Slavery and Bondage in Medieval North India

Shadab Bano is a Professor in the Department of History (Women’s College Section) at Aligarh Muslim University. Her primary research focus is on slave studies and gender history in medieval India, and she has several publications on the social and economic dimensions of slavery and on marginalized women and gender. Her other research interest is in Muslim women’s education and rights in colonial and contemporary India. She has co-edited the volume Teaching/Writing Resistance: Women’s Studies in Contemporary Times with Panchali Ray.

“In her Slavery and Bondage in Medieval North India, Shadab Bano explores a very important aspect of our social history, on which little direct research had so far been undertaken. By filling the gap, the author has extensively enlarged our knowledge of a largely ignored segment of the subject population of pre-modern times. Her work is a necessary read, surely, for all students of Indian social history.”Professor Irfan Habib, Professor Emeritus, Aligarh Muslim University“Shadab Bano’s book on Slavery and Bondage in Medieval North India is a pioneering work that offers a consolidated study of an important practice of owning and controlling human beings. Firmly grounded in archival material, the much needed study cross-fertilises subjection with warfare, labour, sexuality, ideology and economic change.”Professor Najaf Haider, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New DelhiWith careful sobriety, Shadab Bano shows in her book Slavery and Bondage in Medieval North India, how throughout the Sultanate and Mughal periods, the fates of various slave categories differed, and women experienced slavery differently from men. Her treatment of slavery permits the reader to evaluate (and relativize) blanket ‘communalist’ accusations of ‘Muslim oppression’.While sympathizing with the enslaved – especially with the menials among them – the author does not assume that mistreating people deemed inferior was particular to any socio-political system in South Asia or elsewhere.Professor Suraiya Faroqhi, Ibn Haldun University, Istanbul

• Acknowledgements x Introduction 1 PART I Sultanate and Slavery 31 1 Conquest, Enslavement and Slave Trade 33 2 Slaves: The Upper Strata 62 3 Slaves at Work: Ordinary Slaves 90 PART II Contraction and Continuities in Mughal Centuries 113 4 Slave Ban, Acquisition and Trade in Mughal India 115 5 Slaves in the Imperial Establishment: Contradictions 138 6 Slavery and Bondage at Large 164 Conclusion 186 Index 199