Here is a summary >
> beginning from the Achaemenid period. The most common term to designate slaves in ancient Iran was the word bandaka, a derivative of banda - “bond, fetter.” (Related to Urdu/Hindi "bandh/bandhna" though interestingly banda is now used in Urdu/Hindi as a generic word for men.) >
> Under the Achaemenids, Persian nobles became large slave owners. Already in 6th century BCE, there are records of slave women from Gandhara & Bactria in Babylon who were taken as prisoners of wars. Judging from Babylonian documents & Aramaic papyri of the Achaemenid period, >
> slaves were sometimes set free at the death of their masters with the stipulation that they continue to serve him as long as he was alive. In the Sassanian period, describing campaigns of King Šāpūr I, the Zoroastrian high priest Kirdēr reports how the army enslaved, burned, >
> & devastated wherever it went but that he himself then by the order of the king of kings (re)established the Magians & fires. Sasanian law prescribed a penalty (tāwān) for cruel treatment & mutilation of slaves, thus protecting them to a certain extent from arbitrary acts on >
>the part of the owners. It was also forbidden to sell a Zoroastrian slave, whose right to practice his religion was ensured by law, to an infidel. A slave converted to Zoroastrianism could leave his infidel owner & become a “subject of the king of kings,” i.e., a free citizen, >
> after having compensated his previous master. A passage in the Ērbadestān indicates that even a loan (abām) was granted (probably by a religious institution) to the slave for this purpose. The slave’s human faculties were fully allowed in litigation: He could appear in court >
> not only as a witness, but also as a plaintiff or a defendant in civil suits, particularly those involving disputes over ownership of the slave himself. An article in the law book of Īšōboxt confirms legal right of the slave to dispose of his peculium according to his will. >
> Records suggest that at least at some periods the offspring of slave women & free men had the status of free persons. Moving on to the Islamic period: Early Islamic society was essentially a slave-holding one. Slaves came into the Iranian world as captives of war from Arab >
> campaigns in the Caucasus against the Ḵhazars & from campaigns in central Asia against the local Iranian peoples & the Turks of the steppes beyond, from the end of the lst/7th century onward. Thus Naršaḵī (p. 62, tr. R. N. Frye, pp. 44-45) mentions how in 87/706 the Arab >
>governor Qotayba b. Muslim slew all the males in the town of Baykand in Sogdia & enslaved all the women & children. 80 hostages of noble birth taken from the ḵhātūn (queen) of Bukhara in 56/676 by the governor of Khorasan Said b. Oṯmān were transported, against Said’s pledge >
> to the contrary, to Medina & set to work there as agricultural slaves, a process which was so demeaning for them that 1 day, they all entered Said’s house, killed him, & then committed mass suicide (Naršaḵī, pp. 54, 56-57). Subsequently, Turkish slaves captured in the course >
> of Muslim raids into infidel territory (dār al-ḥarb) were supplemented by a steady flow of Turks brought to slave markets. The endemic ghazwa raids conducted by Muslims in Caucasus region also brought in a steady flow of Christians as slaves, comprising Greeks, Armenians, >
> & Georgians, the first 2 groups mentioned by Kaykāvūs in his Qābūsnāma. Ibn Ḥawqal mentions that the tax farm (moqāṭa'a) of customs post at Ḵūnaj on the road running from Ardabīl in Azerbaijan to Zanjān in Jebāl was generally rented out annually for 100,000 dinars, in some >
> years going up to a million dirhams; the dues (lawāzem) levied here included those on the transit of slaves. The Samanid emirate in Khorasan & Transoxania dominated the corridor into NE Iran during the 9th-10th centuries, & owed much of its economic prosperity, stressed by >
> contemporary geographers, to the important trade in Turkish slaves. Slaves regularly formed a part of the land tax of Khorasan sent by governors there like the Taherids to Baghdad & of the tribute forwarded to the caliphs by the Samanids from Transoxania & by the Saffarid >
> brothers Yaʿqūb & ʿAmr b. Layṯ from their conquests in eastern Afghanistan & the fringes of India. The geographer Maqdesī states that in his time the annual levy (ḵarāj) of Khorasan included, among other things, 1,020 slaves. The Samanid amirs regulated the transit trade in >
