Muslim Slave System in Medieval India c10.21

c10.21

It needs no reiteration that every slave captured in war or purchased in the market or sent in lieu of revenue or tribute was invariably converted to Islam, so that slave-taking in medieval India was the most flourishing and successful missionary endeavour. As K.M. Ashraf notes, the slaves added to the growing Muslim population of India.²³ Every sultan, as champion of Islam, considered it a political necessity to plant or raise Muslim population all over India for the Islamization of the country and countering native resistance.²⁴ This slave-taking in war for spreading Islam was not new or special to India; the system prevailed wherever Muslim rule obtained. Throughout the medieval period Islams conquests and aggressive wars were common and captured slaves helped in raising Muslim numbers. As at one time or the other, most Muslims invaders and conquerors were themselves slaves, and these slave-catching kings and nobles experienced happiness at the possession of a dependent species of property; this slave-property contributed to alleviate the hardships of the nobles own servitude. In their numerous families, particularly in their county estates, they encouraged the marriage of their slaves and let the Muslim numbers grow. On the other hand, once the captives were reconciled to Islam and obedience (about which, in any case, there was hardly any choice), their careers were opened to any new opportunities. In the flowery language of Edward Gibbon, by the repetition of a sentence and the loss of a foreskin, the subject or the slave, the captive or the criminal, arose in a moment the free or equal companion of the victorious Moslems.²⁵ Although this freedom and equality did not come at once, their servile origins were allowed to be obliterated in the third or fourth generation. This was the reward of conversion. There also developed a feeling of freedom even in slavery and a vanity in belonging to the ruling class. After a few generations the Indian Muslim forgot the circumstances of his ancestors enslavement and conversion; he began to take pride in his new faith because it opened up for him new avenues of rise and gave him a share in the rulers or masters wealth and loot. And so enslavement and proselytization went on hand in hand.²⁶