Slavery and South Asian History

5. The Rise and Fall of Military Slavery in the Deccan, 1450–1650

5 The Rise and Fall of Military Slavery in the Deccan, 1450–1650 Richard M. Eaton One obedient slave is better than three hundred sons; for the latter desire their father’s death, the former his master’s glory. Nizam al-Mulk (d. 1092) Between the mid-fifteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, streams of Ethiopians —known in the Arab world as “Habshis”1 —turned up in slave markets in the Middle East. From there they entered elite households as servants, or they were reexported to India’s Deccan plateau to meet that region’s insatiable demand for military labor. The appearance of these slaves in western India at that time in South Asian history raises a number of issues of race, class, and gender, in addition to important issues related to the institution of slavery. What explains the appearance of military slaves in the Deccan between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries? How did this type of slavery compare or contrast with military slavery in the Delhi Sultanate? Why was Ethiopia the major source for India’s military slaves after the fifteenth century ? How did these slaves become assimilated into the society into which they had been introduced, over time evolving from slaves, to clients, to patrons , even to slaveholders themselves? And what ultimately happened to them? One way of exploring these issues is to trace the career of one of the most famous slaves—and Africans—in South Asian history. This is Malik Ambar, a man whose earlier name, “Chapu,” points to his origins in the Kambata region of southern Ethiopia (see map 2). Born in 1548, Chapu as a young man had fallen into the hands of slave dealers then operating between the Ethiopian highlands and the coasts of eastern Africa. Possibly he was captured in war, or perhaps he had been sold into slavery by his impoverished parents. In any event, Chapu joined streams of other Ethiopians who turned up in slave markets in the Middle East and were then reexported to the Deccan. He also appears to have been sold and resold several times after his initial entry into slavery. A contemporary European source relates that he was sold in the Red Sea port of Mocha for the sum of eighty Dutch guilders2 —information confirming the presence of commercialized slave markets in Arabia in the decades following the Ottoman conquest of the Arab Middle East. A near-contemporary Persian chronicle reports that he was then taken to Baghdad and sold to a prominent merchant named Mir Qasim Baghdadi. Recognizing Chapu’s superior intellectual qualities, Mir Qasim raised and educated the youth, converted him to Islam, and gave him the name“Ambar”(Ar. >anbar,“ambergris”).3 Although Islamic Law prohibits Muslims from enslaving Muslims, Ambar ’s conversion to Islam in no way affected his status as a slave or as a marketable commodity. The matter had already been settled by the time he reached Baghdad. In a case specifically involving an Ethiopian who had converted to Islam after his enslavement, the Moroccan jurist Ahmad al-Wansharisi (d. 1508) took up the issue of whether the man in question, though a Muslim, could still be bought and sold as a slave. In his legal decree (fatwa), al-Wansharisi ruled that the man’s conversion to Islam after his enslavement did not automatically set him free, since slavery was a condition arising from his previous unbelief; hence, his servile status persisted after conversion.4 Likewise with Ambar. Although Mir Qasim had taken him into his household in Baghdad, nurtured him,renamed him,and facilitated his conversion to Islam, the Ethiopian was returned to the slave market and sold, though doubtless at a higher price than the eighty Dutch guilders for which he had originally been purchased. From Baghdad Ambar was taken to the Deccan, where he was purchased by Chengiz Khan, the peshva (chief minister) of the Nizam Shahi Sultanate of Ahmadnagar (1496–1636),which was the westernmost of the five successor -states to the Bahmani Sultanate (1347–1510).5 He was one of a thousand Habshi slaves purchased by the peshva,himself a Habshi and a former slave.6 As a black African,then,Ambar would hardly have stood out amidst the mosaic of ethnic groups then inhabiting the western Deccan. Moreover his master, Chengiz Khan, was only one among many high-ranking Nizam Shahi servants who were systematically recruiting Habshis as military slaves in the sixteenth century. In this respect, officials at Ahmadnagar were following...