Mısır Fātimī Devletinde Siyahi Hadımlar, Köle Askerler ve Cariyeler

Year 2023, Issue: 50, 75 - 91, 31.07.2023

Muhammed Seyyit Şen

https://doi.org/10.26570/isad.1284776

Abstract

Black Eunuchs, Slave Soldiers and Concubines in Fātimid Egypt

Abstract

Although slavery was a common practice in medieval Muslim societies, this subject had not been studied enough. Yet, scholars recently have begun to focus on the subject of slavery in the Muslim world, and produced new academic monographs about it. As a part of this fashion, in my paper, I will try to answer how slavery was perceived and practiced in Fātimid Egypt. Particularly, I will argue that the position of African black slaves in the Fātimid Empire goes beyond the simple dichotomy of free and un-free and of black slaves and white masters. Also, I will argue that even though African black slaves were subordinated and marginalized in the Fātimid Empire, they created new opportunities for themselves and advanced into the highest positions in the Fātimid state structure. Besides, I will argue that African black slaves (eunuchs, commanders, and concubines) were not a marginal group but a dominant one that played important roles in the Fātimid political life throughout its history.

Keywords

The Middle Ages, Slavery, Muslim Societies, the Fātimids, Egypt

Mısır Fātimī Devletinde Siyahi Hadımlar, Köle Askerler ve Cariyeler

Abstract

Kölelik Ortaçağ Müslüman toplumlarında yaygın bir uygulama olmasına rağmen, İslam Dünyasındaki kölelik konusu uzun zamandır çalışılmamıştır. Fakat son zamanlarda, bu alanda yeni akademik çalışmalar ortaya konmaya başlanmıştır. Bu tarz çalışmaların bir parçası olarak, aşağıdaki makalede Mısır Fātımī İmparatorluğunda köleliğe nasıl bakıldığı ve köleliğin nasıl uygulandığı gibi konulara odaklanılacaktır. Yine, Afrikalı siyahi kölelerin Fātımīlerdeki konumlarından yola çıkılarak, Ortaçağ İslam Dünyasındaki kölelik uygulamasının özgür ile özgür olmayan veya siyahi köleler ile beyaz efendiler gibi iki karşıt gruba indirgenerek değerlendirilmesinin doğru bir yaklaşım tarzı olup olmadığı tartışılacaktır. Yanı sıra, Fātimīlerdeki siyahi kölelerin özgürlüklerini kaybetmiş olmalarına ve zor hayat şartlarına maruz kalmalarına rağmen kendilerine nasıl yeni fırsatlar yarattıklarının ve Fātımī devlet yapısında en yüksek mevkilere kadar nasıl yükseldiklerinin değerlendirilmesi yapılacaktır. Ayrıca, Fātimīlerdeki Afrikalı siyahi kölelerin (hadımlar, komutanlar ve cariyeler olarak) marjinal bir grup olmaktan ziyade, tarih boyunca Fātımī siyasi hayatını derinden etkileyen bir gruba nasıl dönüştüklerine işaret edilecektir. Böylelikle, Fātimīlerdeki siyahi kölelerin konumlarından hareketle Ortaçağ İslam Dünyasındaki kölelik uygulamasına ışık tutulmaya çalışılacaktır.

