-- E. Ann McDougall , "'What is Islamic about Slavery in Muslim Societies?" in Slavery in the Islamic World: Its Characteristics and Commonality, ed. Mary Ann Fay (New York: Springer, 2019), pp. 155-177.

"Although dated, Daniel Pipes, 'Mawlas: freed slaves and converts in early Islam,' in John Ralph Willis (Ed.), Slaves and Slavery in Africa , Vol. 1 (1985): 199–247, remains an excellent introduction from both a legal and an historical perspective."

From Slavery & Abolition: A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies, Vol. 1 (1980): 132 – 177.

Reprinted in:

(1) John Ralph Willis, ed., Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa, Volume I: Islam and the Ideology of Enslavement (London: Frank Cass, 1985), pp. 199-247. (2) Robert Hoyland, ed., Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society, Vol. 18 in the series "The Formation of the Classical Islamic World" (Farnham, Eng.: Ashgate Variorum, 2004), Chapter 13, pp. 277-322.

Table of Contents

To the great despair of historians, men fail to change their vocabulary every time they change their customs. — Marc Bloch [1]

Arabists amuse non-initiates with the exaggeration that every Arabic word has four meanings — a basic one, its opposite, one related to sex, and a final one referring to camels. This variety nearly applies to mawla (pl. mawali), a term which means "Lord, possessor, chief, benefactor, manumitter, protector, lover, follower, charge, cousin, ally, con­tractor, in-law, slave, freedman, client,"[2] as well as religious master, novice slave owner, non-Arabian convert to Islam, and political agent.[3]

The word "mawla" is rarely used in modern Arabic.

Although the Arabic dictionaries list many definitions for this word, they give no clue to its usage. In all but a few of its senses, context makes meaning clear; only some of the social statuses are obscure: freed slave, ally, convert, and political agent. [4] These four usages occur often in the historical sources and it is hard, even impossible, to distinguish them. The sources mention numerous mawlas of these four types, yet the modern reader usually has no way of telling them apart.

Who were most of the mawlas? An answer colors one's under­standing of the status of non-Arabian Muslims in early Islam,[5] of military slavery,[6] and it provides an important insight into the nature of the freed slave status.

THE PROBLEM

The sources rarely provide information to identify which mawlas had slave origins. Even though the four meanings at hand appear entirely unrelated and mawlas were everywhere in early Islam, a modern researcher usually cannot distinguish between them.[7] Crone, the foremost student of mawlas, agrees: "As for telling the difference between freedmen and other mawali, most of the time you can't."[8]

Rather than focus on individual mawlas, we do better to study them as a social phenomenon: who were the freedmen, allies, non-Arabian converts, and political agents? What was their place in society? Their positions kept changing during the early period, reflecting the evolution of Muslim society. As the quote at the beginning of this chapter notes, a single term which changes meaning through time causes historians untold anguish; "mawla" is even more confusing, for one kind of mawla stayed constant and the other changed. This study concentrates on developments in the mawla status; each section describes the social circumstances of mawlas in a specific era.

Modern historians have paid mawlas considerable attention. The nineteenth-century Orientalists von Kremer, Goldziher, and van Vloten worked out an interpretation[9] which has been almost uncritically repeated ever since. Unfortunately, few new questions have been asked; in particular, we know little about the identity of mawlas: which of them had slave origins, which were allies, which new Muslims, and which political agents. How did these types differ and what similarities did they share? Some scholars equate mawlas with converts,[10] even specifically Iranian converts,[11] while others assume them slaves.[12] Only a few writers have contemplated the alternatives and tried to work out which kind of mawla prevailed in a given period or locale. Crone alone has tried to understand their social standing.[13]

If our state of ignorance requires further documentation the translations of early Arabic sources into European languages supply it. "Mawla" is indiscriminately rendered as client or freedman. A careful look at this distinction betrays a complete absence of consistency; lacking guidelines for the meaning of mawla, the translator supplies whichever term may appear to make more sense. In fact, he is guessing at the meaning.[14]

It is our misfortune that none of the most important materials for this topic has survived the centuries. We know of at least four books that dealt specifically with mawlas: three called Kitab al-Mawali, by al-Jahiz,[15] al-Kindi,[16] and Abu 'Ubayda[17] and al-Haytham al-'Adi's Man Tazawwaj min al-Mawali fi'l-'Arab.[18] Almost nothing but the titles of these books remains extant; consequently, the research in this study relies on scattered bits of information from historical and legal sources.[19]

A. JAHILI ARABIA

To learn why one word applies to freed slaves, allies, non-Arabian converts to Islam, and political agents, we must begin in pre-Islamic times, whence originates the term mawla.[20] The specific circum­stances of Jahili society (i.e. Arabia immediately before the birth of Islam) shaped the mawla status and explain why mawla refers to several little-related social categories; it had a simple basic meaning which could fulfill diverse functions in the changing circumstances of the Jahiliya and early Islam.

The Tribal Organization of Society

Tribes dominated Jahili life, performing many of the functions we commonly associate with government - such as the administration of justice and the prosecution of war - and they provided the only forum for political, social, and economic life. Their overwhelming role implied that tribal affiliation had supreme importance in Arabian life before Islam. In this nearly totally tribal society, the individual had no status or power on his own, but attained these only through affiliation to a tribe.

The paramount function of the tribe lay in protecting its members. In a society without police or other generally recognized civil authority to maintain order, an individual's security derived from the knowledge that his tribe stood behind him; were a tribesman harmed, his people had to inflict a comparable injury on a member of the offender's tribe or else receive compensation. The system worked exclusively along tribal lines; an injury to one member was felt by all; and all members paid for the transgression by one of their fellows. Without the threat of revenge hanging over potential aggressors, a man's life had little value in violent Arabian society; he lived as an outlaw who could be killed and his property plundered without retribution.[21]

Besides assuring security, tribes provided the only political, social, and economic forum; to attain power or wealth, an individual had to work from a tribal base. Affiliation meant enfranchisement; without it, one had none of the good things in life, with it anything was possible. It offered the unique path to well-being. For all these reasons, affiliation to a tribe was the single most important personal possession in Jahili society.

Mawlas as Associate Tribal Members

Most of the population of Arabia acquired membership in a tribe at birth; the child of a tribal member followed a parent's affiliation.[22]

Some persons, however, had no affiliation: despised classes at the bottom of the social order (including vagabonds like the Sa‛alik, itinerant musicians and tinkers) and slaves. Slaves stood outside the tribal system altogether, for they belonged to a master as chattel; they had no status of their own. The slave enjoyed the same protection as, say, a camel; the master revenged an injury to his slave by doing violence to a slave belonging to the offending tribe or by receiving material compensation.

Besides those born into the tribal system and those who lived beneath or outside of it, Jahili society also included persons without tribal affiliation but who needed it. These divide into two broad types, free Arabians and everyone else. Arabians born into a tribe occasionally had to quit it because of a quarrel or disgrace. For whatever reason he left, the refugee Arabian contracted hilf (alliance) with another tribe of his choosing, making a contract which closely paralleled the hilf arranged between two Arabian tribes.[23]

Besides free Arabians, three other types of persons needed tribal affiliation: manumitted Arabian slaves and all non-Arabians, free ones and manumitted slaves. Put another way, all manumitted slaves and all non-Arabians sought affiliation.

Arabian non-Arabian free halif mawla manumitted mawla mawla

The freed slave, whether Arabian or not, needed affiliation upon his manumission; so long as he was a slave, he enjoyed protection through his master, but once free, he had to establish his own affiliation. Thus, upon gaining his freedom, a slave became a person in his own right with his own tribal status. A free non-Arabian who lived for an extended time in Arabian society had to arrange for tribal protection much like a refugee Arabian, though as a foreigner, he had a lower status. The better off he was, the greater his danger without protection from a tribe.

Both of these groups, freed slaves and non-Arabians, acquired the same affiliation, the wala'; both of them became known as mawlas. Though some of them had been slaves and others had always been free, such differences mattered less than that they had all acquired a similar affiliation to a tribe. The wala' formally established them as full members in a tribe, equal in rights and duties to the born members, at least in theory.[24] The wala' took the form of a contract, a solemn agreement binding the mawla, his patron, and the tribe. Ceremonies attended the occasion and in Mecca it could take place at the Ka'ba, lending the ceremony a religious tone.[25] Normally, it did not involve an exchange of money.[26]

Through the establishment of wala', the freed slave or non-Arabian acquired a fictitious filiation to his patron. "The protection which a clan afforded to a man from another tribe, or even to a foreigner, also included the right of kinship."[27] This held especially true for freed slaves, whose patrons often adopted them, with the consequence that "emancipated slaves appear in the genealogical lists without any note of explanation, just as if they had been pure Arabs."[28] The sources take great care to mention the wala', for it identified a person, placing him within the kinship system which defined everyone in Jahili society. Indeed, the sources seem to refer to all freedmen as mawlas, whether or not they had contracted wala';[29] genealogical neatness appears to have taken priority over strict accuracy. A freed slave did not have to contract wala'; a freed slave without wala' is known as a sa'iba. Yet one hears very little of sa'ibas. Salim, always called the mawla of Abu Hudhayfa, was in fact the sa'iba of Abu Hudhayfa's wife; only subsequently did Abu Hudhayfa establish wala' between himself and Salim, adopt Salim as a son, and marry him to his daughter.[30]

The wala' bound an unaffiliated person to a tribesman backed by a tribe. The patron could be also the whole tribe or even the populace of a city, but these were merely formal differences.[31] Regardless of the patron's legal identity, the wala' involved the same duties and benefits from each of three parties, the mawla, the patron, and the tribe. The mawla gained protection, the necessary prerequisite for an honorable life in Jahili society. With wala' he had relative security and enfranchisement. In return, he pledged loyalty to the tribe and his patron. Although the Arabian kinship differed completely from medieval European feudalism, the mawla's duties did resemble those of a European vassal: fidelitas, auxilium, and consilium (fealty, aid, and counsel).[32]

The patron stood between the mawla and the tribe. He had rights over the mawla's inheritance, should the mawla die without heir.[33] In return, the patron took responsibility either to pay the mawla's blood money or to avenge him. The tribe obligated itself to protect the mawla as it would a born member and gave him a voice in tribal matters. The tribe gained through the addition of a new member, acquiring an extra hand in battle and a new source of funds for the payment of tribal debts such as tribute or blood money.[34] "Such an increase in numbers was probably quite welcome to weak tribes, but it was considered particularly praiseworthy if a tribe could manage without such elements."[35]

In Jahili society each party to the wala' gained from its establishment.

Types of Mawla

Mawlas of servile and free origins have different names. The mawla who has been a slave is a mawla wala', mawla 'atiq, mawla 'itq, or mawla 'itaqa;[36] he who has always been free is a mawla muwalah, mawla 'aqd, mawla hilf, mawla tiba'a, or mawla yamin.[37] While I wish to maintain this distinction in the following discussion, it is necessary to make up new terms to refer to the mawla types because, as it will be shortly apparent, these Arabic terms acquire more than one meaning. The mawla who has been a slave is a "mawla-freedman" or a "slave mawla"; the mawla who has always been free is a "mawla-ally". Although these hybrid Arabic-English words may not be entirely pleasing, they are accurate.

