Slavery, exchange and islamic law: A glimpse from the archives of mali and mauritania

African Economic History

Volumn 33, Issue , 2005, Pages 117-148

  Lydon, Ghislaine ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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EID: 60950309727     PISSN: 01452258     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
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References (159)

1. To date, one of the most explicit contributions to the subject is the edited volume by E. Stiansen and J. Guyer, Credit, Currencies and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective (Stockholm, 1999).
2. For a review of the literature on pawnship in African history see: T. Falola and P. Lovejoy, "Pawnship in Historical Perspective," in Lovejoy and Falola, eds. Pawnship, Slavery and Colonialism in Africa (Asmara, 2003), 1-26
3. their edited volume Pawnship in Africa: Debt Bondage in Historical Perspective (Boulder, 1994).
4. G. Austin's Labour, Land and Capital in Ghana: From Slavery to Free Labour in Asante, 1807-1956 (Rochester, 2005) describes the institution of pawnship in nineteenth century Asante (see especially 140-151 and 174-180).
5. The most notable exception is the tremendous scholarship of John Hunwick, including "Islamic Financial Institutions: Theoretical Structures and Aspects of their Application in Sub-Saharan Africa," in Stiansen and Guyer, eds., Credit, 72-99.
6. For Islamic legal debates regarding enslavement of blacks, see his "Islamic Law and Polemics over Race and Slavery in North and West Africa (16th-19th Century)," in S. Marmon, ed. Slavery in the Islamic middle East (Princeton, 1999), 43-68.
7. Moreover, Hunwick and Eve Trout Powell's The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam (Princeton, 2002) contains a rich collection of sources with a most useful introduction and chapter on slavery and Islamic law.
8. Other exceptions are the classic work of A. Fisher and H. Fisher, Slavery and Muslim Society in Africa: The Institution in Saharan and Sudanic Africa and the Trans-Saharan Trade (London, 1970), 5-7 chapter two;
9. A. A. Sikainga, Slaves into Workers: Emancipation and Labour in Colonial Sudan (Austin, 1996)
10. "Slavery and Muslim Society in morocco," in S. Miers and m. Klein, eds., Slavery and Colonial Rule in Africa (London, 1999), especially 62-63.
11. This is not to imply that the Islamic framework in precolonial African economic history has been ignored, but simply to suggest that it requires further study. A discussion of how Islamic law regulated enslavement and the slave trade is noticeably lacking in a recent volume on slavery and Islam in African history: P. Lovejoy, ed. Slavery on the Frontiers of Islam (Princeton, 2004).
12. I rely on the following Arabic texts: Ibn Abi Zayd, La Risâla ou Epître sur les éléments du dogme et de la loi de l'Islâm selon le rite mâlikite (texte et traduction), Leon Bercher, ed. (Alger, 1968), hereafter Ibn Abi Zayd;
13. Al-Mukhtasar'ala madhab al-Imäm Malik ibn Anas li-Khalil ibn Ishāq ibn Ya'fUb al-mālikī (Paris, 1855), hereafter Khalil. The latter publication is preceded by a note about KhalTl ibn Ishāq by the well-known scholar Ahmad Bābā of Timbuktu.
14. Also see the translation by G. H. Bousquet, Abrégé de la loi musulmane selon le rite de l'Imâm Mâlek (Algiers, 1958).
