Muslim Slave System in Medieval India c13.4

c13.4

Muslim sultans were very fond of handsome young slaves whom they kept close to their persons as pages, service-boys, bodyguards, special troops and as gay companions. Infatuation for such slaves was a bane of the life of Muslim royalty and nobility in particular, although they considered it to be a fashion. P.K. Hitti has this to say about them, *Ghilman*, who might also be eunuchs, were the recipients of special favours from their masters, wore rich and attractive uniforms and often beautified and perfumed their bodies in effeminate fashion. We read of *ghilman* in the reign of al-Rashid; but it was evidently the caliph al-Amin who, following Persian precedent, established in the Arabic world the *ghilman* institution for the practice of unnatural sexual relations. A judge of whom there is record used four hundred such youths. Poets did not disdain to give public expression to their perverted passions and to address amorous pieces of their compositions to beardless young boys.¹