The wala's also have different names: the mawla-freedman has a wala' 'itaqa, wala 'itq, or wala' ni'ma[38] and the mawla-ally has a wala' ni'ma, wala' 'aqd, wala' khidma, wala' tiba'a, wala' luzum, wala' hilf, wala' yamin, or wala' intiqa'.[39] In parallel with the hybrid terms for mawla, these are rendered by "wala' of manumission" and "wala' of alliance," respectively.

Although mawlas had different origins, slave or free, Arabian or not, they stood in similar relationships to their adopted patron and tribe, sharing the same benefits and duties. In other words, mawlas in Jahili society occupied a single social status. Their position was not debased, but they could not hope to be the equals of the sarihs, the born tribal members. They did not threaten the sarihs but had their own place in the social hierarchy. Since the wala' brought benefit to the mawla, patron, and tribe, it found general acceptance.

Looking ahead to the Islamic era, the mawla status had these important characteristics in Jahili society: (a) all non-Arabians, freed or free (but not persons in state of slavery, true slaves) were mawlas; (b) the mawla was a second-class citizen; (c) protection in return for inheritance rights served as the quid pro quo of the wala'. Despite vast social changes, these three points remain valid throughout the Arabian period, until 132/750. The mawla status retains its function as a mechanism to bring outsiders, manumitted slaves or non-Arabians, into society.

B. MUHAMMAD AND THE RIDDA WARS, 1-13/622-34

The mawla status had originally developed to meet the specific needs of Jahili society; one might expect that Islam, which curbed the tribal conditions, would have caused the mawla status to disappear. Instead, the mawla status became incorporated into Muslim society and spread with it. To adapt to the changed circumstances of the Islamic period - and especially to the advent of central political authority - the mawla status acquired new meanings and functions.

Islam left the mawla-freedman status of Jahili society virtually unchanged while fully transforming the mawla-ally status. The different fates of the two types of mawla require us to consider each of them separately. We begin with mawla-freedmen, the less complex of the two.

Mawla-freedmen

The wala' of manumission largely retained its Jahili purpose of bringing freed slaves into society. Although Islam created a central authority which took over some governmental functions from the tribes (legislating blood money, arbitrating feuds, making war, and so forth), Islamicate society remained largely tribal in organization. Consequently, the freed slave still needed a wala' of manumission with his patron. The freedman faced perhaps less danger without wala' than in Jahili times, but he still depended on a patron to insure his blood money.[40] Even if the power of the tribes was reduced, early Muslim society was not hospitable to a freed slave lacking patronage.

To provide for this, the Islamic religion strongly encouraged the wala' of manumission. This description is found in two places, an enigmatic Qur'anic injunction and a forceful hadith. The Qur'anic verse condemns the pagan practice of releasing a female camel as a devotion:

God has not appointed cattle dedicated to idols

Such as Bahira, Sa'iba, Wasila, or Hami.[41]

Sa'iba here means "a she camel ... let loose for free pasture" which is customarily dedicated "on return in safety from a journey or on recovery from an illness."[42] Figuratively, sa'iba also refers to a slave let loose, that is, one manumitted without wala' to his patron. The Qur'anic condemnation of the camel devotion is therefore also understood as a condemnation of manumission without wala'.[43]

Much more clearly a hadith (a report about the Prophet) quotes Muhammad: "the wala' belongs to the manumitter" (al wala' li-man a'taq).[44] This phrase appears in every discussion of manumission and is understood in two distinct ways:[45] the wala' of manumission can only be established with the manumitter[46] or the manumitter must establish wala' with his freed slave.[47] The second interpretation concerns us more here. The jurists subsequently required wala' to follow every manumission.[48]

The restrictive and compulsory nature of the wala' in Islamic law distinguishes it most sharply from its Jahili antecedent. The flexible arrangements of earlier times (including the voluntary transfer of a wala' of manumission[49]) are no longer legal.[50]

Once instituted in Islamicate society, the mawla-freedman status stayed the same through Muslim history. Regardless of other circumstances, the continued relationship between patron and mawla has remained a constant feature of Muslim society to the present day.[51] It changed so little in early Islam that we need say no more about mawla-freedmen through the subsequent periods.

From Mawla-ally to Mawla-convert

Non-Arabians remained mawlas. Just as non-Arabians living in Jahili Arabia had been mawla-allies and associate members of society, so they remained mawlas and associates in early Muslim society. The mawla status for non-Arabians survived the change from Jahiliya to Islam with just one modification, albeit a major one, the requirement that a free mawla convert to Islam.

The survival of the free mawla status comes as a surprise because it seems not only unnecessary but contrary to the spirit of Islam; It seems unnecessary because the appearance of central political authority under Islam should have eliminated the earlier function of the wala' of alliance, the protection of a free outsider. When a religious polity replaced tribal autonomy, the non-tribesmen should have had the same status as tribesmen. Also, this status appears to contradict the spirit of Islam; in its social ideal, Islam is above all the religion of equality, admitting no lines drawn between believers except those of piety.[52] A distinct status for non-Arabians in Islam - i.e. non-Arabian Muslims - contradicts the tenet that all Muslims stand equal before the Lord.[53] Thus the continued existence of the free mawla status for Muslims requires explanation.

Islam demanded the abolition of many Jahili social customs, but few of them in fact fully disappeared. Muhammad called on the Muslims to replace tribal affiliation with an Islamic bond and to reduce an elaborate hierarchy of social statuses to equality, but neither these nor other changes were fully implemented. Indeed, both tribal allegiance and social stratification remain much in evidence among Muslims to this day. The mawla status retained its usefulness because early Islamicate government, even under Muhammad, never attained enough authority to enforce the new order. It could not eliminate the primacy of the tribal social organization, so the mawla status remained necessary.

The free mawla status continued to exist for another reason too; a Qur'anic verse commends the mawla status for non-Arabians:

Call them your brothers in faith, your mawlas.[54]

If you know not their ancestors' names

What does this passage intend? In my opinion, it has more to do with genealogical tidiness (giving even non-Arabians a place in the kinship system) than with social distinction; remembering that only Arabians know the names of their ancestors,[55] this verse urges fictive genealogies for non-Arabians who join the Islamic community in order to identify them. "When non-Arabians entered Arabian life, a name was sought for them. The term "mawla" was given to them in accordance with the Qur'anic verse" quoted above.[56]

Whether or not the Qur'an intended only this, it had much greater consequences. Beyond serving as a genealogical device, the mawla status also preserved the distinction between Arabian and non-Arabian; willy-nilly, it perpetuated the latter's associate status. In theory, the non-Arabian Muslim had complete equality with the Arabian Muslim, but assigning him a distinct status made it more probable that he would occupy a lower position.

The mawla-convert status. For the free mawla status to survive from Jahili to Islamic society, it had to undergo a major modification.[57] Whereas free non-Arabians earlier had affiliated to a tribe by becoming tribal members, in Islamic times they affiliated to the umma (Islamic community) by becoming Muslims. A new requirement for joining Arabian society emerged: conversion.[58] Mawla-allies in Jahili times could belong to any religion,[59] but their counterparts in Islamic times had to be Muslims. (Non-Arabians belonging to a scriptuary religious community could remain non-Muslims and become dhimmis; others had to convert.)

The conversion requirement so changes the nature of the free mawla status that it requires a new name; the mawla-ally of old is gone, replaced by the "mawla-convert." His wala' is the "wala' of conversion." The sources usually refer to these two different free mawla types with the same Arabic term, mawla muwalah; only a few references explicitly distinguish between them. The mawla-convert is sometimes called a mawala islam[60] or "a mawla who converts at the hands of another man."[61] The legal works discuss the wala' of conversion at length, but there are few specific cases on record.[62] We know almost nothing about the manner in which the wala' of conversion took place.[63]

The fact that the sources do not normally identify the mawla­-convert as a new kind of free mawla, distinct from the mawla-ally, adds considerably to the confusion surrounding mawlas; in addition to the two entirely distinct types, freedmen and non-Arabians, the latter divide into allies (in Jahili times) and converts (in the Arabian period).

The mawla-convert status resembled the mawla-ally status in several ways: each brought free outsiders into Arabian society through direct affiliation to a member of that society; an Arabian could be neither one nor the other;[64] both share similar inheritance relations with their patrons;[65] and they both gain a fictive filiation. The following passage shows the importance of this filiation for the mawla-­convert.

Muhammad said; "The mawla of a tribe is one of them;[66]" yet non-Arabians have weak claim to tribal ties because they have forgotten their genealogies ... Salman al-Farisi [a mawla-convert] indicated this when he was asked, "Salman, son of whom?" He replied: "Salman, son of Islam" (Salman ibn al-Islam).[67]

Before Islam, there were no mawla-converts; after Islam, the mawla-­allies died off and were not replaced.[68] This leaves a transition period of perhaps fifty years (ca. 1-50/622-70) during which the two types of mawlas existed simultaneously. In this period, we have no precise way of telling whether a free non-Arabian Muslim was a mawla-ally or a mawla-convert. Fortunately, this distinction has only slight import­ance; the mawlas who joined Islam in its first years, before it became the religion of conquerors, shared in the trying experiences of their patrons and for this they were rewarded in later years.[69] Thus, both kinds of free mawla enjoyed a high status in the years before the conquests began; the ally/convert distinction had little importance.

The very first unambiguous example of a mawla-convert comes from the lifetime of the Prophet. This case holds particular interest, for, if true, it indicates that Muhammad himself inaugurated the mawla-convert status. Manahiya, a merchant from Merv, Khurasan who had heard of the Prophet, took interest in his new religion, travelled to Medina to see him, converted at his hands, changed his own name to Muhammad, became a mawla of the Prophet's, and returned home to Merv a Muslim.[70] The fact that he became a mawla indicates that the Prophet viewed all non-Arabian Muslims as mawlas, even if they did not live in Arabian/Muslim society. Manahiya was free and he lived outside of Arabia so his wala' had to be the wala' of conversion.

Implications of mawla-convert status. In Jahili society the slave and free mawlas had been mutually distinct; a person could not be both a mawla-freedman and mawla-ally. In Muslim society it was possible to be both at once; the mawla-freedman and mawla-convert statuses intermingled. Although a slave need not convert to Islam to gain his freedom,[71] it seems fair to assume that in practice, conversion often preceded manumission, especially in the early period.[72] The freed slave who has converted to Islam is a dual mawla, a mawla-convert­-freedman.[73] He is both a slave and a free mawla at once; does this mean he falls into yet another category, or can we consider him either a mawla-freedman or a mawla-convert?

The Shari'a solves this problem by stating unequivocally that the dual mawla is primarily a mawla-freedman:

The wala' of manumission precedes that of conversion.[74] The wala' of conversion is weak and disappears in the face of the wala' of manumission.[75] The Willa [wala'] of Manumission is binding, whereas the Willa of Mawalat [conversion] is not so; and during the existence of a thing which is forcible and binding, a thing which is not so cannot take place.[76]

Since the wala' of manumission precludes a wala' of conversion, the freed slave

may not establish a wala' of conversion with anyone, dhimmi or Muslim, Arabian or non-Arabian, except for his manumitter.[77]

Yet a wala' of conversion with the manumitter is redundant and does not occur. Thus, all freedmen who have a wala', whether Muslim or not, are mawla-freedmen.[78] Only converts who never experienced slavery are mawla-converts.

