Slavery in India since the Muslim invasions
Medieval India: Muslim invasions and slavery[1]
As mentioned in chapter 3 several nationalistic Hindu scholars assert that there was no slavery in Ancient India before Muslims invaded Medieval India. This is false. But it is true that Muslim encroachments have led to the enslavement of countless Hindu people. Arabs had started to invade India in the seventh century CE. These ethnic wars had gotten more intense in 707 CE, after pirates from Debal (now Pakistan) seized a fleet from King of Sarandeb (from Ceylon). The eight ships were stocked with precious gifts, including Abyssinian slaves, to be presented to Al-Walid ibn al-Malik, the sixth caliph of the Arab Umayyad dynasty. This mighty Muslim king had destroyed the Basilica of Saint John the Baptist in Damascus and erected the Great Mosque (Umayyad Mosque) on its very site.[2] A ferocious storm had severely damaged these eight ships. After the storm, they drifted towards the coast of Debal like lame ducks. There they fell in the hands of merciless pirates, who captured the crew and all male and female passengers and grabbed all its valuable contents.[3]
This act of piracy triggered a new series of Muslim invasions. Caliph Al Walid ordered Al Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, high commander of his elite troops, to reclaim the stolen gifts. Al Hajjaj led two military expeditions to the Sindh region, but was not successful. In 710 CE, Muhammad bin Qasim (695 – 715) gave it another try. The young commander, only 17 years of age, invaded what now is northwestern India with a huge army of 17,000 cavalry plus five catapults designed to destroy thick defense walls. Bin Qasim had been thoroughly trained by Governor Al Hajjaj, who had spotted his martial talents, stamina and leadership potential when he was a young teenager. Before Bin Qasim started his first great victorious campaign Al Hajjaj had told him what he had to do after defeating his opponents:
Kill anyone belonging to the enemy combatants; arrest their sons and daughters for hostages and imprison them. Whoever does not fight against us…grant them peace and safety and settle their tribute as dhimmah (protected person)…
And so he did. Bin Qasim was ruthless towards enemies, but friendly and rather tolerant to defeated people that agreed to cooperate and pay the extra tax levied for being ruled and protected by Moslems. His soldiers ransacked and looted numerous Hindu temples and thrashed several fortified cities of Sindh, now part of Pakistan.[4] Bin Qasim conquered large parts of western India and converted the people to Islam, by word or by sword.[5] His officers and soldiers killed thousands of men. They captured and enslaved more than 100,000 women and children in Brahamabad, Multan and Rūr. Raja Dahir, the last Hindu ruler of Sindh got killed in battle. His severed head was sent to Al-Hajjaj in Basra.[6] In line with Muslim law one fifth of the material spoils were set aside for the Caliph’s treasury. About 20,000 enslaved victims got dispatched to Iraq and Syria. The rest of the defeated men, about 80,000, were forced to be enrolled in the occupant’s armies.[7]
The Moslem conquerors told all subdued Indians that Allah, their One and Only God, views all humans as equals. Many members of lower castes fancied this idea of equality. For them, it appeared to promise a far better future. They converted to Islam. All their descendants have been raised as devout Moslems. History has been presented to them in such a way that they can only see the outcome of this Islam expansion, as an unavoidable and extremely positive event, as the outcome of God’s will. Hindu scholars have a completely different take on Bin Qasim. They still are horrified by the thought that this zealous commander had ordered the circumcision of all Brahmins and the killing of all objectors above 17. Younger ones were being enslaved. Muslim commanders targeted Brahmins, for they kept advocating a rich variety of Hindu gods in stead of worshipping Allah.[8]
The life of Muhammad ibn al-Qasim may have been very eventful, even heroic, but it did not last long. Commander Bin Qasim not only killed the King of Sindh, but, according to the Chach Nama saga, he also humiliated King Dahir’s wife to take her as one of his house slaves. [9] Furthermore, he sent princesses Suryadevi and Parimaldevi to Caliph Sulayman to add new blood to the latter’s harem. Abhorred by the prospect of becoming sex-slaves in a harem, they told the Caliph that Bin Qasim had raped them. Hearing this, the Caliph felt deeply insulted. He ordered to capture Bin Qasim and have him wrapped and stitched in an oxen hide. Bin Qasim died of suffocation on the 18th of July 715.[10] Later, when Caliph Sulayman learned that Suryadevi and Parimaldevi had lied, he felt sick of remorse. The two princesses were being buried alive in a brick wall.
