Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India c8.s6: 4.6. Trade in Slaves
Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India c8.s6
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4.6. Trade in Slaves
c8.s6.1
In addition to the gains through loot, tribute and dowries obtained during wars, the Muslim state in India found and created many other sources of income like state trading, collection of octrois on sale and purchase of commodities by private traders, transit duties on movements of goods on land and rivers and many other cesses collected centrally or locally. Besides levying taxes on the grains, cloths, articles of food and medicine, slaves, horses and camels and other animals, the royalty and nobility itself traded in these articles.
c8.s6.2
In the categories of articles in which the regime carried on trade, the sale of slaves may be taken up first. For, the early Muslim invaders and rulers captured slaves in large numbers and sold them in India and abroad and made considerable profit. From the day India became a target of Muslim invaders its people began to be enslaved. Many of them were sold to make a profit. Muslim rulers were no different from Muslim invaders so far as the capturing and selling of slaves was concerned. Slaves was the first commodity Muslims found in India to make profit by sale. The Arab invader of Sindh Muhammad bin Qasim sent to the Khalifa Walid I, his (one-fifth) share of captives of both sexes. The latter sold many of them and distributed the others among his officers.180 Mahmud Ghaznavi took captive men and Women in all his campaigns in India. He took 50,000 slaves in one campaign, 53,000 in another and 200,000 in a third one. He sold them for two to three dirhams (silver coin) each in the slave markets of Ghazni, Khurasan and other places. All the proceeds from such sales were deposited in the Amir's treasury. Under Aibak, Iltutmish, and Balban the captives were sold after every campaign. For example, when Muhammad Ghauri and Qutbuddin Aibak mounted a combined attack on the Salt Range, a large number of captives were taken "so that five Hindu (Khokhar) slaves could be bought for a *dinar*."¹⁸¹ Many more were also sold in "Khurasan, not long after".¹⁸²
c8.s6.3
Slavery in Islam was institutionalised from the very beginning. Ibn Ishaq mentions a transaction of the Prophet which set a precedent for Islamic slave trade later on: "Then the apostle sent Sa'd b. Zayd al-Ansari... with some of the captive women of B. Qurayza to Najd and he sold them for horses and weapons."¹⁸³ The women had been made captive after their menfolk had been slaughtered en masse in the market place at Medina. Thereafter there was no let up in the policy of slave-taking by the Muslims. Minhaj Siraj writes that "Ulugh Khan Balban's taking of captives, and his capture of the dependents of the great Ranas cannot be recounted". Such was the scale of slave-taking by Muslims in Hindustan that information about it travelled abroad, so that Wassaf writes that in the sack of Somnath in 1299 the Muslim army "took captive a great number of handsome and elegant maidens, amounting to 20,000 and children of both sexes". Like Wassaf, Shihabuddin Ahmad Abbas also did not visit India but he was informed about the exploits of Muhammad Tughlaq in this field as Wassaf was for Alauddin Khalji. At home Amir Khusrau, the sufi poet, writes in his Nub Sipehr that "the Turks, whenever they please, can seize them, buy them and sell them at will... The Hindu happens to be a (wretched) slave in all respects."¹⁸⁴
c8.s6.4
The sale price of slaves in the fourteenth century was like this. The standard price of a working girl was fixed at from 5 to 12 *tankahs*, and that of a good looking girl suitable for concubinage from 20 to 30 and even 40 *tankahs*. The price of a man slave (*ghulam*) usually did not exceed 100 to 200 *tankahs*. The prices of handsome boys were fixed from 20 to 30 *tankahs*; the ill-favoured could be obtained for 7 to 8. The price of a child slave (*ghulam bachchgan naukari*) was fixed at 70 to 80 *tankahs*. The slaves were classified according to their looks and working capacity. In the case of bulk purchases by traders who had ready money and who had the means to carry their flock for sale to other cities,¹⁸⁵ prices were fixed accordingly.
c8.s6.5
No rules about the sale price could be laid in special cases where the catch was big or a very beautiful slave ("man or woman/boy or girl") of very high price, say, 1,000 to 2,000 *tankahs* was brought for sale in the market. 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*. 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 auctioneer, shrewdness of the buyer and fluctuations in the market through influences of demand and supply.
