Slavery in India

There is evidence of the existence of slavery in India or personal circumstances resembling slavery and bonded-servitude since ancient times. Historical examinations have largely emphasized the intensification or growth of this institution during the period of Muslim control of northern India.

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
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Quotes

A

• Everybody infers that Islam must be free from slavery and caste. Regarding slavery nothing needs to be said. It stands abolished now by law. But while it existed much of its support was derived from Islam and Islamic countries. (228-230)
  • B. R. Ambedkar, Pakistan or The Partition of India (1946)

• This also is remarkable in India, that all Indians are free, and no Indian at all is a slave. In this the Indians agree with the Lacedaemonians. Yet the Lacedaemonians have Helots for slaves, who perform the duties of slaves; but the Indians have no slaves at all, much less is any Indian a slave.
  • Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri, Book VII : Indica, as translated by Edgar Iliff Robson (1929), p. 335

• ...150,000 were carried away (as captives) ; 100,000 were killed.
  • Ashoka's war with Kalinga mentioned in his inscription; See The Civilization of Ancient India and Southeast Asia p. 44; The Vision of the Buddha: Buddhism - The Path to Spiritual Enlightenment p. 58; Asoka by D.R. Bhandarkar & R. G. Bhandarkar, p. 23; The Story of India by Michael Wood

• The slaves added to the growing Muslim population of India.
  • Ashraf, Kunwar Muhammad, Life and Conditions of the People of Hindustan, Calcutta, 1935. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 6

• Thousands of non-Muslim women were captured during the yearly campaigns of Firoz Tughlaq.
  • Afif, Shams Siraj, Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi, Bib. Ind., Calcutta, 1890. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7

B

• There are two trade marts on the land route between Hindustan and Khurasan; one is Kabul, the other, Qandhar... from Hindustan, come every year caravans... bringing slaves (barda) and other commodities, and sell them at great profit...
  • Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur , Baburnama, quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 4

• At (one) time there arrived in Delhi some female infidel captives, ten of whom the Wazir sent to me. I gave one of them to the man who had brought them to me, but he was not satisfied. My companion took three young girls, and I do not know what happened to the rest.
  In India female captives are low-priced because they are dirty and know nothing of the town manners. Even those who are educated can be had at a cheap price ; no one, therefore, stands in need of buying the captive girls.
  • Ibn Battuta quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7 [1]

• I purchased at this price a very beautiful slave girl whose name was Ashura. A friend of mine also bought a young slave named Lulu for two gold coins.
  • Ibn Battutah while in Bengal saying that a pretty kaniz (slave girl) could be had there for one gold dinar (or 10 silver tankahs). Ibn Battuta Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 4 [2]
  • Also translated as: At this rate I purchased a slave girl named 'Ashiirii who was extremely beautiful. And one of my companions bought a good-looking boy of tender age named Lulu for a couple of gold dinars.

• First of all, daughters of Kafir (Hindu) Rajas captured during the course of the year, come and sing and dance. Thereafter they are bestowed upon Amirs and important foreigners. After this daughters of other Kafirs dance and sing… the Sultan gives them to his brothers, relatives, sons of Maliks etc. On the second day the durbar is held in a similar fashion after Asr. Female singers are brought out… the Sultan distributes them among the Mameluke Amirs. On the third day relatives of the Sultan are married and they are given rewards.
  • [Ibn Battuta’s eyewitness account of the Sultan’s arranging the enslaved girls’ marriages with Muslims on a large scale on the occasion of the two Ids] Ibn Battuta Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1990). Indian muslims: Who are they. [3]
  • Different translation: Then enter the musicians, the first batch being the daughters of the infidel rajas — Hindus — captured in war that year. They sing and dance, and the sultan gives them away to the amirs and a'izza. Then come the other daughters of the infidels who sing and dance; and the Sultan gives them away to his brothers, his relations, his brothers-in-law and the maliks' sons. This court is usually held in the afternoon ; and on the following day also it is held at the same time and in the same order when female singers are brought in. They sing and dance and the sultan gives them away to the chief slaves. And on the third day the sultan gets his relatives married, and gifts are made to them. And on the fourth day the male slaves are manumitted ; on the fifth day the female slaves are manumitted and on the sixth day he makes the male slaves marry the female slaves. On the seventh day he gives away alms on a very large scale.

• After this I proceeded to the city of Barwan, in the road to which is a high mountain, covered with snow and exceedingly cold; they call it the Hindu Kush, that is Hindu-slayer, because most of the slaves brought thither from India die on account of the intenseness of the cold.
  • Ibn Battuta, Chapter XIII, Rihla – Khorasan: Ibn Battuta; Samuel Lee (Translator) (2010). The Travels of Ibn Battuta: In the Near East, Asia and Africa. Cosimo (Reprint). pp. 97–98. ISBN 978-1-61640-262-4.; Columbia University

• [The Mughals maintained] “a large army for the purpose of keeping people in subjection… No adequate idea can be conveyed of the sufferings of the people. The cudgel and the whip compel them to incessant labour… their revolt or their flight is only prevented by the presence of a military force.”
  • François Bernier. Travels in the Mogul Empire. Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 4

• The unfortunate peasants who were incapable of discharging the demand of their rapacious lords, were bereft of their children who were carried away as slaves.
  • François Bernier, quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 4

• “At most periods of her history India, though a cultural unit, has been torn by internecine war. In statecraft, her rulers were cunning and unscrupulous. Famine, flood and plague visited her from time to time, and killed millions of her people. Inequality of birth was given religious sanction, and the lot of the humble was generally hard. Yet our overall impression is that in no other part of the ancient world were the relations of man and man, and of man and the state, so fair and humane. In no other early civilisation were slaves so few in number, and in no other ancient lawbook are their rights so well protected as in the Arthasastra. No other ancient lawgiver proclaimed such noble ideals of fair play in battle as did Manu. In all her history of warfare Hindu India has few tales to tell of cities put to the sword or of the massacre of non-combatants…There was sporadic cruelty and oppression no doubt, but, in comparison with conditions in other early cultures, it was mild. To us the most striking feature of ancient Indian civilisation is its humanity.” (pp.8-9)].
  • A.L.Basham in his “The Wonder That Was India” quoted in [4] [This article is a major extract from the article "Sita Ram Goel, memories and ideas" by S. Talageri, written for the Sita Ram Goel Commemoration Volume, entitled "India's Only Communalist", edited by Koenraad Elst, published in 2005.

