A History of Slavery and Emancipation in Iran, 1800–1929

Behnaz A. Mirzai

• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781477311868
• eBook ISBN:
  9781477311882
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

The first history of slavery in this key Middle Eastern country and how it shaped the nation's unique character.

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. This history extends to Africa in the west and India in the east, to Russia and Turkmenistan in the north, and to the Arab states in the south. As the slave trade between Iran and these regions shifted over time, it transformed the nation and helped forge its unique culture and identity. Thus, a history of Iranian slavery is crucial to understanding the character of the modern nation.

Drawing on extensive archival research in Iran, Tanzania, England, and France, as well as fieldwork and interviews in Iran, Behnaz A. Mirzai offers the first history of slavery in modern Iran from the early nineteenth century to emancipation in the mid-twentieth century. She investigates how foreign military incursion, frontier insecurity, political instability, and economic crisis altered the patterns of enslavement, as well as the ethnicity of the slaves themselves. Mirzai's interdisciplinary analysis illuminates the complex issues surrounding the history of the slave trade and the process of emancipation in Iran, while also giving voice to social groups that have never been studied: enslaved Africans and Iranians. Her research builds a clear case that the trade in slaves was inexorably linked to the authority of the state. During periods of greater decentralization, slave trading increased, while periods of greater governmental autonomy saw more freedom and peace.

"This is a major contribution to the study of enslavement in Iran, which will doubtlessly become a must-read for any future studies of Middle Eastern and Islamic enslavement and abolition, as well as for any work on Iranian history in general." —Ehud R. Toledano, Tel Aviv University, author of As If Silent and Absent: Bonds of Enslavement in the Islamic Middle East

"While this book will be revelatory to scholars of Iran, it also promises to engage with theoretical trends in the study of slavery elsewhere. It frames many research questions broadly to engage with scholars of slavery in other Muslim lands, as well as slavery elsewhere." —Kamran Scot Aghaie, University of Texas at Austin, coeditor of Rethinking Iranian Nationalism and Modernity

NOTES

A NOTE TO THE READER

1. “Ray” and “man”, ʿAli Akbar Dehkhoda, Lughatnama-yi Dehkhoda, 14 vols. (Tehran: Daneshgah-i Tehran, 1373).

2. James Baillie Fraser, Narrative of a Journey into Khorasan, in the Years 1821 and 1822 (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1825), 9.

3. Arnold Burrowes Kemball to L. P. Willoughby, March 4, 1842, FO 84/426, NAUK, London.

4. Muhammad ʿAli Jamalzada, Ganj-i Shaygan (Tehran: Sukhan, 1384), 177.

5. Ibid., 173.

6. Fraser, Narrative of a Journey into Khorasan, 10; T1 ~ Br4; T1 ~ GC1.85.

7. C. J. Wills, In the Land of the Lion and Sun, or Modern Persia (London: Ward, Lock, & Co., 1891), 63.

8. Fraser, Narrative of a Journey into Khorasan, 10.

9. Wills, In the Land of the Lion, 63.

10. J. R. Wellsted, Travels to the City of the Caliphs, along the Shores of the Persian Gulf (London: Henry Colburn, 1840), 1:84.

11. Richard F. Burton, Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah (1893; repr., New York: Dover Publications, 1964), 2:12.

12. Wills, In the Land of the Lion, 63.

13. Henry Creswicke Rawlinson to Henry Wellesley, April 28, 1847, L/PS/5/450, BL; £1 = Sh13.3.

14. Wellsted, Travels to the City of the Caliphs, I:279.

15. Jamalzada, Ganj-i Shaygan, 177.

INTRODUCTION

1. “The name Persia and Iran had both been used for the area since antiquity. Although Iran was a more correct name for the modern kingdom, westerners used Persia preferentially until 1935.” Gwillim Law, Administrative Subdivisions of Countries: A Comprehensive World Reference, 1900 through 1998 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 1999), 182. See also Houchang E. Chehabi, “Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes: Dress Codes and Nation-Building under Reza Shah,” Iranian Studies 26, no. 3/4 (1993): 226.

2. Ehud R. Toledano, The Ottoman Slave Trade and Its Suppression, 1840–1890 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982); Ehud R. Toledano, Slavery and Abolition in the Ottoman Middle East (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998).

3. Y. Hakan Erdem, Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and Its Demise, 1800–1909 (Oxford: St. Martin’s Press, 1996).

4. Madeline C. Zilfi, Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Design of Difference (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

5. Roger Owen, The Middle East in the World Economy 1800–1914 (1981; repr., London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2005), ix, 24.

6. Terence Walz and Kenneth M. Cuno, “The Study of Slavery in Nineteenth-Century Egypt, Sudan, and the Ottoman Mediterranean,” in Race and Slavery in the Middle East: Histories of Trans-Saharan Africans in Nineteenth-Century Egypt, Sudan, and the Ottoman Mediterranean, ed. Terence Walz and Kenneth M. Cuno (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2010), 1–3.

