Slavery in the Mamluk Sultanate refers to the institution of chattel slavery in the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517) in Egypt and the Levant. The Mamluk Sultanate was the fourth of the five Islamic Caliphates that included most the Middle East, and the institution of slavery in the Mamluk Caliphate bult upon the institution of slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258), and was succeeded by the slavery in the Ottoman Empire (1517–1922), until slavery was ended in the 20th century.
During the Mamluk Sultanate era (1250–1517), society in Egypt was founded upon a system of military slavery. Male slaves trafficked for use as military slaves, mamluk, were a dominating social class in Egypt. The Mamluk slaves were initially often Turks from Central Asia, but from about 1400 their origin shifted to Circassian and European. Female slaves were used for sexual slavery and domestic maid service.
Slaves were imported from several directions. Turkic and Circassian slaves from Central Asia and the Black Sea were imported for military use and concubinage. African slaves were imported for labor from the South; and Europeans were imported from the North. Greek slaves were supplied from the religious border zone in Anatolia.
Slave trade
African slaves The Trans-Saharan slave trade continued during the Mamluk Sultanate. Egypt was provided with Black African slaves via their centuries-old Baqt treaty until the 14th century. It was during the Mamluk Sultanate that the slaves supplied via the Baqt treaty ended. Relations were worse under the Ayyubids and very poor under the Mamluks, with full-scale war eventually breaking out. Even after Makuria collapsed in the thirteenth century, the Egyptians continued to insist upon its payment by the Muslim successor kingdoms in the region. The Baqt finally ended in the mid-fourteenth century, with the complete collapse of organized government in the region.
European slaves
Greek slaves were provided by Genoese and Muslim Turks in Anatolia, which in this time period was a religious border zone between the Muslim world (Dar al-islam and the Dar al-harb)Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History. (2017). Storbritannien: Oxford University Press. p.169-170 and thus according to Islamic regulations a legitimate slave supply source. Greek slaves were often sold as luxury slaves and sold for household and sophisticated tasks. Sultan al-Malik al-Nasir (r. 1299–1340), expanded the import of Greek slaves from Rum (Anatolia) and Turkish slaves Central Asia.Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History. (2017). Storbritannien: Oxford University Press. p.168 Two main routes from Europe provided Egypt with European slaves. The Balkan slave trade and the Black Sea slave trade, managed via the Venetian slave traders and the Genoese slave traders, provided Egypt with many of the male slaves used as mamluk slave soldiers.
Mamluk slave trade
Until the late 14th-century, future (Turkish) Mamluks were regularly imported from Central Asia.Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History. (2017). Storbritannien: Oxford University Press. p.164 However this changed in around 1400. The Balkan slave trade was, alongside the Black Sea slave trade, one of the two main slave supply sources of future Mamluk soldiers to the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt.The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2, AD 500–AD 1420. (2021). (n.p.): Cambridge University Press. pp. 117–120 While the majority of the slaves trafficked via the Black Sea slave trade to South Europe (Italy and Spain) were girls, since they were intended to become ancillae maid servants, the majority of the slaves, around 2,000 annually, were trafficked to the Egyptian Mamluk Sultanate, and in that case most of them boys, since the Mamluk sultanate needed a constant supply of slave soldiers.Roşu, Felicia (2021). Slavery in the Black Sea Region, c.900–1900 – Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection Between Christianity and Islam. Studies in Global Slavery, Volume: 11. Brill. p. 32-33 From at least 1382 onward, the majority of the mamluks of the Egyptian Mamluk sultanate with slave origin came from the Black Sea slave trade; around a hundred Circassian males intended for mamluks were being trafficked via the Black Sea slave trade until the 19th century.Eurasian Slavery, Ransom and Abolition in World History, 1200–1860. (2016). Storbritannien: Taylor & Francis. p. 9
Indian slaves
During the 13th-century, Indian boys, women and girls intended for sexual slavery, were trafficked from India to Arabia and to Egypt across the Red Sea slave trade via Aden.The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery Throughout History. (2023). Tyskland: Springer International Publishing. 143
Slave market
The slave market were famously dominated by its most significant and influential category, military slavery. Other categories were the common for slavery in Muslim lands, with women used as sex slaves (harem concubines) and domestic slave maids.
Slavery died out in Western Europe after the 12th century, but the demand for laborers after the Black Death resulted in a revival of slavery in Southern Europe in Italy and in Spain, as well as an increase in the demand for slaves in Egypt.Roşu, Felicia (2021). Slavery in the Black Sea Region, c.900–1900 – Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection Between Christianity and Islam. Studies in Global Slavery, Volume: 11. Brill, p. 19 The Italian (Genoese and Venetian) slave trade from the Black Sea had two main routes; from the Crimea to Byzantine Constantinople, and via Crete and the Balearic Islands to Italy and Spain; or to the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt, which received the majority of the slaves.Roşu, Felicia (2021). Slavery in the Black Sea Region, c.900–1900 – Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection Between Christianity and Islam. Studies in Global Slavery, Volume: 11. Brill, p. 35-36
In the late 14th century the normal price for an African slave-girl from Ethiopia was 300 dirham while the highest-valued slave-girls (normally a Greek) were sold for a price 550 dirham.