Keywords

Ortaçağ, Kölelik, Müslüman Topluluklar, Fātimīler, Mısır

References

• Abū Ubayd Allāh al-Bakrī. Description de l’Afrique Septentrionale. ed. William Mac Guckin Slane. Alger: Imprimerie du Gouvernement, 1857.
• Benjamin of Tudela. The Itinerary of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela. trans. and ed. A. Asher. II vols. New York: Hakesheth Publishing Corporation, 1925.
• al-Maqrīzī. Itti‘āz al-Hunafā bi-Akhbār al-A’immah al-Fātimiyyīn al-Khulafā. ed. Jamāl al-Dīn al- Shayyāl. III. vols. Cairo: Dār al-Fikr al-Arabī, 1996.
• Nāsir Khusraw. Safar-Nāmah-i Nāsir Khusraw Alavī. Tahran: Intishārāt-i Kitābfurūshī-i Mahmūdī, 1923.
• Ibn Muyassar. al-Muntaqā min Akhbār Misr. ed. Ayman Fu‘ād Sayyid. Cairo: al-Ma’had al- Ilmī al- Faransī li al-Āthār al-Sharqiyya, 1981.
• Ibn al-Sīrafī. al-Ishāra ilā man Nāla al-Wizāra. ed. Abd Allāh Mukhlis. Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’archéologie Orientale du Caire. XXV (1924): 49-112.
• al-Qalqashandī. Selections from Ṣubḥ al-A’shā by al-Qalqashandī, Clerk of the Mamluk Court: Egypt: “Seats of Government” and “Regulations of the Kingdom,” from Early Islam to the Mamluks. ed. Heba El-Toudy and Tarek Galal Abdelhamid. London and New York: Routledge, 2017.
• Yahyā b. Sa‘īd al-Antāqī. Tārīkh al-Antāqī. ed. Omar Abd al-Salām Tadmurī. Tripoli; Lebanon: Jurus Press, 1990.
• Ayalon, David. Gunpowder and Firearms in the Mamluk Kingdom: A Challenge to a Medieval Society. London: Vallentine, Mitchell, 1956.
• Baadj, Amar Salem. Saladin, the Almohads and the Banu Ghaniya: The Contest for North Africa (12th and 13th Centuries). Leiden: Brill, 2015.
• Bacharach, Jere L. “African Military Slaves in the Medieval Middle East: The Cases of Iraq (869- 955) and Egypt (868-1171)”. International Journal of Middle East Studies. 13/4 (1981): 471- 495.
• Barker, Hannah. That Most Precious Merchandise the Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves 1260- 1500. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019.
• Bashīr Ibrāhīm Bashīr. “New Light on Nubian-Fātimid Relations”. Arabica XXII (1975): 15-24.
• Brett, Michael. The Fātimid Empire. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017.
• ....... , “Ifriqiya as a Market for Saharan Trade from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century A.D.”. The Journal of African History. 10/3 (1969): 347-364.
• Calderini, Simonetta. “Sayyida Rasad: A Royal Woman as “Gateway to Power” during the Fātimid Era”. Egypt and Syria in the Fātimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras V. ed. U. Vermeulen and K. D’Hulster. Leuven: The University of Leuven, 2007. 27–36.
• Canard, M. “Fātimides”. in Encyclopedia of Islam (Fr.). 2nd ed. II. 870-882.
• Cortese, Delia and Simonetta Calderini. Women and the Fātimids in the World of Islam. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006.
• El-Azhari, Taef. Queens, Eunuchs and Concubines in Islamic History, 661–1257. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019.
• El Hamel, Chouki. Black Morocco: A History of Slavery, Race, and Islam. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
• Erdem, Y. Hakan. Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and Its Demise, 1800–1909. London: Palgrave Macmillan Press, 1996.
• Fay, Mary Ann. “Introduction: What Is Islamic About Slavery in the Islamic World?”.
• ....... Slavery in the Islamic World: Its Characteristics and Commonality. ed. Mary Ann Fay. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. 1-5.
• Frenkel, Miriam. “The Slave Trade in Geniza Society”. Slavery and the Slave Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean (c. 1000–1500 CE). ed. Reuven Amitai and Christoph Cluse. Turnhout: Brepols, 2017. 143–61.
• Goitein, S. D. “Slaves and Slave Girls”. A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Genizah. 6 vols. Los Angeles: UCLA Press, 1967–93. I. 130–47.
• ....... , “Slaves and Slave Girls in the Cairo Geniza Records”. Arabica 9 (1962): 1–20.
• Gordon, Murray. Slavery in the Arab World. New York: New Amsterdam Books, 1989.
• Gratien, C. “Race, Slavery and Islamic Law in the Early Modern Atlantic: Ahmad Baba al-Tinbukti’s Treatise on Enslavement”. Journal of North African Studies. 18 (2013): 454-468.
• Lane-Poole, Stanley. Saladin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1898.
• Lev, Yaacov. Saladin in Egypt. Leiden: Brill, 1999.
• ....... . “Army, Regime, and Society in Fātimid Egypt, 358-487/968-1094”. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 19/3 (1987): 337-365.
• ....... . War and Society in the Eastern Mediterranean: 7th - 15th Centuries. Leiden: Brill, 1997.
• ....... . State and Society in Fātimid Egypt. Leiden: Brill, 1991.
• Lewis, Bernard. Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
• Perry, Craig. “The Daily Life of Slaves and the Global Reach of Slavery in Medieval Egypt, 969– 1250 CE”. Ph.D diss., Emory University, 2014.
• Leslie. Peirce. A Spectrum of Unfreedom: Captives and Slaves in the Ottoman Empire. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2021.
• Pipes, Daniel. Slave Soldiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Military System. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981.
• Spaulding, Jay. “Medieval Christian Nubia and the Islamic World: A Reconsideration of the Baqt Treaty”. The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 28/3 (1995): 577-594.
• Taqqūsh, M. Suhayl. Tārīkh al-Fātimiyyīn fī Shimāli Ifrīqiyya wa Misr wa Bilād al-Shām. Beirut: Dār al-Nafāis, 2007.
• Tezcan, Baki. “Dispelling the Darkness: The Politics of ‘Race’ in the Early Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Empire in the Light of the Life and Work of Mullah Ali”. Identity and Identity Formation in the Ottoman World: A Volume of Essays in Honor of Norman Itzkowitz. ed. Baki Tezcan, Karl K. Barbir and Norman Itzkowitz. Madison,Wisconsin: Center for Turkish Studies at the University of Wisconsin, 2007. 73-95.
• ....... . “Dispelling the Darkness of the Halberdier’s Treatise: A Comparative Look at Black Africans in Ottoman Letters in the Early Modern Period”. Disliking Others: Loathing, Hostility and Distrust in Premodern Ottoman Lands. ed. Hakan T. Karateke, H. Erdem Çıpa and Helga Anetshofer. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2018. 43-74.
• Toledano, Ehud R. As If Silent and Absent / Bonds of Enslavement in the Islamic Middle East. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
• Walker, Paul E. “The Fātimid Caliph al-ʿAziz and His Daughter Sitt al-Mulk: A Case of Delayed but Eventual Succession to Rule by a Woman”. Journal of Persianate Studies. 4 (2011): 30-44. Webb, Simon. The Forgotten Slave Trade the White European Slaves of Islam. Havertown: Pen & Sword Books Limited, 2021.
• Wright, John. The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade. London: Routledge, 2010.
• Zilfi, Madeline C. Women and Slavery in Late Ottoman Empire: The Design of Difference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.