Framing the “Human Commodity”: Descriptions of Enslaved Bodies in Purchase Deeds from the 3rd/9th to the Early 10th/Late 15th Century


This article looks at the way the bodies of slaves are described in 27 purchase deeds dating back to the time between the 3rd/9th and the early 10th/late 15th century and originating mostly from Egypt and Jerusalem. Examining this kind of documentary evidence not only allows a glimpse in the physical appearance of people otherwise mostly marginalised in the sources; furthermore, it enriches our understanding of how the bodies of enslaved persons were legally framed in order to define them as a “human commodity” in valid sales.
Since Muslim jurists categorised slaves as regularly tradable, this article presents in a first step the main features of Islamic sales law regarding the stipulations concerning the definition of a commodity. In this first part, I focus on the opinions of the Ḥanafī and Šāfiʿī schools of law that are considered majoritarian because of their prevalence in the regions the evidence originates from. Secondly, I investigate how these regulations were incorporated into the purchase deeds of slave sales. In other words, how and in which categories were the bodies of slaves described? What kind of bodily features were considered as flaws noteworthy of being recorded by the scribes in purchase deeds either as being existent or in the form of a seller’s warranty against them? In short, what kind of description was applied to frame a human body as merchandise? And finally, did these descriptions evolve and change over time and if yes, how?