• Generally, white slaves were worth more than blacks. Popular lore which ascribed to slaves of different origins certain virtues or defects also influenced buyer preferences and, indirectly, prices. Many of these popular attitudes were written up by the eleventh century Eastern Christian physician, Ibn-Butlan, in a slave trader’s vade mecum. Indian women, in his view, do not make good slaves but “are excellent breeders of children.” Their men are reputed to be “good house managers and experts in fine handicrafts” but die at an early age.
  • Ibn-Butlan, quoted from Gordon, M. (1998). Slavery in the Arab World. Blue Ridge Summit: New Amsterdam Books chapter 3. quoting Mez, The Renaissance of Islam, chap. 11.

• In India, Islamic rulers, such as the sultans of the Delhi sultanate (1206–1526), used enslavement as a form both of extracting revenues and of punishment, not least for not paying taxes. Fiscal factors were to the fore and territorial expansion was in part financed by the sale of slaves... The continued dynamism of successive Islamic societies produced fresh bouts of conquest that led to new sources of slaves. Thus, on the eastern end of the Islamic world, Mahmud of Ghazni, south-west of Kabul (r.971–1030), whose empire stretched from the River Oxus to the River Indus, launched numerous raids into northern India from the 990s, annexing the Hindu state of Sahi to the east by 1021. Religious factors played a role in his attacks, which in 1022 extended far down the Ganges valley and in 1026 into Gujarat. Chroniclers claimed that his campaign of 1024 yielded over 100,000 slaves. Such numbers fed a major slave trade into Central Asia, Persia and Iraq, as well as bringing wealth to the army. The Delhi sultanate (1206–1526), established by Qutb-ud-din Aybak, who had been a military slave of the Churid Sultan Muizz u-Din, so that it is sometimes referred to as the Slave Dynasty, in turn, used Turkic slave soldiers from Central Asia as well as local Hindu soldiers. This sultanate took part in largescale slave raiding in India.... The campaigns in India of the Mughals and the Deccan sultanates produced many Hindu slaves, some of whom were sold on to Central Asia and Persia... In India, the Mughals enslaved rebels and those deemed rebels, for example, Hindus who rejected attempts at proselytism, as at Benares in 1632. Those captured in Mughal campaigns were often given to the troops for their use or for them to sell. Enslavement was also the fate of peasants who could not meet their taxes and rents, with men, women and children often sold to Muslim lords as a consequence. Further south in India, enslavement was used by the Deccan sultanates, notably Bijapur and Golconda, in suppressing opposition. These major Muslim states campaigned extensively into southern India and enslaved Buddhists, Hindus and others. Thus, in the 1640s, Golconda seized much of the state of Vijayahagara and Bijapur that of Mysore. However, the Mughal conquest of the Deccan sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda in the 1680s led to the end of military slavery there...
  India was also a source of slaves, for example with girls taken to Afghanistan and the Middle East and, from the mid-seventeenth century, forced labour moved to plantations in the Dutch-ruled coastlands of Sri Lanka.
  • Jeremy Black, A Brief History of Slavery: A New Global History 2011

C

• He put six thousand fighting men, who were in the fort, to the sword, and shot some with arrows. The other dependants and servants were taken prisoners, with their wives and children. It is said that when the fort was captured, all the treasures, property, and arms, except those which were taken away by Jaisiya, fell into the hands of the victors, and they were all brought before Muhammad Kasim. When the number of the prisoners was calculated, it was found to amount to thirty thousand persons, amongst whom thirty were the daughters of chiefs, and one of them was Dahir's sister's daughter, whose name was Jaisiya.' They were sent to Hajjaj. The head of Dahir and the fifth part of the prisoners were forwarded in charge of K'ab, son of Maharat. When the head of Dahir, the women, and the property all reached Hajjaj, he prostrated himself before God, offered thanksgi-vings and praises, for, he said, he had in reality obtained all the wealth and treasures and dominions of the world.
  • About Muhammad bin Qasim. Chachnama, E and D, I, pp. 172-73; trs. Kalichbeg, p. 154. [5] quoted in Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7
  • Different translation: [he] “halted there for three day, during which time he masscered 6,000 …men. Their followers and dependents, as well as their women and children were taken prisoner.”
  • Different translation : “The slaves were counted, and their number came to 60,000...“ [6]

• When the plunder and the prisoners of war were brought before Kasim, and enquiries were made about every captive, it was found that Ladi, the wife of Dahir, was in the fort with two daughters of his by his other wives. Veils were put on their faces, and they were delivered to a servant to keep them apart. One-fifth of all the prisoners were chosen and set aside ; they were counted as amounting to twenty thousand in number, and the rest were given to the soldiers.
  • About Muhammad bin Qasim. Chachnama, E and D, I, pp. 172-73; trs. Kalichbeg, p. 154. E and D, I, pp. 173, 181, 211. [7] quoted in Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7
  • Different translation. “when the plunder and the prisoners of war were brought before Qasim… one-fifth of all the prisoners were chosen and set aside; they were counted as amounting to twenty thousand in number… (they belonged to high families) and veils were put on their faces, and the rest were given to the soldiers”.

• When Muhammad bin Qasim invaded Sind, he took captives wherever he went and sent many prisoners, especially women prisoners, to his homeland. Parimal Devi and Suraj Devi, the two daughters of Raja Dahir, who were sent to Hajjaj to adorn the harem of the Caliph, were part of a large bunch of maidens remitted as one-fifth share of the state (Khums) from the booty of war (Ghanaim). ... In Sind itself female slaves captured after every campaign of the marching army, were married to Arab soldiers who settled down in colonies established in places like Mansura, Kuzdar, Mahfuza and Multan. The standing instructions of Hajjaj to Muhammad bin Qasim were to “give no quarter to infidels, but to cut their throats”, and take the women and children as captives. ... Obviously, a few lakhs of women were enslaved and distributed among the elite and the soldiers.
  • The Chachnama, cited and quoted in Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7

• During the Arab invasion of Sindh (712 C.E.), Muhammad bin Qasim first attacked Debal, a word derived from Deval meaning temple. It was situated on the sea-coast not far from modern Karachi. It was garrisoned by 4000 Kshatriya soldiers and served by 3000 Brahmans. All males of the age of seventeen and upwards were put to the sword and their women and children were enslaved. “700 beautiful females, who were under the protection of Budh (that is, had taken shelter in the temple), were all captured with their valuable ornaments, and clothes adorned with jewels.” Muhammad despatched one-fifth of the legal spoil to Hajjaj which included seventy-five damsels, the rest four-fifths were distributed among the soldiers. Thereafter whichever places he attacked like Rawar, Sehwan, Dhalila, Brahmanabad and Multan, Hindu soldiers and men with arms were slain, the common people fled, or, if flight was not possible, accepted Islam, or paid the poll tax, or died with their religion. Many women of the higher class immolated themselves in Jauhar, most others became prize of the victors. These women and children were enslaved and converted, and batches of them were dispatched to the Caliph in regular installments.
  • The Chachnama, and The Cambridge History Of India Volume III, cited and quoted in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3