Islam prohibits the enslavement of Arabians;[79] if none may be enslaved, none can be freed; therefore no mawla-freedman is Arabian (except a few survivors from Jahili times). Similarly, the free Arabian who converts to Islam does not become a mawla-convert;[80] con­sequently, every mawla in Islamicate society, of whatever type, is a non-Arabian. This fact has enormous implications for the subsequent development of the mawla status, for it means that the mawla status provides a means of dividing Arabians from non-Arabians, regardless of religion or social standing. Note, however, that if every mawla was a non-Arabian, not every non-Arabian was a mawla; in special cases, privileged military elements, such as the Persian abna' of the Yemen or the Asawira escaped this status.[81]

Having survived the transition from Jahili times to Islam, the free mawla status went on to acquire a major new role in Islamicate society for the next 120 years.

Most mawlas had slave origins. The many detailed biographies of the Sahaba, the companions of Muhammad, provide information on the proportion of slave to free mawlas. Mawlas constitute about a tenth of the entire Sahaba; of these again about one-tenth, of fifty-six mawlas, can be identified by mawla type. As Tables 1 and 2 show, a large majority of them were of slave origins, perhaps five-sixths of all the mawlas.

A mark in column 1 indicates a mawla-freedman; in column 2, a mawla-ally; and in column 3, a mawla­-convert. Any mawla who is also thought to have been a halif (ally) I assume to be a mawla-ally. The names in parentheses are those of patrons.

TABLE 1*

Name 1 2 3 References Aflah (Muhammad=M) * AA 1.194-5 Aslam ('Umar b. al-Khattab) * IS 5.5; TAS 1.128 Bashshar (M) * KM 72 Bilal b. Rabah * AA 1.184-93 Thabit (al-Akhnas) * Thawban (M) * AA 1.480-82 Habib b. Aswad * IS 3.2.111 al-Hakam B. Kaysan * IS 4.1.101-02 Khabbab b. al-Aritt * AA 1.175-80; s.v. M.J.Kister in EI² Khabbab Abu Yahya * Dus (M) * Dhakwan (Bani Umayya) * Rafi' ('A'isha) * Ribah (Umm Salma) * Ribah (M) * AA 1.484 Ruwayfi' (M) * AA 1.482-83 Zayd b. Haritha * AA 1.467-73; s.v.V. Vacca in EI¹ Sa'ib * Salim (Abu Hudhayfa) * KM 139 Sa'd (Abu Hawla) * Sa'd b. Khawla * or * KM 162 Safina (M) * AA 1.480; T11780 Salman al-Farisi (M) * AA 1.485-89; Note 96 Shaqran (M) * AA 1.478-9 Salim b. al-Harith * TAS 1.2472 Salim (or Salma) * UG 2.247 + 363 Sundur * Salih b. Mutawakkil * Subayh (Huwaytib) * Suhayb (Abu 'l-'As) * or * Damira (M) * AA 1.484 'Amir b. Fuhayra * AA .193-4 'Abd ar-Rahman (al-Ansar) * 'Ammar b. Yasir * AA 1.156-75; IS 3.1.176-89 'Umayr b. 'Awf * 'Umayr (Abu 'l-Lahm) * KM 165; Abu 'Ubayd 310-11; Abu Yusuf 215 Mabur (M) * TI 1781-82 Muhammad (M) * Cf. p. 208 above Mid'am (M) * AA 1.484; KM 73 Mas'ud b. Hunayda * IS 4.2.42-43 Mu'ayqab * Makhul (M) * Mihja' * IS 3.1.285; TAS 2.1109 Mina (Abu 'Amir) * IS 5.228-29 Nabih (M) * Wahshi * Pipes 111-12 Yasar (al-Mughira b. Shu'ba) * al-Waqidi 649 Yasar ar-Ra'i (M) * AA 1.479-80 Yasar ('Amr b. 'Umayr) * Abu Bakra (M) * AA 1.489-506; IS 7.1.9 Abu Rafi' * AA 1.477-78 Abu Fukayha * AA 1.194-95 Abu Qara * IS 5.6; TAS 2.2253 Abu Kabsha (M) * AA 1.478 Abu Lubaba (M) * AA 1.483 Abu Muwayhiba (M) * AA 1.483-84

TABLE 2

Number % of total known wala's freedmen 48 82% freedmen or allies 2 4% allies 7 12% convert 1 2% Total 58 100%

* The names are listed in (Arabic script) alphabetical order, as in Usd al- Ghaba; many of the names are unusual, so I cannot vouch for the spellings. All but one of these mawlas (namely Abu Qara) have entries in Usd al-Ghaba by Ibn al-Athir; these references are not provided here since they can so readily be found; various other references are given.

C. THE ARABIAN PERIOD, 13-132/634-750

The mawla status for non-Arabian Muslims had been established in Muhammad's lifetime, though it had little social significance at that time, since all Muslims endured the same hardships. After 13/634, however, as the Arabians conquered vast territories, the mawla status became a very important distinction between Arabian and non-Arabian Muslims. Thus, a study of mawla-converts in this period is an inquiry into the relations between Arabians and other Muslims; as such it constitutes the central topic in the social history of early Islam.

The Standard Interpretation

First formulated by von Kremer in 1877, a single view has dominated the study of mawla-converts in the Arabian period.[82] This view has importance for it serves as the keystone to the understanding of the relations between Arabians and non-Arabians in early Islam; therefore, I shall outline its main points before attempting to refute it.

The standard interpretation notes that mawla-converts had enjoyed near equality with Arabian Muslims in Muhammad's lifetime and the changes for the worse occurred shortly after his death. It attributes the decline they experienced either to Arabian racial arrogance or to the assassination of 'Umar I by a Persian slave.[83] Non-Arabian Muslims answered this deterioration with resentment; until 132/750 they struggled with the Arabians to regain an equal position; and the Abbasid take-over represented their successful revolt against oppression.

This argument contains five main points: (1) the Arabians arbitrarily discriminated against mawla-converts; (2) the mawla-­converts responded with resentment; (3) they expressed it by agitating against the Umayyads, the Arabians' regime; (4) their efforts ultimately succeeded when they brought the Abbasids to power; (5) the Abbasids came to power with a mandate to make all Muslims, Arabians and others, equal, and they did so, permanently settling this issue.

I do agree that the mawla-converts' position was worse in the Arabian period than either before or since, but I explain these changes differently. The Arabians did not oppress mawla-converts but treated them as any conquerors treat their subjects; the mawla­-converts did not resent their position, nor did they fight against the Umayyad regime any more than they fought for them; the Abbasid forces depended more on Arabians than on mawla-converts; and the improvement in the status of non-Arabian converts after 132/750 was a secondary consequence of the Abbasid take-over. This study deals only with points (1) and (2); others are dealt with in my Slave Soldiers and Islam (pp. 117-31, 170-74, 174-77).

The Conquests and Mawla-convert Subordination

The great Arabian conquests dominated Islamicate life from 13/634 until 132/750. The tentative social patterns set in Muhammad's lifetime were completely upset by the transformation of the Muslims from an ordinary group among many into the greatest conquerors of their age. This transformation created a new significance for the mawla-convert status; it served to distinguish between conquerors and conquered among the Muslims and helped maintain the privileges of the former over the latter. Although the mawla-convert status had had no function before 13/634, when being a Muslim in itself brought no benefits, it subsequently acquired an important role as Islam became the religion of rulers.

The new function of the mawla-convert status. Contrary to common belief, jihad (Islamic holy war) should be undertaken to spread not the religion of Islam but its rule. When Muslims make war against pagans, they fight to control territories this often leads to the conversion of vanquished peoples, but not always (e.g. many parts of India, Hungary). The limited goal of jihad lent itself well to the needs of the early Arabian Muslims, for it inspired the conquests and provided elements of cohesion and direction otherwise lacking.[84] Since jihad does not require that Muslims encourage the vanquished peoples to convert, Islam then became a creed of conquerors. For the early Arabians, "it was above all a badge of a united Arabism, the code and discipline of a conquering élite."[85]

The Arabians had no interest in sharing their religion with the subject population and made no efforts to spread it among them.

They did not encourage, and even discouraged, conversions to Islam from the subject populations; but this was in conformity with the most common view of Islam among Muslims. Islam, among the several revealed religious allegiances, was the one that should guide those in command among men, and these should be Arabs, to whom Islam was properly given.[86]

An important practical reason lay behind the Arabian discouragement of non-Arabian conversion and their subsequent reluctance to treat them as equals. The Arabians received great benefits from their victories, both in booty and in annual pensions; the fewer the beneficiaries and the larger the subject population, the more they received. The Arabian Muslims needed to limit entry onto the diwan, the Register which listed the pensioners. They had to restrict the benefits of conquest to the conquerors alone and deny them to Muslims from the subject populations. If every Berber, Egyptian, Syrian, Aramean, or Iranian who converted received a pension, who would pay? Masses of non-Arabians would convert, the pension system would collapse overnight, and the Arabians would lose all their well earned booty.

The non-Arabian who converted to Islam was, in effect, petitioning to join the society of the conquerors.[87] To prevent this from happening in large numbers, the conquerors had to exclude non-Arabians, whether Muslim or not, from the Register and the fruits of victory. Herein lay the usefulness of the mawla-convert status; it provided an Islamic mechanism whereby the Arabians restricted to themselves the benefits of victory. Wala' in Jahili society had benefited the free non-Arabian, in Muhammad's lifetime it had little meaning for him, and in the Arabian period it served as an obstacle to privilege. This change in Islamic times did not occur either because of antagonisms aroused by Arabian racial pride or 'Umar I's murder, but by the obvious problems of relations between the victors and the vanquished. The change occurred as a result of the conquests; when Islam became a tag of privilege, old Muslims found they needed some new status for new converts in order to prevent them from spoiling the benefits of victory.

A look at taxation policies confirms the Arabian unwillingness to grant non-Arabian Muslims advantages over their unconverted brethren.[88] Although obliged by Islam to release converts from the jizya (poll tax), "throughout the Umayyad period the Arabs were extremely reluctant to relieve people of their poll taxes."[89] In Egypt, for example, they "discouraged conversion and in many instances refused to exempt the convert from his poll tax."[90] The Arabians did sometimes grant converts their rightful benefits, but not without constant arguments.[91] As a result, "whatever the expectations of the convert, in practice, conversion failed to work as a means of tax evasion."[92]

Even without full tax benefits, converts multiplied; already in Mu'awiya I's time Arabians were concerned with the numbers of mawlas.[93] One source (admittedly it is suspected of exaggerations in this regard) states that 20,000 Persians lived in Kufa in 'Abd al-Malik's time[94] and a modern historian thinks that mawlas formed a majority in Iraq as a whole.[95] We do not know how many of these were mawla-­freedmen, but if large numbers of non-Arabians converted without advantages, how many more would have with the lure of receiving a pension?

The high status of mawlas who converted before the conquests began stayed high in the Arabian period; their exceptional position confirms my line of argument. Mawlas like Salman al-Farisi and Bilal b. Rabah, who converted before the conquests, formed part of the Muslim aristocracy, despite being non-Arabian, for they had joined the umma before it brought advantages. They shared in the struggles and later joined in the rewards. They did not suffer on account of not being Arabians, but received equal pension pay, occupied high posts, and have been ever esteemed as members of the Sahaba (especially Salman).[96] The prestige of the pre-conquest mawlas belies accusations against the Arabians of racial discrimination; later mawla-converts had inferior positions because they came from the subject populations, not because they were not Arabians.