Muslim encroachment on India did not halt with the death of Bin Qasim. In 1026, Mahmud Ghaznavi (971-1030), ruler of the Ghaznavi Empire orchestrated a new series of Muslim invasions. His father was Sabuktigin, founder of the Ghaznavi dynasty. Ghazni, located between Kabul and Kandahar, had become an important commercial and cultural centre in the Islamic world, rivaling Baghdad. Sabuktigin ruled from 977 till 997. His name means beloved prince. Later tegin or tigin became a label for Turkic slave commanders. Sabuktigin had been captured by members of a rival Turkic tribe and sold at a slave market. Commander Alp-Tegin bought him, and trained him to become one of his army slave soldiers or Mamluks. The talented Sabuktigin quickly became commander of a Mamluk guard in Ghazna. In 977, he was elected as Ghazni ruler. He expanded his domain to southern Afghanistan and northern Balochistan.[11] Commander Sabuktigin was never afraid of Indian armies, for these happened to be badly organized. Its soldiers were weakly trained and lacked discipline. As soon as Sabuktigin deemed his son Mahmud old enough to partake in these raids, he took him along on his campaigns, to prepare him for his role as his successor.
Sabuktigin died in 997. As tradition would have it, Ishmael, his elder brother, succeeded his father. Mahmud did not accept this, started a succession fight and won. As new ruler, Mahmud Ghaznavi attacked India 16 or 17 times. He invaded Northern India first. Next, he intruded deeper into India. Evidently, he loved winning wars for the sake of Islam. Step by step, he conquered large chunks of the Indian subcontinent. During his invasions his troops killed and captured thousands of enemies. Non-Moslems were forced to convert. Exceptions were made for the men that agreed to join his Mamluk armies. Female Hindi devotees were either killed or kidnapped to be sold at Afghan slave markets. In 1026, a successful raid culminated in the desecration of the renowned Somnath Temple. Some sources mention the capture of 50,000 devotees, though this might be an exaggeration. The damaged temple was refurbished in 1038, but would be sacked more than once in later centuries.[12]
Historians have estimated that Ghaznavi’s raids killed over 2 million people.[13] Forcing tens of thousands non-Moslems to convert, changed the religious map of India forever. Among Hindu people the memory of these events will never be forgotten or forgiven. Many Hindu scholars keep emphasizing that Sultan Mahmud desecrated, destroyed and looted many palaces and holy temples to spite Hindu devotees. Whether he did this out of spite or fanatic devotion we don’t know. For sure, he needed lots of stolen gold and silver, to buy food and weapons for his troops. Of course, Moslem teachers in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran paint his picture with bright colors, highlighting his military talents and present him as was one of the greatest heroes of Islam expansion. His death was far from heroic. He died at home, aged 58, after a mosquito had infected him with malaria.
