Slavery in Iran
The History of slavery in Iran (Persia) during various ancient, medieval, and modern periods is sparsely catalogued.
[2] Herodotus has mentioned enslavement with regards to rebels of the Lydians who revolted against Achaemenid rule and captured Sardis.
The practice of pledging one's person for debt, not to mention self-sale, had totally disappeared by the Persian period.
Usually the debtor paid off the loan by free work for the creditor, thereby retaining his freedom.According to Plutarch, there were many slaves in the army of the Parthian general Surena.
[7] The meaning of the term "slaves" (doûloi, servi) mentioned in this context is disputed, as it may be pejorative rather than literal.
[9] Some of the laws governing the ownership and treatment of slaves can be found in the legal compilation called the Matigan-i Hazar Datistan, a collection of rulings by Sasanian judges.
[10] Principles that can be inferred from the laws include: To free a slave (irrespective of his or her faith) was considered a good deed.
[11] After the Islamic conquest of Iran, slavery and slave trade came to be similar to those conducted in other Muslim regions, and were directed toward non-Muslims.
According to Islamic practice of slavery and slave trade, non-Muslims were free to be enslaved, and since many parts of Iran remained Zoroastrian the first centuries after conquest, some non-Muslim "infidel territory" were exposed to Muslim slave raids, particularly Daylam in northwestern Iran and the Pagan mountainous region of Ḡūr in central Afghanistan.
[8] Slaves were also employed as entertainers and for secretarial and financial duties, as musicians, as soldiers, as tenders of farm animals and horses, and as domestics and cooks.
The use of slaves for military service, ghilman, initially disappeared during the Mongol period, but it was revived and became important again during the reign of Ghazan (r.
[8] Tamerlane "had as many as a thousand captives, who were skillful workmen, and laboured all the year round at making head pieces, and bows and arrows".
[14] Both male and female slaves were employed by their masters as entertainers, dancing, playing music, serving [15] and by giving sexual services by prostitution at private parties.
[17] The monarchs of the Safavid dynasty preferred to procreate through slave concubines, which would neutralize potential ambitions from relatives and other in-laws and protect patrimony.
Eunuchs had offices in the general court, such as in the royal treasury and as the tutors and adoptive fathers of non-castrated slaves selected to be slave soldiers (ghilman), as well as inside the harem, and served as a channel between the secluded harem women and the outside court and world.
[24][25] The Habeshees were sourced from the southern Abyssinian kingdom of Shoa engaged in conflicts with the Galla peoples along its borders, resulting in the capture of slaves.
The trade routes stemming from these hostilities extended through Shoa, reaching the Red Sea coast at Roheita in the north and Tajura.
Muslim Somalis actively participated in raiding Galla and Habesha groups, making significant contributions to the slave population, they utilized the ports of Zeila and Berbera for these endeavors.
[27][8] The slave concubines of the harem were mainly white, dominantly Turkmen and Kurdish captives under the supervision of female chief called aqal (aḡūl).
[14] Female slaves (kaniz) had in some aspects more freedom than free Muslim women: being not viewed as respectable women they were allowed to move about alone in public outside of the sex segregation of the harem without a veil, and mingle with men in public places such as coffee houses, and were less harshly punished for a extramarital sexual relationship.
[29] The 1828 war with Russia put an end to the import of white slaves from the Russian Empire borderlands as it undermined the trade in Circassians and Georgians, which both Iran and neighboring Turkey had been practicing for quite some time.
It is noted that the position of the formerly powerful eunuchs of the royal harem diminished in this period because of their decreasing numbers.
[31] It is noted that poor parents still sold their children in to slavery, and that slave raids by chieftains were still conducted in the early 20th-century.
[31] On February 7, 1929 the Iranian National Parliament ratified an anti-slavery bill that outlawed the slave trade or any other claim of ownership over human beings.
