Muslim Slave System in Medieval India c14.28

c14.28

Slave trade was carried on both by sea and land routes. Import of slaves from Africa and Western Asia was of substantial importance. In the centuries preceding the year 1500 Arabs and Persians had acquired a position of predominance in the sea-borne trade of the whole of Indian Ocean from Mozambique to the Straits of Malacca.⁵⁸ They had settlements at seaports on both sides of India, and we meet with Muslims at practically every Indian seaport. One of the commodities in which they traded was slaves. They sold these slaves to Indian rulers and nobles in such large numbers that the complexion of the government looked foreign. Indian sultans imported slaves throughout the medieval period for service in many fields, more particularly in administration and army and saving their kingdoms from indigenous popular risings, for, as Moreland remarks, even Akbars court was essentially foreign, and even in his later years the Indian element, whether Hindu or Moslem, constituted only a small proportion of the whole.⁵⁹ Abyssinians were in much demand, and we read of them frequently in the chronicles of the times. A regular traffic existed in the inhabitants of Mozambique, and there was also an import trade from Persia and countries lying beyond. Not only the sultans of Delhi or the Mughal emperors, but even the sultans of the Deccan states imported slaves to keep their rule established. Golkunda was connected with three great ports of Goa and Surat on the west coast and Masulipatam on the east.⁶⁰