Slavery in Egypt was practised until the early 20th century. It differed from slavery in ancient Egypt, being managed in accordance with Islamic law from the conquest of the Caliphate in the 7th century until the practice stopped in the early 20th century, having been gradually phased out when the slave trade was banned in the late 19th century.
During the Islamic history of Egypt, slaves were mainly of three categories: male slaves used as soldiers and bureaucrats, female slaves used for sexual slavery as concubines, and female slaves and eunuchs used for domestic service in harems and private households. At the end of the period, there was a growing agricultural slavery. The people enslaved in Egypt during Islamic times mostly came from Europe and Caucasus (who were referred to as "white"), or from the Sudan and Africa south of the Sahara through the Trans-Saharan slave trade (who were referred to as "black"). British pressure led to the abolishment of the slave trade between 1877 and 1884. Slavery itself was not abolished, but it gradually died out after the abolition of the slave trade, since no new slaves could be legally acquired, and existing slaves were given the right to apply for freedom. People were still held as slaves as late as the 1930s.
To this day, Egypt remains a source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking, particularly forced labor and forced prostitution (cf. human trafficking in Egypt), although the government has taken steps to suppress such activities in the 21st century.
Abbasid Egypt: 750–935
Egypt was under the Abbasid Caliphate in 750–935. The institution of slavery therefore followed the institution of slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate, although it did have its own local character.
Slave trade One slave route was from people with whom Egypt had a treaty. Egypt and Nubia maintained peace on the basis of the famous Baqṭ treaty, in which Nubia annually supplied slaves to Egypt, and Egypt textiles and wheat to Nubia. The baqt did not allow for direct slave raids to Nubia, however Egypt did purchase Nubian slaves captured by the Buja tribes living in the Eastern Desert of Nubia, as well as Buja slaves captured by Nubians; Egypt also conducted slave raids to Nubia or Buja whenever they broke the conditions of the treaty. Private Egyptian slave traders also conducted slave raids from Egypt's African hinterland using local violations of the peace agreements as a pretext. Egyptian slave traders often gave wrong origin of their captives on the slave market, making it impossible to know if the slaves had been captured from a people with whom Egypt had a peace agreement.
A second route was from areas with whom Egypt had no treaty, which in Islamic law made slave raids legal. Slave merchants also traded in people captured from nations with whom Muslim authorities had no peace agreement. The History of the Patriarchs noted that slave raids were conducted against the coasts of Byzantine Asia Minor and Europe, during which "Muslims carried off the Byzantines from their lands and brought a great number of them to Egypt (or Fusṭāṭ [Miṣr])". The 10th-century Ḥudūd al-ʿālam claims that Egyptian merchants kidnapped children from the "Blacks" south of Nubia, castrating the boys before trafficking them into Egypt.
A third route was when slave merchant illegally captured other Egyptians, which was forbidden by law. The captured Egyptians were normally either non-Muslim Egyptians, such as Coptic Christians, or the children of black former slaves.
Slave market In this period, the perhaps most significant slave market place in Egypt was Fusṭāṭ. Slave merchants from the Near East, Byzantium, Europe, North Africa and the Mediterranean islands trafficked and sold slaves in Egypt, where according to the Egyptian jurist Aṣbagh b. al-Faraj (d. 839) "people desire above all imported slaves", and among the slaves trafficked were slaves of Slavic, European or Anatolian, Berber, and Sudanic African origin. The merchants sold eunuchs and "slave women (jawārī) and female servants (waṣāʾif)", and slaves are mentioned as perform extra-domestic tasks, ran errands, delivered or collected messages or goods, assisted their masters on business journeys or managed affairs during their masters absence, and was used as sex slaves (concubines).
During this period, slaves in Egypt were either born into slavery, or captives of slavers had who imported them from outside the Realm of Islam, and preserved documents suggest that it was imported slaves who dominated Egypt's slave market. Islam's encouragement to manumit slaves, and the free status granted to children a slave and master (coupled with the fact that most children born to slaves had free fathers), indicate that Egypt was dependent upon a steady flow of new slaves to uphold the slave population, since few slaves born to slaves became slaves themselves unless they were born to two slaves rather than to a slave woman and a free man.
Tulunid harem The Tulunids (868–905) who ruled Egypt on behalf of the Abbasid Caliphate had a harem that included both legal wives, slave concubines and eunuchs, of the Abbasid harem model. The Tulunid harem were organized with legal wives and concubines whose sons were both consdered legitimate and eligible to become heirs, on accordance with Islamic law. The harem included a number of jawari, female slave entertainers.Taef El-Azhari, E. (2019). Queens, Eunuchs and Concubines in Islamic History, 661-1257. Storbritannien: Edinburgh University Press. The women of the harem were attended to and guarded by slave eunuchs.
