Slavery, Terminology and Fātimid Egypt — Ali Shukri Amin
First published on my writing site: www.aliamin.info/2026/09/slavery-terminology-and-fatimid-egypt/
By Ali Shukri Amin. I first wrote this as comments on r/AcademicQuran, in the thread “Black Eunuchs, Slave Soldiers and Concubines in Fātimid Egypt”, copied here as written.
Comment 1
Is there a worthwhile distinction to be made with respect to political systems that afforded slaves some degree of either autonomy or a pathway to political agency versus ones that required violent revolution for former slaves to have any say? I see what you are saying about slaves being miscast as entirely passive actors and why that is obviously untrue in nearly every context, do you think it is problematic to differentiate between for example American antebellum slavery and the Ottoman devshirme system of slavery?
Comment 2
I almost feel like using the single term slave and not a set of conjunct terms makes it harder to discuss the varied, complicated, aspects of these various historical subjugative frameworks. Keeping the term for its negative connotations is important but if there were an easier way to distinguish for nonexperts among the various main modes, may be easier to have discourse?
Comment 3
Are you familiar with Siddharth Kara? Slavery exists today in a literal way, it’s just buried within supply chains as opposed to being directly perceptible. In many ways, globalization has allowed privileged countries to maintain a base of slaves but offshore the horrors.
Marxist thinkers would also argue for the concept of wage slavery which further problematizes using just the word “slave” IMO. It becomes harder to demarcate when something may meet the definition you defined above but is not socially perceived as slavery.
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