• The majority of Indian slaves comprised captives made during wars. These slaves formed property of the State. At the time of Muhammad bin Qasim’s invasion of Sindh the head of the State was the Caliph and prisoners taken in Sindh were regularly forwarded to him. Kufi, the author of the Chachnama, rightly sums up the position. Out of the total catch, four-fifths was the share of the soldiers, “what remained of the cash and slaves was… sent to Hajjaj (the Governor of Iraq )” for onward transportation to the Khalifa. In such a situation any special acquisition had to be paid for in cash. Muhammad bin Qasim who wished to possess Raja Dahir’s wife Ladi, avers the Chachnama, “purchased her out of the spoils, before making her his wife.” But the price he paid is not mentioned. Similarly, when Hajjaj sent 60,000 slaves captured in India to the Caliph Walid I (705-715 C.E.), the latter “sold some of those female slaves of royal birth”, but again their price has not been specified.
  • Chachnama, trs. Mirza Kalichbeg Fredunbeg, in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 10

• The Raja of Cannanore, the only Muslim ruler on the Malabar Coast of southwestern India, was not known ever to have declared a jihad. Nevertheless, a report of 1793 noted that Mapila Muslims were kidnapping Hindu children to sell to European traders, especially in the Dutch port of Cochin.
  • W. G. Clarence-Smith - Islam and the Abolition of Slavery-Oxford University Press (2006) p 30 (also quoted in M.A. Khan , Islamic Jihad: A legacy of forced conversion, imperialism and slavery (2011))

• [Besides, wherever Muhammadan rule existed slavery was developed,] “and during the centuries of misrule and oppression, through which Bengal passed, slavery was accepted by the Hindus as a refuge for their troubles. Delhi court obtained not only its slaves [in thousands, as for example under Firoz Tughlaq] but also eunuchs from the villages of Eastern Bengal [a wide-spread practice which the Mughal Emperor Jahangir tried to stop). The incursions of Assamese Maghs, the famines, pestilences and civil wars...drove them in sheer desperation to sell their children as Musalman slaves”. ... [The Census of India Report of 1901 says that ] “the tyrannical Murshid Kuli Khan enforced a law that any Amal, or Zamindar, failing to pay the revenue that was due...should, with his wife and children, be compelled to become Muhammadans", but the practice was much older as vouched by the Bansliastnriti.
  • Census of India Report, 1901, quoted from K.S. Lal , Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India (1973) 175 ff.

F

• William Finch writing at Agra in about 1610 says that “in hunting the men of the jungle were on the same footing as the beasts” and whatever was taken in the game was the king’s shikar (or game), whether men or beasts. “Men remain the King’s slaves which he sends yearly to Kabul to barter for horses and dogs.”
  • William Finch in Foster, Early Travels in India; quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 10

• In 1195 when Raja Bhim of Gujarat was attacked, 20,000 prisoners were captured, and in 1202 at Kalinjar 50,000, “and we may be sure that (as in the case of Arab conquest of Sind) all those who were made slaves were compelled to embrace the religion of the masters to whom they were allotted.” Ferishtah specifically mentions that on the capture of Kalinjar “fifty thousand Kaniz va ghulam, having suffered slavery, were rewarded with the honour of Islam”. According to Ferishtah three to four hundred thousand Khokhars and Tirahias were also converted to Islam by Muhammad Ghori.
  • Firishta, quoted in Lal, K. S. (1990). Indian muslims: Who are they.

• In the expedition to Thaneshwar (1015), according to Farishtah, “the Muhammadan army brought to Ghaznin 200,000 captives, so that the capital (Ghaznin) looked like an Indian city, for every soldier of the army had several slaves and slave girls”.
  • Mahmud of Gahzni. Firishta, quoted in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 10

G

• Having subjugated Khuraasaan, Babar terrified Hindustaan
  So that blame does not come on Him, the Creator has sent the Mughal as the messenger of death
  So great was the slaughter, such the agony of the people, even then You felt no compassion, Lord?
  If some powerful man strikes another, one feels no grief But when a powerful tiger slaughters a flock of helpless sheep, its master must answer
  This jewel of a country has been laid waste and defiled by dogs, so much so that no one pays heed even to the dead…
  Guru Nanak proceeds to describe how the oppressors shaved off the maidens, their ‘heads with braided hair, with vermillion marks in the parting’; how ‘their throats were choked with dust’; how they were cast out of their palatial homes, unable now to sit even in the neighbourhood of their homes; how those who had come to the homes of their husbands in palanquins, decorated with ivory, who lived in the lap of luxury, had been tied with ropes around their necks; how their pearl strings had been shattered; how the very beauty that was their jewel had now become their enemy – ordered to dishonour them, the soldiers had carried them off. ‘Since Babar’s rule has been proclaimed,’ Guru Nanak wrote, ‘even the princes have no food to eat.’
  • Guru Granth Sahib, quoted from Shourie, Arun (2014). Eminent historians: Their technology, their line, their fraud. Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India : HarperCollins Publishers.

• Firuz Shah Tughlaq organised an industry out of catching slaves. Shams-i-Siraj Afif writes in his Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi: “The Sultan commanded his great fief-holders and officers to capture slaves whenever they were at war (that is, suppressing Hindu rebellions), and to pick out and send the best for the service of the court. The chiefs and officers naturally exerted themselves in procuring more and more slaves and a great number of them were thus collected. When they were found to be in excess, the Sultan sent them to important cities… It has been estimated that in the city and in the various fiefs, there were 1,80,000 slaves… The Sultan created a separate department with a number of officers for administering the affairs of these slaves.”. Firuz Shah beat all previous records in his treatment of the Hindus... He records another instance in which Hindus who had built new temples were butchered before the gate of his palace, and their books, images, and vessels of Worship were publicly burnt. According to him “this was a warning to all men that no zimmi could follow such wicked practices in a Musulman country”. Afif reports yet another case in which a Brahmin of Delhi was accused of “publicly performing idol-worship in his house and perverting Mohammedan women leading them to become infidels”. The Brahmin “was tied hand and foot and cast into a burning pile of faggots”. The historian who witnessed this scene himself expresses his satisfaction by saying, “Behold the Sultan’s strict adherence to law and rectitude, how he would not deviate in the least from its decrees.”
  • Quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (2001). The story of Islamic imperialism in India. ISBN 9788185990231

H

• The pressure of new circumstances led initially to large-scale slave-trading and the emergence of slave labour during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The numbers of slaves in the Sultans' establishments were very high (50,000 under Alauddin Khilji, and 180,000 under Firuz Tughluq). Barani judges the level of prices by referring to slave prices, and the presence of slaves was almost all-pervasive.
  • Irfan Habib: Essays in Indian History, quoted in Koenraad Elst, Decolonizing the Hindu Mind, Rupa 2001, p. 417

