Muslim Slave System in Medieval India c14.5

c14.5

Mahmud of Ghazni carried away large numbers of captives from India in every campaign and sold most of them. Jayapala the defeated Hindu Shahiya King of Kabul was publicly exposed at some slave market in Khurasan by the order of Mahmud who commanded that he might be ransomed for the sum of eighty *dirams*. Raverty suggests that the word thousand must have been left out. If not, Mahmud did not set much value on his captive.⁶ As Jayapala was old, the price he could fetch in open auction probably could not be more than 80 *dirhams*. Or, as Hodivala points out, the object of exposing Jayapala to public derision was evidently to compel him into surrendering to his victors demands and purchase his release on his captors own terms, which was fixed at 200,000 golden *dinars* and 250 elephants; and the necklace taken from Jaipal was valued at another 200,000 gold *dinars*.⁷ Therefore, 80 *dirhams* as the price of an old king signifies nothing.