Theorising Nineteenth Century Slavery and Sexual Desire in the Central Sudan Strategic Silence.
| Author | Mahdi, Hauwa |
Introduction
The Central Sudan (CS) covers roughly the Savannah belt of the African continent from the bend of the River Niger to the Lake Chad. The nineteenth century Islamic revolutions and ideological contestations among Muslims created a socio-political context for re-evaluation and new frameworks for social conduct. Several states were important actors in the formation of CS societies, and dominant among them were the Sokoto Caliphate and Borno. (2)
Islamic rebellions against Hausa kings that started in Gobir in 1804 led to the founding of the state historians have named the Sokoto Caliphate. Shehu Usman dan Fodio, his brother Abdullahi dan Fodio and son Muhammad Bello, (3) formulated the political and philosophical theories of the Sokoto Caliphate. An uprising in western Kanem-Borno inspired by the jihad in Hausaland in 1808 led to a dynastic change that instituted the Al-kanemi dynasty. Shehu Laminu, (4) came from Fezzan to rescue the Saifawa dynasty in Borno, and subsequently established the new dynasty through his son Shehu Umar. Sokoto and Borno came to dominate the politics of this region in the 19th century, each claiming Islamic correctness.
The impact of the Atlantic slave trade on African societies and on internal slavery specifically has been neglected themes compared to that of slavery in the New World. Many studies have discussed the challenges of statistical estimations of slaves, (5) and the economics of the systems of the continent, centred mainly on issues of slave labour in material production, (6) as well as aspects of social history such as identity. The studies of slavery of the Sudan tend to emphasise the economic aspects of external trade and, on internal slavery that often highlight male slave activities than they do that of females. However, there are also works that have dealt with women or some gender dimensions of slavery. (7) Most slave researchers tend to incline towards the material production capacity of females for their higher value than they do other factors. This paper addresses the sexual dimension of slavery in the CS.
Theorising sexuality from a gender perspective ought to deploy an intersectional trajectory, where a number of significant factors and identities come into play. Such factors include disaggregation of their numbers and a nuanced deconstruction of the specificities in male and female roles in material production as well as social and biological reproduction in the two states. However, such an exploration is not possible here. Instead, the paper is limited to a discussion of the role of sex in gender relationships through the ideological and political debates of the two states, the practices within them and in academic interpretations of the slavery in the region. The aim is to explore sexuality in slavery as the structural scaffold of social and biological reproduction. To unpack the structural meaning of sex in slavery, it is important to consider the leaders' attitudes and behaviour as reflections of their philosophy of governance. The theoretical question in the paper centres on sexual status and conduct of female slaves, to establish the gendered perception of sexuality in the ideology of the states. The preconditions for legitimate sex in slavery were different for male and for female slaves, as well as for freeborn males and females. The rules of sex as a central part of the ideology of the Central Sudan states were constructed and construed partly on silence as strategy of organising female/male sexuality; and secondly silence thus becomes a normative framework for gendered sexual hierarchy in general and in slavery.
The paper commences with a broad discussion of the CS leaders' policy position as the context for reflecting on sexuality and enslavement and, a critique of those positions. It is followed by relevant aspects of academic discourses surrounding the demographic difference between male and female slaves and the roles of the two sexes in the production/reproduction systems in the region. Lastly, the paper focuses on the discourse and arguments on reproduction in slavery in the CS, and offers alternative explanations for the higher value of female slaves.