• "The evidence for such enslavement is there for all to see. So economically important was it that the success of military campaigns was often judged by the number of captives (burdas) obtained for enslavement. Qutbuddin Aibak's campaign in Gujarat in 1195 netted him 20,000 slaves, seven years later a campaign against Kalinjar yielded 50,000. In 1253 Balban obtained countless 'horses and slaves' from an expedition in Kalinjar. In the instructions that Alauddin Khalji is said to have issued to Malik Kafur before his campaigns in the Deccan it is assumed that 'horses and slaves' would form a large part of the booty. As the Sultanate began to be consolidated, the suppression of mawas or rebellious villages within its limits yielded a continuously rich harvest of slaves. Balban's successful expedition in the Doab made slaves cheap in the capital. How people of the village could be made slaves for nonpayment of revenue is described in the 14th century sources; and women so enslaved are mentioned in different contexts in two others".
  • Irfan Habib quoted in Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7

• For example, after Rawar was taken Muhammad Qasim “halted there for three days during which he massacred 6000 (men). Their followers and dependents, as well as their women and children were taken prisoner.” Later on “the slaves were counted, and their number came to 60, 000 (of both sexes?). Out of these, 30 were young ladies of the royal blood… Muhammad Qasim sent all these to Hajjaj” who forwarded them to Walid the Khalifa. “He sold some of these female slaves of royal birth, and some he presented to others.” Selling of slaves was a common practice... In Brahmanabad, “it is said that about six thousand fighting men were slain, but according to others sixteen thousand were killed”, and their families enslaved. The garrison in the fort-city of Multan was put to the sword, and families of the chiefs and warriors of Multan, numbering about six thousand, were enslaved.... In the final stages of the conquest of Sindh, “when the plunder and the prisoners of war were brought before Qasim… one-fifth of all the prisoners were chosen and set aside; they were counted as amounting to twenty thousand in number… (they belonged to high families) and veils were put on their faces, and the rest were given to the soldiers”. Obviously a few lakh women were enslaved in the course of Arab invasion of Sindh.
  • Mohammad Habib, “The Arab conquest of Sind.” quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3

• In Hindustan British rule has abolished slavery, but it nevertheless exists in noble families, where the slaves seem willingly to assent to their condition of bondage.
  • Hughes, T.P., Dictionary of Islam, W.H. Allen & Co., London, 1885

K

• The Turks, whenever they please, can seize them, buy them and sell them at will... The Hindu happens to be a (wretched) slave in all respects.
  • Amir Khusrau, in his Nub Sipehr quoted in Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Amir Khusrau, Nub Sipehr, Wahid Mirza ed., Calcutta, 1998, Sipehr II, pp. 89, 130-131.

• Likewise, gleefully describing the Hindu predicament under the Sultanate, Amir Khusrau puts this statement into the mouth of a subdued Raja; ‘Thanks to the perennial, well established convention of the world, the Hindu has all along been a game of the Turks. The relationship between the Turk and the Hindu cannot be described better than that the Turk is like a tiger and the Hindu, a deer. It has been a long established rule of the whirling sky that the Hindus exist for the sake of the Turk. Being triumphant over them, whenever the Turk chooses to make an inroad upon them, he catches them, buys them, and sells them at will. Since the Hindu happens to be a (wretched) slave in all respects, none need exercise force on his slave. It does not become one to scowl at a goat which is being reared for one’s meals. Why should one wield a sharp sword for one who will die by (just) a fierce look?’
  • Amir Khusrow, quoted from Harsh Narain, Myths of Composite Culture and Equality of Religions (1990) p. 17 [8]

• [It was composed in mid-fifteenth century and records the exploits of King Kanhardeva of Jalor against Alauddin’s General Ulugh Khan who had attacked Gujarat in 1299 and taken a number of prisoners. In the Sorath (Saurashtra) region] “they made people captive - Brahmanas and children, and women, in fact, people of all (description)… huddled them and tied them by straps of raw hide. The number of prisoners made by them was beyond counting. The prisoners’ quarters (bandikhana) were entrusted to the care of the Turks.” ... “During the day they bore the heat of the scorching sun, without shade or shelter as they were [in the sandy desert region of Rajasthan], and the shivering cold during the night under the open sky. Children, tom away from their mother’s breasts and homes, were crying. Each one of the captives seemed as miserable as the other. Already writhing in agony due to thirst, the pangs of hunger… added to their distress. Some of the captives were sick, some unable to sit up. Some had no shoes to put on and no clothes to wear. …Some had iron shackles on their feet. Separated from each other, they were huddled together and tied with straps of hide. Children were separated from their parents, the wives from their husbands, thrown apart by this cruel raid. Young and old were seen writhing in agony, as loud wailings arose from that part of the camp where they were all huddled up… Weeping and wailing, they were hoping that some miracle might save them even now.”
  • Kanhadade Prabandha Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 5

L

• In short, female slaves were captured or obtained in droves throughout the year... Their sale outside, especially during the Hajj season, brought profits to the state and Muslim merchants. Their possession within, inflated the harems of Muslim kings and nobles beyond belief...
  Muhammad bin Tughlaq became notorious for enslaving captives, and his reputation in this regard spread far and wide... It was a general practice for Hindu girls of good families to learn the art of dancing. It was a sort of religious rite. They used to dance during weddings, festivals and Pujas at home and in temples. This art was turned ravenous under their Muslim captors or buyers.
  • Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7

• All sultans were keen on making slaves, but Muhammad Tughlaq became notorious for enslaving people. He appears to have outstripped even Alauddin Khalji and his reputation in this regard spread far and wide. Shihabuddin Ahmad Abbas writes about him thus:
  “The Sultan never ceases to show the greatest zeal in making war upon infidels… Everyday thousands of slaves are sold at a very low price, so great is the number of prisoners”. Muhammad Tughlaq did not only enslave people during campaigns, he was also very fond of purchasing and collecting foreign and Indian slaves. According to Ibn Battuta one of the reasons of estrangement between Muhammad Tughlaq and his father Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq, when Muhammad was still a prince, was his extravagance in purchasing slaves. Even as Sultan, he made extensive conquests. He subjugated the country as far as Dwarsamudra, Malabar, Kampil, Warangal, Lakhnauti, Satgaon, Sonargaon, Nagarkot and Sambhal to give only few prominent place-names. There were sixteen major rebellions in his reign which were ruthlessly suppressed. In all these conquests and rebellions, slaves were taken with great gusto. For example, in the year 1342 Halajun rose in rebellion in Lahore. He was aided by the Khokhar chief Kulchand. They were defeated. “About three hundred women of the rebels were taken captive, and sent to the fort of Gwalior where they were seen by Ibn Battutah.” .... Iltutmish, Muhammad Tughlaq and Firoz Tughlaq sent gifts of slaves to Khalifas outside India. .... This was all in accordance with the Islamic law. According to it, slaves cannot many on their own without the consent of their proprietors. The marriage of an infidel couple is not dissolved by their jointly embracing the faith. In the present case the slaves were probably already converted and their marriages performed with the initiative and permission the Sultan himself were valid. Thousands of non-Muslim women were captured by the Muslims in the yearly campaigns of Firoz Tughlaq, and under him the id celebrations were held on lines similar to those of his predecessor. In short, under the Tughlaqs the inflow of women captives never ceased.
  • Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 5 (quoting Masalik-ul-Absar, E.D., III, 580., Battutah)