Female slaves
In parallel with the import of slave boys for the use of military slavery, slave girls were imported for usage as either concubines (sex slaves) or domestic servants, but the information about them are less documented.Slavery in the Black Sea Region, C.900–1900: Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection Between Christianity and Islam. (2021). Nederländerna: Brill. p.342 The customary sex segregation made it difficult for free Muslim women to work as domestic maidservants, and consequently, the Muslim world used slaves as domestic servants. While the documentation of female slaves are less than that of male Mamluk slaves during the Mamluk Sultanate, female slaves were in fact always more numerous than male slaves; especially in elite household, female slaves always outnumbered male, and slavery in the Mamluk Sultanate has therefore sometimes been referred to as a female phenomenon.The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2, AD 500-AD 1420. (2021). Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p.302
If a male enslaver chose to acknowledge the child he had with a female slave, which was voluntary, then the child would become free and the mother became umm walad, which meant that she could no longer be sold and would be free upon the death of her enslaver; however, as long as he was alive, she would remain a slave and could still be sexually exploited by him, rented out for work, or manumitted and married.The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2, AD 500-AD 1420. (2021). Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p.386
Harem slavery
The harem of the Mamluk sultans was housed in the Cairo Citadel al-Hawsh in the capital of Cairo (1250–1517).
Bahri harem
The Mamluk sultanate built upon the established model of the Abbasid harem, as did its predecessor the Fatimid harem. The mother of the sultan was the highest ranked woman of the harem. The consorts of the Sultans of the Bahri dynasty (1250–1382) were originally slave girls. The female slaves were supplied to the harem by the slave trade as children; they could be trained to perform as singers and dancers in the harem, and some were selected to serve as concubines (sex slaves) of the Sultan, who in some cases chose to marry them.Levanoni, A. (2021). A Turning Point in Mamluk History: The Third Reign of Al-Nāsir Muḥammad Ibn Qalāwūn (1310-1341). Nederländerna: Brill. p. 184 Other slave girls served the consorts of the Sultan in a number of domestic tasks as harem servants, known as qahramana or qahramaniyya. The harem was guarded by enslaved eunuchs, until the 15th-century supplied by the Balkan slave trade and then from the Black Sea slave trade, served as the officials of the harem.
The harem of the Bahri Mamluk sultans were initially small and moderate, but Sultan Al-Nasir Muhammad (r. 1293–1341) expanded the harem to a major institution, which came to consummate as much luxury and slaves as the infamously luxurious harem of the preceding Fatimid dynasty. The harem of Sultan Al-Nasir Muhammad expanded to a larger size than any preceding Mamluk sultan, and he left a harem of 1,200 female slaves at his death, 505 of which were qiyan singing girls. He manumitted and married the slave Tughay (d. 1348), who left 1,000 slave girls and 80 eunuchs at her own death.
The harem played an influential part: the emir Arghun Al-alai, regent for sultan Al-Salih Ismail, married the sultan's mother to secure his power.Levanoni, A. (2021). A Turning Point in Mamluk History: The Third Reign of Al-Nāsir Muḥammad Ibn Qalāwūn (1310-1341). Nederländerna: Brill. p. 186 Sultan As-Salih Salih (died 1354) gave his mother great influence: he arranged a royal banquet inside the royal harem, where he served her himself and organized a royal procession, a mawkib sultani, which was a ceremony otherwise customarily only given to sultans. Sultan Abu Bakr manumitted and married two of his slave girls, and the sultan al-Salih Ismail manumitted and married his slave concubine Ittifaq, who were later taken as wife by his brother and successor Al-Kamil Sha'ban, and finally by sultan al-Muzaffar.Levanoni, A. (2021). A Turning Point in Mamluk History: The Third Reign of Al-Nāsir Muḥammad Ibn Qalāwūn (1310-1341). Nederländerna: Brill. p.187
Burji harem
During the Burji dynasty (1382–1517) the Mamluk Sultanate were no longer an inherited monarchy, and the Burji mamluk sultans were succeeded by their emirs. However, a certain dynastic continuity existed, in which the Sultans married the widow, concubine or female relative of his predecessor.Albrecht Fuess, “How to marry right: Searching for a royal spouse at the Mamluk court of Cairo in the fifteenth century”, DYNTRAN Working Papers, n° 21, online edition, February 2017, available at: http://dyntran.hypotheses.org/1761 The Burji Mamluk often married free Muslim women of the Mamluk nobility. However, the Burji harem, as its predecessor, maintained the custom of slave concubinage, with Circassian slave girls being popular as concubines, some of which became favorites and even wives of the Sultan. Sultan Qaitbay (r. 1468–1496) had a favorite Circassian slave concubine, Aṣalbāy, who became the mother of Sultan Al-Nasir Muhammad (r. 1496–1498) and later married Sultan Al-Ashraf Janbalat (r. 1500–1501). Her daughter-in-law, Miṣirbāy (d. 1522), a former Circassian slave concubine, married in succession Sultan Al-Nasir Muhammad (r. 1496–1498), sultan Abu Sa'id Qansuh (r. 1498–1500), and in 1517 the Ottoman Governor Khā’ir Bek.
Male slaves
The most famous category of male slaves to the Mamluk Sultanate were the mamluk slave soldiers. However, the mamluk soldiers were elite slaves. Not all male slaves were mamluk soldiers, and the conditions of non-Mamluk male slaves were very different.