Military slavery

>As an employee of Columbia University, I have access to one of the
>finest research libraries in the world. In the course of studying
>about the Mahdist revolt in Sudan during the 1880s, there is one
>riddle that until now has remained unsolved. Although I can not read
>Arabic and therefore can not read scholarly literature on Mahdism
>written in that language (presumably less subject to Eurocentrism), I
>have now read at least 2,000 pages of scholarly material including
>P.M. Holt, considered the premier scholar of Sudanese history in the
>west.


Much appreciated but P.M. Holt is a specialist on medieval Syria not on the
Sudan; the Mahdist state left fairly substantial archives and I don't
consider people specialists who have not read the relevant archives.

I can't speak for the Mahdist state but I have read a bit more than 2.000
pages on slavery in medieval India and I can see three reasons why the slave
soldiers had `pluck' and that has nothing to do with them wanting to be
free.

One: we should be very careful to speak about slavery in `Islam' in general.
On the one hand you have work-slaves, which are cheap and all too often
maltreated and then you have the special military slaves, the recruitment of
whom was a kind of `headhunting' - in 17 th century India a work-slave cost
round and about 40 rupees a military slave (Ethiopians mostly) cost up to
300. (The year-salary of a skilled worker was then 48 rupees, so that's big
money indeed) These people were mostly recruited from groups which already
had a long
military tradition and were especially recruited since they had
indispensable military skills (Ethiopians as heavy infantry armed with axes
for example)  These military slaves often come from very poor and marginal
areas (the Danakil-desert, say, or the mountain-regions of Caucasus) and
it's really a choice between starving at home or leading a reasonably
pleasurable life as a military slave. The slave-soldiers have `pluck' since
abolishing slavery would have robbed them of their only income, I daresay
...

Two: you see, `social mobility' is not merely a problem in and class is not
something confined to capitalism - it may equally well be found in `military
agrarian' societies. Social mobility in a well decidedly NOT capitalist
societies like the 15 th century sultanate of Berar (Deccan - Central India)
was slow, very slow since it was mostly interdicted by the existence of
entrenched rural elites. And really the only way you could climb upwards in
these sultanates was as a military slave. For as a slave you did not bring a
huge family with you who had then to be allotted all kind of pieces of land
exempt from taxes to sustain them, so that the other landholders wouldn't
oppose you since your ascent in the administration doesn't endanger their
claims on land. That is: showing `pluck' in the army as a military slave is
a way to achieve social mobility for yourself as a person. You see, Louis,
if you're a slave first and then freed the other  landholders will oppose
because if you have free status you can acquire permanent fiefdoms but as a
slave you can not - your claim on the ownership of estates ends with your
death. I daresay something of the same applies to the Mahdist army

And three, most armies fight for two reasons (at least before the nineteenth
century): on the one hand for plunder (and rape I might add) and on the
other because they're utterly drunk. (As most drivers, of course, well know
if you're drunk you don't care as much about risk as you would when you're
sober and, ah well, you're a bit more aggressive).

Now - no matter what the Islamic puricists might say nowadays the conquering
armies of Islam were to all evidence very, very drunk and very, very
`stoned' indeed. And in all
evidence I have seen the African mercenary slave-soldiers were the heaviest
drinkers (and opium-addicts) of them all (not that the other soldiers were
averse to drink: Pashtoo soldiers - yes that's Taliban history - did, well,
like a bit of alcohol, to put it mildly). That is: the slave-soldiers had
more
`pluck' on the battlefield since they were the part of the army which had
had, well, quite a large share in the army-rations of rice-whisky and
opium.

If you want to have some idea of how a very, very worked-up and very,
very, very drunk or stoned mass of very young men from fifteen to twenty
reacts to an opponent take a good look at European football-hooligans or for
that matter at the New York crime-scene... it's not pleasant ...


Best wishes
R.J. Barendse