> slaves across their territories, requiring a license (jawāz) for each slave boy & a fee of 70-100 dirhams, the same fee but no license for each slave girl, & a lesser fee, 20-30 dirhams, for each mature woman. Commenting on the superlativeness of Turkish slaves, Ibn Ḥawqal >
> states that he had more than once seen a slave sold in Khorasan for as much as 3,000 dinars; the average rate for a Turkish slave in Taherid times was, however, around 300 dirhams. A single campaign of Maḥmūd of Ḡazna in 1018 to Qanawj in the Ganges valley yielded 53,000 >
> captives, causing the price of slaves in the market at Ḡazna to fall as low as 2-10 dirhams a head (C. E. Bosworth, Ghaznavids, p.102); & by the end of the 11th. century, Indian slaves were sufficiently known in Iran at large for Kaykāvūs to discuss the various aptitudes of >
> different Indian social groups & castes for employment as slaves (Qābūsnāma, p.116). Even earlier, African Zanj & the Indian Zoṭṭ are fairly well documented in the historical sources on account of the periodic rebellions of these despised & exploited groups & their use in >
> large scale sugarcane & rice crops. Eunuchs were kept to guard harems, or if intact males were used, then it was recommended that they should be dark-skinned, physically unprepossessing, & as a result unattractive to women. Marājel, the concubine of Hārūn-al-Rašhīd, & mother >
> of future caliph al-Maʾmūn, was from Bāḏḡīs in NW Afghanistan. Māreda, concubine of Hārūn al-Rašhīd, & mother of future caliph al-Moʿtaṣem, was a Sogdian born in Kūfa. Male slaves were referred to as ḡolām (in Arabic lit. a youth) or zar-ḵharīd (lit. bought by gold), >
> while black slaves were commonly called kākā sīāh. Female slaves were referred to as kanīz(ak). Turkish slave cupbearer or sāqī isa became a familiar figure in Persian poetry, & such personalities as Sultan Maḥmūd of Ḡazna’s cupbearer & favorite Ayāz b. Aymaq later became >
> elaborated into a significant literary figure. Beardless boys & young men like Ayāz were often used by their masters as catamites. In the bāzār of Tabrīz, Ibn Baṭṭūṭa saw a richly dressed beautiful slave boy showing precious stones in front of a jewelers’ shops to attract >
> buyers. Shahs even bestowed handmaidens (jawārī) & slave girls (savārīd) on the ulamā. Slaves were also imported from India: Herbert (p. 110) in 1628 observed that on the ships that sailed with his from Surat to Bandar-e ʿAbbās there were “above 300 slaves whom the Persians >
> bought in India: Persees, Ientews (gentiles > [i.e. Hindus]) Bannaras [Bhandaris?], & others.” Eunuchs: A special & influential category of slaves were the eunuchs or ḵᵛājas, who were castrated at a young age (b/w 7-10 years) before being sold to their ultimate owners. They >
>were mainly dark-skinned, though white ones also occurred. However, under the Safavids there were no white eunuchs until Shah Abbās I, who himself performed the operation of castration several times. The shah was the only one allowed to own white eunuchs. According to Chardin, >
> the majority of the dark-skinned eunuchs were not Africans, but Indians, mainly from Malabar & Bengal, who were lighter skinned than African blacks. Around 1590, 100 Georgian ḡolāms were castrated; the most esteemed among them was appointed as the chief yūzbāšī (commander of >
> a hundred). Depending on their ages (usually 8-16) & levels of education, eunuchs sold at the very high prices of between 1000 & 2000 francs; Shah Abbās II nevertheless owned some 3,000 eunuchs. Elite families, depending on their wealth, usually owned between 2 & 8 eunuchs. >
> It would seem that white eunuchs suffered only the loss of their testicles, while black eunuchs had all their genitalia removed. If they wished to urinate they made use of a quill, which they were compelled to carry with them (Elgood, p. 180). Only the black eunuchs had free >
> access to the harem, which they seldom left. Probably because of the low life expectancy of the black slaves (victims of tuberculosis, they seldom lived longer than thirty), the importation of slaves continued at the same low, but consistent level throughout the 19th century. >
> Also marriage among slaves often did not produce offspring & the children often did not survive puberty. The first phase of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus was immediately felt in the slave business. Russia forbade the sale of Caucasian (Armenian, Georgian, & Circassian) >
