281–304. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/164299. Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between a man and a woman in which the couple does not want to or cannot enter into a full marriage. [2], On the whole, in the Achaemenid empire, there was only small number of slaves in relation to the number of free persons. Many female slaves became concubines to their owners and bore their children. Indication – Having been informed about or referring of someone who has been subjected to trading or treatment as a slave, every official is obligated to provide him with means of liberation, immediately, and to inform the district court for guilt’s prosecution. He was the author of several books, including a life of Muhammad, and articles in The Persian Encyclopedia, Western peer reviewed Journals as well as Iranica. ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Navāʾi, Tehran, 1376 Š./1997.p 336, CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (, 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom, Slavery in the Achaemenid Empire (c. 550–330 BC), Slavery in Hellenistic Iran (c. 330–238 BC), Slavery in Parthian Iran (c. 238 BC–224 AD), Slavery under the Umayyads, Abbasids, and Persianate Muslim dynasties (c. 642–1220 AD), Slavery under Mongol and Turkoman rule (c. 1220–1502 AD), Slavery in Safavid Iran (c. 1502–1736 AD), Slavery under Nader Shah and his successors (c. 1736–1796 AD), "Elamites and Other Peoples from Iran and the Persian Gulf Region in Early Mesopotamian Sources", http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/arsacids-ii, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/class-system-iii, https://iranicaonline.org/articles/barda-iii, https://iranicaonline.org/articles/barda-iv, https://iranicaonline.org/articles/fath-ali-shah-qajar-2, Sources of slaves were both foreign (e.g., non-. He also mentions the defeat of Ionians, and their allies Eretria who supported the Ionians and subsequent enslavement of the rebels and supporting population. Early Islamic dogma forbade enslavement of free members of Islamic society, including non-Muslims (dhimmis), and set out to regulate and improve the conditions of human bondage. In later classical Islamic law, the topic of slavery is covered at great length. The Iranian people are modern day slaves to the Islamic revolutionary system, suffering dearly so that the leadership and the rich and wealthy can enjoy these dire times in their mansions. 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. Tehran: Habibi. A creditor could arrest an insolvent debtor and confine him to debtor’s prison. They were called "slaves for pleasure" or "slave-girls for sexual intercourse". Many rulers relied on military slaves and on slaves in administration - to such a degree that the slaves could sometimes seize power. Even afterwards during Mongols, Turkmen, and Turk invasions, slavery had existed and well practiced. However, its study in ancient times is problematic and contested because it depends on the translations of terms such as dasa and dasyu. [11] Slaves had some rights including keeping gifts from the owner and at least three days of rest in the month. Copyright©2018 The Women’s Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). However, the social, economic, and legal positions of slaves have differed vastly in different systems of slavery in different times and places. Once a very large minority in Iran, nowadays due to being heavily assimilated over the course of time and the lack of censuses based on ethnicity, population estimates vary significantly. 35-52), provides detailed information regarding the difficulties and challenges, such as insecurity, that Iran confronted during the Qajar period , and which resulted in the displacement of local Iranians in general and the development of the slave trade and slavery in particular. [29] Male slaves were used for military services as ghilman, or castrated and used as eunuch servants, while female slaves were used as domestics or as concubines for sexual service. [50] [51] The slave concubines of the harem were mainly white, dominantly Turkmen and Kurdish captives under the supervision of female chief called aqal (aḡūl). The topic of African slavery in Iran came to his attention in the late 1990s when he was working on a two-year ethnographic project in the Persian Gulf including the cities of Minab, Bandar Lengeh and Bashagard county in Hormozegan province. What ultimately led to the abolition of the slave trade and the emancipation of slaves in Iran, was internal pressures for reform. Slaves, be they Muslim or those of any other religion, were equal to their fellow practitioners in religious issues. Well, practically even during Zand, we barely had any slaves in Iran. The use of slaves for military service, ghilman, initially disapeared during the Mongol period, but it was revived and became important again during the reign of Ghazan (r. 1295-1304). Abbas Zaryab or 'Abbās Zaryāb was a historian, translator, literature Professor and Iranologist. African slaves in Iran during the Qajar era were often eunuchs. This led to the spread of Moorish, African, and Christian slavery in Spain. [21]. Millions of Africans were exported by Arab slavers from the east coast of Africa to the Middle East and India between 