15. C. W. Newbury, "North African and Western Sudan Trade in the Nineteenth Century: A Re-Evaluation," Journal of African History 7.(1966), 233-24;
16. S. Baier, An Economic History of Central Niger (Oxford, 1980);
17. Baier, "Commercial Sectors in the Economy of the Nineteenth-Century Central Sudan: The Trans-Saharan Trade and the Desert-Side Salt Trade," African Economic History 13 (1984), 85-116;
18. R. Austen and D. Cordell, "Trade, Transportation, and Expanding Economic Networks: Saharan Caravan Commerce in the Era of European Expansion," in A. Jalloh and T. Falola, eds., Black Business and Economic Power (Rochester, 2002), 88-113;
19. Austen, "Marginalization, Stagnation and Growth: The Trans-Saharan, Caravan Trade in the Era of European Expansion, 1500-1900," in J. D. Tracey, ed., The Rise of merchant Empires: Long Distance Trade in the Early modern World, 1359-1750 (Cambridge, 1990), 311- 350;
20. E. A. McDougall, "Salt, Saharans and the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade: Nineteenth Century Developments," in E. Savage, ed., The Human Commodity: Perspectives on the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade (London, 1992);
21. M. Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa (Cambridge, 1998);
22. m. Ennaji, Soldats, domestiques et concubines: L'esclavage au Maroc au XIXe siècle (Casablanca, 1994.);
23. M. Johnson, "Calico Caravans: The Tripoli-Kano Trade After 1880," Journal of African History 17.(1976), 95- 117;
24. Capitaine Dupas, "Le Commerce Caravanier entre les Confins Algéro- Marocains et l'AOF (Mauritanie et Soudan) à Travers le Sahara Occidental," Centre des Hautes Études d'Administration Musulmane, no.1357.(ier avril 1938).
25. Klein, Slavery, 42.
26. He admits, however, that whether there was a General drop in slave prices is debatable and debated in the nineteenth century. Quantitative questions such as the size of the intra-African slave trade and relative slave prices over the course of the nineteenth century will become easier to resolve once more local trade records are mined. For a discussion of prices of females slaves to the 1850s see Paul Lovejoy and David Richardson, "Competing Markets for male and Female Slaves: in the Interior of West Africa, I78o-1850,"International Journal of African Historical Studies 28 (Spring 1995), 261-294.
27. Interviews with retired caravaners: Fuījī wuld Attayr in Atar (3/07/98);
28. Bãba Ghazzāl, in Tīshīt (04/16/97);
29. Ahmad Jiddu, in Shingīti (10/01/97). This oral tradition, still very vivid in the memory of Mauritanian elders, is also reproduced in the late nineteenth century ethnography of Ahmad b. al-Amīn al- Shinqītī, Al-Was īt fī Tarāj̄im Udabã Shinqīt (Cairo, 1911), 521. McDougall cites a French source dating from the 1840s that claims that in the region of Nioro, an average slave was worth one salt bar ("Salt," 63). So conceivably, there May have been a time when enslaved Africans were sold for even less.
30. D. Robinson, The Holy War of Umar Tal. The Western Sudan in the mid-Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1985);
31. Y. Person, Samori. Une Revolution Dyula, Tomes I, II, III, IV(Dakar, 1968-1975).
32. In 1276/1859-1860, a caravan from Tīshīt sold 2000 salt bars, half of them in slaves, to al-Hājj 'Umar. That year, according to the Chronicle of WalDta, the price of salt dropped to ten millet mudds of Tagānt (approx. 35 kgs). It is likely that such salt would have been used in turn as currency to purchase all kinds of military supplies, including firearms and horses. P. Marty, "Les Chroniques de Oualata et de Néma," Revue des Etudes Islamiques, Cahier III (1927), 367.
33. An early twentieth century correspondence between the French colonial administration and the trading community of St. Louis, expressing concern for their commercial activities, makes clear that the Exchange of slaves for firearms was ongoing. "Rapport du délégué du Gouverneur General en Pays Maures (Xavier Coppolani) à Monsieur le Gouverneur General de l'A.O.F. sur la mission d'organisation du Tagant, Saint-Louis ier juillet 1904," Mauritanie, Vol IV (1902-1904), Centre D'Archives d'Outre-mer (CAOM).
34. See also Klein, Slavery, chapter 2;
35. Robinson, Holy War. L. C. Faidherbe, the French Governor of Senegal, went so far as to categorize Samori as a "marchand d'esclaves pour maures du Sahara." Le Sénégal (Paris, 1889), 318.
36. R. Roberts, Warriors, merchants and Slaves: The State and the Economy in the middle Niger Valley, 1700 - 1914 (Stanford, 1987);
37. J. Searing, West African Slavery and Atlantic Commerce: The Senegal River Valley, 1700-1860 (Cambridge, 1993);
38. Lovejoy, "Slavery, the Bilād al-Sūd2n and the frontiers of the African diaspora," in Lovejoy, ed., Slavery.
39. Family archives of Shaykh b. Ibrahim al-Khalīl (Tīshīt) , IKi (N.B. the codification of sources used throughout are from Lydon's archival photographic collection). The letter, written sometime in the late 1860s or early 1870s, clearly indicated that Shaykh b. Ibrāhī Khalīl had been a Good friend of al-Hajj 'Umar. This letter is discussed in detail in Lydon, "Muslim Contests over Property Rights in Slaves in Nineteenth Century Mauritania," International Journal of African Historical Studies, forthcoming.