Arabian and mawla-convert attitudes. Widespread agreement to the contrary, it is not true that Arabians felt prejudice against others. Their discrimination resulted from the inevitable social differences which developed out of the conquests and the sharp lines they drew between victor and vanquished.[97] The situation could not have been otherwise; the mawla-converts came from the conquered peoples and conversion did not change this basic fact. Even when they share religion with their subjects, conquerors do not freely admit the conquered to join their ranks (note, for example the continued low position of Christian converts in British India).

Why do historians expect Arabians to have acted differently from other conquerors? The reason may lie in the belief that the Arabians originally intended to convert the conquered populations[98] and sub­sequently they shied away from granting the converts their full rights, retreating into selfish domination. If conversion had been their intention, then indeed, they deserve reproach for succumbing to the material benefits of excluding non-Arabians, but conversion was not the purpose of the conquests[99] (as indeed, it is never the legal purpose of jihad); we should not begrudge the Arabians their well earned rewards.

The Arabians had to draw lines between themselves and the peoples they had vanquished; they were not prejudiced, nor did they feel an overweening racial pride, but they protected their interests in a predictable and reasonable way. Mawlas accepted these reasons and did not resent their lesser status among Muslims.[100] As conquered peoples, how could they expect treatment as equals? Not only would this be presumptuous, but it defies all common sense. Perhaps historians expect to find resentment because they project backwards the well-known feelings from later centuries, so eloquently expressed in the Shu'ubiya literature; it is perhaps assumed that they are valid also for mawla-converts in the Arabian period, however different that earlier situation was.

Confirmation for my interpretation comes from the military record; mawlas fought at least as much for the Umayyad regime as for its enemies (documented in Chapter 4 of Slave Soldiers and Islam); this indicates that they did not resent the social order it represented.

All Mawlas Shared a Single Social Status

Indications of a single status. Although different in origins, mawla­-freedmen and mawla-converts shared much in the Arabian period;[101] their similarity was so great that they can even be regarded as a single group.[102] They had the following characteristics in common:

(1) Non-Arabian.[103]

(2) Muslim.[104]

(3) Non-tribal. Muslim society had shed some of the tribal structure of Jahili days, but tribes still counted and mawlas remained outsiders (only Arabian tribal affiliation counted; it didn't help to belong to an Iranian or Berber tribe). All mawlas and almost no one else participated in Arabian/Islamicate society without having been born into it with tribal affiliation. This made all mawlas in need of a patron to sponsor and protect them.

(4) Low social status. As both non-Arabians and members of the subject populations, slave and free mawlas alike suffered social discrimination. This fact held true with little difference for slaves (who were forcibly brought in) and for converts (who attached themselves voluntarily).

(5) Disruption and isolation. All mawlas found themselves cut off from their own peoples and not fully accepted into Muslim society. This is self-evident in the case of the mawla-freedman; enslavement disrupted his life totally, uprooting him from his people and then thrusting him into alien surroundings. By the time of his manu­mission, he had probably lost all ties to his homeland, so he remained as a freedman in the country of his captivity. As a freed slave, he depended heavily on his patron, yet remained an outsider, isolated from the mainstream of society.

The disruption and isolation experienced by a mawla-convert are less obvious, but they were nearly as great as the mawla-freedman's. The mawla-convert's background explains this dependence. Which individuals in the subject population were most likely to convert to Islam? Bulliet notes that as a social process, conversion takes place primarily to maintain or improve social status; therefore, given the low social status of the mawla-convert, we may assume that he was yet worse off before conversion to Islam. He had been perhaps a landless peasant, a prisoner of war, or an oppressed city dweller.[105] Non‑Arabians converted when they had nothing to lose and something to gain - perhaps social advantage more than economic. [106] Conversion to Islam amounted to "a voluntary entry into clientage [for] peasants in search of a patron."[107] The conversion of individual non-Arabians without roots in their own communities "was the only important pattern of conversion to Islam in the first century of the hijra"; in later times, converts did not experience the same disruption.[108]

Thus, the mawla-convert was most likely a person from the bottom of the social ladder in his own society, someone who took the chance of joining the Arabians on any terms. Once a Muslim, he did not differ markedly from other non-Arabians who had been slaves.

(6) The merging of wala'. Mawla status in Arabian times passed on to subsequent generations;[109] the children of mawlas were almost all mawlas, as the following marriage combinations indicate:

Father Mother Child (a) Arabian mawla Arabian (b) dhimmi mawla (illegal marriage) (c) mawla mawla mawla (d) mawla dhimmi mawla (e) mawla Arabian mawla or Arabian[110]

A mawla mother could have non-mawla children, but if the father was a mawla, his children had to be mawlas too. These male mawla children in turn had mawla grandchildren, and so on indefinitely.

The continuation of the mawla status through multiple generations has a hidden but enormous significance for the argument that all mawlas share a single social status. As time passed and the original act of manumission or conversion receded, the status of the descendants became increasingly indistinguishable. Later generations of mawlas began life neither as slaves nor as non-Muslims; they were born as free Muslims. Since they personally did not become free nor did they convert, they bore the characteristics of neither a mawla-freedman nor a mawla-convert. Through the generations, their ancestors' wala' type was forgotten and lost importance.

Plenty of examples show that the wala' was inherited for many generations. Abu Hanifa, the founder of the Hanafi law school, was the grandson of a mawla-freedman and he was also known as a mawla.[111] Abu'l-'Atahiya, the poet, was the great-grandson of a mawla and still called a mawla.[112] Tahir b. al-Husayn, the Tahirid ruler until 207/822, was a mawla, though in his case also a great-grandfather had established wala'.[113] Similarly, al-Fadl b. Rabi', a major Abbasid political figure, had an ancestor four or five generations back who became a mawla, though we also hear that his own father was freed from slavery.[114] The unclear wala' of al-Fadl b. Rabi' typifies the confusion and complexity in tracing wala' genealogies.

As the wala' passed from one generation to the next, the numbers of mawlas grew, without any new manumissions or conversions. Of course, manumission and conversion did not stop, but relative to the increasingly undifferentiated mass of mawlas by inheritance, these new mawlas formed an ever-smaller percentage of the total mawla population. With time, nearly all mawlas became indistinguishable, being neither mawla-freedmen nor mawla-converts, but just plain mawlas.

(7) The ambiguous status of conquered peoples. The mawla question is terribly complicated by the unclear status of peoples vanquished by the Arabians. In theory, all the inhabitants of a region conquered 'anwatan became slaves.[115] 'Anwatan is usually translated "by force," but recent research shows that it really signified in this context "without treaty."[116] A small locality or a town might be taken by force, with or without treaty, but not whole countries such as Egypt or the Sawad (i.e., Iraq), for within those countries both treatied and treatiless conquests took place; nonetheless, both Egypt and the Sawad are said to have been conquered 'anwatan. What can one make of this? The 'anwatan description fits the facts of the conquests very poorly; Noth suggests that they were not contemporary accounts of the conquests but developed some seventy years later, the creation of Umayyad jurists justifying then current taxation practices.[117]

If the 'anwatan conquest has little meaning, we have to look at the details of a region's settlement terms in order to assess the status of its population. Did the Arabians enslave en masse the inhabitants of regions conquered by force of arms? Did they enslave just the soldiers and their retinues (asirs) or entire populations (sabis)? If entire populations fell into slavery, then that region would later have to include massive numbers of mawla-freedmen and few mawla­-converts. The astonishing ambiguity and complexity of this matter leads me to think that no one could tell what kind of mawla the subjects of certain regions were. The situation in the Sawad illustrates this complexity with a flourish.

After the conquest of the Sawad,[118] 'Umar I "established the revenue of the Sawad as a waqf (mortmain) and included the peasants as part of that waqf, even though they were not slaves."[119] What then was the status of a population that formed part of a waqf grant but was not enslaved? The sources call them ahl al-ard, riqqs and 'abd qinns, since the Muslim legal experts were not familiar with the concept of the adscript (serf), they floundered about for a term to call this status. The difficulty arose because:

1) there was no explicit terminology in the Arabic language by which to refer to it; and 2) the conditions of the adscript lay, in its practical effects, somewhere between the categories of free and slave, and the theory of the shari'a did not admit of any intermediate condition.[120]

The peasants of the Sawad were legally free yet called slaves; if this confused the jurists, how can it help but bewilder everyone else? The following two passages show the attempts made to understand the status of the Sawad population:

Abu 'Ubayd: Either [the people of the Sawad] were not put into captivity but were free all along, or they were put into captivity and the Imam showed clemency to them, did not divide them, and so they became free once again.[121] At-Tabari: Someone claimed that the people of the Sawad were slaves, but how can one take jizya (poll tax) from slaves?[122]

Confusing the situation yet further, an Arabian told al-Mukhtar in 67/687 that mawlas "were received as booty from God" when the Sawad had been conquered.[123] Thus, this population cannot unequivo­cally be assigned either a slave or a free status. When they converted to Islam, they became either mawla-freedmen or mawla-converts and no one could tell which.

Another example may show that the Sawad was not an isolated instance; the lawyers attained even greater heights of sophistry when they explained the peace settlement between the Arabian conqueror 'Amr b. al-'As and a Berber tribe. The Berbers agreed to send their children as part of their jizya payments. From this fact, an eminent legal scholar inferred: "had [the Berbers] been slaves, this would not have been required of them."[124] In other words, the requirement that the Berbers send their children into slavery implied the parents' freedom! This unblushing analysis does everything but tell us whether the conquered peoples were slaves or free.

A Muslim jurist from a later century, az-Zayla'i (d. 743/1342), reasoned out his own solution of this problem:

The non-Arabians are called mawlas because their countries were conquered 'anwatan by the Arabians who enslaved them; and if the Arabians left them free, it was as though they had manumitted the non-Arabians. Consequently, the non-Arabians became mawla-freedmen.[125]

Az-Zayla'i admits to not knowing what kind of mawla these persons were and presents his own reasons for thinking them mawla-freedmen. Although a reasonable solution, his proposal does not solve the basic question: who was enslaved in the Arabian conquests? The term "mawla" obscures the answer, for "many of the literary and historical sources apply it to every non-Arabian Muslim convert, whether or not he was a slave."[126] Mawla came to mean "non-Arabian Muslim;" although "apparently rejected by the lexicographers as untechnical [this meaning is] commonly found in the sources."[127]

(8) Indications in the sources. Although no contemporary writer explicitly states that all mawlas shared a single social status, several hint at this. They do so in the following ways:

(a) Lack of interest. The chronicles rarely pay attention to mawla type; few individuals are referred to specifically as mawla-freedmen or mawla-converts.[128] The legal books often make this distinction because it had legal importance; perhaps the chronicles ignored it because it had no historical importance.

(b) Confusion. Possibly the chroniclers said nothing about mawla type because it is assumed that the reader can distinguish between them on his own? To the contrary, not only could the reader not recognize mawla types, but even authors were sometimes confused. Abu Muslim is the prominent case; the sources disagree on his being a mawla-freedman or mawla-convert.[129] Even contemporaries had to ask about mawla type; when Muslim b. Dhakwan went on a mission for Yazid III, his identity came under question: he called himself "a mawla of Yazid"; when asked, "a mawla-freedman or a mawla-­convert?" he answered "a mawla-freedman," to which the reply came, "good, that is preferable."[130] These and other examples betray everyone's confusion about the mawla status; this implies that no major differences separated the two types.