A new series of Muslim conquests began in the last decades of the 12th century. This time the military genius and Muslim imperialist was Muhammad Ghori. He was born in 1144, in Ghur, now a region in central Afghanistan. His mother used to call him “Zangi” because his skin was almost as dark as that of African slaves being shipped from Zanzibar.[14] His father, ruler of the Ghurid dynasty, died when Muhammad was five. One of his uncles became his custodian. He raised Muhammad and his brother, Ghiyath al-Din, to make their father proud. The main object was that they would always defend their domain with honor, or, better still, expand it. Muhammad Ghori began an incessant series of invasive wars on the entire Indian subcontinent, killing thousands of enemies, capturing numerous Hindu women and girls to make them their concubines. Thus, he and his brother broadened and further strengthened the foundation of Islamic Rule in Southern Asia.[15]
Some chroniclers have written that Mahmud of Ghazni destroyed more than 10,000 temples, including all its beautifully sculpted idols, in Kanauj and Mathura. He was also responsible for the destruction of 1000 temples in Benares. Even if chroniclers might have inflated these figures somewhat and the real numbers might have been half as big, the memorization of the history of the conquests of these Islamic Slave Kings still arouses anger among Hindu nationalists.[16]
In 1190, after consolidating Sindh and western Punjab, Ghori’s top-generals raided Prithviraj Chauchan’s kingdom. This triggered a battle with Prithviraj’s army, led by Prince Govind Rai. Both Muhammad and Govind got wounded in a personal combat. Muhammad’s generals ordered a retreat, so that their wounded leader and his weakened armies could recuperate. As soon as Mohammad Ghori had recovered, he viewed this retreat as a shameful defeat. Hence he publicly degraded the generals responsible for this decision and vowed not to visit his harem until this humiliation was avenged. In 1192, Muhammad Ghori returned with a vast Mamluk army of mounted archers. Ruler Prithviraj Chauchan was defeated and executed. In 1203 his brother died. From then on Muhammad Ghori ruled alone. He continued with these invasive campaigns. The next year, Ghori was defeated in the battle of Andkhud (now Afghanistan). The victors allowed him to return home after paying a huge ransom of gold and elephants. Tales of his lost battle and fake news about his death triggered several insurrections, but after returning home safe and sound, he restored order and stability.
Muhammad Ghori had no sons. He purchased many Turkic child slaves sold by poor parents. He raised them with great affection and treated them as if they were his sons and arranged marriages for them. His main objective was to train them as competent soldiers, to become skillful army leaders and rulers over parts of his domain. Two of them, Yildiz and Aibak, became top-generals. They would play key roles in the further expansion of the Ghori Empire. To thank them for their great military achievements Muhammad Ghori declared them free.
Conquering and crushing enemies will come with a price. It engenders hatred and produces numerous new enemies. 15March 1206, Sultan Muhammad Ghori crossed the province of Punjab. At sundown, his caravan stopped for a well-deserved rest. That night two fanatic believers of another strand of Islam murdered Muhammad Ghori while he was kneeling down for his evening prayers. Thus they put an abrupt end to the life of Muhammad Ghori, the army leader that had become as famous as Alexander the Great. Ghiyatt al-Din Mahmud, his brother’s son, succeeded him. General Yildiz proclaimed himself King of Ghazni.[17] General Qutb al-Din Aibak, had won many battles for Muhammad Ghori, including Delhi. Aibaks conquests resulted in the enslavement of more than 70,000 people in Gujarat and Kalinjar. Once more, his chroniclers might have inflated this number.[18]
