The Transformation of Arabian Agriculture
Chapter 5: Arabian Agricultural Slavery in the Longue Durée
1. Chase F. Robinson, Islamic Historiography (New York: Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 2003), 124; and Trabelsi, “L’esclavage domanial,” 307.
2. ‘Uthman Ibn Bishr an-Najdi, ‘Unwān al-majd fī Tārīkh Najd [The His-tory of Najd] (Al-Riyadh, SA: Daar al-Habeeb, 1999); Husain Ibn Ghannam, Tarīkh Najd [The History of Najd], ed. Nāṣir al-Dīn Asad (Al-Riyadh, SA: ‘Abd al-’Aziz ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Shaykh, 1982); and Anonymous, Kitab
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lam‘ al-shihāb fī sīrat Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, ed. Ahmad Mustafa Abu-Hakima (Beirut: Dar al-Thaqafah, 1967).
3. al-Muqaddasi, Knowledge of the Regions, 67–103.
4. Yāqūt, Kitāb mu’jam al-buldān.
5. Muhammad Ibn al-Tayyib al-Sharaqī, The Travels of Ibn al-Ṭayyib: The Forgotten Journey of an Eighteenth Century Traveller to the Ḥijāz, trans. El Mustapha Lahlali, Salah Al-Dihan, and Wafa Abu Hatab (New York: I. B. Tau-ris, 2010), 102.
6. Ibid., 114.
7. Khusraw, Book of Travels, 112. Note that Khusraw’s “Zanzibaris” were most likely East African or Sudan slaves of sub-Saharan Africa rather than slaves from Zanzibar proper: see Popovic, Revolt of African Slaves, 20; and Tal-hami, “Zanj Rebellion Reconsidered,” 461.
8. A. Gelpi, “Agriculture, Malaria, and Human Evolution: A Study of Genetic Polymorphisms in the Saudi Oasis Population,” Saudi Medical Journal 4, no. 3 (July 1983): 234.
9. Ronnie Ellenblum, The Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean: Climate Change and the Decline of the East, 950–1072 (New York: Cambridge Univer-sity Press, 2012), 214.
10. Sam White, The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011); White, “The Little Ice Age Crisis of the Ottoman Empire: A Conjuncture in Middle East Environ-mental History,” in Mikhail, Water on Sand, 71–90; and Alan Mikhail, Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History (New York: Cam-bridge University Press, 2011).
11. See for example Juris Zarins, “Environmental Disruption and Human Response: An Archaeological-Historical Example from South Arabia,” in Envi-ronmental Disaster and the Archeology of Human Response, ed. Garth Bawden and Richard M. Reycraft (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, 2000), 35–49; Jean-François Berger et al., “Rivers of the Hadramawt Watershed (Yemen) during the Holocene: Clues of Late Func-tioning,” Quaternary International 266 (2012): 142–61; Dominik Fleitmann et al., “Palaeoclimatic Interpretation of High-Resolution Oxygen Isotope Profiles Derived from Annually Laminated Speleothems from Southern Oman,” Quater-nary Science Reviews 23 (2004): 935–45; Markus Fuchs and Andreas Buerkert,
“A 20 ka Sediment Record from the Hajar Mountain Range in N-Oman, and Its Implication for Detecting Arid-Humid Periods on the Southeastern Arabian Peninsula,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters 265 (2008): 546–58; B. Urban and A. Buerkert, “Palaeoecological Analysis of a Late Quaternary Sediment Profile in Northern Oman,” Journal of Arid Environments 73 (2009): 296–305; and G.
W. Preston et al., “From Nomadic Herder-hunters to Sedentary Farmers: The Relationship between Climate Change and Ancient Subsistence Strategies in South-Eastern Arabia,” Journal of Arid Environments 86 (2012): 122–30.
Notes to Pages 125–128
12. See Brian Fagan, The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300–
1850 (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 51–52.
13. Patrick Manning, Slavery and African Life: Occidental, Oriental, and African Slave Trades (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 83.
14. Edward A. Alpers, “The African Diaspora in the Northwestern Indian Ocean: Reconsideration of an Old Problem, New Directions for Research,” Com-parative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 17, no. 2 (1997): 63.
15. These statistics do not include slaves who were carried through the Indian Ocean on European ships, a traffic that became quite considerable from 1700–1850: see Richard B. Allen, “Satisfying the ‘Want for Labouring People’:
European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean, 1500–1850,” Journal of World History 21, no. 1 (March 2010): 68.
16. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, 26.
17. Popovic, Revolt of African Slaves, 24.
18. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, 72–73.
19. Cooper, Plantation Slavery, 126. This famine may have been the same as the “Evil Days” famine of Ethiopian History, in which up to a third of the Ethiopian population is said to have died; see Alex de Waal, Evil Days: 30 Years of War and Famine in Ethiopia (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1991), 29–30.
20. Consul Jago to the Marquis of Salisbury, London, July 9, 1887, in Bur-dett, Slave Trade into Arabia, 4:256.
21. Gordon, Slavery in the Arab World, 181.
22. Cuno, “African Slaves,” 81.
22. Ibid., 89, 96.
24. Cooper, Plantation Slavery, 56–61. Similar statistics are given by Sheriff, Slaves, Spices, and Ivory in Zanzibar, 59–60.
25. Janet J. Ewald, “Crossers of the Sea: Slaves, Freedmen, and other Migrants in the Northwestern Indian Ocean c. 1750–1914,” American Histori-cal Review 105, no. 1 (February 2000): 77.
26. Cooper, Plantation Slavery, 222.
27. Ibid., 228, 216.
28. Ibid., 242–52.
29. Although the sex ratio of slaves imported for agriculture vs. other pro-fessions in the Arab word has not been systematically studied, Cuno (“African Slaves,” 83) found that 71–85 percent of slaves in rural Egyptian villages were male, which stands in direct contrast with slave ownership in cities and towns, where the majority were female.
30. The issue of relative demographic trends within desert and oasis envi-ronments has not been extensively studied, but J. R. Wellsted argued, sensibly, that Arabian oasis environments generally had a net annual population loss, since the oasis laborers are “less healthy than the hardy inhabitants of the Des-ert.” As a result, “in order to supply these deficiencies, a regular progressive migration [to the oases environments] must be kept up, or when it fails . . .
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large tracks of cultivated lands become abandoned.” See Wellsted, Travels in Arabia, 1:363–64.
31. Sheriff, “Slave Mode of Production,” 161. I should note that I am making use of Sheriff’s broader analytical framework rather than his specific conclu-sions, which relate to slavery on the East African coast rather than the Arabian Peninsula.
32. Werner Ende, “The Nakhāwila, a Shiite Community in Medina Past and Present,” Die Welt des Islams 37, no. 3 (November 1997): 303, 310.
33. Zakaria M. Al Hawsawi and Ghousia A. Ismail, “Stroke Among Sickle-Cell Disease Patients in Madina Maternity and Children’s Hospital,”
Annals of Saudi Medicine 18, no. 5 (1998): 472.
34. Ende, “Nakhāwila, a Shiite Community,” 310.
35. A. Gelpi and M. C. King, “Association of Duffy Blood Groups with the Sickle Cell Trait,” Human Genetics 32 (1976): 66.
36. Stephen H. Embury et al., “Concurrent Sickle-Cell Anemia and α-thalassemia: Effect on Pathological Properties of Sickle Erythrocytes,” Jour-nal of Clinical Investigation 73 (January 1984): 121.
37. W. G. Palgrave, Personal Narrative of a Year’s Journey Through Central and Eastern Arabia (1862–63) (London: Macmillan and Co., 1868), 271–72.
38. H. St. J. B. Philby, “African Contacts with Arabia,” Journal of the Royal African Society 38, no. 150 (January 1939): 41. For geographic distribution of the Bani Khadhir, see Gazetteer of Arabia, 2:1019.
39. A. M. H. Sheriff, “The Slave Trade and Its Fallout in the Persian Gulf,” in Campbell, Abolition and Its Aftermath, 110.
40. Al-‘Ula is also spelled al-‘Ali; the Gazetteer of Arabia (1:149) notes that the name is written al-‘Ula but it is never so pronounced, but always as “al-Ali.”
Doughty called the town “el-Ally,” and Huber called it “El ‘Alâ.”
41. Huber, “Voyage dans L’Arabie Centrale,” 517–18.
42. Ibid., 518.
43. Ibid.
44. Wallin, Travels in Arabia, 115.
45. Khaled K. Abu-Amero et al., “Saudi Arabian Y-Chromosome Diversity and Its Relationship with Nearby Regions,” BMC Genetics 10, no. 59 (Septem-ber 2009): 2.
