Hoqook Monitors the World of Slaves in Egypt
Between 66 and 73 Thousand Slaves Live in Egypt
These words were confirmed recently by the Global Slavery Index, which revealed that the number of slaves was between 66,000 and 73,000. This means that the world of slavery still exists in Egypt, in every meaning of the word “slavery.”
There are slaves spread out over many governorates in Egypt, especially in a number of the governorates in Upper Egypt, especially in the very south. The governorates where slavery has spread the most are Asyut and Sohag, Qena and in parts of Aswan. In Minya, slavery is less prevalent. Governorates along the Mediterranean Sea, however, do not have any slaves, with the exception of Al Sharqiya.
Ethiopia, South Sudan and Central Africa
Slaves come from a line of slaves from past ages before the abolishment of slavery in Egypt in the era of Khedive Ismail. The origins of a majority of slaves are Ethiopia, South Sudan and Central Africa. Most slaves are from the “Jala” tribes and the Ethiopians, who are now a people scattered over Central Africa and Ethiopia. In the last two centuries, big families acquired their slaves by buying them from slave traders, who kidnapped the slaves from their families or bought them from Central Africa or South Sudan and sold them to wealthy families. Most of the slaves came from Muhamad Ali’s military campaigns in South Sudan, which caused a marked increase in the number of slaves in Egypt during this period.
Black slaves
Slaves these days have the same physical characteristics as their grandparents. Most of them are black, except for the slaves whose fathers married ” Fallaheen” women. “Fallaheen” is a name given to women in Upper Egypt who work on farms or in homes, who differ from the women of the families in that these women are not allowed to work in the fields or the house. Perhaps this was the reason for calling any black person a slave, even if he wasn’t. These slaves are characterized by tall stature, great physical strength and the ability to do heavy labour, as well as other attributes of the people of these areas of Africa and Ethiopia. They were also well known for living to an old age, and many of the slaves, especially the women, lived to be quite old.
What is interesting is that there is a special “dictionary” of names and nicknames for slaves, the most popular are Abd El Sayed, Abd El Rajaal, Rehaan, Mersaal, Bakheet, Salmaan, Qumsaan, Khabeer, Murshid, Obayda, Sarour, Noumairi. Some names were shared with their masters, such as Jaber, Salem, Mabrouk, Saadalla, Fadlalla, Abdalla, Saad, Saoud, Jawhar, Obayda, Bilal (which is the name of one of the friends of the Prophet who was a slave), Fadeel, Riyad, Awad, Idris and Othman. As for the female slaves, most of the common names were Rehana, Ferhana, Radia, Saadia, Masaada, Bakheta, Zad El Mal, Kamalat, Fadila, Marsela and Samara. The strange thing about the names is that the slaves’ names all carry the meaning of happiness, humanity, joy, luck and optimism. Whereas the names of the children of the slave-owning families mean cruelty, oppression, and bravery, such as Fazzaa, Hazzaa, Shaddad, Hammam, Abd El Jabar, Abo El Abbas and Hareedi. The slaves of the big families to this day stick strictly to slave names and they don’t try to take other names. It is considered a kind of break with the family and with social traditions and customs if a slave names his children any of the family names. If this happened it’s an example of the slave’s desire to break the family’s rule over the slaves, and this goes against social custom which forbids this.
Custom rather than law
The relationship between a slave and his master is dictated more by deeply-embedded social custom and tradition rather than by law. Many of the families set aside a part of their houses for slave quarters. Also the family has to provide to its slave a living wage. It is considered a social disgrace for the family if they leave their slaves so poor that they beg for help from someone outside of the family. Many of the wealthy families give their slaves a piece of land to grow food for themselves, without giving the slaves ownership of this land. Sometimes, however, slaves do own land when an especially affectionate master leaves land to his slaves after he dies.
One of the things that is strictly forbidden between slave and master is marriage. Any male slave whose behavior towards the females of the family defies this norm, faces certain death. There are no known cases of a male slave being executed for this reason. It is also looked down upon for a male family member to marry a female slave, but it is allowed in certain cases. If the man has fallen in love with a slave, or if he cannot find a suitable mate among the women in the family or if he has passed a certain age, then a man may marry a slave girl. There was a famous case of a master’s son in Sohag who married a slave girl and was subjected to great ridicule and sarcasm. Children of these marriages between master and slave, suffer discrimination in society and within their own family. These children do not have the same inheritance rights as other siblings from other marriages.
Most of the marriages between masters and slave women fail and one of the main reasons is that the families themselves often force their sons to divorce their slave wives. The families justify their pressuring some Quranic verses and religious law as their justification for forcing divorce.
Many run away
Slave oppression is so fierce in Upper Egypt that many slaves run away to the North. Once they are out of Upper Egypt, they are free to work, marry whomever they choose, and educate themselves without the pressure of social custom and tradition to choose their lives for them.
The migration of the slaves of Upper Egypt to the North began with the new “open door” economic policy at the end of the Seventies. That’s when the effect of Upper Egyptian traditions and social customs was considerably weakened by economic change and social upheaval. Those slaves who found the opportunity to travel or who had already benefitted from some level of education were the first to leave Upper Egypt. Access to education spread in Egypt during the late Sixties, but arrived much later to Upper Egypt. The influence of powerful and wealthy families of Upper Egypt was part of the reason that those areas had less access to education. These slave-owning families tried to keep slaves from being educated, by making education seem useless or an impossible dream that couldn’t be realized. Some educated slave-owners were afraid that by educating their slaves, the slaves would be harder to control. Most slave-owners, however, did not educate their slaves because it just wasn’t a customary practice in Upper Egypt. Another problem was that most of the slaves were not registered in the Ministry of Health and did not have birth certificates or official identity documents. This problem persists even today. Most slaves do not receive official ID from the government until they get married, or if they are wanted suspects in a crime investigation.
Better salary in the Gulf
In a town like Al Sharqiya, slaves do not travel except by extreme necessity, and then usually to Arab Gulf states. In the Gulf, the slaves live the way they were raised and the Gulf Arabs love them and employ these slaves in the same jobs that they did in Upper Egypt, the only difference is that in the Gulf, the slaves make much more money. Despite the fact that many of these slaves became rich and perhaps even surpassed their owners in wealth, if they returned to Upper Egypt, they would not break social custom and tradition. These slaves would return to serving their masters and proclaim their loyalty to their masters, especially if the relationship between slave and master was close and if the masters treated their slaves with kindness.
Written by Nesma Al-Gallad
Translated by Audriana Lincoln
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