Qutb al-Din Aibak had been enslaved when he was a kid. Yet, having undergone this ordeal did not halt him from owning many slaves as an adult. This might surprise readers, but in those days employing enslaved servants was exactly what was expected of everyone who could afford it, and surely of those that had attained a high military rank or public office. Contemporary chroniclers praise him as a man who achieved things, great and good. He is portrayed as a courageous, loyal, just and very generous man. Even nine centuries later generous Muslim people in India ran the risk to be called an “Aibak of the time.”[19]
When Aibak became Sultan of Delhi in 1193 he stopped conquering new territories and focused on the consolidation of his rule. In 1212, Aibak fell from his horse during a Polo match in Lahore. The pommel of his saddle fell upon him and pierced his ribs and ended his life.[20]
According to Praveen Swami few countries have been as thorough as India in erasing its long and brutal past of slavery.[21] But there is not a single memorial to the hundreds of thousands Africans and Europeans trafficked to Central Asia; nor to the Indians enslaved by other Indians. In the past most of them were traded for horses from Central Asia, imported for the cavalries of Delhi Sultans and the Mughals. In 1398, Timur Lenk, the last nomadic Turco-Mongol conqueror of Eurasia’s steppes, sacked Delhi. According to his chroniclers he seized and enslaved over a 100,000 Hindus. The next year he ordered the built of the big and magnificent Bibi Khanyum mosque in Samarqand (Uzbekistan).[22] Today, thousands of Indian tourists visit the partly repaired ruins, though very few will realize that it was built by their enslaved ancestors.[23]
Every medieval military campaign flooded Delhi’s markets with enslaved captives from the enemies. Around 1300, Shihabuddin al-Umari recorded that: “No day goes without the sale of thousands of slaves.” Some girls were sold for a good price, because of their perfect beauty, but also for “other things which words cannot describe.”[24] Enslaved Africans have played an important role in medieval India. Take the renowned Malik Ambar (1548-1626). He was an enslaved Ethiopian and shipped to India. His parents had called him Chapu, but one of his merchants renamed him Ambar and converted him to Islam. He was sold to the Peshwa of Ahmadnagar and told to join the army. He turned out to be an excellent soldier and became a top general. As such he created a mercenary army of more than 50,000 men and defeated several Mughal rulers.[25] Ambar also developed into an outstanding administrator, became Prime Minister of the Ahmadnager Sultanate and was made king of the sultanate. Thus he became known as Malik Ambar.[26] Plenty present day Muslim Indians have heard about his great deeds and historical importance, though his ethnic origin is seldom mentioned.[27] Like Malik Ambar, numerous other Ethiopians/Abyssinians, known as Habshis, fought in the Indian army showing impressive military prowess and skills. Their bravery, skills, strength and agility lifted them up through the ranks. Turkic and African slaves became an integral part of Indian armies or the governments of sultanates. Some Indian rulers trusted these outsiders even more than native Indians, because they were not partial to any of the competing indigenous factions.[28]
Francisco Pelsaert, a Flemish discoverer, merchant and chronicler lived and worked in India from 1618 till 1628.[29] He recorded that Abd Allah Khan Firuz Jung, an Uzbek nobleman, beheaded local rebels and enslaved “their women, daughters or children, who were more than 200,000 in number”. Also Peter Mundy, who travelled to Agra in 1632, reported similar atrocities by the same Moslem commander. At his orders his officers and soldiers decapitated more than 10,000 men and fixed these severed heads with mortar to 260 pillars.[30]
In mediaeval times, the slave trade was well established. Emperor Babur, founder of the Mughal Dynasty in Northern India, says in his memoirs:
“Down to Kabul, come every year 7, 8 or 10,000 horses, …, from Hindustan, come every year caravans of 10, 15 or 20 thousand heads of houses, bringing slaves, white cloth, sugar candy, refined and common sugar, and aromatic roots.”
