TraSIS: Trajectories of Slavery in Islamicate Societies. Three Concepts from Islamic Legal Sources
Description
The research project TraSIS: Trajectories of Slavery in Islamicate Societies. Three Concepts from Islamic Legal Sources (hereafter TraSIS) aims at providing cutting-edge research on the legal history of slavery and coerced labour in Islamicate societies, a term that refers to ‘the social and cultural complex historically associated with Islam and the Muslims, both among Muslims themselves and even when found among non-Muslims’, in contrast to ‘Islamic’, which refers to things related specifically to Islam as a religion (Hodgson 1974: 59). Building on the assumption that a straightforward slavery/freedom binary does not help to explain how different forms of slavery operated in different historical and social contexts, TraSIS aims at transcending this binary, focusing on three concepts that can be considered ‘trajectories of slavery’, namely the umm al-walad (a female slave who has given birth to the child of her master), the kitaba (a contract between a master and a slave according to which the slave is required to pay a certain sum of money during a specific time period in exchange for freedom) and the kafala (originally a legal guarantee within commercial law which in the 20th century became an instrument for either the tutelage of children, especially in the Maghreb, or for labour migration control in the Gulf, Lebanon and Jordan).
Project Web Site
Principal Investigator
Primary Conductor
Start Date
2022-08-01
Expected Completion Date
2026-07-31
Keyword(s)
Islamic Law
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Coerced Labour
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Gender
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Intersectionality
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Slavery
Languages
en
ar