Muslim Slave System in Medieval India c9.25

c9.25

The captives, on their part, clung together and did not separate from one another even in their darkest hour. Nor were they permitted an opportunity to do so under Islamic law which the victors always observed with typical Muslim zeal. The *Hidayah* lays down that if the Mussulmans subdue an infidel territory before any capitation tax be established, the inhabitants, together with their wives and children, are all plunder, and the property of the state, as it is lawful to reduce to slavery all *infidels*, whether they be *Kitabees*, *Majoosees* or *idotters*.⁶⁴ The *Hidayah* also lays down that whoever slays an infidel is entitled to his private property,⁶⁵ which invariably included his women and children. That is how a large number of people were involved, whether it was a matter of taking captives, making converts, or ordering massacres. About women and children of a single family of a slain infidel, or of droves of slaves captured in an attack on a region or territory Fakhre Mudabbir furnishes information on, both counts during the campaigns of Muhammad Ghauri and Qutbuddin Aibak. He informs us that during their expeditions *ghulams* of all descriptions (*har jins*) were captured in groups and droves (*jauq jauq*) so that even a poor householder (or soldier) who did not possess a single slave (earlier) became the owner of numerous slaves⁶⁶