Slavery in First Millennium Arabia: Epigraphy and the Qurʾān

Abstract

Abstract It is commonly assumed that slavery was a widespread practice in pre-Islamic Arabia. This assumption is based on references to enslaved people in the Qurʾān. At the same time, it replicates biased accounts of the region’s inhabitants found in (mostly Graeco-Roman) “external” sources. Finally, the claim builds on the existence of “societies with slaves”' and “slave societies” in the surroundings of late antique Arabia. No thorough attempt to examine slavery in pre-Islamic Arabia has been carried out by engaging with the abundant epigraphical records. People in subordinate positions towards other men could carve inscriptions in bronze and leave them in temples (which were open to people of all stations), but it is unclear if these people should be considered “servants” or “enslaved people”. As such, it is impossible to tell if the people mentioned as ʿbd, for example, offered their services as servants or were obliged to do so and worked against their will as enslaved people. Prisoners and privileged guests at royal courts were often one and the same. The presence of captives in these inscriptions points to the fact that some people were bought or sold as personal property in the first millennium. As religious and secular practices overlapped in ancient times, bronze votive inscriptions should not be considered mere votive objects but as holding legal value with a profound ceremonial role in the correct functioning of the stratified society of pre-Islamic South Arabia. In continuity with pre-Islamic times, the Qur’ān regards servants as part of the master’s household and the community of the believers (Ummah): Islam was neither a rupture nor an alien product in the region.