Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry (15 page)

Even the most ignorant peoples, Said goes on to explain, if they are sedentary, have some kind of monarchical government and some kind of religious
law. The only people "who diverge from this human order and depart from
this rational association are some dwellers in the steppes and inhabitants of
the deserts and wilderness, such as the rabble of Bujja, the savages of Ghana,
the scum of Zanj, and their like."24 Said does not use such language when
speaking of the fairer-skinned barbarians of Europe.

With the exception of one group, writers on these matters do not normally
attempt to lay down rules, or even offer guidance, on the suitability of various
races for different tasks and occupations. The one exception is the extensive
practical literature on slaves. There is a considerable body of writing, extending over almost a thousand years and written in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish,
offering what one might call consumer guidance for those who deal in slaves
and those who buy them.'s

The earliest writings of this kind, dating from the tenth century, are physiological, giving guidance on how to judge a slave's state of health from outward
signs, and physiognomical, on how to judge his character from his face. Before long, however, writers on how to choose and use slaves offer information
and advice on ethnological matters also. Ibn Butlan, an eleventh-century
Christian physician in Baghdad, wrote a sort of slavetrader's vade mecum,
which is the first of a series of such works.26 He reviews the range of slaves
available in the markets of the Middle East, and considers the different kinds,
black and white, male and female, classifying them according to their racial,
ethnic, and regional origins and indicating which groups are best suited to
which tasks. Similar advice on these matters is offered by a number of later
writers, sometimes in separate handbooks, sometimes in chapters or sections
of books dealing with larger topics.

The statements made in these books about different races usually consist
of conventional and stereotyped wisdom, but they also contain some interesting ethnographic information, notably about the peoples of the Caucasus, the
Turkish peoples of the Eurasian steppe and of inner Asia. and the black
peoples of eastern as well as of sub-Saharan Africa. By Ottoman times, they
even include the Christian peoples of Europe, from among whom the Ottomans and the North African states drew a large part of their slave populations. The Russians, for example, we learn from various authorities, are
handsome, blond, and charming, hardworking and obedient, dishonest and
unchaste. In earlier times, says one authority, the Russians were famous for
their laziness, so that a single Tatar could capture many Russians. But today (mid-sixteenth century) the situation is reversed, and the Russians have subjugated most of the Tatar lands. This is no doubt a reference to the advance of
Muscovy and the capture of Kazan, the Tatar capital, by the Czar Ivan the
Terrible in 1552. The Franks too, according to the same authority, are handsome, charming, and serviceable, sometimes indeed excellent, but unlike
other slaves they are not willing to become Muslims.`''

In addition to literary essays and practical advice, there is a considerable
body of scholarly literature, providing detailed factual information about the
different races of mankind, both inside and outside the Islamic ecumene. The
Arab exploration of black Africa, the vast expansion of the slave trade in
these lands, and ultimately the spread of Islam, all helped to produce a rich
Arabic literature of human geography, which constitutes the most important
source of information on tropical Africa in the pre-colonial period. The Arab
geographers' descriptions of the homelands from which their slaves were
brought throw much light on relationships and attitudes.

Muslim geographers-and to a much lesser extent Muslim historians-have
something to say about all these various peoples beyond the frontiers of the
Islamic ecumene. About Western Europe-remote and, in their perspective,
unimportant-they knew little and cared less, and it was not until Ottoman
times that Muslim writers began to pay some attention to European peoples
and states.' Even then, it is very little. Medieval Muslim writers have rather
more to say about the Slavic and Turkic peoples in the Eurasian steppe,
immediately to the north of the lands of Islam. But it was with black Africa
that the Muslim lands, from Morocco across to Arabia, developed the closest
and most intimate relations.'

In the earliest Arabic references, black Africans are either Habash or
Sudan, the former designating the Ethiopians and their immediate neighbors
in the Horn of Africa, the latter (an Arabic word meaning "black") denoting
blacks in general. It sometimes includes Ethiopians, but not Egyptians,
Berbers, or other peoples north of the Sahara. Later, after the Arab expansion into Africa, other and more specific terms are added, the commonest
being Nuba, Bujja (or Beja), and Zanj. Nuba, "from Nubia," usually designates the Nilotic and sometimes also the Hamitic peoples south of Egypt, that
is, roughly in the present area of the republic of the Sudan; the Bujja were
nomadic tribes between the Nile and the Red Sea; Zanj, a word of disputed
origin, is used specifically of the Bantu-speaking peoples in East Africa south
of the Ethiopians and sometimes more loosely of black Africans in general.3
The term Bilad al-Sudan-"lands of the blacks"-is applied in classical Arabic
usage to the whole area of black Africa south of the Sahara, from the Nile to
the Atlantic and including such West African black states as Ghana and
Songhay. Sometimes it is even extended to the countries of South and Southeast Asia, inhabited by relatively dark-skinned people.

