144
Origins
mamlks.
Na.sr
bought
them
(presumably
inKhurasan)
andhad
them
dispatched,
asrequested.
2;
Itishardtoassess
the
impor-
tance
ofthisisolatedbut
striking
fact.
ArmiesintheMarwanid
period,
thoseof
boththe
Umayyads
andtheirrivals,foundnewsources
of
marginal
areasoldiers
readily
athand:
thevastnumbersofslavesand
mawlaswholived
among
theMuslims
provided
themwith
fresh
manpower.
With-
out
having
toexertthemselves,military
leadershadaccess
to
large
numbersofunfreeArabians.
TheAbbasidsbeforeaI-Ma’mOn
TheAbbasidsdid
notinheritthe
Umayyadarrangements
for
slaves (withexceptions
suchas thebaqt)
and
they
themselves
made
hardlyanyconquests
oftheirown.
Asa
consequence,they
nearly always
hadto
pay
for
theirslaves. Incontrastto the
Umayyads,
who
purchased
almost no slaves(and
those
only
during
the final
years),
2s
the Abbasidspurchased nearly
all
theirs.
Only
onrareoccasions
didtheAbbasidsnothaveto
buy
theslaves
they
needed; in Hrfln
ar-Rashid’s time,
100 and
1,000slavescameaskhartj(general
taxorland
tax)
fromGilan,
aswellas
1,000
and
possibly
4,000Turksfrom
Khurasan.
29
KhumsinthefirstAbbasidperiod
was
apparentlyfigurative,
a
kindoftribute,
3
andonnooccasion
diditincludeslaves.
A1-Mans.flr
madeunprecedented
efforts to
purchase
slaves
andmawlas:
27.In
125/743:T,2:1765.In128/746:UH,3:185.
- havenot
beenabletoconfirmAmeerAli’sstatementthat"Mofiwiyah
was
the
firstMussulman
sovereign
whointroducedintothe
Muhammedanworldthe
practice
of
acquiring
slaves
bypurchase"
(quoted
inR.Roberts,TheSocialLaws
of
the
Qorgn
[London,1925],p.54,
n.
3).
- 100 fromGilan:
Jah,p.
286.1,000
fromGilan:
Spuler,p.
469,
referring
to
Va.s.sf
al-.Ha.drat,Kitdb-i
Mustadb-i
Vo4..sdf,
5 vols.
(Bombay,
1269),1:444f.1,000
fromKhurasan:
Jah,p.
283.4,000
TurksfromKhurasan:Hamdi,
p.
9 n.3,
quoting
Ibn
H.
amdfin,2:234
(without
indicating
which
edition).
30.KB,p. 308 andal-Maqdisi,
6:101
give
this
impression
becausetheyrefer
nottospecificbattles
buttocontinuous
processes.