The founder Ahmad ibn Tulun (r. 868-884) owned a number of concubines, and appears to have had sons with at least three; he also had legal wives, of which one was the daughter of Yarjukh (d. 872), a Turkish commander of Samarra and early patron of his father (Ahmad ibn Tulun), and mother of al-Abbas, Ibn Tulun's eldest son and designated heir; his next son and heir, Khumarawayh, was the son of a concubine.Gordon M. Unhappy Offspring? Concubines and Their Sons in Early Abbasid Society. International Journal of Middle East Studies. 2017;49(1):153-157. doi:10.1017/S0020743816001215
Khumarawayh ibn Ahmad ibn Tulun (r. 884-896) himself, the son of a concubine, reportedly suspected that his jawari-concubines were committing adultery with his eunuchs, and were killed by hs eunuchs in 896.Taef El-Azhari, E. (2019). Queens, Eunuchs and Concubines in Islamic History, 661-1257. Storbritannien: Edinburgh University Press. Ibn al-Athir described the event of 896: "Khumarawayh was told that his jawari in his palace in Egypt would have eunuchs as lovers, and enjoyed affairs with them like a husband would. He ordered his deputy to investigate the matter with the jawari. The eunuchs close to him in Damascus feared his reaction if the truth of their situation was revealed, and so decided collectively to kill him".Taef El-Azhari, E. (2019). Queens, Eunuchs and Concubines in Islamic History, 661-1257. Storbritannien: Edinburgh University Press.
Fatimid Caliphate: 969–1171 During the Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171), that ruled Egypt from 969, slaves were trafficked to Egypt via several routes from non-Islamic lands in the South, North, West and East. The system of military slavery expanded during this time period, which created a bigger need for male slaves for use of military slavery. Female slaves were used for sexual slavery as concubines or as domestic servants.
Slave trade The Trans-Saharan slave trade continued during the Mamluk Sultanate. Egypt was provided with Black African slaves from the Sudan via their centuries-old Baqt treaty until the 14th century. The closest relations were during the Fatimid period in Egypt. The Shi'ite Fatimids had few allies in the predominantly Sunni Islamic world, and Nubia was an important ally. The slaves sent from Nubia made up the backbone of the Fatimid army.
European saqaliba slaves were provided to Egypt via several routes. The Venetian Balkan slave trade expanded significantly during this time period. The al-Andalus slave trade also provided European slaves, originally imported via the Prague slave trade.
Slave market
Female slaves Female slaves were primarily used as either domestic servants, or as concubines (sex slaves).
The slave market classified the slave in accordance with racial stereotypes; Berber slave women were seen as ideal for housework, sexual services and childbearing; black slave women as docile, robust and excellent wet nurses; Byzantine (Greek) as slaves who could be entrusted with valuables; Persian women as good child-minders; Arab slave women as accomplished singers, while Indian and Armenian girls were seen as hard to manage and control; the younger girls, the more attractive on the market.Cortese, D., Calderini, S. (2006). Women And the Fatimids in the World of Islam. Storbritannien: Edinburgh University Press., p. 204.
Male slaves
Male slaves were used for both hard labor, eunuch service, and military slavery. The system of military slaver grew in importance during this time period.
In the Isma'ili Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171 CE), eunuchs played major roles in the politics of the caliphate's court within the institution of slavery in the Fatimid Caliphate. These eunuchs were normally purchased from slave auctions and typically came from a variety of Arab and non-Arab minority ethnic groups. In some cases, they were purchased from various noble families in the empire, which would then connect those families to the caliph. Generally, though, foreign slaves were preferred, described as the "ideal servants".El Cheikh, N. M. (2017). Guarding the harem, protecting the state: Eunuchs in a fourth/tenth-century Abbasid court. In Celibate and Childless Men in Power (pp. 65–78). Routledge.
Once enslaved, eunuchs were often placed into positions of significant power in one of four areas: the service of the male members of the court; the service of the Fatimid harem, or female members of the court; administrative and clerical positions; and military service.Gul, R., Zafar, N., & Naznin, S. (2021). Legal and Social Status of Eunuchs Islam and Pakistan. sjesr, 4(2), pp. 515–523. For example, during the Fatimid occupation of Cairo, Egyptian eunuchs controlled military garrisons (shurta) and marketplaces (hisba), two positions beneath only the city magistrate in power. However, the most influential Fatimid eunuchs were the ones in direct service to the caliph and the royal household as chamberlains, treasurers, governors, and attendants. Their direct proximity to the caliph and his household afforded them a great amount of political sway. One eunuch, Jawdhar, became hujja to Imam-Caliph al-Qa'im, a sacred role in Shia Islam entrusted with the imam's choice of successor upon his death.Marmon, S. E. (1995). Eunuchs and Sacred Boundaries in Islamic Society. Oxford University Press. .
There were several other eunuchs of high regard in Fatimid history, mainly being Abu'l-Fadi Rifq al-Khadim and Abu'l-Futuh Barjawan al-Ustadh.Tolino, S. (2017). Eunuchs in the Fatimid Empire: Ambiguities, Gender and Sacredness. In Celibate and Childless Men in Power (pp. 246–267). Routledge. . Rifq was an African eunuch general who served as governor of the Damascus until he led an army of 30,000 men in a campaign to expand Fatimid control northeast to the city of Aleppo, Syria. He was noted for being able to unite a diverse group of Africans, Arabs, Bedouins, Berbers, and Turks into one coherent fight force which was able to successfully combat the Mirdasids, Bedouins, and Byzantines.