46. Martin Richards et al., “Extensive Female-Mediated Gene Flow from Sub-Saharan Africa into Near Eastern Arab Populations,” American Journal of Human Genetics 72 (2003): 1062.
47. G. W. Bowersock, The Throne of Adulis: Red Sea Wars on the Eve of Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 15, 92.
48. Philby, “African Contacts with Arabia,” 41.
49. Richards et. al., “Female-Mediated Gene Flow,” 1062.
50. Abu-Amero et al., “Saudi Arabian Y-Chromosome Diversity,” 7.
51. Reilly, “Revisiting Consanguineous Marriage,” 393–94.
Notes to Pages 134–142
52. Major Wilson, Resident of Bushire, “Comprehensive Survey of the Extent and Nation of the Slave trade in Trucial Oman in 1831,” in Burdett, Slave Trade into Arabia, 1:40–42. Wilson’s “crowns” are undoubtedly the Maria Theresa thalers, the ubiquitous currency of the Arabian Peninsula from the eighteenth century onwards.
53. Letter from the Political Department, Kharrack, to J. Willoughby, Sec-retary to the Government of Bombay, 4 March 1842, in Burdett, Slave Trade into Arabia, 1:305–6.
54. Letter from Captain Davies, Political Agent of Aden, to J. Willoughby, Secretary to the Government of Bombay, 3 July 1841, in Burdett, Slave Trade into Arabia, 1:292.
55. Richard B. Allen, “Suppressing a Nefarious Traffic: Britain and the Abo-lition of Slave Trading in India and the Western Indian Ocean, 1770–1830,”
William and Mary Quarterly 66, no. 4 (October 2009): 893.
56. Ochsenwald, “Slave Trade Controversy,” 119.
57. Dr. Schimper of Adwa, “On the Red Sea slave trade,” 1868, in The Slave Trade into Arabia: 1820–1973, ed. A. L. P. Burdett (Slough, UK: Archive Edi-tions, 2006), 2:390.
58. Consul Zohrab to the Marquis of Salisbury, May 14, 1879, in Burdett, Slave Trade into Arabia, 3:454.
59. Consul Zohrab to the Marquis of Salisbury, May 3, 1879, in Burdett, Slave Trade into Arabia, 3:459–60.
60. Consul J. Zohrab, Jedda to the Earl of Granville, 9 December 1880, in Burdett, Slave Trade into Arabia, 3:587–88.
61. Henri Médard, “La plus ancienne et la plus récente des traites: pan-orama de la traite de l’esclavage en Afrique orientale et dans l’océan Indien,” in Traites et esclavages en Afrique oriental et dans l’océan Indien, ed. Henri Médard et al. (Paris: Karthala et Ciresc, 2013): 115.
62. R. W. Beachey, The Slave of Eastern Arabia (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1976), 119. For details on the British Navy’s East African slave trade suppression see also Christopher Lloyd, The Navy and the Slave Trade:
The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1949); and Raymond C. Howell, The Royal Navy and the Slave Trade (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987).
63. Howell, Royal Navy and the Slave Trade, 100.
64. Martin A. Klien, “The Emancipation of Slaves in the Indian Ocean,” in Campbell, Abolition and Its Aftermath, 200–1.
65. Miers, “Antislavery Game,” 198. See also Miers, Slavery in the Twentieth Century, 18–24. It should be noted that European control over the African coast and interior was uneven, however, and in some areas poor surveillance meant that slaves were still being smuggled into Arabia in large numbers into the twentieth century. Collett Dubois, in fact, argues that the slave trade in the French colony of Tadjoura only ended in 1936; see Colette Dubois, “Un traite
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tardive en mer Rouge méridionale: la route des esclaves du golf de Tadjoura (1880–1936),” in Médard et al., Traites et esclavages, 221.
66. Reilly, “A Well-Intentioned Failure.”
67. Ryan, “Memorandum on Slavery,” 670.
68. Timothy Derek Fernyhough, Serfs, Slaves, and Shifta; Modes of Produc-tion and Resistance in Pre-RevoluProduc-tionary Ethiopia (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia:
Shama Books, 2010), 120–21, 157–59. See also Richard Pankhurst, “The Ethio-pian Slave Trade in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: A Statistical Inquiry,” Journal of Semitic Studies 9, no. 1 (1964): 220–28.