• The Portuguese in this matter as in others followed the custom of the country: Linschoten recorded that they (Portuguese in Goa) never worked, but employed slaves, who were sold daily in the market like beasts, and della Valle notes that the ‘greatest part’ of people in Goa were slaves.
  • Linschoten , Pietro della Valle, quoted in Moreland, India at the Death of Akbar. Quoted in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 10

• Muhammad bin Tughlaq became notorious for enslaving women and his reputation in this regard spread far and wide.... When Muhammad bin Qasim mounted his attack on Debal in 712, all males of the age of seventeen and upwards were put to the sword and their women and children were enslaved....
  In the preceding pages it has been seen how women and children were special targets for enslavement throughout the medieval period, that is, during Muslim invasions and Muslim rule. Captive children of both sexes grew up as Muslims and served the sultans, nobles and men of means in various captives. Enslavement of young women was also due to many reasons; their being sex objects was the primary consideration and hence concentration on their captivity..... Forcible marriages, euphemistically called matrimonial alliances, were common throughout the medieval period. Only some of them find mention in Muslim chronicles with their bitter details...It is therefore no wonder that from the day the Muslim invaders marched into India to the time when their political power declined, women were systematically captured and enslaved throughout the length and breadth of the country.
  • Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 12

• From the day India became a target of Muslim invaders its people began to be enslaved in droves to be sold in foreign lands or employed in various capacities on menial and not-so-menial jobs within the country. To understand this phenomenon it is necessary to go into the origins and development of the Islamic system of slavery. For, wherever the Muslims went, mostly as conquerors but also as traders, there developed a system of slavery peculiar to the clime, terrain and populace of the place.
  • K.S.Lai, The Muslim Slave System in Medieval India, Aditya Prakasha, New Delhi, 1994. Quoted in Easy Meat, Inside Britain’s Grooming Gang Scandal by Peter McLoughlin.

• Akbar had prohibited enslavement and sale of women and children of peasants who had defaulted in payment of revenue. He knew, as Abul Fazl says, that many evil hearted and vicious men either because of ill-founded suspicion or sheer greed, used to proceed to villages and mahals and sack them...
  The process of enslavement during war went on under the Khaljis and the Tughlaqs. Alauddin had 50,000 slaves some of whom were mere boys, and surely many captured during war. Firoz Tughlaq had issued an order that whichever places were sacked, in them the captives should be sorted out and the best ones (fit for service with the Sultan) should be forwarded to the court. Soon he was enabled to collect 180,000 slaves. Ziyauddin Barani’s description of the Slave Market in Delhi (such markets were there in other places also) during the reign of Alauddin Khalji, shows that fresh batches of slaves were constantly replenishing them.
  • Lal, K. S. (2012). Indian muslims: Who are they.

• In India from the days of Muhammad bin Qasim in the eighth century to those of Ahmad Shah Abdali in the eighteenth, enslavement, distribution and sale of Hindu women and children was systematically practised by Muslim invaders and rulers of India. A few lakh women were enslaved in the course of Arab invasion of Sindh. .... In Muhammad Ghauri's invasion of Gujarat 20,000 prisoners were captured and in 1202 at Kalinjar 50,000 kaniz wa ghulam. Under the Khaljis and Tughlaqs thousands of non-Muslim women were captured in never-ceasing campaigns....Throughout the medieval period in the North, South, East and West women-capturing or purchasing was a major pleasure activity of the ruling class. No wonder that mainly through this activity 2,000 women were inducted into the harem of a nobleman (e.g. Khan Jahan Maqbul, Wazir of Firoz Shah Tughlaq), another 2,000 into the harem of a prince (e.g. Alam Shah, son of Aurangzeb), and 5,000 into that of a king (e.g. Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar). ....
  The Arab invader of Sindh Muhammad bin Qasim sent to the Khalifa Walid I, his (one-fifth) share of captives of both sexes. The latter sold many of them and distributed the others among his officers. Mahmud Ghaznavi took captive men and Women in all his campaigns in India. He took 50,000 slaves in one campaign, 53,000 in another and 200,000 in a third one. He sold them for two to three dirhams (silver coin) each in the slave markets of Ghazni, Khurasan and other places. All the proceeds from such sales were deposited in the Amir's treasury. Under Aibak, Iltutmish, and Balban the captives were sold after every campaign. For example, when Muhammad Ghauri and Qutbuddin Aibak mounted a combined attack on the Salt Range, a large number of captives were taken "so that five Hindu (Khokhar) slaves could be bought for a dinar." Many more were also sold in "Khurasan, not long after".
  • Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 4, quoting Hasan Nizami, Taj-ul-Maasir

• Because of their identification in Muslim societies as kafirs, "non-believers", Hindus were especially in demand in the early modern Central Asian slave markets.... Probably the greatest factors contributing to the increased supply of Indian slaves for export to markets in Central Asia in this period were the military conquests and tax revenue policies of the Muslim rulers in the subcontinent.... The revenue system of the Delhi Sultanate produced a considerable proportion of the Indian slave population as these rulers, and their subordinate iqta'dars, ordered their armies to abduct large numbers of Hindus as a means of extracting revenue... K. S. Lal's assertion that the forcible enslavement of Indians due to military expansion "gained momentum" under the Khalji and Tughluq dynasties is supported by available figures. ...Unfortunately, there is no means by which to determine precisely how abundant Indian slaves were in early modern Central Asia. It is, however, possible to establish a rough estimate of the proportion of slaves of Indian origin in relation to those of other regions, at least in terms of the slave population of late sixteenth-century Samarqand. A survey of seventy-seven letters regarding the manumission or sale of slaves in the Majmu'a-i-wathcPiq reveals that slaves of Indian origin (hindi al-asl) accounted for over 58 per cent of those whose region of origin is mentioned....
  • Hindus beyond the Hindu Kush: Indians in the Central Asian Slave Trade Author(s): Scott C. Levi Source: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Third Series, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Nov., 2002), pp. 277-288

