Berbers and Blacks: Ibāḍī Slave Traffic in Eighth-Century North Africa

Abstract

The aim of this article is to illustrate the process whereby certain Berber tribes during the eighth century A.D. substituted slaves from the Bilād al-Sūdān for Berber slaves from North Africa. From the outset, this conversion was influenced strongly, if not instigated, by Ibāḍī merchants until the slave trade became a predominantly Ibāḍī monopoly from the mid-eighth century onwards. The slave trade along the central Sudan route in particular provided the increase in the community's wealth and security, as well as the means for its establishment and expansion as a Muslim sect among diverse Berber tribes and, finally, as the origins for the subsequent, far-flung network of trans-Saharan trade.

Race, gender and slavery in early Islamicate history

“…While there is still no focused study of enslavement during the conquest period, prosopographical studies indicate that the practice of slave concubinage in Arabia peaked in the mid-eighth century, almost certainly due to the conquests (M. Robinson, 2020;Urban, 2020). By the eighth century, slave trades had emerged on the frontiers of the Islamicate world, particularly across the Sahara (Savage, 1992) and the Red Sea (Power, 2012). Additionally, studies of early Islamic law indicate that the conquests pushed jurists to articulate new regulations around slavery and freedom (Brockopp, 2000;Crone, 1987;Mitter, 2001;Schneider, 2007).…”

Africa’s Transitions to the Middle Ages

“…34 Numerous other ports and inland towns in Ifrīqiya served as important hubs for the gathering and re-export to the Middle East of white slaves captured in Southern Europe and of black slaves taken in Sub-Saharan Africa. 35 Along the same southern routes, as Isabel Toral discusses, Berber and Arab merchants also imported gold. 36 Although we have little information about the prices paid for such ore and the amounts of gold that were then exported across the Sahara, Islamic dinars (gold coins) are an invaluable source for documenting the transregional demand for West African gold.…”