The Shari'a takes such confusion into account; if the mawla claims to be of one type and the patron says he is of the other, ash-Shaybani gives more weight to the mawla's statement.[131]

(c) A single category. Al-Jahiz in Manaqib al-Atrak recounts mawla pride in the great mawlas of early Islam. The list includes mawla­-freedmen of the Prophet (Zayd b. Haritha, Shaqran, and Anasa),[132] prominent mawlas in the Abbasid movement (including Abu Muslim and the mawla-freedman Abu Salama),[133] and the Khurasaniya, an Abbasid military unit recruited in Khurasan.[134] That al-Jahiz lumped mawla-freedmen and mawla-converts together indicates that mawlas themselves saw mawlas as a single category.

Modern authorities agree with these conclusions. Crone remarks that we repeatedly "meet the mawla as the client pure and simple with the free and the freed client as the two major variations."[135] Jacob Lassner concurs: "The legal distinction between free born and manumitted clients is generally of no consequence."[136]

The fact that all mawlas of the Arabian period shared a single status has two implications: that the ratio of mawla-freedmen to mawla-­converts is untraceable; and that this ratio had little importance because all mawlas resembled each other.

All mawlas were unfree. What social standing did mawlas have? Legal differences aside, all mawlas were non-Arabian Muslims outside the tribal network occupying positions of low social status and isolated from their own people; thus, they shared a disjointed and vulnerable status. Mawlas depended so much on their patrons that they were unfree.

The slave in Muslim society of the Arabian period was removed from his home to serve an Arabian. As a slave, he had almost no resources of his own but depended on his master. His circumstances hardly changed with manumission for the freed slave could do little on his own; whether he needed financial aid, legal protection, or political patronage, the mawla-freedman usually could not escape continued dependence on the patron for the good things in life. He could, no doubt, depart, perhaps even return to his own people, but this seems to have been rare; once part of the conquerors' society, if only at its fringes, the freed slave found it hard to leave.

The same held true for the mawla-convert. He too lost ties to his people, though he did this voluntarily and in return for social and economic benefits. The mawla-convert usually had a humble social origin (some aristocrats also converted in this period to preserve their holdings, but that is another matter) and had nothing to lose when he converted to Islam. He hoped to gain by it; attaching himself to the society of the rulers, he gained an entree to the privileged world of the Arabians. He gave up community, religion, and independence of action to serve an Arabian patron. Although never formally enslaved or manumitted, the service he rendered resembled that of a freed slave. Whether the patron was a landowner, townsman, soldier, or caliph, the mawla-convert depended on him for access to wealth, legal protection and sometimes even power. Falling into disfavor meant the abrupt end to a career; all hopes of advancement and well-being lay in the patron's good will.

Mawlas of the period 13-132/684-750, both slave and free, depended on the favor of their Arabian patron, subsuming themselves and their interests to him. Enslavement or conversion both led mawlas to a position of dependence which I call "unfree."

D. THE FIRST ABBASIDS, 129-205/747-820

The Abbasid take-over produced the last major transformation in the free mawla status; henceforth it remained the same. Before 132/750 it had developed in response to the special requirements of Jahili and early Islamicate society; after this date it acquired a definition which was to remain the same regardless of changes in social circumstances. In this respect, it came to parallel the mawla-slave status which had always remained constant. At the Abbasid take-over, the mawla­-convert status disappeared and a new kind of mawla, an abstract political type, emerged. Although few in number, these held high positions and figured prominently in Abbasid military and political life.

As the Abbasids consolidated their power, Muslim political unity ended.[137] It is therefore inaccurate to imply that the Abbasids represented the only government by Muslims; yet their rivals are little known,[138] even the Spanish Umayyads. The few bits of information we have on the other dynasties give reason to believe that the free mawla status went everywhere through the same changes that took place in the Abbasid territories. This section by necessity concentrates on materials from the caliphate but its conclusions should be valid for independent regions as well.

Mawla-freedmen and Mawla-converts

Modern histories give the impression that mawla-freedmen dis­appeared and mawla-converts remained in the first Abbasid period; in fact, the opposite occurred.

Mawla-freedmen remained. Although often forgotten, the slave mawlas continued quietly to exist. Many references to the capture of mawlas, their prior slavery, or their manumission attest to their presence. Simple references to them may be found in the Appendix; here follow some of the more striking facts:

(1) A discussion about one of al-Mansur's mawlas states that he was most likely a mawla-freedman and not a free mawla, indicating the continued difficulty in distinguishing between mawla types.[139]

(2) Muhammad b. Sulayman, the governor of Kufa 147-55/764-72, had 50,000 mawlas, of whom 12,000 were manumitted slaves ('itaqa).[140]

(3) A governor of al-Amin's enjoyed the loyalty of his mawlas because he had manumitted them, raised them out of poverty, and given them everything that they ever had. Consequently, they showed him immense gratitude.[141]

(4) Al-Mu'tasim's Turkish soldiers are referred to in the sources indiscriminately as 'abds, bandes, ghulams, mamluks, mawlas and raqiqs.[142] This interchangeability points to the slave origins of these mawlas.

Mawla-converts disappeared. Mawla-converts gained full social stand­ing as a consequence of the Abbasid take-over. This occurred due to changes in the organization of the Muslim armies; briefly put, the Umayyad regime had always to maintain the distinction between victors and vanquished, between the Arabians and mawla-converts. The Abbasids, to the contrary, had a more egalitarian approach and had no use for the mawla-convert status as a means to distinguish between their soldiers. Accordingly, after the Abbasid take-over, the mawla-convert status dropped out of common use.[143]

With privilege and power no longer exclusively associated with Arabians, "it was presumably no longer necessary for the Persian or Aramean convert to become the client [mawla-convert] of an Arab tribe."[144] Non-Arabian Muslims could now participate fully in Muslim military and political life; the mawla-convert status lost its import, became "socially neutral," and then disappeared.

The term mawla was well on its way to becoming socially neutral.... The 'Abbasid revolution marks a turning point in the social acceptance of the non-Arab convert. The word mawla became destigmatized, and the institution soon disappears.[145] By degrees, with the disappearance of all social differences between themselves and the Arabs, the status of mawla lost its validity and, in the course of the 3rd/9th century, the name like the state, fell into disuse.[146]

Although the mawla-convert status is prescribed by the Qur'an and should exist in all Muslim societies, regardless of social conditions, it is easy to understand that it fell into desuetude when mawla-converts no longer had a distinct social position. True, this status existed in the short period before the Arabian conquests had begun, although it served no function then, but those were the first years of a new religion and one might expect to find religious injunctions more carefully executed then than subsequently.[147]

While the mawla-convert status lost its significance almost overnight, the persons called mawla-converts probably kept this title until their deaths. Persons who converted after 132/750 did not become mawlas unless they were slaves, but it took decades (till the 170/790s, say) for the mawla-convert status to disappear. Accordingly, references to mawlas until forty years into the Abbasid period might still refer to mawla-converts.[148]

Mawla-agents

While the Abbasids allowed the mawla-convert status to disappear, they created a new type of free mawla, known in Arabic either as mawla istina' or mawla amir al-mu'minin; in English, I shall call him a "mawla-agent." The wala' involved here is wala' istina' or the "wala' of agency."

Information on this new type of wala' is hard to find. Hilal as-Sabi' and Ibn Khaldun hint at its purpose[149] but the law books which provided most of our knowledge about earlier developments in the free wala', say nothing about the wala' of agency. They are silent because, unlike all the other types of wala' discussed, the wala' of agency had no legal basis; it was a political, not a legal relationship. The mawla-agent received his title as an honorific; it implied nothing at all about his social origins or his current status. He could be Muslim or not and of slave or free origins.

The wala' of agency suggests an abstraction of wala', since it made a legal relationship into a political bond. The political bond could have had a different name, for it shared none of the essential qualities of a literal wala'. Why then was it called a wala' relationship? To confuse historians? No, there was a better reason:

Knowing that mawla could mean so many things and capitalizing on the special relationship that it used to denote, Mansur simply gave it a different twist to establish a new relationship between himself and members of his administration.[150]

By its nature, this political wala' only took place between men with political power, not between ordinary persons.[151] The patron did not always have to be the ruler, but he did have to be a leading personage. When the caliph was patron, the mawla-agent took the title mawla amir al-mu'minin.

The honorary status of mawla Amir al-Mu'minin ... is not to be confused with mawla meaning a freed slave, a client, or a non-Arab member of the army related to a certain man or an Arab clan, as was the case under the Umayyads.[152] The title [mawla amir al-mu'minin] is clearly a proclamation, not of anterior servitude, but of a particularly intimate tie of loyalty between the amir al-mu'minin who has bestowed the title, and the bearer who is thereby raised to the position of an honorable client.[153] At least from the beginning of the third century AH on the title mawla amir al-mu'minin became a title of office or a title of distinction.[154]

It appears that some mawla-agents existed already in Umayyad times; at least, so one might surmise whenever a wala' relationship did not fit the legal categories. Two important examples both involved (perhaps not coincidentally) Inner Asian rulers. In 93/712 Qutayba b. Muslim referred to the free, non-Arabian, non-Muslim of Samarqand, Tarkhun, as his mawla when he said, "I shall avenge Tarkhun's blood, for he was my mawla and under my protection."[155] In a similar manner a few years later,

in a papyrus addressed by Diwasti to Jarrah b. 'Abdallah al-Hakami, the governor of Khurasan under 'Umar II, Diwasti defines himself as mawlaka, your mawla. Diwasti was a free non-Muslim Sogdian prince using the standard protocols of the Arab chancery for his correspondence with the governor.[156]

On the basis of this evidence, Crone concludes that "if he calls him­self the mawla of Jarrah, it means that all the non-Muslim rulers of Khurasan styled themselves mawali of the changing Arab governors.[157]

Aside from the possible use in protocol to standardize titulature, the abstraction of wala' served no purpose in the tribal society of the Arabian period. Stray examples to the contrary do not disprove this.[158]

The real need for an abstract, political wala' came in the first Abbasid period. When the Abbasids undermined the tribal basis of Muslim society, they needed new forms of allegiance to replace it; and their need for new bonds remained acute throughout their first century. In the mawla-agents they developed (according to Omar),

a multiracial group for whom loyalty to the 'Abbasid caliph was the supreme consideration and whose bonds with the court were stronger than the claims of their Arab or non-Arab origin.[159]

The term mawla amir al-mu'minin emerged during al-Mansur's reign, indicating the need for a new bond. These mawla-agents served the caliph in many capacities: as Sahib ar-Rukkab, collector of kharaj, director of the arsenal, mayors of the quarters of Baghdad, vizier, and governors.[160] A coin minted in 157/774 at Qinnasrin by "Musa, mawla amir al-mu'minin" provides the first numismatic confirmation of this title.[161] Other early coins with this term date from 184/800 and 185/801.[162]

These politically important mawla-agents must not be confused with the larger numbers of mawlas who served al-Mansur and his successors in the army. The sources sometimes make this distinction explicit, in 199/815 al-Ma'mun's governor in the Hijaz collected the slaves and mawlas of the Abbasids to fight an 'Alid rebel and then split them, weakening his forces; in 213/828 al-Ma'mun sent mawlas but no ghulams against the rebel Babak.[163]