M

• A Sudra, whether bought or unbought he may do servile work; for he was created by the Self-Existent (Svayambhu) to be the slave of a Brahmana.
  • Manusmriti Chapter VIII. Also see Religions and Religious Freedom in India; Heritage of World Civilization p. 34; Patna University Journal, Volume 10 p.52; The God Juggernaut and Hinduism in India: From a Study of Their Sacred Books and More Than 5,000 Miles of Travel in India

• Writing about the days of Sultan Muhammad bin Tughlaq (1325-51), Shihabuddin al-Umari writes: "The sultan never ceases to show the greatest zeal in making war upon the infidels... Every day thousands of slaves are sold at a very low price, so great is the number of prisoners .... (that) the value at Delhi of a young slave girl, for domestic service, does not exceed eight tankahs. Those who are deemed fit to fill the parts of domestic and concubine sell for about fifteen tankahs. In other cities prices are still lower..." Umari continues, "but still, in spite of low prices of slaves, 20000 tankahs, and even more, are paid for young Indian girls. I inquired the reason... and was told that these young girls are remarkable for their beauty, and the grace of their manners."
  • Masalik-ul-Absar, E.D. vol. III, pp. 580-81. (Shihabuddin al-Umri, Masalik-ul-Absar fi Mumalik-ul-Amar) Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India.

• It became a fashion to raid a village or group of villages without any obvious justification, and carry off the inhabitants as slaves.
  • W.H. Moreland, India at the Death of Akbar, quoted in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 6

• Conditions became intolerable by the time of Shahjahan when, according to Manucci, peasants were compelled to sell their women and children to meet the revenue demand. Manrique writes that the peasants were “carried off… to various markets and fairs, (to be sold) with their poor unhappy wives behind them carrying their small children all crying and lamenting to meet the revenue demand… ” Bernier too affirms that the unfortunate peasants who were incapable of discharging the demands of their rapacious lords, were bereft of their children, who were carried away as slaves. Here was also confirmation, if not actually the beginning, of the practice of bonded labour in India.
  • Manucci, II, p. 451.,Manrique II, p. 272., Bernier, p.205., quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7, and in Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 4

• Minhaj Siraj writes that "Ulugh Khan Balban's taking of captives, and his capture of the dependents of the great Ranas cannot be recounted". Such was the scale of slave-taking by Muslims in Hindustan that information about it travelled abroad, so that Wassaf writes that in the sack of Somnath in 1299 the Muslim army "took captive a great number of handsome and elegant maidens, amounting to 20,000 and children of both sexes".
  • Minhaj Siraj, Wassaf, quoted in Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 4

• Slavery was fairly common, and the matter-of-fact way in which Ibn Batitah refers to the acquisition of slave-girls in lots, and their distribution as ordinary gifts or presents, throws a lurid light on the moral ideas of the time. A sort of communal spirit seems to have prevailed in this matter. The Muslims took delight in enslaving Hindu women en masse from the highest to the lowest rank, and many of them, including even those who once were princesses, were forced to entertain the Muslim court and the nobility with dance and music. Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq made free gifts of them to his relations and the nobility, and sent as presents to the Chinese Emperor ‘“‘one hundred male slaves and one hundred slave songstresses and dancers from among the Indian infidels’. On the other hand, according to Nizam-ud-din, ‘“‘even Musalmans and Sayyid women were taken by the Rajputs and were turned into slave girls. They were taught the art of dancing and were made to join the akharas.’’(582)
  • RC Majumdar ed., Volume 6: The Delhi Sultanate [1300-1526]

N

• History as selective as this leads quickly to unreality. Before Mohammed there is blackness: slavery, exploitation. After Mohammed there is light: slavery and exploitation vanish. But did it? How can that be said or taught? What about all those slaves sent back from Sind to the caliph? What about the descendants of the African slaves who walk about Karachi? There is no adequate answer: so the faith begins to nullify or overlay the real world.
  • Naipaul, V. S. (1981). Among the believers: An Islamic journey. New York: Knopf.

• Ala’u ‘d-Din Khalji had 50.000 slaves. Flrozshah Tughluq came to have 1,80,000 slaves. Muhammad Tughluq sold thousands of slaves everyday at throw-away price. And so forth. Indeed, there was unprecedentedly brisk business in the slave markets in India and abroad, thanks to slave hunt under Muslim rule in India. And the slaves had perforce to embrace the religion of their masters. For instance, on the capture of Kalinjar in 1202, ‘fifty thousand kaniz- o ghulam , having suffered slavery, were rewarded with the honour of Islam.’ Muhammad Ghori is reported to have converted three to four hundred thousand Khokhars and Tirahias to Islam.
  • Harsh Narain, Myths of Composite Culture and Equality of Religions (1990)

P

• In fact, in the plantation areas conditions amounting to slavery were re‑established by the planters with the acquiescence of the Government.Some idea of the misery to which the population of these areas was reduced by this system of merciless exploitation in the interests of British capital may be gained from the Bengal Indigo Commission's Report and from some of the literature of the period. Nil Darpan or the Mirror of Indigo, a Bengali drama, created a sensation by throwing a little light on this dark corner of Britain's action in India, and the reaction in official circles was so great that a European missionary, Mr Long, who translated and published it in English, was fined and imprisoned. During the whole of this period, in fact till the rise of nationalism after the Great War, conditions in plantations were of a kind which showed the worst features of European relations with Asia.
  • K. M. Panikkar. Asia and Western Dominance: a survey of the Vasco Da Gama epoch of Asian history, 1498–1945.

Q

• According to Qazvini, Shahjahan’s orders in this regard were that captives were not to be sold to Hindus as slaves, and under Muslim customers they could only become Musalman.
  • Amin Qazvini, Badshah Nama, Ms. Raza Library, Rampur. p.405. cited by Lal, K. S. (1990). Indian muslims: Who are they.

R

• And after the Third Battle of Panipat (1761), “the unhappy prisoners were paraded in long lines, given a little parched grain and a drink of water, and beheaded… and the women and children who survived were driven off as slaves - twenty-two thousand, many of them of the highest rank in the land, says the Siyar-ut-Mutakhirin.”
  • H. G. Rawlinson in Cambridge History of India., quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 12

S

• The booty captured within the entrenchment was beyond calculation and the regiments of Khans [i.e. 8000 troopers of AbdAli clansmen] did not, as far as possible, allow other troops like the IrAnis and the TurAnis to share in the plunder; they took possession of everything themselves, but sold to the Indian soldiers handsome Brahman women for one tuman and good horses for two tumans each.' The Deccani prisoners, male and female reduced to slavery by the victorious army numbered 22,000, many of them being the sons and other relatives of the sardArs or middle class men. Among them 'rose-limbed slave girls' are mentioned.' Besides these 22,000 unhappy captives, some four hundred officers and 6000 men fled for refuge to ShujA-ud-daulah's camp, and were sent back to the Deccan with monetary help by that nawab, at the request of his Hindu officers. The total loss of the MarAthas after the battle is put at 50,000 horses, captured either by the AfghAn army or the villagers along the route of flight, two hundred thousand draught cattle, some thousands of camels, five hundred elephants, besides cash and jewellery. 'Every trooper of the Shah brought away ten, and sometimes twenty camels laden with money. The captured horses were beyond count but none of them was of value; they came like droves of sheep in their thousands.
  • Jadunath Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, Volume II, Fourth Edition, New Delhi, 1991, p.210-11

