RomanIslam Guest LectureSlavery in the Iberian Peninsula and Islamic North Africa

12 June 2024

Photo: © BNP

Humans as property are a deeply ingrained feature of human societies since the rise of a monetary economy in the Ancient Orient. Jeffrey Fynn-Paul (2009) highlighted the entanglement between slavery, empire and salvation religions. Empire and salvation religion protect to a certain extent its free population and co-religionists from slavery. Thus in turn, the interior demand turns toward the empire’s exterior for the supply which then comes from tribes, city states, or small principalities. The different legal framework between the Roman and the Islamic Empires resulted in quite different conditions for the slaves and consequences for the societies.

Where did slaves work? The Roman and Islamic slavery is often contrasted: the one as agro-industrial and mineral extracting apart from ubiquitous domestic slavery while the other is described as overwhelmingly domestic, and military. But is this simple picture true? How did the institution change after the fall of the Roman Empire? Comparing both forms of slavery and their role in society and economy and a closer look on the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa may yield new answers.

We cordially invite you to our guest lecture “Slavery in the Iberian Peninsula and Islamic North Africa" on Wed. June 12, 2024, 5 -7 pm (German time) on Zoom. For registration please contact romanislam@uni-hamburg.de by June 10, 2024.

The format comprises the lectures "The Transition from Roman to Visigothic Slaveholding in the Iberian Peninsula" by Prof. Dr. Noel Lenski (Yale University) and "Continuities in Agricultural Slavery from Roman to Islamic North Africa" by Prof. Dr. Kristina Richardson (University of Virginia)

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