c8.s6.6
Writing about the days of Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq (1325-51), Shihabuddin al-Umari writes: "The sultan never ceases to show the greatest zeal in making war upon the infidels... Every day thousands of slaves are sold at a very low price, so great is the number of prisoners .... (that) the value at Delhi of a young slave girl, for domestic service, does not exceed eight *tankahs*. Those who are deemed fit to fill the parts of domestic and concubine sell for about fifteen *tankahs*. In other cities prices are still lower... " Probably it was so because Ibn Battutah while in Bengal says that a pretty *kaniz* (slave girl) could be had there for one gold dinar (or 10 silver *tankahs*). "I purchased at this price a very beautiful slave girl whose name was Ashura. A friend of mine also bought a young slave named Lulu for two gold coins." It is very difficult to establish a relationship between the prices of Delhi market and those of the provinces. Umari continues, "but still, in spite of low prices of slaves, 20000 *tankahs*, and even more, are paid for young Indian girls. I inquired the reason... and was told that these young girls are remarkable for their beauty, and the grace of their manners."¹⁸⁶ All evidence point to the fact that it was the Muslim ruler who profited from the sale of these slaves. Isami in his *Futuh-us-Salatin* states that when Mahmud of Ghazni defeated Raja Jayapala of the Hindu Shahiya dynasty, he "carried him to the distant part of the kingdom of Ghazni and delivered him to an agent (*dalal*) of the slave market... (and) at the command of the king Mahmud they (the Brokers of the Market, *Muqiman-i-Bazar* in the original) sold Jayapal as a slave for 80 dinars and deposited the money realised by the sale in the Treasury." Hodivala adds that "it would be difficult to get better evidence than this of the ruler making the profit."¹⁸⁷
c8.s6.7
From the fifteenth century onwards, we have some more information about the sale of slaves at home and abroad. Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur writes in his memoirs that "there are two trade marts on the land route between Hindustan and Khurasan; one is Kabul, the other, Qandhar... from Hindustan, come every year caravans... bringing slaves (*barda*) and other commodities, and sell them at great profit..." The Mughal emperor Akbar disapproved of the custom of enslaving women and children in times of war.¹⁸⁸ He also prohibited enslavement and sale of women and children of the peasants who had defaulted in the payment of revenue. He knew, as Abul Fazl says, that many evil hearted and vicious men used to proceed to villages and *mahals* and sack them. According to W.H. Moreland, "It became a fashion to raid a village or group of villages without any obvious justification and carry off the inhabitants as slaves." In short, there was never an abjuration of the policy of enslavement as mainly it was not the Mughal emperors but the Mughal nobility who must have taken the lion's share of enslavement, deportation and sale by the state. It was not only Jahangir, a comparatively kind-hearted emperor, who used to capture poor people during his hunting expeditions and send them to Kabul in exchange for dogs and horses; all Muslim rulers and governors collected slaves and exploited them in the manner they pleased. In any case, warfare went on as usual even under Akbar and Jahangir and Mughal Generals went on with their usual ways. Abdulla Khan Uzbeg's force destroyed in the Kalpi-Kanauj area alone, all towns, took all their goods, their wives and children as slaves. No wonder he once boasted that "I made prisoners of five lacs of men and women and sold them. They all became Muhammadans. From their progeny there will be crores by the day of the judgement.¹⁸⁹
c8.s6.8
Conditions became intolerable by the time of Shahjahan as attested to by Manucci and Manrique. Peasants were compelled to sell their women and children to meet the revenue demand. Manrique writes that "the peasants were carried off... to various markets and fairs (to be sold) with their poor unhappy wives behind them, carrying their small children all crying and lamenting to meet the revenue demand". Bernier too affirms that "the unfortunate peasants who were incapable of discharging the demand of their rapacious lords, were bereft of their children who were carried away as slaves."¹⁹⁰
c8.s6.9
In brief, slave trade was mainly carried out by Muslim royalty and nobility throughout the medieval period and it brought them considerable gains.