> males & females to Iran. This trade was still continued in the Persian part of the Caucasus either through the sale of children by indigent parents or, more frequently, through Persian incursions (čapow) into “infidel” areas. A big change was brought about by the Treaty of >
> Torkamāṇčāy of 1828, which gave Russia total control over the Caucasus. Thenceforth slaves from the Caucasus became a scarce article. Moreover, it was through intense naval patrolling after 1870 that slave trade further decreased. In 1882, a new treaty gave Great Britain >
> further rights. Slaves found on Iranian ships were to be set free, while the court case against the Iranian transporter had to be conducted in the presence of British consular agents. Iran also participated in the Brussels Conference on the suppression of the slave trade. >
> As a result Iran forbade the trade in slaves, as well as the import of slaves either by sea or land in 1890. Despite these measures, “many slaves were still introduced by the pilgrims from Mecca” (Sykes, p. 69), as well as by sea with the connivance of the Iranian local >
> authorities (Lorimer, I/2, pp. 2509-10). The slave trade virtually stopped by 1910; some slavery continued to exist for a time but disappeared altogether by the end of the Qajar period. Slavery in Islamic Jurisprudence: According to some jurists, slavery originally had a >
> punitive aspect, in that the non-Muslim enemy by failing to use his intelligence to perceive the truth of Islam had assimilated himself to non-rational beings & therefore deserved to be treated as such (Boḵhārī, II, p. 282). It follows from this that a Muslim may not be >
> enslaved, although a slave embracing Islam after his capture is not automatically emancipated & his descendants may inherit his servile status. A minor captured from the enemy without parents or guardian automatically becomes Muslim, as does the foundling (moltaqeṭ) abducted >
> from Dār al-Ḥarb, but both remain slaves. However, a slave voluntarily quitting Dār al-Ḥarb for Muslim territory is automatically emancipated on his arrival. Heresy & rebellion might also lead to enslavement. Fatwās issued by the Ottomans in the course of their wars against >
>Safavid Iran occasionally provided for enslavement of wives & children of Shiʿites & Shiʿites kidnapped from Khorasan were routinely sold as slaves in Bukhara. Shiʿite fiqh does not appear to have responded in kind. Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādeq drew up a kind of code of professional >
> ethics for the slaver & the 7 imam Mūsā al-Kāẓem, all of whose 37 children were born to slave mothers (Shaikh Mofīd, pp. 457-58), strongly recommended the purchase of women for concubinage. Imam Moḥammad al-Bāqer, Mūsā al-Kāẓem, & ʿAlī al-Reżā all explicitly permitted the >
> purchase of slaves from the various nationalities—Slav, Turkish, Khazar, Daylamite, & Nubian—that were available on the market, including castrated males. Jaʿfar al-Ṣādeq recommended against the purchase of African (Zanj) slaves, making an exception of the Nubians, a party >
> of whom would one day assist the Mahdī. According to a tradition of the Prophet, the prayers offered by an absconding (ābeq) slave are invalid (Ṣaḥīḥ Moslem, Ketāb al-Īmān no. 131); Nawawī considers this to apply to non-obligatory prayers only. The female slave is not >
> required to cover herself as fully as the free woman when performing prayer, & no blame attaches to her if she permits parts of her body to be viewed by prospective purchasers. Shiʿite feqh forbids the manumission of the non-Muslim slave, discourages manumission of the >
> non-Shiʿite Muslim (al-moslem al-moḵālef) slave, & recommends manumission of the Shiʿite (muʾmin) slave, particularly after 7 years of servitude. The female slave who bears her master a child (umm al-walad) forms a special case; according to most Sunni opinion, she, too, >
> attains freedom on the death of her master. The Egyptian Mārīa who bore the Prophet a short-lived son would seem to furnish the obvious precedent for the emancipation of the umm al-walad, but the Companions were divided on the matter, & it was some time before a categorically >
> affirmative ijmāʿ on the subject crystallized (Boḵhārī, II, p. 248). The Shiʿite position is more nuanced. Alī b. Abī Ṭāleb is said to have permitted the sale of the umm al-walad if she had been bought on credit & the purchaser was unable to complete payment; Mūsā al-Kāẓem >
> allowed greater latitude, proclaiming that the umm al-walad, like any other slave, could be sold, inherited, or given away. End.
