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

Emunds, Laura (2022). Framing the “Human Commodity”: Descriptions of Enslaved Bodies in Purchase Deeds from the 3rd/9th to the Early 10th/Late 15th Century. Studi Magrebini, 20(2), pp. 166-186. Brill 10.1163/2590034x-20220073

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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 regula- tions 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 fea- tures were considered as flaws noteworthy of being recorded by the scribes in pur- chase 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 merchan- dise? And finally, did these descriptions evolve and change over time and if yes, how?

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