Although Omar states (in the above quote) that even Arabians could become mawla amir al-mu'minins, Crone correctly points out that "there is no unambiguous example of an Arab being granted the title."[164] Several other nationalities are specifically mentioned, however, such as Berber, Bukharan, and Tabaristani.[165] Could a literal mawla (i.e., a mawla-freedman or a mawla-convert) become also a mawla-agent? Yes, several prominent examples indicate this possi­bility:[166]

Literal mawla Political mawla Name non-caliphal to caliph Harthama b. A'yan TMaw 252; T3.913 T3.716 T3.927 (twice); Balog 251 Wadih al-Kindi 121 KB 248; Balog 172-73, 187 ar-Rabi' b. Yunis (Note 114) KB 245-6, 252 al-Fadl b. ar-Rabi' (Note 114) al-Qalqashandi 14.89; al-Azraqi 155-56; Combe 1.75 Ashnas Yaqut 3.16 Balog 240-43 Tiesenhausen 206 Tahir b. al-Husayn (Note 113) Miles 96-8 Teisenhausen 179, 181, 183 T3.1489 'Abdallah b. Tahir b. al-Husayn T3.1094 T3.1489 al-Afshin Din 403 al-Qalqashandi 6.404 Wasif UH 3.309-10

'Iqd 5.121 T3.1484-85, FB 235

A mawla amir al-mu'minin could keep this title while serving various caliphs. For example, one held positions under al-Mansur and Harun ar-Rashid.[167] Five or seven mawla amir al-mu'minins witnessed the agreement signed in 186/802 between al-Amin and al-Ma'mun dividing the Abbasid empire.[168] A papyrus indicates that a mawla amir al-mu'minin could himself be a patron to a mawla.[169]

Al-Ma'mun tried to induce the ruler of Tabaristan, Qarin b. Shahriyar (or Wandad), to convert to Islam by offering him the title of mawla amir al-mu'minin, but Qarin refused. Subsequently, Qarin's son Mazyar converted and received the title mawla amir al­-mu'minin.[170] He became governor in Tabaristan and the surrounding districts for the caliph.[171] Later he went on to lead a major rebellion against al-Mu'tasim, in 224/839.[172] Other accounts say that Mazyar converted already in al-Ma'mun's time in order to gain the caliph's support in his quest to wrest control of Tabaristan from his uncle.[173] Mazyar's brother al-Fadl became governor of Homs, but his unpopular rule led to his death at the hands of the populace of that city.[174]

The story of Mazyar contains two curious aspects: in most accounts, Mazyar is called mawla amir al-mu'minin, but twice at least he calls himself instead muwali amir al-mu'minin.[175] Historians translate muwali as "ally" (in contrast to the mawla who is a "client"), but I prefer to translate this term as "client".[176] The use of the term muwali instead of mawla confirms the political nature of Mazyar's relationship with the caliph. Secondly, all accounts agree that Mazyar's father Qarin was not a Muslim, but one story tells of Mazyar receiving advice from his father's mawla.[177] How could a non-Muslim living in Dar al­-Herb be patron to a mawla? This usage hints at the ever more figurative and less legal meanings that the term mawla came to acquire in subsequent eras.

CONCLUSION

At all times, two different types of mawla existed, one formerly slave, the other always free. The changes which the status underwent may be summed up as follows:

Slave Free Period Freedman Ally Convert Agent Jahili * * Arabian * * First Abbasid and subsequent eras * *

Because it changed with developments in Muslim society, the free mawla status has received more attention both in other studies and in this one; this should not make us forget slave mawlas, but it often does. For example, both the quotations at footnotes 145 and 146 ignore that the term mawla always retained the meaning of "freed slave." Other analyses imply that all mawlas in the first Abbasid period were political agents of the caliph and ignore the legions of ordinary mawla-freedmen affiliated to shopkeepers and landowners.[178]

It is a mistake to disregard mawla-freedmen, for through the early Islamic period, from Muhammad to al-Ma'mun, most mawlas either were mawla freedmen or they experienced a comparable servility. This holds true for each of the three Islamic eras studied here, Muhammad's time, the Arabian period, and the first Abbasid. In Muhammad's time, the sampling provided by Sahaba mawlas shows that mawla-freedmen far outnumbered free mawlas. In the first Abbasid period, mawla-converts disappeared and mawla-agents numbered only a few individuals, so most mawlas were freedmen.[179] The Arabian period presents a more complex situation; I have tried to show that slave and free mawlas during this time shared the same social status ("All Mawlas Shared a Single Social Status") and that this status resembled slavery ("All mawlas were unfree"). Although free mawlas never underwent formal enslavement, they shared a position similar to that of a freed slave. Thus nearly all mawlas in early Islam experienced slavery or something akin.

The Arabic sources often use the terms "slave" and "mawla" interchangeably;[180] the two had so much in common that contem­poraries - and hence we too - can treat them nearly as a single social category. The similarities of their real circumstances far outweighed the differences of their legal status; both depended on a master/patron and were subject to his control. Al-Jahiz summed up the situation in the following passage about secretaries (katibs), most of whom were mawlas:

What proves that the profession of secretaries is low is that only subordinates or those in a servile condition practice it.[181]

This precisely describes the mawlas: subordinate and servile, even if not legally enslaved.

This view of early mawlas goes contrary to the assessments of most modern historians; they often assume (without explicitly saying so) that the great importance of mawlas in the military and political life of the first two Islamic centuries meant they could not have been slaves.[182] Mawlas constantly showed up as bodyguards, soldiers, courtiers, officials, and administrators; for example, nearly 10 per cent of the Muslims on record at Muhammad's first battle, Badr, were mawlas; and nearly every single hajib (chamberlain) from Abu Bakr's on was a mawla.[183] Doubting the servility of these men makes no sense in light of subsequent Islamic history, for slaves regularly filled key positions. Virtually every Muslim dynasty employed men of slave origins in the highest public positions; it is not hard to imagine that the Rashidun, Umayyads, and Abbasids did so too. Indeed, I argue elsewhere that the use of mawlas foreshadowed the institution of military slavery (the systematic use of slaves and freedmen as soldiers) and was vital to its development.[184] In short, the importance of mawlas is no reason to assume that they had free origins.

APPENDIX: IDENTIFYING MAWLA-FREEDMEN

The historical sources very rarely state explicitly whether an individual mawla was a freedman, ally, convert, or agent. In many primary sources, I have found only a few specific identifications (e.g., Mawla-freedman: KM 251; ar-Rashid 222; Tanbih 346 = Jah 301; Combe 1.102. Mawla-convert: KM 162). To identify other individual mawlas by type requires some ingenuity. This discussion begins with the most simple and certain indications of mawla type and then proceeds to the most complex and speculative.

Certain

(1) Synonyms. Mawlas were sometimes referred to by other names which indicated that they had slave origins:[185]

'abd (MDh 3.31-32; KM 231, 234; TYa' 2.412-13; AA 2.485-86, 5.377 (= MDh 3.122); ADA 382; AM 53; T2.596, 649-51, 1430-31; 3.268; ITB 2.39) 'abd mamluk (Din 259 = T2.368) asir (ADA 191). ghulam (Grohmann, Arabic Papyri 4.132; FM 207 = BM 2.9; AA 2.130; ADA 266-67; T2.2013, 3.558) khadim (AA 4a.49; MDh 3.355; Jah 277; KB 252 (two); T3.558, 712 + 764, 773; Combe 1.113) khasi (ITB 2.40) mamluk (al-Waqidi 230; T2.650, 1886.) mukatib (Ibn Habib 340-47; KM 162, 240, 253.) sabi (the many captives from 'Ayn at-Tamr.) wasif (KB 252; AM 3.) In a few cases, synonyms indicated mawla-converts: 'Ajam (Din 299; T2.1291, 1294-95.) Hamra' (Zaydan 4.47)

(2) Specific mention of slavery, manumission, or the return to slavery.

slavery (MDh 3.421; ITB 1.272.)

manumission (KM 231, 234, 252,255, 270; T2.649, 3.854; FM 120, 156; Ibn Khallikan 5.189; TYa' 2.413; Jah 101; AM 3, 25; ar-Raqiq 132; ITB 2.106.)

return to slavery (T2.1648, 1813.)

In one discussion, Ibn Khaldun appears to refer to the enslavement of mawlas (1.245).

(3) Father. If the mawla's father were a free (i.e., never enslaved) Muslim, then the mawla could not be a slave or a mawla-freedman. Were the father ever a non-Muslim or a slave, then the mawla could be of any type.[186] Even if the father was known as a pious Muslim,[187] we can say nothing about his son.

(4) Marriage guardianship. Only mawla-freedmen "are to be understood when it is reported that the mawla did not have the right to marry off his daughter. A marriage was only viewed as valid when the permission of the patron, the former master, had been given."[188] If a mawla made this decision on his own, without consulting his patron, he had to be free.

(5) Inheritance. Slave and free mawlas differed both in their inheritance from the patron and bequeathing to him. The mawla-freedman inherited ahead of mawla-converts if a waqf had been set up for them by the patron.[189] The patron ordinarily inherited from his mawla-freedmen but not from free mawlas.[190]

(6) Religion. A non-Muslim mawla could not be a convert to Islam, therefore he had to be a mawla-freedman, mawla-ally, or mawla-agent.

(7) Regional origins. A mawla born free within Dar al-Islam could only be a free mawla, for no dhimmi or free Muslim might be enslaved. If, to the contrary, he was born or acquired as a slave,[191] then he had to be a mawla-­freedman. A person born free in Dar al-Harb could become either type of mawla, depending on whether he was enslaved or not.

In Jahili times, an Arabian could only be a mawla-freedman, since the Arabian equivalent of the mawla-ally was called a halif.

Speculative

While the preceding indications reliably distinguish slave mawlas from free ones, they do so in only a few cases. Further indications, though less certain, may sometimes prove useful.

(8) Patron. Free mawlas had only Arabian patrons;[192] a non-Arabian patron indicates a slave mawla. Since the wala' of conversion had the purpose of affiliating an isolated individual to a tribe, no free person established wala' with a non-Arabian who also lacked a tribal affiliation of his own. Hence, non-Arabians were patrons only to their own mawla-freedmen; upon manumission their slaves had no choice but to establish wala' with the patron, regardless of his own status.

It is unclear whether female Arabians became patrons to free mawlas too; while az-Zayla'i quotes an hadith which says not, ash-Shaybani writes that it is possible.[193] In any case, women patrons were not common; indeed, except for one from Jahili Arabia, nearly all of them belong to the caliph's family: the wives of 'Uthman, al-Mansur; al-Mahdi, the granddaughter of al-Mansur.[194] In one account, an Umayyad governor of Ifriqiya in Sulayman's time is said to have been the mawla of a woman, though other versions disagree.[195] The fact that the wife of a patron could be called mawlah (patroness)[196] confuses the situation considerably.

