is the fact that Arabs at that time had the policy to usually enslave only non-Muslims. A similar policy was seen among Europeans who would only enslave non-Christians such as Eastern European groups like Slavs and then later Africans.
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Of course you know about the office of Kisslar Aghaziz (sp.) Unfortunate African eunuchs who served as vizier.
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: The only question I have at the moment is whether these black slaves were non-Muslims.
The reason I ask of course is the fact that Arabs at that time had the policy to usually enslave only non-Muslims. A similar policy was seen among Europeans who would only enslave non-Christians such as Eastern European groups like Slavs and then later Africans.
I would have to start with the assumption that many of the black slaves back then were Muslims. For two reasons: (1) the Mamlukes were Muslims and (2) the blacks forced into slavery in Mauretania today are Muslims.
It should come as no surprise that there always is a disconnect between theory and practice.
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posted
All of the Mamluks tended to be captured Christian or those who were Christians, made a choice to be part of what they saw as Turkish hegemony, and they wanted to be part of 'a winning team'. The young Christian boys, were not of age, so I see it as being "a captured audience". West Africans, Tamazigh, etc were part of the Arab realm and they originally non Muslim. Even Indonesians came under the influence of 'Arab control' and they were also mawali! Do a search on my favoutire name <yeniseri> better known as Janissary.
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quote:abduh Badawi's "The Black Poets and their Distinctive Characteristics in Arabic Poetry"
unfortunately abduh badawi is a sudanese who mentions particular things about arab culture that would throw the westerner off far as the midieval arab mentality. he mentions things about how the arabs only loved things that were white and that anything that was associated with black was abhorred. This is totally misleading, rather more fabricated. The following reasons would apply
1.) even bernard lewis writes in his Islam in history: ideas, people, events in the middle east after quoting abduh badawi's statement about the love of arabs for white ," The is some doubt to whether such attitudes may have prevailed before this(expansion of arabs outside the peninsula). Apart from such inscriptions there is no contemporary internal historical evidence on life in arabia on the eve of the birth of the prophet muhammad(saw). There is a great deal of poetry and narrative which was however not committed until much later in islamic times. although very detailed and informative it needs critical careful scrutiny, since it oftens projects back into the pre-islamic arabian past the situations and attitude of the very different later age in which the texts were collected and written this consideration applies with particularl force to the poems and traditions related to blacks, whose situation changed radically after the great arab conquest as did the attitude of the arabs towards them. " pg.250 there is alot to write and i cant copy and paste but you can check out the book on google under books with its title and crows of the arabs in the search engine 2.) the stories written about antar are written by poets of african origin or part african origin.
-------------------- لا اله الا الله و محمد الرسول الله Posts: 495 | From: anchorage, alaska | Registered: Feb 2007
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posted
3.) bernard does not even touch the surface of arabs view of africans. I think this has to do with available info to him and may be no access to other modern arab historians like that of the iraqi historian doctor jawad 'alee(1907-1987) who has a famous book called the almufassil atareekh al-arab qabl islam ( the different subjects pertaining to the history of pre-islamic arabs. In this book he brings substantial evidence from poets, the prophet(saw), and statements from other evidences pertaining to the culture. I caught a glimse of this when i stumbled on an arab forum in which a subject was brought up titled blackness in the sight of the arab. He basically copied and pasted from jawad's work which actually tell more in detail about the human distribution of the arabian peninsula. In this he writes about antar and khufaf in a different light in which they were praised for their blacksness and given names like the crows of the arabs or the wolves of the arabs. All dark skinned arabs of the tribes are called the green of the tribe. to call someone green in arab culure was to talk about how dark he or she or something was. He gives numerous accounts of poetry and scholars. 4.) bernard made a mistake about the account of habaeshi slaves who were present. It was well known dring that time that habeshi slaves were a fad amongst noble arabs. Muhammad's (saw)wet nurse(baraka) belonged to his father(abdullah). HIs wife mariam the qibti came from the saeed(south). you can check all this out in al-jahiz's translation of the black over the white. black was a highly praised color in things and people. jawad said you can still find this practice in some yemenis and mostly of the southern arabians and hijaz area. the proophet muhammad referred to the arabs as black in a famous hadeeth. whiteness was called red in arabia. Whiteness of the arabs skin color was what they say in egypt hintee(wheat colored). 5.) he(jawad) said that this all changed for two reasons. a. after the expansion of the arabs into different cultures they took the same view of slaves and blacks as the culturess they conquered : search a thread i think is called why arabs hate black in which i tell ausar of the recorded story of the byzantine-egypto king(maqauqus) in which he meets one of the arab delegation and the one chosen to speak was repudiated by the king because he was to black and scary looking for him. He told the king that in his ranks are men who are blacker than him and that they were going to take over the extent of the known world. b.)The high demand for white girl slaves in the various countries that they conquered and the taking of ethiopian slaves for the arabs weaned away except like before in places where they still practice love and pride for darkness.
-------------------- لا اله الا الله و محمد الرسول الله Posts: 495 | From: anchorage, alaska | Registered: Feb 2007
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posted
oh yeah this book of jawad alee is in arabic and would need to be translated but for all arabic readers you can download it from here omani yemeni and coastal regions
-------------------- لا اله الا الله و محمد الرسول الله Posts: 495 | From: anchorage, alaska | Registered: Feb 2007
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quote:Originally posted by yazid904: All of the Mamluks tended to be captured Christian or those who were Christians . . .
My assumption would still be that these captured Christian boys' status didn't change from slave to free after they became Muslims. And I would also assume the same was true for black slaves.
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quote:Originally posted by yazid904: All of the Mamluks tended to be captured Christian or those who were Christians . . .
My assumption would still be that these captured Christian boys' status didn't change from slave to free after they became Muslims. And I would also assume the same was true for black slaves.
je suis d'accord avec toi!
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