Some authors distinguish carefully between the different groups of black
Africans; others tend to lump them together under the general heading of
Sudan, blacks. The Zanj are the least respected; the Ethiopians, the most.
The Nuba and Bujja occupy an intermediate position. Some geographical
writers distinguish between different African races on grounds of color, noting
that some, such as the Ethiopians, are of lighter complexion; others, such as
the Zanj, of darker. The term Ifriqiya, an Arabic borrowing from the Latin
"Africa," is used in classical Arabic only of the Maghrib, usually just the
eastern Maghrib.

From the ninth century onward, Arab and other Muslim writers provide
information about the movement of slaves from the black lands toward the
North and the East-across the Red Sea and Indian Ocean to Arabia, Iraq,
and Iran, down the Nile to Egypt, and across the Sahara to the slave markets
of North and Northwest Africa.

"They export black slaves," says Ya`qubi (ninth century), speaking of
Zawila, "belonging to the tribes of Mira, Zaghawa, Maruwa, and other black
races who are near to them and whom they capture. I hear that the black kings
sell blacks without pretext and without war. ,4

"To the Zanj," says Mutahhar ibn Tahir al-Maqdisi (tenth century), "food
and clothing are exported; from them come gold, slaves, and coconuts.i'

"The Zanj," says Idrisi (1110-65),

are in great fear and awe of the Arabs, so much so that when they see an Arab
trader or traveler they bow down and treat him with great respect, and say in
their language: "Greeting, 0 people from the land of the dates!" Those who
travel to this country steal the children of the Zanj with dates, lure them with
dates, and lead them from place to place, until they seize them, take them out
of the country, and transport them to their own countries. The Zanj people
have great numbers but little gear. The ruler of the island of Kish in the sea of
'Uman raids the Zanj country with his ships and takes many captives.

In a detailed account of West Africa, he notes that the Moroccan merchants in Takrur "bring wood, copper, and beads, and take away gold ore and
[castrated] slaves."' "From this country," says Ibn Battuta (1304-77), speaking of Tagadda in West Africa, "come excellent slavegirls, eunuchs, and fabrics dyed with saffron." When he left Tagadda for the North, on September
11, 1353, he traveled "with a large caravan which included six hundred women
slaves."'

Muslim authors sometimes discuss the ethnic origins and native lands of
their black slaves. They have some slight information about Nubia, with which
arrangements for the regular supply of slaves to Egypt were set up at an early
date. About the Zanj they know rather less. Ibn Khurradadhbih (820-912/
13), the earliest original Muslim geographer whose work is extant, mentions
the Zanj country as one of those from which goods-unspecified, but presumably slaves-reached Aden. He records only two facts about the land of the
Zanj: that it is on the Eastern Ocean, and that anyone who goes there will inevitably get the itch.' Ibn Qutayba (d. 889) notes that the blacks live on fish
and for this reason sharpen their teeth like needles, so that the fish should not
stick to them. In another work he observes that the Zanj have the bestsmelling mouths of all mankind, even though they do not brush their teeth;
this is because they have much saliva.9

On the blacks in general, Mas`udi (d. 956) quotes Galen, who, he says:

mentions ten specific attributes of the black man, which are all found in him
and in no other; frizzy hair, thin eyebrows, broad nostrils, thick lips, pointed
teeth, smelly skin, black eyes, furrowed hands and feet, a long penis and great
merriment. Galen says that merriment dominates the black man because of his
defective brain, whence also the weakness of his intelligence.10

This description is repeated, with variations, by later writers. Most geographers speak of the nudity, paganism, cannibalism, and primitive life of the
black peoples. Of the neighbors of the Bujja, Maqdisi had heard that

there is no marriage among them; the child does not know his father, and they
eat people-but God knows best. As for the Zanj, they are people of black
color, flat noses, kinky hair, and little understanding or intelligence."

A Persian treatise on world geography, written in 982 A.D., devotes barely five
out of two hundred pages to the black lands:

As regards southern countries, all their inhabitants are black on account of the
heat of their climate. Most of them go naked. In all their lands and provinces,
gold is found. They are people distant from the standards of humanity.

On the Zanj: "Their nature is that of wild animals. They are extremely
black." Of Zabaj: "This country and its inhabitants are all like the Zanj, but
they are somewhat nearer to humanity." On the Sudan:

Most of them go about naked. Egyptian merchants carry there salt, glass and
lead, and sell them for the same weight in gold. A group of them wanders in
this region of theirs, camping at the places where they find more gold ore. In
the southern parts there is no more populous country than this. The merchants
steal their children and bring them with them. Then they castrate them, import
them into Egypt, and sell them. Among themselves there are people who steal
each other's children and sell them to the merchants when the latter arrive.12