Anyone could be patron to a slave mawla - even a slave, if he had his master's permission.[197] Mawlas often became patrons; the mawla's mawla was a mawla-­freedman and he had a special name: maqit (pl. muqqat), though it was hardly ever used.[198] Maqits were held in extremely low regard; al-Farazdaq said this about the eminent grammarian 'Abdallah b. Ishaq (d. 127/745): "If 'Abdallah were a mawla, I would describe him, but he is only the mawla of a mawla [and so not even worthy of contempt]!"[199] Maqits were fairly common; they included in their number several men of historical importance such as one of Hayyati an-Nabit's cavalry leader; Musa b. Nusayr, the conqueror of Spain (a maqit according to one account only); and a governor of Ifriqiya whose patron, a mawla, had also held that same position.[200]

Generation after generation of mawlas could become patrons in turn, thus creating chains of maqits which extended even five mawlas in length: A the mawla of B the mawla of C the mawla of D the mawla of E.[201] Most of these chains returned ultimately either to the Prophet or to a caliph.[202] A few returned to tribes.[203] In one unusual case, two or three mawlas involved in a maqit relationship were da'is (non-Arabians who claimed Arabian descent).

Ibn Munadir is the mawla of a mawla of a mawla and at the same time a da'i of a mawla of a da'i. This has never been repeated in history.[204]

A woman could participate in a maqit relationship; in one case, a woman was in the middle, both a mawla and a patron simultaneously.[205]

(9) Transfer of wala'. The slave mawla could contract wala' with his manumitter and with no one else.[206] He might choose to terminate this wala' but he could not contract a new wala' with anyone else. The patron of a slave mawla also had little freedom of action; he might not make manumission conditional on not having a wala' between them nor could he dispose of the wala' in any way.[207] Neither the slave mawla nor his patron had much latitude.

The free mawla and his patron did have more room to maneuver. The mawla could establish wala' with any person or tribe of his choosing; later he could dissolve the wala' without the accord of his patron and contract a new wala' with a new patron.[208] He was restricted only if the patron had paid blood money on his behalf; then he had to remain with his patron.[209] The free mawla lacked, the automatic protection of his slave counterpart, but had the freedom in which to make new arrangements. The right of a free mawla's patron unilaterally to terminate a wala' is disputed, however.[210] The voluntary nature of the wala' of conversion gave it a political complexion absent from the wala' of manumission.

This distinction implies that the mawla who changed patron was free. Legal regulations, however, did not always hold. Did it become easier or harder with time to transfer wala'? Modern historians disagree. Goldziher believes it became easier:

In earlier, stricter times, the mawla relationship was disciplined by a rigorous customary law; it was hard for a client of a tribe to change his patron.... Later it was not particularly difficult to become the mawla of a different tribe whenever and as often as one wished.[211]

Crone, to the contrary, thinks it became harder; before ca. 153/770 lawyers had recognized the transfer of wala' as legal but subsequently they forbade it on the basis of its affiliative (nasab) character.[212]

In Jahili Arabia a woman once manumitted a slave, then transferred his wala' to her husband; a slave who died in 170/787 purchased his freedom from a woman and then another woman purchased his wala'.[213] These two examples indicate that the slave mawla could transfer his wala' at both the beginning and the end of our period. Thus, the transfer of wala' did not indicate a free mawla with any certainty.[214]

(10) Names. Certain names appear to have been used especially by slaves, so a mawla bearing such a name (e.g., Masrur, Salim, Kaysan)[215] was most likely of slave origin.

(11) Tribal and personal wala'. Slave mawlas usually had a personal wala', that is their patrons were specific individuals; free mawlas more often had tribal wala'. There was no fundamental difference between these two, for every wala' included both a specific patron and his tribe, yet these distinctions do reveal different emphases. The freedman had a specific patron who manumitted him, so he was most likely to be called the mawla of his manumitter and took on the manumitter's genealogy. When 'Amr b. al-'As manumitted Wardan, Wardan was henceforth known as "Wardan the mawla of 'Amr b. al-'As." 'Amr himself was more visible than the tribal affiliation he provided.

The free mawla, to the contrary, affiliated less to an individual and more to a whole tribe. He need not have had an earlier relationship with any individual tribal member. The tribal affiliation might well overshadow his relations with a titular patron. Consequently, he was more likely to be known as the mawla of a tribe: "Abu Hanifa, mawla of the Banu Qufl."

There existed an emotional or psychological as well as economic, interdependence of master and freedman, an interdependence that exceeded that existing between a man (e.g., a caliph) and his "allies" [free mawlas]. The freedman was felt to be the "creature" or "son" of his master, while the ally was a "son" of the dynasty.[216]

This distinction did not always hold true. For example, Musa b. Nusayr, a captive, was known as the mawla of several different tribes.[217]

(12) Fictive filiation. Slave mawlas lost their own genealogies more than did free mawlas; therefore they usually adopted their patron's. The sources usually list after the slave mawla's own name (his ism) that of his patron's and then the patron's ancestors': "Salim, the mawla of Muhammad b. Abi Yusuf b. Muhsin b. ..." The free mawla tended to retain his own family's genealogy, so two or more of his ancestors' names were recorded after his own: "Nu'man b. Siyyar b. Yassar, the mawla of Ibn 'Amir." Unlike the wala' of manumission, that of conversion "did not establish a tie of kinship, but accorded a privilege in return for a service."[218]

If (11) and (12) always applied, then the following rule would hold: personal wala' and a single name go together and indicate a slave mawla; tribal wala' and a proper genealogy go together and indicate a free mawla. These rules hold usually, but not always. The names probably provide a more certain guideline than the wala'.

(13) Era. The mawla status passed from one generation to the next, even though the later generations experienced neither slavery nor conversion. With time, then, the percentage of first generation mawlas decreased; the percentage of slave mawlas dropped even more precipitously, since slaves became scarcer with the decline in Umayyad fortunes and termination of Muslim conquests. Increasingly, mawlas were the descendants of persons who had been enslaved or who had converted. The later the mawla, the more likely that he himself did not experience slavery.

(14) Employment. The mawla in the entourage of a caliph or high official was more likely to have slave origins than other mawlas, for the rulers had access to large numbers of captives. Mawlas not in their service but living in the cities or countryside were probably less often slave mawlas.

(15) Region of origins. Regions which resisted the Arabian conquerors suffered more battles and raids which produced slaves (e.g., Khurasan, the Daylami mountains, Transoxiana). Further, in some cases, such as the Sawad, it is possible that the entire civilian population was enslaved. Slaves and mawla-freedmen were more likely in lands which experienced the most warfare and enslavement.

(16) Context. The mention of mawlas together with slaves suggests that the mawlas too were slaves; when mentioned with an ethnic or political grouping, mawlas were probably non-Arabians, both slave and free. The first group of the following terms when used in connection with mawlas indicates slave mawlas, the second group indicates free mawlas.[219]

Group I (Slave Mawlas)

'abd (UH 3.303; T2.718-19, 721; Jah 112; AA 1.497; TYa' 2.357; Imama 1.151-52.) fityan (AA 4b.14.) ghulam (T2.958, 3.744, 954; Din 227; TMaw 156; az-Zubayr 61; Diyab 179; AM 63; al-Azdi, Futuh ash-Sham 22; AA 1.497.) khadim (T2.1820, 3.390, 850; Din 289.) mamluk (T2.1318; Imama 1.152.)

Group II (Free Mawlas)

'Ajam (AA 2.486; Nawadir al-Makhtutat 1.277.) ahl al-bayt (and related terms) (AA 5.72; UH 3.247; 'Iqd 1.138, 204; az-Zubayr 93; TMaw 76; MDh 3.133; ADA 367,400; T3.981.) 'Arab (T3.305; TYa'2.385; MDh 3.91; Imama 1.228; Ibn Rusta 69; FM 207; ADA 290; Ibn al-Qutiya 67, 89; Agapius 495.) ashab (T2.1403, 3.476, 1028; AA 4b.143; Abu'l-Faraj, Maqatil 449.) 'ashira (ADA 367.) atba' (see ahl al-bayt.) banu wa ah (Imama 2.99.) bitana (see ahl al-bayt.) haras (T3.918 =IA6.285.) hasham (see ahl al-bayt.) khassa (T2.1743, 3.567; UH 3.329; MDh 2.411; AA 4b.159.) qa'id (T3.98, 488, 545, 557, 575, 654, 764, 796, 872, 898, 1026-27; UG 3.442.) qawm (see ahl al-bayt.) sani'a (ar-Raqiq 138.) sahaba (see ashab.) 'Urb (see 'Arab.) long lists (T2.257, 3.656-57 (2) = TYa' 2.418.)

(17) Convention and consistency. Mawlas are erratically mentioned in the sources; one author alone may identify a person as a mawla, all but one may identify him as such, or they may divide more evenly. Our knowledge about mawlas reflects these vagaries. For example, the rebel leader Abu's-Saraya is called a slave in only one source; one account calls the military leader Hammad al-Barbari a slave mawla and the other does not even indicate he was a mawla; Abu 'Awn, an Abbasid governor of Egypt, is a mawla in only one of three accounts; most histories of the Muslim conquest of Spain state that Tariq b. Ziyad conquered Gibraltar with "mostly Berbers, with only a few Arabians," while one source specifies "mostly Berbers and mawlas, with only a few Arabians."[220] Many other similar examples can easily be found.

Even within the same chronicle, there are inconsistencies. For example a bodyguard leader, Salma b. Abi 'Abdallah, is first mentioned by at-Tabari in 116/734; he is identified as a mawla in an account twelve years and four hundred pages later.[221] Also, not every person who one expects to be a mawla is called one (e.g., a Berber leader converted to Islam, but nothing indicates he became a mawla.)[222]

I suspect that writers more consistently identify mawlas who were of slave origins and who were closest to manumission or conversion, because for them the mawla status had more significance than for free mawlas and those of later generations. But one cannot draw any conclusions; the inconsistencies follow no pattern. For example, Wahshi, whom other writers described as a slave in many ways, is not once called a slave by al-Baladhuri, either in AA 1.322, 328, 363 or FB 89.

ABBREVIATIONS

AA al-Baladhuri, Ansab al-Ashraf ADA Akhbar ad-Dawla al-'Abbasiya Aghani Abu' l-Faraj al-Isfahani, Kitab al-Aghani AM Akhbar Majum'a Asl ash-Shaybani, Kitab al-Asl BM Ibn 'Idhari, al-Bayan al-Mughrib CHI Cambridge History of Iran Din ad-Dinawari, Akhbar at-Tiwal EI¹ Encyclopedia of Islam, 1st ed. EI² Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed. FB al-Baladhuri, Futuh al-Buldan FM Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam, Futuh Misr Imama (pseudo-) Ibn Qutayba, al-Imama wa's-Siyasa 'Iqd Ibn 'Abd Rabbihi, al-'Iqd al-Farid IS Ibn Sa'd, Kitab at-Tabaqat al-Kabir ITB Ibn Taghri Birdi, an-Nujum az-Zahira Jah al-Jahshiyari, Kitab al-Wuzara' KB al-Ya'qubi, Kitab al-Buldan KM Ibn Qutayba, Kitab al-Ma'arif MDh al-Mas'udi, Muruj adh-Dhahab T at-Tabari, Ta'rikh ar-Rusul wa'l-Muluk Tanbih al-Mas'udi, at-Tanbih wa'l-Ashraf TAS adh-Dhahabi, Tajrid Asma'as-Sahaba TMaw al-Azdi, Ta'rikh Mawsil TY'a al-Ya'qubi, at-Ta'rikh UG Ibn al-Athir, Usd al-Ghaba fi Ma'rifat as-Sahaba UH al-'Uyun wa'l-Hada'iq Umm ash-Shaf'i, Kitab al-Umm

NOTES

[1] M. Bloch, The Historian's Craft (New York, 1953), trans. P. Putman, p. 34.

