Muslim Slave System in Medieval India c14.27

c14.27

T.W. Arnolds observations on this slave-taking in East European and African countries is relevant in the Indian context. He writes that though the lot of many of the Christian captives was very pitiable one, others who held positions in the households of private individuals, were often no worse off than domestic servants in the rest of Europe. As organised by the Muhammadan Law, slavery was robbed of many of its harshest features, nor in Turkey at least does it seem to have been accompanied by such barbarities and atrocities as in the pirate states of Northern Africa The condition of the Christian captives naturally varied with the circumstances of their own capabilities of adapting themselves to a life of hardship; the aged, the priests and monks, and those of noble birth suffered most, while the physician and the handicraftsman received more considerate treatment from their masters, as being servants that best repaid the money spent on them. The galley slaves naturally suffered most of all. In East Africa the Arabs were given up wholly to the pursuit of commerce or to slaves-hunting Naturally the feeling of both chiefs and people was hostile to the Muhammadans, who were hated and feared as slave-dealers.⁵⁶ For the Muslims, on the other hand, slaves were stolen through acts of violence and then converted into commodities. Slave is the most fundamental form of property.⁵⁷