Slave Soldiers and Islam_ The Genesis of a Military System - Daniel Pipes

36 TheIslamicateContext

OutsideIslamdom

Slaves

occasionallyfought

inan

organizedway

fornon-Muslim

masters;

54

in

roughchronological

order,thisoccurredinMus-

covy,China,

WestAfrica, theWestIndies,theUnitedStates

South,andCameroon.

Muscovy.

In

Muscovy,

slavesrecruited

by

individual

soldiers,

not

by

thecentral

government,fought

in

large

numbers.

55

Nobles

were

obliged

to

bring

retainerstowar;sometimestheseincluded

slaves. One historian estimates that slaves made

up

three-

quarters

ofthe

cavalry

intheMuscovite

army

in

the

1550s.

56

Slavesalsoservedinthe

army

assubstitutesfortheirmasters.

7

They

bore firearms unless

they

were

expert

archers.

58

In

general,

"theslaveswhowere

equipped

forcombatwerebetter

armed,

onthe

average,

thanthe

pomeshchiki

[nobles]themselves.

Thiswas

largely

because

only

thewealthierlordscouldaf-

fordto
bring

slaves,and

theyequipped

their

vassalsbetterthan

the
average

cavalrymen

couldoutfithimself."

59

SomeOttomaninfluence

can

bediscerned

here,

butit

seems

to

haveinfluencedthe

governmentaway

from

militaryslavery.

Inthemid-sixteenth

century,just

astheOttomanslave

army

reachedits
height,

aRussian

militaryexpert

whohad

years

of

experience

withtheTurksrecommended

against

therelianceon

slaves.

Heclaimedthatan

army

of

slaves..,

wasunfitbecauseslaveswere

notbrave

Throughout

thesixteenth

century,

however,slaves

54.Howdoesone

classify

theSardaukarsofsciencefiction?Theyliveona

planetwithArabesquenamesandresemblemilitaryslaves.

F.Herbertwrites

about

them

in

Dune

(NewYork,1965);my

thankstoWilliamFullerforthisref-

erence.

55.

Hellie,

"Muscovite

Slavery,"p.

171.RichardHelliehas

kindly

sharedwith

metheinformationheis

collecting

forhis

forthcomingSlav,r

in

Msco..

56.A.A.Zimin,referredtoon

p.

38 ofHellie,

Enserfm,n.

Inidem,"Musco-

vite

Slavery,"p.142,comestheestimatethatone-sixth

of"Moscow’s

population

abletobeararmsin16:38wereslaves."

57.Hellie,

Enserfment,pp.

48,217,361n.149.

58.Ibid.,

p.

211.

59.

Ibid.,p.220.