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

4 TheIslamicateContext

of

militaryslavery

asawhole.To

explore

its

myriad

variations

and

developments

wouldobstructavisionofthecoreinstitution;

thus

part

Iremovesslavesoldiersfromall

temporaland

spatial

contexts.Theresult,anideal

type,highlights

central

traitsthat

variationswouldotherwiseobscure.

Second,not

everythinggoes

backtoIslam.Earlier

European

scholarstendedtoattribute

anything

inexplicable

toIslam.The

exotic,regrettable,

or

merelypuzzling(harems,

eunuchs,"fa-

talism")

allwere

explained

inthis

way;religionprovided

the

key

toan

unchangingtypology.Again,

timeand

spacedropped

out;

the enormous

diversity

ofMuslim lifeacross

many

erasand

landsmatteredlessthanthebeliefinAllah.Of
course,

suchex-

planationsusuallyprovedillusory,

formostoccurrencesinMus-

lim
history

weretheresultsof

specifictemporal

or

spatial

fea-

tures
(a

mountain

range,

an

advancein

militarytechnology,

a

newtrade
route,

oranevil

king),

notofIslam.

I

happilyrecognize

thisfact.

My

interestliesnotin

tieing

ev-

erything

toIslam,butin

establishing

thatitdoes

explain

someas-

pects

oflife

among

Muslims.Certainfeaturesofthe

political

and

militaryorder--militaryslavery

in

particular--can

be under-

stood
only

inthe

light

ofIslam;the

attempt

to

explain

it

as,say,

a

fourteenth-century

oranIranian

phenomenon

would leadto

profoundly
wrong

conclusions.