• (The fetters of slavery that you exhibit on your legs;
  You seem to have fallen in love with this wretched state of hell?
  No doubt, you neither feel bad nor shameful about this state of yours.
  But remember, if you are free, your future generations will lead a life of self-respect;
  But if you embrace your slavery thus, your successors would wallow similarly!)
  • V.D. Savarkar, From his ballad on Tanaji , quoted in Vikram Sampath - Savarkar, Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924 (2019)

• The author of Masalik ul-Absar has mentioned the rates of India in his time quoting from Qadi ‘I-Qudat Sirajuddin al Hindi and others. He relates that a maid-servant’s price in Delhi does not exceed eight tangas, and those who are fit for service as well as for conjugal purposes cost fifteen tangas. Outside Delhi they are still cheaper. Qadi Sirajuddin narrated that he once bought a coquettish slave nearing puberty for four Dirhams. He continues, “In spite of this cheapness there are Indian maid-servants whose price amounts to twenty thousand tangas or more on account of their beauty and grace”.
  • Rates of girl slaves, Subh-ul-A’sha in Zaki, M., Arab Accounts of India (during the fourteenth century), Idarah-I Adabiyat- I Delli, 1981. 91ff quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books. Volume II Chapter 4

• Another method of conversion to Hinduism was also stopped. Though Akbar had discontinued the practice of making slaves of prisoners of war, it seems to have been too deep-rooted to disappear so easily. It had now revived. These slaves were publicly sold to bidders or retained by the soldiers. Shsh Jahan now issued an order that Muslim prisoners of war were not to be sold to the Hindus as slaves. Hindu soldiers were also forbidden from enslaving Muslims.
  • Sharma Sri Ram. 1988. The Religious Policy of the Mughal Emperors. 3rd ed. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. ch 5

T

• In the month of November (1947), Hindu and Sikh girls brought by Pathan raiders from Kashmir were sold in the bazars of ghulam,” for rupees 10 or so each in the wake of the partition of the country, 1947-48.
  • S.Gurbachan Singh Talib, Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947, New Delhi, Reprint 1991 (first published 1950), quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 10

U

• Ibn al-Taj al-Hafiz al-Multani said to me: I asked how a slave girl could reach this price in spite of the cheapness (in the country). Each one of them informed me severally in interviews that the difference was caused by the grace of her deportment or the refinement of her manners and that a great number of these slave girls knew the Quran by heart, they could write, recite verses and stories, excelled in music, played the lute and chess and backgammon (nard) and so on. The slave girls take pride in things like these. One of them says: I shall capture the heart of my master within three days; the other says: I shall captivate his heart in one day, a third says: I shall captivate his heart in an hour, another says I shall captivate his heart in the twinkling of an eye. They say that the pretty Indian girls are superior as regards beauty to those of the Turks and Qipchaks besides their good breeding manifold accomplishments and attainments which give them distinction. Most of them are of golden colour some of them are of brilliant whiteness mixed with red. In spite of the great number of Turks and Qipchaks and Byzantines and other nationalities that are there everyone gives preference to none but the Indian pretty girls on account of their perfect beauty and sweetness and other things which words cannot describe.
  • Prices of girl slaves, Shihabuddin al Umari in Zaki, M., Arab Accounts of India (during the fourteenth century), Idarah-I Adabiyat- I Delli, 1981. 39 quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books. Volume II Chapter 4

• The Sultan never ceases to show the greatest zeal in making war upon the infidels… Every day thousands of slaves are sold at a very low price, so great is the number of prisoners… (that) the value at Delhi of a young slave girl, for domestic service, does not exceed eight tankahs. Those who are deemed fit to fill the parts of domestic and concubine sell for about fifteen tankahs. In other cities prices are still lower…but still, in spite of low price of slaves, 20000 tankahs, and even more, are paid for young Indian girls. I inquired the reason… and was told that these young girls are remarkable for their beauty, and the grace of their manners.
  • Shihabuddin al Umri, Masalik-ul-Absar fi Mumalik-ul-Amsar (written in middle of 14th cent. C.E.), trs. in E.D., III; Hindi trs. in Rizvi, Tughlaq Kalin Bharat. quoted in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 10

• Mahmud Ghaznavi attacked Waihind in 1001-02, he took 500,000 persons of both sexes as captive. This figure of Abu Nasr Muhammad Utbi, the secretary and chronicler of Mahmud, is so mind-boggling that Elliot reduces it to 5000. The point to note is that taking of slaves was a matter of routine in every expedition. Only when the numbers were exceptionally large did they receive the notice of the chroniclers. So that in Mahmud’s attack on Ninduna in the Punjab (1014), Utbi says that “slaves were so plentiful that they became very cheap; and men of respectability in their native land (India) were degraded by becoming slaves of common shop-keepers (in Ghazni)”. His statement finds confirmation in later chronicles including Nizamuddin Ahmad’s Tabqat-i-Akbari which states that Mahmud “obtained great spoils and a large number of slaves”. ... Thereafter slaves were taken in Baran, Mahaban, Mathura, Kanauj, Asni etc. When Mahmud returned to Ghazni in 1019, the booty was found to consist of (besides huge wealth) 53,000 captives. Utbi says that “the number of prisoners may be conceived from the fact that, each was sold for from two to ten dirhams. These were afterwards taken to Ghazna, and the merchants came from different cities to purchase them, so that the countries of Mawarau-un-Nahr, Iraq and Khurasan were filled with them”. The Tarikh-i-Alfi adds that the fifth share due to the Saiyyads was 150,000 slaves, therefore the total number of captives comes to 750,000. ... In every campaign of Mahmud large-scale massacres preceded enslavement.
  • Utbi, Nizamuddin Ahmad, quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 3