7. I have interviewed the descendants of enslaved Africans, visited their communities, and collected data from local historians and people (some of whom remembered enslaved people ownership in their own families). Over the last decade and a half, I have been able to film communities of descendants of enslaved Africans in the southern provinces. Although they do not have any knowledge of their ancestral homeland, their connection with Africa is strongly apparent in their perpetuation of many ethnocultural rituals. Behnaz A. Mirzai, Afro-Iranian Lives (Toronto: AfroIranianfilm, 2007), DVD; Behnaz A. Mirzai, The African-Baluchi Trance Dance (Toronto: AfroIranianfilm, 2012), DVD.

8. Jakob Eduard Polak, Persien, das Land und seine Bewohner, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1865).

9. Abdulghaffar Najm al-Daula, Asar-i Najm al-Daula safarnama-yi duwwum-i Najm al-Daula be Khuzistan, ed. Ahmad Ketabi (Tehran: Pazhuheshgah-i ʿulum-i ensani va mutaleʿat-i farhangi, 1386); Abdulghaffar Najm al-Daula, Safarnama-yi Khuzestan (Tehran: Anjuman-i asar-i mafakher-i farhangi, 1385).

10. Firuz Mirza Farman Farma, Safarnamih-yi Kerman va Baluchistan (Tehran: Nashr-i tarikh-i Iran, 1380).

11. The political division of Iran was not fixed. In the nineteenth century, Baluchistan was under Kerman, Sistan was under Khorasan, and the southern ports were part of Fars.

12. Abdulhussain Mirza Farman Farma, Musaferat nama-yi Kerman va Baluchistan, ed. Iraj Afshar (Tehran: Asatir, 1383).

13. Ahmad ʿAli Khan Vaziri, Joghrafia-yi Baluchistan, ed. Muhammad Reza Nasiri (Tehran: Anjuman-i asar va mafakher-i farhangi, 1386).

14. Muhammad ʿAli Sadid al-Saltana Kababi, Sarzaminha-yi shumali piramun-i Khaliji Fars va darya-yi Oman dar sad sale pish, ed. Ahmad Eqtedari (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1386); Muhammad ʿAli Sadid al-Saltana Kababi, Bandar ʿAbbas va Khalij-i Fars (Tehran: Donya-yi ketab, 1368).

15. J. G. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia, 6 vols. (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, 1908–1915).

16. General Esmaʿil Khan Mirpanjeh, Khaterat-i esarat ruznama-yi safar-i Khawrazm va Khiva, ed. Safaʾ al-Din Tabraʿiyan (Tehran: Muʾsesa-yi pazhuhesh va mutaleʿat-i farhangi, 1370).

17. Dust ʿAli Khan Muʿayyir al-Mamalek, Yaddashthaei az zendegani-yi khususi-yi Nasir al-Din Shah (Tehran: Nashr-i tarikh-i Iran, 1362).

18. Muhammad Taqi Lesan al-Mulk Sepehr, Nasekh al-tawarikh tarikh-i Qajariya, 3 vols. (Tehran: Asatir, 1377).

19. Nazem al-Islam Kermani, Tarikh-i bidari-yi Iranian, 3 vols. (Tehran: Amir Kabir, 1371).

20. Hassan Arfa, Under Five Shahs (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1965).

21. The chapter “Iran and Britain,” contains a single section entitled “The Slave Trade in the Persian Gulf.” Fereydun Adamiyat, Amir Kabir va Iran (Tehran: Khawrazmi, 1362), 514–534.

22. See “The Slave Trade and the abolition of the Iranian navigation during the Qajar period.” Esmaʿil Raʾin, Daryanavardi-yi Iranian (Tehran: Sekka, 1350), 2: 677–711.

23. Afsaneh Najmabadi, The Story of the Daughters of Quchan (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1998).

24. Mohammed Ennaji, Slavery, the State, and Islam, trans. Teresa Lavender Fagan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

25. Ennaji, Slavery, the State, and Islam, 3.

26. J. B. Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 1795–1880 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968).

27. Frederick Cooper, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1997), 9.

28. Cooper, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa, 4.

29. William Gervase Clarence-Smith, Islam and the Abolition of Slavery (London: Hurst & Company, 2006).

30. Toledano, Slavery and Abolition in the Ottoman Middle East, x, 10.

31. Ibid., 114, 116; see also Toledano, The Ottoman Slave Trade and Its Suppression.

32. Erdem, Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and Its Demise, 67.

33. Ibid., 125.

34. Zilfi, Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire, xii, 179.

35. Chouki El Hamel, Black Morocco: A History of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• A Note to the Reader
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• One. Commerce and Slavery on Iran’s Frontiers, 1600–1800: An Overview
• Two. Slavery and Forging New Iranian Frontiers, 1800–1900
• Three. The Trade in Enslaved People from Africa to Iran, 1800–1900
• Four. Patterns of Enslavement
• Five. Slaves in Nineteenth-Century Iran
• Six. Slave-Trade Suppression Legislation
• Seven. Antislavery Debates Within Iran
• Eight. Emancipation
• Final Thoughts
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index