The Mercenary Mediterranean_ Sovereignty, Religion, and Violence in the Medieval Crown of Aragon - Hussein Fancy

a mercenary economy 95

different from the “social death” associated with Atlantic slavery, different

from domestic slavery or slavery in the service of great state enterprises.^149

Strangers to the Islamic heartlands and cut off from their lineages, these

men nevertheless celebrated their servile status as a sign of privilege in the

‘Abbāsid context. Their servitude was understood as a form of clientage

(walā’), of obedience and loyalty to the ‘Abbāsid caliphs, whom they pro-

tected against internal and external threats.^150 Indeed, these slave soldiers

depended upon and reflected the power of the ‘Abbāsid caliphs. They were

a simultaneously powerful and vulnerable figure.

Although the origins and nature of Islamic military slavery remain

under dispute, the strongest influences for this idea of servitude appear

to have been the pre- Islamic Turkic and Iranian royal guards.^151 For ex-

ample, the imperial guardsmen of the Sāsānid shahs were known as the

bandagān, meaning “bondsmen” or “slaves.”^152 The bandagān wore a dis-

tinctive dress — earrings or belts that symbolized servitude. They received

certificates of manumission (āzād nāma) as a reward for extraordinary

service. But critically, they were not slaves. Instead, as Peter Golden has

argued, in this case an ideal of “political dependence was expressed in the

vocabulary of slavery.”^153 This background to the Islamic tradition of mili-

tary slavery, in which slavery was symbol more than reality, underscores

again the fact that the performative value of military slaves to imperial

authority was as central as if not more so than their military function.^154

The ‘Abbāsids not only adapted this tradition of military service but

also expanded it dramatically, making it a central feature of Islamic ruler-

ship until the nineteenth century. For instance, in Khurasān, a region that

now covers eastern Iran as well as parts of Central Asia and Afghani-

stan, the Samānids ( 819 – 999 ) and their successors, the Ghaznawids ( 977 –

1186 ) and Seljuqs ( 1037 – 1194 ), each employed Turkic military slaves.

The Ayyūbids ( 1171 – 1250 ) also relied upon military slaves, who eventu-

ally established their own political authority in the form of the Mamlūk

Sultanate in Egypt ( 1250 – 1517 ).^155 Finally, the Ottomans maintained this

practice into the modern period. As Yaacov Lev has recently contended,

scholars have insufficiently examined the use of military slaves in North

Africa as an extension of this phenomenon.^156 North African rulers did

not rely upon Turkic slaves, who lay at a distance, but rather European

and black slaves (saqāliba and ‘abīd), who lay closer at hand.^157 The Aghla-

bids ( 800 – 909 ), Ṭūlūnids ( 868 – 905 ), Ikhshīdids ( 935 – 969 ), and Fāṭimids

( 909 – 1171 ) all employed black African slaves.^158 The Ibāḍī imām Aflaḥ b.

‘Abd al- Wahhāb (r. 832 – 872 ) had a royal guard composed of Christians.^159