This article argues that Muḥammad Ibn SaÊ¿dâs (d. 230/845) KitÄb al-ṬabaqÄt al-KubrÄ presents early Islamic freedwomen as deeply embedded in kinship networks within their former enslaversâ households and within their wider societies. It first considers how the very organization of Ibn SaÊ¿dâs text reveals the importance of these kinship ties. It then analyzes how freedwomen participated in a âmutuality of beingâ with their former enslavers, particularly by performing intimate tasks of mothering and caretaking. Next, it reveals how freedwomen acted as social connectors, forging links between different households as wives, mothers, servants, go-betweens, and hadith transmitters. Finally, it reminds readers that these freedwomen had been alienated from their original families before being embedded in a new society through new kinship ties. This analysis allows us to appreciate that the kinship encounters early Islamic freedwomen participated in were real, intimate, and meaningful, but they were also characterized by unfreedom.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
Ê¿Abd al-RazzaÌq ibn HammaÌm al-HÌ£imyariÌ. Al-MusÌ£annaf. Ed. HÌ£abiÌb al-RahÌ£maÌn AÊ¿zÌ£amiÌ. Beirut: al-Majlis al-Ê¿IlmiÌ, 1970â72.
Abou-Taleb, Amira. âConstructing the Image of the Model Muslim Woman: Deconstructing Gender Discourse in Kitab al-Tabaqat al-Kubra by Ibn SaÊ¿d.â In Islamic Interpretive Tradition and Gender Justice: Processes of Canonization, Subversion, and Change, ed. N. Reda and Y. Amin. Montreal: McGill-Queenâs University Press, 2020. 179â208.
Afsaruddin, Asma. âLiterature, Scholarship, and Piety: Negotiating Gender and Authority in the Medieval Muslim World.â Religion & Literature 42, no. 1/2 (2010): 111â131.
Ahmed, Asad Q. The Religious Elite of the Early Islamic Hijaz: Five Prosopographical Case Studies. Oxford: Unit for Prosopographical Research, Linacre College, University of Oxford, 2011.
Ali, Kecia. Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010.
BalaÌdhuriÌ, AhÌ£mad ibn YahÌ£yaÌ. AnsaÌb Al-AshraÌf. Ed. MahÌ£muÌd Firdaws Ê¿AzÌ£m. 26 vols. Damascus: DaÌr al-YaqzÌ£ah, 1996.
Baugh, Carolyn. Minor Marriage in Early Islamic Law. Leiden: Brill, 2017.
Benkheira, Mohammed Hocine, Avner Giladi, Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen, and Jacqueline Sublet, eds. La Famille en Islam dâapreÌs les sources arabes. Paris: Les Indes savants, 2013.
Bernards, Monique, and John Nawas, eds. Patronate and Patronage in Early and Classical Islam. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
Bray, Julia. âThe Family in the Medieval Islamic World.â History Compass 9 (2011): 731â742. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00793.x.
BukhÄrÄ«, Muḥammad ibn IsmÄʿīl. á¹¢aḥīḥ al-BukhÄrÄ«. Ed. Muá¹£á¹afÄ DÄ«n al-BughÄ. 7 vols. Damascus: DÄr ibn KathÄ«r, 1993.
Carsten, Janet. âThe Stuff of Kinship.â In The Cambridge Handbook of Kinship, edited by Sandra Bamford, 133â150. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Crone, Patricia. âMawlÄ.â Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd Edition.
Crone, Patricia. Roman, Provincial, and Islamic Law: The Origins of the Islamic Patronate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Crone, Patricia. Slaves On Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
Despret, Vinciane. âFrom Secret Agents to Interagency.â History and Theory 52, no. 4 (2013): 29â44.
Forand, P.G. âThe Relation of the Slave and Client to the Master or Patron in Medieval Islam.â International Journal of Middle East Studies 2 (1971): 59â66.
Gabbay, Alyssa. âMothers, Liver-Eaters and Matrilineal Descent: Hind bint Ê¿Utba, MuÊ¿Äwiya and Nasab (Filiation) in Early Islam.â In Relations of Power: Womenâs Networks in the Middle Ages, ed. Emma O. Bérat, Rebecca Hardie, and Irina Dumitrescu. Bonn: Bonn University Press, 2021. 155â168.
Giladi, Avner. Infants, Parents and Wet Nurses: Medieval Islamic Views on Breastfeeding and Their Social Implications. Leiden: Brill, 1999.
Giladi, Avner. Muslim Midwives. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Goitein, S.D. âSlaves and Slavegirls in the Cairo Geniza Records.â Arabica 9.1 (1962): 1â20.
Gordon, Matthew, and Kathryn A. Hain. Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Ibn AbÄ« ḤÄtim, Ê¿Abd al-RaḥmÄn ibn Muḥammad. KitÄb al-Ê¿Ilal. Edited by SaÊ¿d ibn Ê¿Abd AllaÌh al-HÌ£umayyid. 7 vols. Riyadh: KhaÌlid ibn Ê¿Abd al-RahÌ£maÌn al-JuraysiÌ, 2006.
