Medieval slave trade ran through merchants' personal networks, not mass shipments
“If you're familiar with something like the middle passage across the Atlantic in which enslaved people were packed together in these most inhumane horrible conditions to sort of maximize profit. So this is an era where, slavery was not the opposite. It wasn't like some some, humane institution. However, the trade happened in a much more decentralized way. And so what we find is that merchants would use their own personal networks, and they would write to someone and say, I would like to buy an enslaved person. Can you shop for me in the Port Of Alexandria?”
Slave owners donated proceeds from selling slaves to ransom Jewish captives
“And sort of one example that sort of shows you how people thought of slavery that seems very bizarre to us in the twenty first century, a man contributing to one of these fundraising drives sold a slave and a slave person, and he donated part of the proceeds of the sale to a fundraising, campaign to free a Jewish captive. Right? So this kind of underscores something that's a part of, the culture of slavery is that you know, all people are vulnerable to slavery, but also it's very common that those same groups are people who own slaves, and they didn't see a contradiction in that.”
Modern coercion systems echo medieval slavery's legal frameworks
“In The United States, for example, slavery was was abolished. However, in the thirteenth amendment, it's not abolished as a punishment for certain crimes. Right? So it also makes me ask this question of, like, you know, slavery is such a durable phenomenon in world history, and we tell ourselves that slavery is over. And indeed, like, the kind of chattel slavery that we think of where people can be legally bought and sold has mostly been eliminated. But there are still forms of coercion in the world that for which there are legal frameworks that make it permissible.”
Roughly one in four enslaved people gained their freedom
“So the by the numbers, the best we can tell, and, about one out of every four people, enslaved people, gained their freedom. So I think I would put an asterisk next to that figure because I hope, you know, future research will confirm or modify this, but that's my best, sort of estimate right now. There's multiple, pathways to manumission in Islam. You can free a person outright. You can say, I'm freeing you when I die. There's also something where an enslaved person can negotiate a payment to buy their freedom.”
Enslaved women bearing Muslim owners' children gained limited legal protection
“In Islamic law, there's an extra, benefit that, enslaved women have in particular that doesn't exist in Jewish law, and it's because of patrilineal descent in Islam. So a Muslim man can legally use an enslaved woman for sex, and her child is a freeborn Muslim. So the child is born free, and the the mother, the slave mother, she gains limited protection. And in most sort of schools of Islamic law, she can't then be sold or separated from her child. And when, her owner dies, she's supposed to be freed.”
The Cairo Geniza preserved everyday documents for nearly a millennium
“Geniza is a widespread practice, in Jewish communities. There's also a practice of Geniza in Islamic cultures, some of them. And today too, you would find Geniza in some Jewish institutions. For example, at a seminary that I was at in Cincinnati, there was a bin next to a copier labeled Geniza. So if a rabbinical student was copying a text for class and they made a mistake on the photocopier, they wouldn't throw away, you know, this copy of, a Hebrew text with the name of God on it. They would place it in a Geniza.”
Jewish slaves entered a 'liminal' religious category until manumission
“So in Jewish law, the moment a Jewish slave owner purchases a person, that enslaved person enters a liminal category in which they're neither fully Jewish, but neither are they non Jewish. So take a second to digest that. It's just it is confusing. It they they're a kind of Jew, but not fully. So this, I think, imparts dynamics in the Jewish community where enslaved people, even though they could be bought and sold freely in perpetuity, like, there was a sense that they were part of the Jewish community, like, in a provisional tentative sense.”
Maimonides held contradictory views on slavery across his writings
“So Moses Maimonides, the jurist, he's like his his responsibility is to the texts and Jewish tradition, and it is to sort of explain everything that's come before him and what it said about slavery. So in his law code, for example, you see him say, like, look, based on these proof texts from the book of Deuteronomy, like, an enslaved person is a slave forever, and you can buy and sell them to the ends of the earth. But then if you look at his other writings, you would see that, like, in his philosophical writings, like, there's a clear sort of bias or preference for manumission. He writes a dietary manual for an a sultan and he says, I'm writing this manual so you can be vigorous and please your mini slave women.”
The 'good slave owner' narrative prevented critique of slavery itself
“Both in Islam, both in in Jewish culture, and and religion, like, slave owners tell themselves stories of good and bad slave owners. And so they're, so they really, and this is important because they never arrive, I don't think, at a critique of slavery as an institution, because they're focused on like the problem is slavery is done badly. And that unscrupulous men don't follow the the laws of slavery like they should. But they never arrive at sort of the conclusion that, like, you know, slavery is untenable, it's unworkable.”
