Muslim Slave System in Medieval India c14.13

c14.13

No rule about the sale price could be laid in special cases when the catch was big or a very beautiful slave (man or woman/boy or girl) of very high price, say 1000 to 2000 *tankahs* was brought for sale in the market. Sometimes it created a very piquant situation as nobody dared to buy him/her, lest the king should come to know that so and so was rich enough to pay so high a price for a slave/concubine. Even then slaves were sometimes purchased for high amounts. The poet Badr Chach claims to have bought a slave named Gul-Chehra (Rose Face) for 900 *tankahs*.²³ The title Hazardinari (of a thousand gold coins) for Malik Kafur shows that a skilled slave could have cost anything. It may therefore be contended that except in the reign of Alauddin when prices were fixed, prices of slaves and concubines were uncertain, varying according to fortunes of war and famine, looks of the person, bargaining talent of the auctioneers, shrewdness of the buyer²⁴ and fluctuations in the market through influences of demand and supply. For instance, when Muhammad Ghauri and Qutbuddin Aibak mounted a combined attack on the Khokhars of the Salt Range (Koh-i-Jud), great plunder was taken and many captives, so that five Hindu [Khokhars] captives could be bought for a *dinar*.²⁵ Captives were so plentiful that they were also sent to sell in Khurasan, not long after.²⁶ On the other hand, if the supply was short and demand great, the prices went shooting high. Narrating the events of the reign of Sultan Qutbuddin Mubarak Khalji (1316-20), the son and successor of Alauddin Khalji, Ziyauddin Barani says that the strict regulations of Alauddin were all thrown to the winds by the new Sultan, and Qutbuddin and his nobles gave themselves up to a life of debauchery and licence. In such circumstances the demand for beautiful girls and beardless boys made them a scarce commodity, and their prices rose to 500 and sometimes even to one thousand and two thousand *tankahs*.²⁷ So, in the early fourteenth century the lowest average price of a slave mentioned by chroniclers was about eight *tankahs*, the highest 2000 *tankahs*. Slaves in Hindustan were cheap during the Khalji period because of the price-control of Alauddin Khalji and also because coined money was in short supply. So that, writes Ziyauddin Barani, a camel could be had for a *dang* (small copper coin), but wherefore the *dang*?²⁸ In view of this some sort of barter should have been practised.