Ibn AbiÌ Shayba, Ê¿Abd AllaÌh ibn MuhÌ£ammad. Al-KitaÌb al-MusÌ£annaf fÄ« al-AhÌ£aÌdiÌth wa-al-AÌthaÌr. Ed. KamaÌl YuÌsuf HÌ£uÌt. 7 vols. Beirut: DaÌr al-TaÌj, 1989.
Ibn SaÊ¿d, Muḥammad. KitÄb al-ṬabaqÄt al-KubrÄ. Ed. MuhÌ£ammad Ê¿Abd al-QaÌdir Ê¿AtÌ£aÌ. 9 vols. Beirut: DÄr al-Kutub al-Ê¿Ilmiyya, 1991.
Juda, Jamal. âDie sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Aspekte der MawÄlÄ« in frühislamischer Zeit.â PhD dissertation, Eberhard-Karls-Universität, Tübingen, 1983.
Juynboll, G.H.A. âNÄfiÊ¿, the MawlÄ of Ibn Ê¿Umar, and his Position in Muslim ḤadÄ«th Literature.â Der Islam 70 (1993): 207â244.
Kueny, Kathryn, Conceiving Identities: Maternity in Medieval Muslim Discourse and Practice. Alban: State University of New York Press, 2013.
Mitter, Ulrike. Das frühislamische Patronat. Würzburg: Ergon, 2006.
Mubarak, Hadia. âClassical Qurʾanic Exegesis and Women,â In The Routledge Handbook of Islam and Gender. Ed. Justine Howe. London: Routledge, 2021. 23â42.
Myrne, Pernilla. âNarrative, Gender and Authority in Abbasid Literature on Women.â University of Gothenburg, 2006.
Litmmann, Enno. âAsmÄʾ al-AÊ¿lÄm.â Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Egypt 10.2 (1948): 1â56.
Parkes, Peter. âMilk Kinship in Islam: Substance, Structure, History.â Social Anthropology 13, no. 3 (2005): 307â329.
Peirce, Leslie P. The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Perlman, Yaara. âFamily Relations and Politics in Early Islam.â PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 2022.
Robinson, Majied, Marriage in the Tribe of Muḥammad: A Statistical Study of Early Arabic Genealogical Literature. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020.
Ruggles, D. Fairchild. Tree of Pearls: The Extraordinary Architectural Patronage of the 13th-Century Egyptian Slave-Queen Shajar al-Durr. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.
Sayeed, Asma. Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
Schiel, Juliane, Isabelle Schürch, and Aline Steinbrecher. âVon Sklaven, Pferden und Hunden: Trialog über den Nutzen aktueller Agency-Debatten für die Sozialgeschichte.â Schweizerisches Jahrbuch für Wirtschafts-und Sozialgeschichte 32 (2017): 17â48.
Schine, Rachel. âNourishing the Noble: Breastfeeding and Hero-Making in Medieval Arabic Popular Literature.â Al-Ê¿Uṣūr al-Wusá¹Ä 27 (2019): 165â200.
Tucker, Judith E. Women, Family, and Gender in Islamic Law. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Urban, Elizabeth. Conquered Populations in Early Islam: Non-Arabs, Slaves, and the Sons of Slave Mothers. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020.
Winet, Monika. âFemale Presence in Biographical Dictionaries: Ibn Ê¿AsÄkirâs Selection Criteria for Women in his TaʾrÄ«kh MadÄ«nat Dimashq.â In New Perspectives on Ibn Ê¿AsÄkir in Islamic Historiography. Ed. Stephen Judd and Jens Scheiner. Leiden: Brill, 2017. 93â138.
Winnebeck, Julia, Ove Sutter, Adrian Hermann, Christoph Antweiler, and Stephan Conermann. âThe Analytical Concept of Asymmetrical Dependency.â Journal of Global Slavery 8, no. 1 (2023): 1â59.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 342 | 111 | 23 |
| Full Text Views | 34 | 16 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 113 | 46 | 5 |
This article argues that Muḥammad Ibn SaÊ¿dâs (d. 230/845) KitÄb al-ṬabaqÄt al-KubrÄ presents early Islamic freedwomen as deeply embedded in kinship networks within their former enslaversâ households and within their wider societies. It first considers how the very organization of Ibn SaÊ¿dâs text reveals the importance of these kinship ties. It then analyzes how freedwomen participated in a âmutuality of beingâ with their former enslavers, particularly by performing intimate tasks of mothering and caretaking. Next, it reveals how freedwomen acted as social connectors, forging links between different households as wives, mothers, servants, go-betweens, and hadith transmitters. Finally, it reminds readers that these freedwomen had been alienated from their original families before being embedded in a new society through new kinship ties. This analysis allows us to appreciate that the kinship encounters early Islamic freedwomen participated in were real, intimate, and meaningful, but they were also characterized by unfreedom.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 342 | 111 | 23 |
| Full Text Views | 34 | 16 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 113 | 46 | 5 |