1500 and 1900. In the case of nonpayment of a debt by the appointed deadline, the creditor could turn the children of the debtor into slaves. View Academics in African History, African American History, slavery in Iran on Academia.edu. [45], As in previous times, slaves were used as eunuchs, domestic servants and concubines in the harems; as military men, administrative staff, or field laborers; it was considered a matter of status to have slaves in the household. Every person who purchases or vends a human as slave or treats with a human in another ownership manner or acts as an intermediary in trading or transit of slaves, shall be sentenced to one to three years of correctional imprisonment. [46] Visiting Europeans could also have slaves in their household during their stay, however their slaves could leave any moment they wished with the claim that as Muslims, they were not compelled to serve Christians. Slavery may be listed as a standalone crime in the penal or criminal code or in trafficking-specific legislation or in another act. In traditional Persian residential architecture the women's quarters were known as andaruni, and in the Indian subcontinent as zenana. “Single Article” – In Iran, no one shall be recognized as slave and every slave will be emancipated upon arrival at Iran`s territorial soil or waters. From the port of Zanzibar the black slaves would be shipped to the Arabic peninsula or to the Persian Gulf to serve as slaves or soldiers in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iran or Iraq. Slavery in the Middle East is a growing field of study, but the history of slavery in a key country, Iran, has never before been written. A. Perikhanian (1983). Owners could also voluntarily manumit their slaves, in which case the former slave became a subject of the Sasanian King of Kings and could not lawfully be re-enslaved later. One of the most tragic aspects of such gender discrimination and exploitation in Iran is the sprawling business of trafficking of young women and girls for modern slavery. All forms of modern slavery exist in India, including forced child labor, forced marriage, commercial sexual exploitation, bonded labor, and forced recruitment into non-state armed groups. Thousands of women and children in Iraq are being forced into marriage and sexual slavery by members of ISIS. In former times some harems were guarded by eunuchs who were allowed inside. Under this period Roman prisoners of war were used in farming in Babylonia, Shush and Persis. ibid., p. 111, on a slave with the Iranian name Patiriddta). Cambridge University Press. In recent years, child prostitution has risen 635 percent in the country, and dozens of Iranian girls are brought to Arab countries, Pakistan and Bangladesh to be sold as sex slaves every day. Slaves were widely employed in irrigation, mining, and animal husbandry, but most commonly as soldiers, guards, domestic workers, and concubines. This was publicly acknowledged in 2008 by Hassan Abbassi, one of the clerical regime’s main theoreticians. Because of their participation in cuneiform culture, the Elamites are one of the few pre-Achaemenid civilizations of Iran to leave written attestations of slavery, and details of slavery among the Gutians, Kassites, Medes, Mannaeans, and other preliterate peoples of Bronze Age Iran are largely unrecorded. Slaves and slave trading in Shi’i Iran, AD 1500–1900. In a recent report by the U.S. State Department, Iran was listed among the dozen countries with the poorest record of human trafficking. [17] The Muslim invasion of northern India also resulted in a slave route of Hindu Indians through warfare and slave raids. Jarya, also called jariyah and jawaris, was a term for a certain type of slave girl in the Islamic world. one Babylonian sold “his slave woman, a Bactrian” in Sippar (see for references M. A. Dandamaev, Slavery in Babylonia, DeKalb, 1984, p. 108; cf. The senior woman in rank in the harem was the mother of the Caliph. When the number of white slaves diminished, free Iranian men were employed for the royal guards rather than the previous white ghilmans. 24, no. Early on in Muslim history slaves provided plantation labor similar to that in the early-modern Americas, but this practice was abandoned after harsh treatment led to destructive slave revolts, the most notable being the Zanj Rebellion of 869–883. The allowance for men to use contraception with female slaves assisted in thwarting unwanted pregnancies. In 1462, Portuguese slave traders began to operate in Seville, Spain. They are particularly known in history from the era of the Ottoman Empire, where they legally existed until the mid-19th century. [25] Slave raids were conducted through which people were enslaved, and these were often directed toward Christians in the Caucasus region. The Sex Slave Trade is one of the most Profitable activities in Iran today. The vast majority of them have assimilated to Persian language, and no sizeable number speaks their native Circassian languages anymore. BARDA and BARDA-DĀRI iv. Nobility, the royal family themselves, well-to-do merchants, all of them tried to have or had slaves in their household. According to Islamic practice of slavery and slave trade, non-Muslims were free to enslave, 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.