40. Lovejoy, "Slavery;" Austen, "The Trans-Saharan Slave Trade: A Tentative Census,"in H. Gemery and J. Hogendorn, eds., The Uncommon market: Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic Slave Trade (New York, 1979), 23-76;
41. J.-L. Miège, Le Maroc et L'Europe (1830-1894), vol.III (Paris, 1962).
42. Ennaji, Soldats.
43. McDougall, "Salt," 72-73
44. See also P. Bonte's dissertation, "L'Émirat de l'Adrar. Histoire et anthropologie d'une société tribale du Sahara occidental" (École de Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, 1998).
45. McDougall, "Salt," 75.
46. For a discussion of "reputation mechanisms" used in a different context, see A. Greif, "Reputation and Coalitions in medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi Traders," Journal of Economic History 64 (1989), 857-882.
47. Lydon, "On Trans-Saharan Trails: Trade Networks, Islamic Law and Cross- Cultural Exchange in Western Africa" (submitted book manuscript).
48. It is important to note that while this justification for enslavement in Islam is taken for Granted by Muslims jurists and modern scholars alike, there exists no treatise or work on the subject. While the Qur'an underscores that those who reject the religion of Islam are doomed to the worst of fates, only one verse vaguely insinuates that unbelievers should be enslaved (Qur'an, 33:50).
49. Moulavi Cherágh Ali claims that "it is a false accusation against the Koran that it allows enslavement of captives of war. A Critical Exposition of the Popular "Jihád" (Pakistan, 1977), 193 and especially Appendix B, 193-223. While not going quite so far, Ulrike Mitter explains how manumission was institutionalized in early Islam. See his "Unconditional manumission of slaves in early Islamic law: ahādĩth analysis," in W. B. Hallaq, ed. The Formation of Islamic Law, (Burlington, VT, 2004). William Gervase Clarence-Smith Islam and the Abolition of Slavery, forthcoming, addresses this very question.
50. Treatise by Mahmud ibn Ahmad al-'Ayntābī al- Amshātī (d. 1492), which can be translated as "The Correct Statement on the Selection of Slave-Girls and male Slaves." Risāla Nādira fī Sharīī wa Taqllb al-'Abīd: Al-Qawl al-Sadīd fī Ikhtiyār al-lmā wa'l 'Abīd, text edited and introduced by Muhammad 'Ysa Sālhiya (Beirut, 1997).
51. The treatise by Ahmad Bāba ibn Ahmad ibn 'Umar ibn Muhammad Aqit al- Tumbukti on slavery in western and northern Africa is transcribed and translated in mi'raj al-Su'ud ila nayl hukm mujallab al-Sud (Ahmed Baba's Replies on Slavery), J. Hunwick and F. Harrak, trans, and eds. (Rabat, 2000), hereafter Mi'raj.
52. See also Hunwick's note "Ahmad Bābā on Slavery." Sudanic Africa, II (2000), 131-139.
53. For a biography, see the Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden, 1999), I: 279b.
54. Mi'raj, 52 (English translation), 85 (Arabic text).
55. Mi'raj, 7.(English translation), 55 (Arabic text);
56. Hunwick, "Ahmad Bābā on Slavery," 135.
57. Hunwick, "Islamic Law."
58. The fact that Muslims were wrongfully enslaved throughout the centuries is well- reported in the literature, including the record of Muslim African victims of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. See contributions in Lovejoy (ed.), Slavery. Even Māliki scholars made allowances for the ownership of Muslim slaves, as discussed below.
59. A raqīq is a saleable slave, whereas 'abd denotes a bonded person, servant or serf. Incidentally, the word raqīq is also an adjective meaning thin, slim or delicate, alluding perhaps to the poor condition of slaves. All translations are based on The Hans Wehr Dictionary of modem Written Arabic, J. m. Cowan, ed. (Ithaca, 1994).
