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Slavery in India during the Delhi Sultanate

Delhi Sultanate (12th to 16th century AD)[edit]

See also: Turkish slaves in the Delhi Sultanate
During the Delhi Sultanate period (1206–1555), references to the abundant availability of low-priced Indian slaves abound.[1][60] Many of these Indian slaves were used by Muslim nobility in the subcontinent, but others were exported to satisfy the demand in international markets.
The revenue system of the Delhi Sultanate produced a considerable proportion of the Indian slave population as these rulers, and their subordinate shiqadars, ordered their armies to abduct large numbers of locals as a means of extracting revenue.[61][62] While those communities that were loyal to the Sultan and regularly paid their taxes were often excused from this practice, taxes were commonly extracted from other, less loyal groups in the form of slaves. Thus, according to Barani, the Shamsi "slave-king" Balban (r. 1266–87) ordered his shiqadars in Awadh to enslave those peoples resistant to his authority, implying those who refused to supply him with tax revenue.[63]Sultan Alauddin Khalji (r. 1296–1316) is similarly reported to have legalised the enslavement of those who defaulted on their revenue payments.[63] This policy continued during the Mughal era.[64][65][66][67][68]
An even greater number of people were enslaved as a part of the efforts of the Delhi Sultans to finance their expansion into new territories.[69] For example, while he himself was still a military slave of the Ghurid Sultan Muizz u-Din, Qutb-ud-din Aybak (r. 1206–10 as the first of the Shamsi slave-kings) invaded Gujarat in 1197 and placed some 20,000 people in bondage. Roughly six years later, he enslaved an additional 50,000 people during his conquest of Kalinjar. Later in the 13th century, Balban's campaign in Ranthambore, reportedly defeated the Indian army and yielded "captives beyond computation".[68][70]
The Muslim army during Alauddin Khalji's conquest of Gujarat took away the wealth of both Muslim and non-Muslim traders. The Hindu slave Malik Kafur belonged to a Muslim khwaja. Iqtidar Siddiqui of Aligarh Muslim University states that this indicates slavery may have been present in pre-Muslim Gujarat.[71]
Levi states that the forcible enslavement of non-Muslims during Delhi Sultanate was motivated by the desire for war booty and military expansion. This gained momentum under the Khalji and Tughluq dynasties, as being supported by available figures.[1][68] Zia uddin Barani suggested that Sultan Alauddin Khalji owned 50,000 slave-boys, in addition to 70,000 construction slaves. Sultan Firuz Shah Tughluq is said to have owned 180,000 slaves, roughly 12,000 of whom were skilled artisans.[61][68][72][73][74][75] A significant proportion of slaves owned by the Sultans were likely to have been military slaves and not labourers or domestics. However earlier traditions of maintaining a mixed army comprising both Indian soldiers and Turkic slave-soldiers (ghilman, mamluks) from Central Asia, were disrupted by the rise of the Mongol Empire reducing the inflow of mamluks. This intensified demands by the Delhi Sultans on local Indian populations to satisfy their need for both military and domestic slaves. The Khaljis even sold thousands of captured Mongol soldiers within India.[62][72][76] China, Turkistan, Persia, and Khurusan were sources of male and female slaves sold to Tughluq India.[77][78][78][79][80] The Yuan Dynasty Emperor in China sent 100 slaves of both sexes to the Tughluq Sultan, and he replied by also sending the same number of slaves of both sexes.[81]

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