In India in particular Turks were valued for their military skills, as well as Tartar and Uzbek women to serve in harems. From Dr. Shadab Bano we get some insightful knowledge of the hardships and humiliations experienced by individuals who made up the traffic in Indian slaves across the Hindu Kush. In 1269, Persian historian Minhaj i Siraj Juzjani travelled from Delhi to Multan with many slaves that he wanted to present to his sister in Afghanistan.[31] In the sixteenth and seventeenth century Mughal Emperors Akbar the Great and Aurangzeb took steps to rein-in the export of slaves. From the 18th century on, the numbers of Indian slaves in Central Asia dropped significantly, but not completely. In the 19th century, East India Company intelligence officer, diplomat and author Mohan Lal Kashmiri, on an undercover expedition in Bukhara, saw Indians and Jews being “ill-treated, but not sold as slaves, as none bought them, regarding them as base and unpurified”.[32]
Moslems label Hindus as kafirs, because they do not believe in Allah. In the past, they targeted these infidels for Central Asian slave markets. Other targeted groups were Shiites from Persia, held in contempt by Sunnite slave traders, as well as Russian Christians. Under British colonization, members of all faiths traded in slaves. Portuguese buccaneers supplied Indian slaves to plantations in Indonesia and Sri Lanka until the late 1600s. Like so many societies across the world, also in India slavery and trade in humans was the norm — legitimised by faith and age old tradition. The East India Company began trading slaves in the early 1620s. One and a half century later, in 1774, it started to make some political moves against trafficking and prohibiting the sale of anyone not already enslaved. This prohibition was reissued in July 1789, after Peter Horrebow, a Danish captain, was arrested for smuggling 150 Bengalis. Seven weeks later Charles Cornwallis, Commander of British India and Governor of the Bengal Presidency, issued a proclamation in which he banned the export of slaves on the grounds that this practice was in violation to the Laws and Ordinances of this Country and the dictates of Humanity.[33] He had a benevolent but somewhat paternalistic attitude towards the lower classes. He helped to improve the Indian judicial and administrative system. This resulted in the so-called Code of Cornwallis that outlawed child slavery.[34] On the other hand, he positioned the British as an extra layer on top of the complex pyramid of castes, sub-castes and social classes. Like most European colonists of his day and age, he believed that well-bred European gentlemen were superior to others, including children from mixed European-Asian couples. In 1791 he issued an order that “No person, the son of a native Indian, shall henceforward be appointed … in the Civil, Military or Marine Service of the [British East India] Company.”[35]
Cornwallis may be credited for outlawing child-slavery, but British India would have to wait till the adoption of the Indian Slavery Act of 1843. That year employees of the British East India Company were prohibited to own slaves. This was some years after the United Kingdom had abolished slavery across its territories. Since then the practice of deporting or exporting Indians to the Americas continued by other means: by introducing a system of indentured labour. [36] The official abolition of slavery did not set free the majority of outcastes and Shudra. Countless members of The Scheduled Classes kept being downtrodden and exploited until they died.
[1] This is chapter 6 of my book project: From Ancient Slavery to Abolition. (words 3232; 4-3-2026)
[2] He took a great interest in architecture and also had great mosques built in Jerusalem and Medina. Al-Walid, Umayyad caliph: Encyclopaedia Britannica; Britannica.com. Retrieved: 27 June 2025.
[3] Dahir of Aror: Wikipedia.org. Wikipedia refers to and quotes from Mirza Kalichbeg Fredunbeg: The Chachnamah, An Ancient History of Sindh, Giving the Hindu period down to the Arab Conquest. Commissioners Press 1900; Retrieved: 25-6-2025
[4] Muhammad ibn al-Qasim: Wikipedia. Retrieved: 5 June 2023. Rahman, Manfuzur (n. d.) The Rise and Spread of Islam in Indian Subcontinent (711-1526 AD): Seminar presentation. academia.edu > 37025648>
[5] Muhammad ibn al-Qasim: Wikipedia. Retrieved: 5 June 2023
[6] Muhammad ibn al-Qasim: o. c.