60. Ibn Abī Zayd, 224. In his legal code, Khalīl devotes a separate chapter to the question of concubine mothers (221). moreover, slave owners could manumit slaves ('ataqa) post mortem, in which case they would take on the status of "manumitted" or mudabbar (Ibn Abī Zayd, 222). Slaves who purchased their freedom by way of a contract agreement were "registered" (mukātib), but they nonetheless retained the social status of slave.
61. Fisher and Fisher explain that the sedasi was a standardized slave category in the market of Bornu. Such a slave was aged between 12 and 15 or was a boy measuring 54 inches or "six spans from the ankle to the tip of the ears," (Slavery, 162). I am more inclined to think that this term designated slaves of even younger ages than twelve and that instead the term ghulām (and not sedasi) was applied to ten to twelve year- olds and to young teenage boys. The example of a trade record discussed below, which includes both these terms, is an indication of this. In fact, the word sādas, which in all likelihood stems from the word for sixth (sādis), most probably refers to the year of the legal age at which a child could be separated from his slave mother and sold into slavery in accordance to māliku law.
62. Fisher and Fisher, Slavery, 162-163
63. For a biography of Imãm Malik see the Encyclopedia of Islam, VI: 265b and 278a.
64. Aside from the two compendia discussed here, other legal references were commonly used in North and Western Africa. These include the works of the prolific Egyptian Abu Fadl al-Suyuti, and especially of the Tunisian Sahnun ibn Sa'īd (referred to below) and its commentaries.
65. Ibn Abi Zayd, La Risāla ou Epître sur les éléments du dogme et de la loi de l'Islām selon le rite mālikite (texte et traduction), Léon Bercher, ed. (Alger, 1968), hereafter Ibn Abī Zayd. Note that sometimes West African jurists refer to this work as "the author of the Risāla" or simply "Abu Muhammad."
66. I rely on the following Arabic text: Al-mukhtasar'ala madhab al-Imām Mālik ibn Anas li-Khalil ibn Ishāq ibn Ya'fub al-mmikī(Paris, 1855). This is one of the best transcriptions and it is preceded by a note about the author by the hand of the celebrated Ahmad Bab5 of Timbuktu, hereafter Khalīl. Also see the translation by G. H. Bousquet, Abrégé de la loi musulmane selon le rite de l'lma○m Mâlek (Algiers, 1956). Note that in West African texts, Khālil is sometimes referred to as "Sīdī Khâlil."
67. Interview in Nouakchott (06/02/97) with Hamdan wuld Tah, a retired minister of Islamic Orientation. Despite his age, he is a progressive thinker and remains actively engaged in social Change.
68. For an excellent examination of Mauritanian legal history, see m. m. ould Bah, La Littérature Juridique et l'évolution du malikisme en mauritanie (Tunis, 1981).
69. The Muwātta was complied in the course of forty years. See W. B. Hallaq, "On Dating the Muwatta," UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Lawi, 1 (2001), 23-45. For a General history of Islamic legal thought see Hallaq's A History of Islamic legal Theories (Cambridge, 1997). Another useful Guide is Mohamed Hashim Kamali's Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence (Cambridge, 2003).
70. For a recent French translation, see Imam Mâlik, Al-Muwatta': Synthese pratique de l'enseignement islamique, Muhammad Diakho, trans. and ed. (Beirut, 2004).
71. For a review of the early history of the Maliki doctrine see Jonathan Brockopp, Early Maliki Law. Ibn 'Abd al-Hakam and his major Compendium of jurisprudence (Leiden, 2000); especially relevant is his discussion of Islamic law and slavery in the eighth century, 115-205. For a history of Maliki doctrine in North and West Africa see: m. H. Mansour, "The Spread and the Domination of the Maliki School of Law in North and West Africa: EiGht-Fourteenth Century" (Ph.D. Dissertation University of Illinois, 1981).