• Noon had not arrived when the Musulmans had wreaked their vengeance on the infidel enemies of God, killing 15,000 of them, spreading them like a carpet over the ground, and making them food for beasts and birds of prey. Fifteen elephants fell on the field of battle, as their legs, being pierced with arrows, became as motionless as if they had been in a quagmire, and their trunks were cut with the swords of the valiant heroes... The necklace was taken off the neck of Jaipal, - composed of large pearls and shining gems and rubies set in gold, of which the value was two hundred thousand dinars; and twice that value was obtained from necks of those of his relatives who were taken prisoners, or slain, and had become the food of the mouths of hyenas and vultures. Allah also bestowed upon his friends such an amount of booty as was beyond all bounds and all calculation, including five hundred thousand slaves, beautiful men and women. The Sultan returned with his followers to his camp, having plundered immensely, by Allah's aid, having obtained the victory, and thankful to Allah. This splendid and celebrated action took place on Thursday, the 8th of Muharram, 392 H., 27th November, 1001 AD.
  • Defeat of Jaipal by Mahmud of Gahzni. Utbi, Tarikh Yamini in Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. p. 26

• In one instance specifically Al Utbi gives an idea of the gain from the sale of captives. According to his narrative, Mahmud, after his campaign in Mathura, Mahaban and Kanauj (1018-19), returned to Ghazni with, besides other booty, 53,000 captives and each one of these was sold for two to ten dirhams. From this statement it would be safe to infer that the lowest price at which an Indian captive was sold was two, and the highest ten dirhams. It would also be safe to conclude that slaves were captured by invaders to be sold to make money; for Utbi adds that “Merchants came from different cities to purchase them so that the countries of Mawarau-n-nahr, Iraq and Khurasan were filled with them”. ... Similarly, in the Kashmir Valley (1014 C.E.), according to Utbi, the captives taken “were so plentiful that they became very cheap…” But he does not say how cheaply they were sold. ... Yet, the sale of thousands of slaves after every campaign, as the figures of captives carried away by Mahmud shows, brought good profit to the invader. No wonder that besides treasure, captives also used to be regularly carried away from India during the Ghaznavid occupation of Punjab for making extra money through their sale. This lucrative business continued, and a scion of the house, Sultan Ibrahim (1054-1099), once carried away one lakh captives to Ghazni.
  • Utbi, quoted in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 10

• The Sultan summoned the most religiously disposed of his followers, and ordered them to attack the enemy immediately. Many infidels were consequently slain or taken prisoners in this sudden attack, and the Musulmans paid no regard to the booty till they had satiated themselves with the slaughter of the infidels and worshippers of the sun and fire. The friends of Allah searched the bodies of the slain for three whole days, in order to obtain booty... The booty amounted in gold and silver, rubies and pearls, nearly to three thousand thousand dirhams, and the number of prisoners may be conceived from the fact, that each was sold for from two to ten dirhams. These were afterwards taken to Ghazna, and merchants came from distant cities to purchase them, so that the countries of Mawarau-n nahr, Irak and Khurasan were filled with them, and the fair and the dark, the rich and the poor, were commingled in one common slavery.
  • Tarikh Yamini (Kitabu-l Yamini) by Al Utbi. Siraswa, town near Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh. Elliot and Dowson, Vol. II : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. p. 49-50

W

• They took captive a great number of handsome and elegant maidens and children of both sexes, more than pen can enumerate…
  • Wassaf, Tãrîkh-i-Wassãf quoted in Sita Ram Goel, The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1994)

• Their number can only be guessed but was not large and definitely was dwarfed by the export of slaves from India during the Ghaznavid and Ghurid raids in northern India in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries. From the Kanauj campaign of 1018 until the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate by Aybak in 1206 a vast stream of perhaps more than several hundred thousands of Indian slaves reached Ghazna, and hence were traded to other parts of the Islamic world.60 In the thirteenth century Delhi developed into a considerable slave market and Multan became the entrepot for the westward trade of slaves which were then obtained from as far as the Deccan but also nearer at home in unsubdued parts of the Muslim realm. Timur’s capture of Delhi in 1398-9 provided the last massive haul of Hindu slaves by an invader, and after the four­ teenth century slavery in India generally declined in scale.61 But eunuchs from al-Hind are found in some numbers in the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt in the fifteenth century.62 The export of Indian slaves went on well into Mughal times, and even later. In the Mughal Empire there were no large slave markets but in the seventeenth century we hear of the enslavement and deportation by the Mughal nobility of thousands of ‘refractory’ Hindu peasants, and of pastoralists and vagrants, to Persia (now no longer via Multan but via Kabul), where they were sold or bartered for horses and dogs.
  • Wink A . Al-Hind, The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. Volume 1,62

• From the seventh century onwards and with a peak during Muhammad al-Qasim's campaigns in 712-713 a considerable number of Jats [Hindus] was captured as prisoners of war and deported to Iraq and elsewhere as slaves.
  • André Wink, Al Hind, Vol. I, p. 161

• Enslavement, however, could be a substitute for death, and invariably the numerous dependent followers and women and children of killed opponents were enslaved. The sources insist that now, in dutiful conformity to religious law, 'the one-fifth of the slaves and spoils' were set apart for the caliph's treasury and despatched to Iraq and Syria. The remainder was scattered among the army of Islam....
  •  Al Hind, André Wink, Vol. I, p. 172

• Of considerable numerical importance was probably the conversion of slaves and other captives, including harem inmates. Slaves had to be obtained ‘among infidels’ (min al-kuffàr), since there was a prohibition against enslaving Muslims—a prohibition that was enforced, albeit imperfectly. There is abundant evidence that during military campaigns large numbers of such ‘infidels’ were made captives, especially women and children, and that these were often enslaved. An unknown number of these slaves were transported westwards, as had been the case in earlier centuries. Tìmùr still carried off great numbers of enslaved captives to Samarqand. But in Hind itself there arose numerous specialized slave markets (bàzàr-i-burda), and by all accounts slavery was ubiquitous in a variety of contexts, including the military, and especially the domestic one. We are told there were 12,000 slaves at the court of Muhammad bin Tughluq. There were 180,000 slaves, according to 'Afìf, in Delhi and the various iq†à's under Firuz Shah Tughluq.In the Bahmanì empire there were 60,000 or 70,000 captives from Vijayanagara, mostly women. How many of these converted to Islam is not stated, but there are indications that many of them may have, possibly all of them. Of Muhammad bin Tughluq’s slave girls, it is stated, ‘many knew the Qur"àn by heart.’ Firuz Shah Tughluq, during his forty-year reign, ordered all his iq†à'dàrs to collect slaves wherever they were at war and send them to court; many of these, we are told, learned to read, and some entered into religious studies, memorizing the Qur"àn, and going on pilgrimage to Mecca, while they were employed in all sorts of occupations and married off to each other, and often sent back into the provinces. Village chiefs and headmen ‘were torn from their old lands’ in Sannam, Samana and Kaithal by Muhammad bin Tughluq, and carried off to Delhi, where they were converted, with their wives and children. In another instance, we are informed that eleven captive sons of a Hindu king became ‘Muslim amirs.
  • Wink A. Al-Hind, The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. Volume 3

See also

• Jayapala