[7] Slavery in India: Wikipedia. Retrieved: 24 May 2023 This site refers to Andre Wink (1991), Al-Hind: the Making of the Indo-Islamic World, vol. 1, Brill Academic (Leiden) pages 172-173
[8] Kishan Kumar Mishra and Nagendra Kumar: Resituating the “Dominant Caste”: A Critique of Existing Narratives about Brahmins: openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au. Retrieved: 13 February 2025
[9] Chach Nama is a Persian translation by Ali Kufi (13th-century) of original Arabic text about the early 8th-century conquest of Sindh by General Muhammad bin Qasim. Naturally, scholars dispute the historical validity of certain sections. Chach Nama: Wikipedia. Retrieved: 5 June 2023
[10] Akhtar Balouch: Muhammad Bin Qasim: Predator or Preacher. Dawn: E-paper. April 8, 2014. Retrieved: 12 February 2025; Surya Devi: Wikipedia. Retrieved: 12 February 2025
[11] Sabuktigin: Wikipedia.org. Retrieved: 13 February 2025
[12] Somnath Temple: en.wikipedia.org. Retrieved: 15 February 2025
[13] Invasions, Plunders, Loot and Cultural Disintegration: The Chronology of Islam’s 800-year-old rule over India. Retrieved: 12 February 2025; Mahmud of Ghazni. wikipedia.org. Retrieved: 12 February, 2025
[14] Truschke, Audrey (2023) Hindu: A History. Cambridge University Press: Published on line 20 January 2023
[15] Muhammad of Ghor: en.wikipedia.org. Retrieved: 8 June 2023
[16] Qutb ud-Din Aibak: wikipedia.org: Retrieved: 3 July 2025-07-03. Wikipedia refers to: Richard Maxwell Eaton: Essays on Islam and Indian History. Oxford University Press, 2000; p 124
[17] Muhammad of Ghor: en.wikipedia.org. Retrieved: 25 February 2025
[18] Qutb ud-Din Aibak: wikipedia.org. Retrieved: 3 July 2025-07-03
[19] Idem: Wikipedia refers to Nizami (1992). “The Early Turkish Sultans of Delhi”. In Mohammad Habib; Khaliq Ahmad Nizami (eds.). A Comprehensive History of India: The Delhi Sultanat (A.D. 1206–1526). Vol. 5 The Indian History Congress / People’s Publishing House.
[20] Idem
[21] Praveen Swami: Slaves of our History, May 17, 2019: /www.firstpost.com/politics/slaves-of-our-history-6649471.html. Retrieved: 29 March 2022
[22] Bibi Khanyam Mosque: en.wikipedia. Retrieved: 07-03-2022
[23] Maybe, it is a good idea to put a small billboard with this valuable information next to its entrance.
[24] Praveen Swami, o. c.
[25] Most Mughal rulers were descendants of Timur aka Tamerlane. This Turkic-Mongol was the last conqueror of the Eurasian steppe. Most probably he was a descendant of Genghis Khan. For sure he saw himself as his heir. Timur: Wikipedia.org. Retrieved: 6 July 2025
[26] Malik is the Arabic word for king. Malik Ambar: Wikipedia.org. Retrieved: 26 February 2025
[27] An exhibition, organised by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of The New York Public Library, in Delhi recently showcased such “forgotten” stories of Africa’s role in India’s history.
[28] Vikas Panday: Africans in India: From slaves to reformers and rulers. BBC Monitoring 19 December 2014
[29] Francisco Pelsaert, explorer, merchant: prabook.com/web/francisco.pelsaert/2441193. Retrieved: 07-03-2022
[30] Quoted from: Mundy travels II, pp 90, 185, 186, by Lal, K.S.: The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan, Chapter 7. Source: https://quotepark.com/quotes/1743402-jahangir-as-an-example-the-exploits-of-one-of-jahangirs-c/
[31] Juzjani was the principal historian for the Mamluk Sultanate of Delhi. Minhaj-i Siraj Juzjani: Wikipedia. Retrieved: 24 April 2023
[32] Quoted by Praveen Swami in: Slaves of our History, May 17, 2019: www.firstpost.com/politics/slaves-of-our-history-6649471.html
[33] Richard B. Allen: European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean 1500 – 1850 (Also see
[34] Cornwallis in India: en.wikipedia.org. Retrieved: 31-03-2022
[35] Idem
[36] Mintz, Sidney W.. (1986) p.70. Sweetness and power: The place of sugar in Modern history. New York. Quoted by Richard B. Sheridan in CHANGING SUGAR TECHNOLOGY AND THE LABOUR NEXUS IN THE BRITISH CARIBBEAN, 1750-1900, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO BARBADOS AND JAMAICA