72. Al-Sādīq 'Abd al-RahmSn al-Ghariyāni, Mudawwana: al-Fiqh Al-Mālikīwa Adillatuh, (Beirut, 2002), volume1, 173-265, hereafter Mudawwana. There are numerous categories of sales recognized in Islamic law, from forward purchases (bay' al-salam) to the sale of currency (al-sarf). For a French examination of sales in the Mālikī doctrine, based on North African legal sources, see O. Pesle, La Vente dans la Doctrine malékite (Rabat, 1940). Unfortunately, this colonial ethnographer who published several useful works on malikī fiqh does not adequately cite, or provide a list, of his sources.
73. Ibn Abi Zayd, 200; Khalīl, 126-127.For a detailed explanation see Kamali, Principles, 402-404.
74. Ibn Abi Zayd, 210; Khaīl, 125.
75. Ibn Abi Zayd, 212; Khalīl, 124 (who claims that wholesale transactions are tolerated only where it is the local custom). On shareholding rules: Ibn Abi Zayd, 202; Khalīl, 124.
76. On renting and loans: Ibn Abi Zayd, 214, 236;
77. Khalīl, 136-137
78. Ibn Abi Zayd, 238;
79. Khalīl, 127
80. Ibn Abi Zayd, 208;
81. Khalīl,127
82. Ibn Abi Zayd, 224, 226, 228;
83. Khalīl devotes a chapter on the question of manumission, and the rights of a manumitted slave, 219-221.
84. Emphasis mine. Pesle, La Vente, 161.
85. Khalīl,133. There are countless stipulations about this clause, and specifications about how a seller's knowledge of a slave's inadequacies and failure to reveal it are considered in the eyes of law.
86. Sikainga, "Slavery," 66.
87. Pesle, La Vente, 163.
88. Ibn Abi Zayd, 204-206;
89. Khalīl, 130-131 and 135.
90. Ibn Abi Zayd, 210;
91. Khalīl, 135 (he further specifies that insanity must be hereditary, not passing);
92. Pesle, La Vente, 38-9; 137; 153-155
93. It is noteworthy that nowhere in these manuals is their mention of the sexual violation and exploitation of the slave boy. Pederasty, and homosexuality Generally, is not officially recognized by Muslims.
94. Khalīl,123.
95. Ibn Abi Zayd, 204-206.
96. Ibn Abi Zayd, 206, 212;
97. Khalīl, 128 (he does not specify age stating simply the small child who no longer needs his mother. He also stipulates that Muslims should not separate mother and child at the time of purchase).
98. It is important to mention that in both the female slave clause and the "three days Guarantee," the seller was responsible for the sustenance of the slave during the observation period.
99. Pesle, La Vente, 36;
100. Ibn Abi Zayd, 208;
101. Khalīl, 127.It is interesting to note the ambiguity of this saying which insinuates that to run away is a slave's natural prerogative. For the observance of this legal prescription in Northern Nigeria, see for instance the discussion in Lovejoy and Hogendorn, Slow Death to Slavery (Cambridge, 1994), 115. According to Khalīl, a seller was not obligated to disclose if a slave had previously tried to run away (134).
102. Ibn Abi Zayd, 212-3;
103. Khalīl, 135.
104. Khalīl, 132, 145. Khalīl Goes so far as to specify that a slave cannot dressed-up for sale on the market to increase his/her price, including smearing ink on their clothes to Give the impression that they can write. He also states that there is no consensus among Māliki scholars about whether the clothes on a slave's back were automatically included in the deal (138).
105. Ibn Abi Zayd, 206-7.I have not discovered why the loans of silver dust were prohibited. Khalīl's code does not contain this clause. Saharan records show that silver, mainly in the shape of European coins, was commonly loaned.
106. Sīdi Khalīl, 143-6. In Arabic pawnship is al-rahn, but the word most commonly used for pawning in Mauritania is al-wadia, meaning the act of making a deposit.
107. A. O'Hear notes that in early twentieth-century Ilorin, Nigeria, pawning was practiced in accordance with Islamic precepts, but the evidence points to a Great deal of variation in pawning arrangements. The Emir of Bida argued in 1905 that a man could not place any family member in pawnship, only himself. I did not locate this clause in Khalīl's work. moreover, O'Hear's evidence points to the fact that this rule was not abided by as many a wife and child were pawned by husbands and fathers ("Pawning in the Emirate of Ilorin, " Slavery, 142).
