Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India c8.s6.7

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