69. Mr. Jakins, Jeddah, to the Foreign Secretary Sir Austin Chamberlain, June 8, 1929, in Burdett, Slave Trade into Arabia, 6:302.
70. Ryan, “Memorandum on Slavery,” 674.
71. Miers, Slavery in the Twentieth Century, 309.
72. Held, Middle East Patterns, 421.
73. Ibid.
74. Ibid.
75. Altorki and Cole, Arabian Oasis City, 176–77.
76. Daniel van der Meulen, The Wells of Ibn Sa’ud (New York: Kegan Paul International, 2000), 221.
77. Ibid., 169, 127.
78. Katakura, Bedouin Village, 55.
79. Kurpershoek, Arabia of the Bedouins, 248.
80. Daggy, “Malaria in Oases,” 272.
81. Ibid., 276.
82. Chad H. Parker, “Controlling Man-Made Malaria: Corporate Moderni-sation and the Arabian American Oil Company’s Malaria Control Program in Saudi Arabia, 1947–1956,” Cold War History 12, no. 3 (August 2012): 485.
83. Gwyn Rowley, “Irrigation Systems in the Holy Land: A Comment,”
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 11, no. 3 (1986): 356–59.
84. Ibid., 486.
85. Jaffar A. Al-Tawfiq, “Epidemiology of Travel-related Malaria in a Non-malarious Area in Saudi Arabia,” Saudi Medical Journal 27, no. 1 (2006):
86.86. May Meleigy, “Arabian Peninsula States Launch Plan to Eradicate Malaria.” British Medical Journal 334 (2007): 117.
Notes to Pages 145–151
‘Abid (دبع) A slave. Also used more generally to refer to anyone of Afri-can descent.
Ard Also known as the scratch plow, an ard is a light plow that cuts and aerates but does not turn over the soil.
Bustan (ناتسب) Literally “garden,” in the Arabian Peninsula this referred to the practice of growing secondary crops under the shade of a palm orchard.
Deera (ةريد) A Bedouin tribe’s customary pasture grounds, through which the tribe cycles during its seasonal migrations. The world derives from the verb dara, meaning rotation or cycle.
Fellaheen (نيحلاف) Plural; peasants, farmers, or agricultural workers.
Galla A member of a commonly enslaved ethnic group found in southern and eastern Abyssinia. In common use, Galla could also refer to all slaves of Abyssinian origins.
Ghayl (ليغ) A natural flowing spring.
Habash (شبح) An Abyssinian or Ethiopian.
Harrah or Harrat (ةرح) A lava field, consisting mainly of naked basalt rock. By Arabic grammatical convention, harrah is generally spelled “harrat” when used as a modifying adjective, as in
“Harrat Khaybar.”
182 | Glossary
Hadr (رضح) An adjective used for settled, as opposed to Bedouin, populations.
Jalib (بلج) A draw well, worked with animal power, consisting of a well, a wooden frame, wheels or pulleys, and a ramp or trench for the draft animals. Also called a zijrah.
Jinn (نجلا) Spirits, often harmful or capricious. Singular is jinee.
Khayabira Descendants of the Jews in Khaybar.
Khaybara Collective name given to the African farmers of Khaybar.
Mawla (ىلوم) Literally an inheritor, but generally used as a term for a manumitted slave.
Muwallad (نودلوم) Generally used to describe a slave born into captivity, though the term can also be applied to offspring of mixed racial backgrounds. Plural is muwalladeen.
Qanat (ةانق) An artificial spring, consisting of a horizontal underground channel connected to the surface by a chain of vertical wells.
Also called fogarra or falaj.
Sadaa (ةداس) “Descendants of the Prophet,” nobles. Singular is sayyid.
Sayl (لاس) A flash flood.
Sharif (فيرش) “High” or “noble.” Amongst Bedouins, sharif refers to the
“noble” camel-breeding tribes. The term was also used for descendants of the Prophet. Plural is ashraf.
Sudan (نادوس) A sub-Saharan African. The term derives from the Arabic term aswad, meaning black or dark-colored.
Takruri A sub-Saharan African of West African descent. Sometimes spelled “Takrusi” or “Takruzi” in the sources.
Wadi (يداو) A seasonal watercourse or flood channel.
Zanj (جنز) Technically Africans from Zanzibar in East Africa, also used more generally to refer to people of African descent.
Zar A healing ritual involving the exorcism of evil spirits, imported into the Arabian Peninsula from Africa.