Ideology, Policy and Politics of gender and slaving
Neither Sokoto nor Borno political leaders dwelt much on slavery as of itself, or indeed on the rules of sexual conduct in their writings. Slavery was mentioned as appendix to the main policies of the state, such as governance, war, relation between state officials and ordinary subjects and the general need of upholding Islamic principles of justice. The rules of sexual conduct are simply implied as an underlying fact of female/male relations. These attitudes neither are an indication of the value of slaves in the CS nor are they indicators of the set parameters of sexual behaviour. The neglect of slavery in Muslim discourse as topical subjects is not exclusive to the Central Sudan. As Fisher and Fisher have observed legal interpretations of Islam such as those in Abu Muhammad Abdullah ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani's (922-996) Ar-Risala (The Treastise of Maliki Fiqh (law) and Khalil ibn Ishaq al-Jundi's (died ca. 1365) Mukhtasar, the same sources used by CS political leaders to propound their policy, had only incidental references to slavery, rather than topical discussions of it. (8) The leaders of this region did not oppose the idea of slave trading or slavery in principle. Implicit in their position, both in the practice of slavery and in their writings is that the condition is permissible in Islam. While slavery does not take a central position in their philosophy of state, when the references were made to it, they had not questioned in any way the condition itself. (9) On the contrary, narratives from visitors and natives show sophisticated standards and practices of conducting the system within each state and in their relationships. Written policies of state and religious treatise among political actors seldom included the trade and of slavery as significant issues of discourse.
On one hand, the lack of formal discourse about parameters of sexual conduct might imply the normalcy of this cultural practice as mundane gendered relations unworthy of state concern. On the other, their writings emphasise addressing men and admonishing them for the subordinate position women occupied, merely as implements. (10) Shehu Usman dan Fodio, Abdullahi dan Fodio and Muhammad Bello, who wrote extensively about the dire condition of existence in the Sudan in the 19th century, alluded to the unfortunate conditions in which women lived. (11) Sokoto leaders for example, drew knowledge from previous Islamic states or learned men to admonition Hausa rulers, but also used history as a means of mapping a path for their own government. Probably because of these objectives of their authorship, their texts more often than not address men, and only occasionally seek female audience. (12) The silence on gender as relational framework of women and men is strategic in asserting higher value and normativity of male perspectives. Yet, the appeal to two separate audiences was not random but gender-specific, where men were addressed on matters of policy and governance, while women were addressed on matters of sexual morality or education. Even issues of direct concern to women were not always addressed directly to them, but were rather channelled through men. These writings offer glimpses of the hierarchy within women as a gender category too. This approach lodged the power of the sexual act firmly in the hands of men (the normative free male), they at the same time held women (the free female) accountable for the breach of sexual propriety.
Some principles of slavery
Four important principles of slavery emerge out of the broad policy positions in the Central Sudan, as in Islamic law according to researchers. (13)
The first and most important condition is that Muslims may not enslave fellow Muslims. According to dan Fodio, "to enslave the freeborn among the Muslims is unlawful ... whether they reside in the territory of Islam, or in enemy territory." (14) Lovejoy, in agreement with Murry Last and M. A. Al-Hajj believes that this principle was adhered to in the early phase of the jihad. (15) The idea is that after the early phase, up 1817, the jihad "ceased to be predominantly ideological." (16)
Ideology is "a system of ideas pertaining to social and political subjects which justify and legitimate culture", (17) in which laws and rules of sexual conduct constitute an essential element. Thus slavery too operated only as part of a wider ideology of religion and of state. The Sokoto position regarding enslaving their adversaries in the wars before 1812 shows a direction that merged two aspects of Islam --the state and religious faith. With the exception Mai Idris Aloma's rule in Borno, and possibly Kano in the 16th century, faith and state among Muslims in this region had largely been kept apart. The merger of the two parts of Islam by Sokoto provided ideas of slavery in Islam, which were more stringent as they were arbitrary. For example, their position had permitted the enslavement of people who might have been believers of the Islamic faith, but who were opposed to the jihad. This interpretation sets in motion a contestation between faith and political affiliation. What the above quoted scholars mean by being less ideological probably refers to the infringement of the law against the enslavement of Muslims post-1817.
Abdullahi dan Fodio's departure for Kano in 1807 in protest against the conduct of the jihad is further indication of the inherent tensions in the ideological and the emerging culture of the jihad pre-1817. In 1808 Abdullahi says, "I had seen the changing times, and (my) brothers, and their inclination towards the world, and their squabbling over its possession, and its wealth, and its regard, together with their abandoning the upkeep of the...
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