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

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.

28. 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).

29. 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.