108. Khalīl, 144; Ibn Abī Zayd does not include this clause.
109. There was some disagreement concerning the pawning of young Girls. Ibn Abi Zayd declares that it is prohibited (236) as does Sīdi Khalīl, unless the creditor has obtained prior permission (145).
110. Ibn Abi Zayd, 138;
111. Khalīl, 123.
112. Khalīl, 145. If a partial buyer could not be located, the slave was sold "whole," the loan subtracted from the total sales price and the rest of the sum was returned to the debtor.
113. T. Walz cites evidence of this in Egypt in "Black Slavery in Egypt During the Nineteenth Century as Reflected in the Mahkama Archives of Cairo," in John Ralph Willis, ed. Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa, vol.II The Servile Estate (London, 1985), 148-149.
114. Abi Zayd, 270-271;
115. Khalīl, 159.
116. Commandant Le Humeur, "Les Captifs au Sahara méridional, " Centre des Hautes Etudes Administratives musulmanes, no.1205 (19 décembre 1947).
117. Khalīl, 122-123
118. Hamdan wuld Tāh, Interview in Nouakchott (06/02/97).
119. For a discussion of Saharan literature see Lydon, "Inkwells of the Sahara: Reflections on the Production of Islamic Knowledge in Bilād Shinqīt," in Scott Reese, ed., The Transmission of Learning in Islamic Africa (Leiden, 2004), 39-71.
120. For brief biographies of Muhammad ibn al-mukhtār Bil-A'mish and Sīdī 'Abdallah ibn al-Hājj Ibrahīm see Ahmad b. Al-Amīn, Al-Wasīt, 37-40.
121. Sīdī 'Abdallah b. al-Hājj Ibrāhīm, Nawāzil (my photocopy of a handwritten copy of the manuscript).
122. Sir West Ridgeway to Earl of Rosebury cited in Ennaji, Mohamed et Khalid Ben Srhir "La Grande-Bretage et L'esclavage au Maroc au XIXe siècle" Hesperis-Tamuda 29, 2 (1991), 266.
123. Interview in Shingīti with Abdarrahmān wuld Muhammad al-Hanshī (02/29/97).
124. Half a bar of salt per camel load of salt was the typical payment for caravan leader in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
125. Salt bars were typically "rented" to caravaners at the rate of 1/3 or 33.33% profit. Interview with 'Abdarrahmān wuld Muhammad al-Hanshī in Shingīti (09/29/97). I suspect that the process of calling this type of transaction "rent" as opposed to "loan" was a mechanism to mask a technically usurious transaction. These types of arrangements were common between traders and camel owners. A camel loadinG at the Ijīl salt mine north of Shingīti typically carried six bars of salt.
126. A mithqāl was a measure equal to approximately 4.25 Grams of Gold. Based on my readings of nineteenth-century sources, it was used more as a means of valuation than an actual measure of Gold. See m.Johnson, "The Nineteenth-Century Gold 'Mithqal' in West and North Africa," Journal of African History 9 (1968).
127. A mudd was a measure of cereal and other dry Goods such as henna and dates. Each region had a different measurement for the mudd. The Shingīti mudd approximated 2.5kG. The largest was the mudd of Tīshīt which measured about 4.5kG.
128. Family archives of 'Abdarrahmān wuld Muhammad wuld Ahmad wuld Muhammad al-HanshĪ (Shingīti) MH 14.
129. Family archives of Fadal al-Sharīf (Tīshīt) FS4.
130. CEDRAB nos.7532 and 8294. These are among the rare sources written or dictated by slaves, or freed slaves.
131. CEDRAB, no.7582 "Wath̄qa tadkĩr mu'āmalǎt fī bī al-raqīq."
132. In his description of contracts, Khalīl specifics that prices, conditions and names are required and that it was not sufficient to include simply "two male slaves for such an amount," 123.
133. Bil-A'mish, Nawāzil, 52-56 (my photocopy of a handwritten copy of the manuscript).
134. In a related case, a man contested the return of a female slave that he sold prior to traveling, and was being asked to reimburse the purchase for a slave who, according to his testimony, showed no signs of illness. Family archives of Fādil al-Sharīf, FS 7.
