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Welcome to the TraSIS Project

Welcome to the TraSIS Project

This blog aims to acquaint readers with the research and activities of the Swiss National Science Foundation-funded project (grant number 208124) TraSIS: Trajectories of Slavery in Islamicate Societies, based at the University of Bern. As part of our project output, we aim to publish one blog post every month that explores a primary source related to the theme of slavery and coerced labour in Islamic law, broadly conceived. The sources discussed will vary in terms of temporal, geographic, linguistic and sectarian…

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Can People Sell their Children into Slavery? Cultural Relativism vs. Universality in Islamic Jurisprudence

Can People Sell their Children into Slavery? Cultural Relativism vs. Universality in Islamic Jurisprudence

Questions Raised in South Asia: Selling One’s Children and the Shariah For millennia, one of the ways people entered slavery was as children sold by their families. This seems unthinkable to many today. As the sociologist Georg Simmel (d. 1336/1918) observed, however, our valuation of goods like freedom only makes sense in a context of minimum safety and subsistence. Parents who lacked such basic needs might sell their children if they were threatened, if their family were starving, or if…

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The Blurred Boundaries of Slavery and Freedom in the Early Modern Crimean Khanate

The Blurred Boundaries of Slavery and Freedom in the Early Modern Crimean Khanate

Introduction The Crimean Khanate was a semi-autonomous polity situated in the Crimean Peninsula, the last surviving successor state of the Mongol Golden Horde. It flourished from the mid-15th century to the late 18th century as a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, but occasionally enjoyed brief periods of independence, projecting its power and influence over neighbouring territories. The Crimean Khanate organised slaving expeditions against the non-Muslim populations to the north, leading to the enslavement and sale of thousands of men,…

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From Muslim Slave to Catholic Surgeon: A Case of Manumission in the Galleys of Spain

From Muslim Slave to Catholic Surgeon: A Case of Manumission in the Galleys of Spain

Introduction In the Early Modern period, the Mediterranean was a frontier zone between mutually hostile Christian and Muslim powers. This frontier witnessed trade and diplomatic exchange as well as conflict and violence. In this conflict, capturing and enslaving the “infidel” enemy was regarded as entirely legitimate,[1] and provided the Hispanic Monarchy with the opportunity to replenish its rowing galley benches with newly enslaved enemies. Galley squadrons relied on coerced labour. In the galleys of Spain, in particular, rowing crews were…

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TraSIS team: Reflections on the 29th DAVO Congress

TraSIS team: Reflections on the 29th DAVO Congress

The TraSIS team made their way to the charming city of Vienna last week for the 29th annual congress of the DAVO (German Middle East Studies Association), held in conjunction with the fourth annual Turkologentag (European Convention on Turkic, Ottoman and Turkish Studies). Some 800 delegates were in attendance. The congress featured a fascinating mix of papers by Middle Easternists and Turkologists, with a compelling keynote by Professor Edhem Eldem that addressed the progress of the last few decades—as well as the very…

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What Can We Learn about Slavery from a Manual for Judges and Notaries?

What Can We Learn about Slavery from a Manual for Judges and Notaries?

Introduction This month’s blog post focuses on the relevance that shurūṭ manuals written for judges and notaries have for understanding practices related to slavery, and legal practices more generally. Shurūṭ works, or “model shurūṭ works,” as Wael Hallaq puts it in his seminal article on the topic, are works that reproduce standardised legal contracts or judicial rulings in a range of domains for easy use by legal professionals. The need for this genre arose partly because persons with inadequate knowledge…

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Unfortunately, it Ended: Slavery in Islamic Law and Muslim Societies Conference in Murtensee

Unfortunately, it Ended: Slavery in Islamic Law and Muslim Societies Conference in Murtensee

The TraSIS team organised its first project conference last week, in collaboration with the BCDSS (Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies). We were honoured to welcome scholars from more than ten countries to discuss questions related to slavery in Islamic law and Muslim societies. The conference, which took place on the shores of Lake Murten, featured a keynote lecture by Prof. Christian Müller (CNRS, Paris) on ‘New Sources for Muslim Social History? Premodern Legal Documents from a Comparative Perspective’. Over…

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On the “Guile” of Slaves: Thirteen Recommendations of Samawʾal b. Yaḥyā al-Maghribī (d. 570/1175) on the Purchase of Male and Female Slaves

On the “Guile” of Slaves: Thirteen Recommendations of Samawʾal b. Yaḥyā al-Maghribī (d. 570/1175) on the Purchase of Male and Female Slaves

Introduction There is a large corpus of premodern Arabic literature dealing with sexual matters, from a variety of perspectives.[1] The Nuzhat al-aṣḥāb fī muʿāsharat al-aḥbāb (A Friends’ Jaunt in Coitus Between Lovers, hereafter Nuzhat) of Samawʾal b. Yaḥyā al-Maghribī is an interesting example of such a text. The author, a well-known physician of the 6th/12th century, discusses eroticism with particular attention to its medical aspects. The first part of the text deals extensively with ghilmān (young boys) and jawārī (maidens). Both terms were sometimes used in premodern literature…

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The Sins of the Father: Theodicy, Salvation and the Enslavement of Children in Some Kalām Texts

The Sins of the Father: Theodicy, Salvation and the Enslavement of Children in Some Kalām Texts

Introduction In early kalām (Islamic theology), juristic debates on the lawfulness of killing children feature alongside discussions of children’s salvation in the Hereafter. It is easy to see how the two points are related: should one distinguish between unbelieving adult males and their offspring in the conduct of war, and if so, do the latter share the otherworldly fate of the former? In a word, are children punished—in this world and the next—for the sins of their fathers? In the second/eighth century,…

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TraSIS PI Prof. Serena Tolino presents at Max Planck Institute

TraSIS PI Prof. Serena Tolino presents at Max Planck Institute

Serena Tolino was invited to give a presentation on May 27, 2023 with the title «Intersectionality Matters: New Perspectives on the Study of Islamic Legal Sources» at the Afternoon Talks on Islamic Law, a series of lectures taking place regularly on Thursdays afternoon at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg. The series is hosted by the Research Group on the Law of Islamic Countries, head by Nadjma Yassari. The talk was introduced and moderated by Shéhérazade Elyazidi.  In her…

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