[2] Ibn Manzur, Lisan al-'Arab (15 vols., Beirut, 1374-76/1955-56), 15.409; Tha'lab, Sharh Diwan Zuhayr b. Abi Sulma (Cairo, 1363/1944), p. 349.

[3] See various other dictionaries, such as: (a) Ibn Durayd, Kitab Jamharat al-­Lugha, ed. M.S. Salma et al. (4 vols. Hyderabad, 1345-1351), 1.188. (b) al­-Jawhari, as-Sahah, ed. A.'A. Gh. 'Attar (6 vols. Cairo, 1377), pp. 2529-30. (c) Ibn Faris, Mu'jam Maqayis al-Lugha, ed. A.S.M. Harun (6 vols. Cairo, 1366-71), 6.141.

For an elaborate treatment of some of the meanings of the term 'mawla' in the Qur'an, Qur'an commentaries, and the hadith, see al-Baltistani, an-Nahj as-­Sawi.

[4] Mawla often means 'true slave' as well as 'of slave origins.' The Appendix lists examples of mawla meaning the same as other Arabic words for slave. FM 156 mentions the manumission of mawlas. Slaves who were subsequently manu­mitted are commonly referred to as mawlas, probably more so than slaves who never received their freedom.

Mawla in the sense of 'patron' can also be obscured, but when ambiguity exists, the patron is usually indicated as an 'upper mawla' (mawla min fawq, mawla a'la). On this, see az-Zayla'i 5.180; al-Jahiz, Manaqib 13; al-Marghinani 517; Crone, 'Mawali' 155; Biddle 54-55. For an example, UG 1.345.

The patron can also be known as sayyid: TAS 2.2253; Ibn al-Qutiya 39.

Mawla as slave owner: of a 'abd, MDh 3.187; of a jariya, MDh 3.325; of a khasi, Nawadir al-Makhtutat 1.297; of a ghulam, T3.1223.

Forand has suggested that 'the expression mawlaya ("my mawla") is never used in the sense of my "freedman," but always refers to the superior party' ('Development' 114). Though this is often correct, mawlaya means 'my lower mawla' in many cases, e.g.: IS 5.330; TMaw 62; ADA 269=T2.1852; Din 343; UH 3.314 (=T3.716), 339; T2.1249; 3.928, 1094; Ibn al-Qutiya 24; Jah 147; 'Iqd 4.400; Imama 2.99; IS 3.1.30.

[5] Ashtor 33 agrees: 'In the lands of the Fertile Crescent and in the adjacent countries of the Near East, the problem of the mawali was the crucial question.'

[6] Ayalon agrees: 'The importance of thorough and exhaustive examination of the term mawla as used under the Umayyads and early 'Abbasids should be particularly emphasized. ... The key to the beginnings of the mamluk institution might be found there. ... The correct understanding of the meaning of that term [mawla] is essential for the study of the slave institution in Islam' ('Preliminary Remarks' 47 and 48, fn. 4; see also 'Reforms' 4, 41).

[7] The Appendix deals with this problem.

[8] Personal communications, 11 June 1977; see also her 'Umayyad Clientage' 1 and 'Mawali' 99.

[9] Von Kremer 2.154-59; Goldziher's Volume 1, Chapter 3; van Vloten's Chapter 1. Azizi's Chapter 2 and Sharif passim take this viewpoint to its extreme statement. A discussion of this view follows below, 'The Standard Interpretation.'

[10] E.g., H. Lammens, La Syrie, Précis historique (2 vols.; Beirut, 1921), 1.61; Ashtor 29; Shaban, Islamic History 1.95; Hodgson 1.222; in many of W.M. Watt's writings.

[11] E.g., CHI 4.36; Spuler 34. S.I. Kashif, Misr fi Fajr al-Islam (2nd ed: Cairo, 1970), p.77 seems to think them non-Arabians.

[12] E.g., Ayalon 'Reforms' 1; al-Kharbutli, al-Mukhtar 280; Haas passim (despite the disclaimer in footnote I on p. 7); al-'Ali, at-Tanzimat 60.

[13] Besides Crone, 'Mawali' 96, 99-118; az-Zabidi 76-77; A.A. ad-Duri, Judhur at-­Ta'rikhiya li'sh-Shu'ubiya (Beirut, 1962), p.18.

[14] Almost any translation of an early Arabic source into a European language provides numerous examples. Some at random: (a) G. Wiet, Les Pays (Cairo, 1937), pp. 15-22, 45, 61. (b) E. Fagnan, Al-Bayano' l-Mogrib (2 vols.: Algiers, 1904), 2.61, 130. (c) F.C. Murgotten, The Origins of the Islamic State (New York, 1924), p. 251 implicitly understands 'lower mawla' where 'upper mawla' is meant (cf. Ayalon, 'Preliminary Remarks' 45). (d) Combe 1.194-95.

[15] Sezgin 2.99; 'Iqd 3.416-7, 6.77.

[16] Sezgin 1.358; R. Guest, 'Introduction' to al-Kindi, Kitab al-Wulah wa Kitab al-Qudah, p.10; Ibn Hajar al-'Asgalani, Tandhib at-Tandhib (Hyderabad, 1325-27), 1.30; al-Maqrizi, al-Mawa'iz 2.137, 202, 250.

[17] Sezgin 2.98; Ibn an-Nadim 80.

[18] Ibn an-Nadim 145-6; Ibn Khallikan 6.106.

[19] The following discussion of the mawla status generally ignores the complex and arcane possibilities which take up so much space in the law books, for they account for only a small fraction of all the mawlas. The problems of mawlas with non-Muslim patrons, of manumission in Dar al-Harb, of apostates, foundlings, and so forth involve but few persons.

Also, we shall ignore perplexing references such as one to a 'mawla of God and his Prophet' (al-Maqrizi, al-Mawa'iz 2.137).

[20] But not the meaning of a political agent, which is not a legal status and has no precedent in Jahili Arabia.

[21] E.A. Belyaev, Arabs, Islam, and the Arab Caliphate in the Early Middle Ages, tr. A. Gourevitch (Jerusalem, 1969), p. 62; Tyan 1.23.

[22] W. Robertson Smith Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia (2nd ed. rev.: London, 1903) deals with this intricate matter at length.

[23] The literature on this subject does not, as I do, restrict hilf to free Arabians and understand wala' as applying to all other persons; indeed, Tyan considers the two terms identical in meaning (1.25-26 and 'Hilf' in EI²).

I make this distinction on the basis of information from the biographies of the Sahaba, from the following points:

(a) The scores of halifs that appear in Usd al-Ghaba all appear to be Arabian, for they all have their own proper genealogies. A genealogy normally indicates an Arabian.

(b) All mawla-allies appear to be non-Arabians (they are listed in Table 1); note also KM 141.

(c) A person who is thought to be either a halif or a mawla-ally usually has disputed ethnic origins. Since the biographers are unsure of his background, they cannot assign him either a hilf or wala' relation with certainty. The problem arises in the following biographies: Habib b. Aswad; Khabab b. al-Aritt; Sa'd b. Khawla; Samra b. Jandab; Suhayb b. Sinan; 'Ammar b. Yasir.

I cannot explain the occurrence in Islamic times of a wala' between tribes (T 2.491) or between a tribe and an individual patron (TMaw 91) even if he is the caliph (Ibn al-Qutiay 25). See also al-Jahiz, Mu'awiya 26.

[24] Goldziher 1.107.

[25] IS 4.1.77.

[26] Tyan 1.24-25.

[27] Belyaev, Arabs, Islam and the Caliphate, p. 61.

[28] Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage, p. 52.

[29] Zaydan 4.21.

[30] KM 139; Umm 4.58.

[31] Zaydan 4.21. Perhaps the mawla of a tribe or a city was in fact the mawla of its leader?

[32] F.L. Ganshof, Feudalism, trans. P. Grierson (3rd ed. rev.: New York, 1964), pp. 84, 87, 92. The mawla's relations with his patron do not meet the definition of patronage established by E. Gellner, 'Patrons and clients,' in E. Gellner & J. Waterbury (eds.), Patrons and Clients in Mediterranean Societies (London, 1977), pp. 1-2.

[33] Crone, 'Mawali' 157, 229-30, n. 10.

[34] al-'Ali, at-Tanzimat 66.

[35] Goldziher 1.106, translated by S. Stern (1.102).

[36] Tyan 1.24; al-Marghinani 513; Ibn Khaldun 1.245 also calls them mawla riqq or mawla istina' wa hilf.

[37] Tyan 1.24; Goldziher 1.106; Forand, 'Relation,' pp. 59-60; Biddle, p. 55.

[38] Crone, 'Mawali,' p. 155;'Umayyad Clientage,' p. 9; and the dictionaries cited in notes 2 and 3.

[39] Ibid.

[40] The slave still remains outside the social system in this respect. Cf. E. Tyan, 'Diya' in EI².

[41] Qur'an 5.106.

[42] Yusuf Ali's fn. 809 on p. 275 of his translation of the Qur'an.

[43] Umm 6.189 indicates the manner of this transition. For brief discussions, see R. Brunschvig, 'Abd' in EI²; T.P. Hughes, A Dictionary of Islam (London, 1885), p.555.

[44] A ubiquitous hadith; for discussion see Umm 4.52ff, 7.208. Umm 4.56 adds, 'and it is never transferred.'

[45] Umm 6.187.

[46] Umm 4.52, 56, 7.209 paraphrase this: 'The wala' is to no one but the manumitter' (al-wala' la yakun bi-hal illa'1-mu'tiq). Umm 4.52 illustrates this with examples from the Prophet's life.

[47] Umm 6.187.

[48] az-Zayla'i 5.181. For a rare mention of sa'ibas in (possibly) Islamic times, see al­-Fakihi 36.

[49] This is a controversial matter. Cf. Goldziher 1.141; J. Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence (Oxford, 1950), p.173; Crone, 'Mawali,' p. 159 and 'Umayyad Clientage,' p. 4.

For examples of the sale of wala' in (probably) Islamic times, see Ibn Khallikan 6.89; KM 253.

[50] Umm 4.52.

[51] In Africa, the wala' relationships apparently still exists: J.S. Trimmingham, The Influence of Islam Upon Africa (London, 1968), p. 93.

[52] Qur'an 49.13.

[53] Qur'an 49.14.

[54] Qur'an 33.5.

[55] az-Zayla'i 5.177 recognizes this explicitly.

[56] ash-Shayib, pp. 265-66. My conclusions are drawn largely from Umm 4.51. The Qur'an commentaries say nothing about the social implications of this verse; I have searched in more than a dozen of them without profit.

[57] Amin 107.

[58] Umm 4.52, 56.

[59] The 'Constitution of Medina' refers to Jewish mawlas (Abu 'Ubayd 263-64=IH 1.503-04). See also Ibn Khallikan 5.189.

[60] Umm 4.56; Crone, 'Mawali' Chapter 4.

[61] Umm 6.186; al-Qaurdi, p. 88. The legal books go out of their way to point out that the mawla-convert does not acquire mawla status on the grounds that he comes to life in Islam just as a slave comes to life with manumission (as-Sarakhsi, al-­Mabsut 8.92).

[62] An e