135. Bil-A'mish, Nawāzil, 55.
136. Bil-A'mish, Nawāzil, 55.
137. If one of the owners agreed to free the slave he could buy-out the other shareholders. The shareholding of slaves and potential disputes is also mentioned in the Qur'an (39:29). Incidentally, Ibn Abī Zayd discusses the legal procedures for the manumissions of co-owned slaves. Ibn Abī Zayd, 226-227
138. On the portioning of domestic animals see P. Dubié, "La Vie matérielle des Maures," Mélanges Ethnographiques. mémoires de l'Institut Français d'Afrique Noire. No.23 (Dakar, 1953), 220, where he argues that "the different types of animals formed a real monetary system which used to allow for the valuation and payment of bridewealth, Exchanges of animals and merchandise, the dividing of inheritances, the payment of debts and usurious loans."
139. Family archives of Shaykh b. Ibrāhīm al-Khalīl (Tīshīt), IK16 (dating 122oH/1805).
140. Family archives of Sharīfna b. Shaykhna (Titild;shīt), SS13.
141. Ibid..
142. For further discussion on this particular case see Lydon, "Muslim Contests."
143. Family archives of Shaykh b. Ibrāhīm al-Khalīl (Tīshīt), IK6 verso.
144. The mother was a māsna woman named Fātima Seri mint Niaba who was also a trader in her own right. Interviews in Nioro (mali) with Shaykh b. Nāni (05/16/98) and Muhammad b. Sharīf Ahmad "Sufi" b. Sid Ahmad b. Shaykh b. Ibrahim al-Khalīl (05/16/98). The life history of the Shaykh b. Ibrāhīm al-Khalīl family figured prominently in my dissertation. P. Pascon identified him as one of the most important West African trade correspondents of the Moroccan commercial house of Iligh. Pascon, "Le commerce de la Maison d'Illigh d'apres le registre comptable de Husayn b. Hachem Tazerwalt, 1850-1875," in La Maison d'Illigh et l'histoire sociale du Tazerwalt, Pascon, A. Arrif, D. Schroeter, m. Tozy and H. Van Der Wusten, eds. (Rabat, 1984), 70, 72, 74 and 83.
145. Pesle, La Donation dans le Droit Musulman - Rite Malékite (Rabat, 1933), 190-193.
146. In one such case, two sisters fought for the ownership of a slave-Girl in 1884-1885. Public Library of Shaykh Sīdi Muhammad wuld Habbut (Shingīti ) "Marāfa'a qadāīa bayna Fātima mint al-Sālik wa Kūrīa mint al-Sālik tatanāz'an ama."
147. For example, Shaykh Ahmad al-Saghīr, the eminent jurist of Tīshīt wrote a long fatwa on the·subject of pawning palm trees.
148. Bil-A'mish, Nawāzil, 50-51.
149. Bil-A'mish, Nawāzil, 56.
150. Family archives of Shaykh b. Ibrāhīm al-Khalīl (Tīshīt), IK7.The document is dated through genealogical inference.
151. I make this inference based on the nature of his name, the fact that it was not cited in full, and the nature of the attestation.
152. Family archives of Shaykh b. Ibrāhīm al-Khalīl (Tīshīt), IK7
153. For a discussion of women and slavery in Africa see Women and Slavery in Africa, Clare Robertson and martin Klein, eds. (Madison, 1983)
154. Humphey J. Fisher, Slavery in Muslim Black Africa (London, 2001).
155. Khãlil recognized the lawful of such transactions (131 and 135).
156. Family archives of Ahmad b. Zayn (Tīshīt), AZ 2 (Fatwa written by Muhammad al-mukhtar b. Ahmad).
157. Family archives of Arwīli deposited in the Shaykh b. Hammuny Library (Shingīti). Islamic law on inheritance is very precise. Generally, women inherited half the amount of men. But the specific portions depend on whether there were children involved, in which case, a wife inherited 1/8 of her husband's estate, and a husband 1/4 of his wife's wealth. For another example, see Hunwick's explanation of the inheritance of a widow in nineteenth-century Timbuktu; "Islamic Financial Institutions," 81.
158. Hunwick, "Islamic Financial Institutions," 97.(Document no. 1 "Waqf of a slave woman," CEDRAB, 3851/9).
159. Stiansen and Guyer, "Introduction," 2.