Mesmerized by the Scimitar - A Dream of Islamic Imperialism & Slavery

[Serva]

"Muhammad's God has borne us triumph
Low are the necks of conquered girls
Under our swords.

The ignorant kafir is ruined;
Rejoice! Their tears fall down like pearls
Unto our swords.

Rejoice! The evil-doers are disgraced
Their wealth now stripped and lead away
To our mahals.

Their women fair and fragrant does
Are now asleep in our harems
In our mahals.

The ghosts of men may weep without end."

A friend of mine one described my worldbuilding approach as "history filtered through a dream", and I believe this to be accurate.

The world described here is a calque of the real world as it was at the dawn of the Modern Era, the 1500s. It is built through analogies drawn from real history, yet remains a fictional world in its entirety. I love history, but I also love having the chance to be creative, so this is my ideal balance. I make of history a sandbox. If anyone is familiar with Rockstar Games such as Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead (many of you might be as they're popular games) my approach is fairly similar to theirs. Just as in their universe Los Santos is clearly based on Los Angeles but it's really not, and how St. Denis is clearly New Orleans... that's what I do with the entire world. Except my style aims to be more serious than the frequent tongue-in-cheek veneer of the Rockstar worldbuilding.

Religion is that aspect of this world which is closest to its real-world counterpart. I have kept the major religions largely unchanged from our own, to take advantage of their symbolic weight, which is why I’ve even kept their names and the names of their major figures intact.

But with religion too I took liberties. Mainly, with Islam. In this world I’ve made a few tweaks to the religion. Here Islam is more emphatic of conquest and empire. This is an Islamic supremacy fantasy. Islamic sexual jurisprudence (fiqh) has also been edited to emphasize sexual slavery (concubinage) and the concept of the harem. For this dream world exists to indulge my love for and fascination with Islamic civilization. It is a celebration of its splendor and glory, but taken one step beyond reality. While I have many sexual fantasies, this is without a doubt my most enduring one. I am afraid it has become practically an obsession, to the point where I have acquired over 60 books of Islamic history over the past year, having so far read around 10 of them. I must be very odd, because I fixate on the most minute details, as you will surely see for yourselves if I catch your attention with this.

This is a world in which, instead of the West expanding its civilization and domain across the globe, it falls under the sway of Islam, as does much of the globe, to varying degrees of subjugation.

The main focus of this excercise (though not the only) is be the Hajarid Empire, also known as Gulistan (Country of Flowers) after its imperial heartland, a realm that primarily draws from historic Islamic Persianate dynasties.

Gulistan is conceived as an Islamic superpower, an empire to eclipse the wealth of the real-world Mughals and the breadth of the Umayyad Caliphate, largest of the historic Islamic empires. Its heartland, Gulistan proper, is a fertile land rich in rice, wheat, fruit and cattle, and much more bounty.

It is criss-crossed by navigable rivers that together with reliable roads drive trade through an increasingly urbanized (for the era) country. The medieval and early modern Islamic world was highly urbanized, or at least possessed a plethora of bustling, thriving cities, larger and better designed than any contemporary European city. The Empire houses many such cities, both in Gulistan proper and in the outlying provinces.

The Hajarid Empire is at the height of its Golden Age. Paper and the movable type printing press are widespread within it. Literature pours from dozens of celebrated pens, as do works of history, geography, philosophy, medicine and biology, astronomy, politics, theology and much more. Engineering and construction marvels take the form of mosques, madrasas, mausoleums, sufi monasteries, palaces, fortifications, public and private gardens, canals and dams, and ocean-going ships.

Craftsmanship in Gulistan is also of immense achievement. My model for this is Mughal craftsmanship, which excelled in the making of, among many things, early firearms, textiles and jewelry.

Gulistan is a military, economical and intellectual juggernaut about to greet the first millennium of Islam, and it is in the context of this momentuous date that a new and distinctively zealous dynasty (distinctively because they bring original developtments to the interpretation of shariah) has take over this empire, and put these resources of empire to one purpose.

This is a dynasty (dawlat) of warrior-scholars, one emperor (padishah) after another beholden to a unified vision, an ideal of the perfect world that becomes ingrained into the Gulistani milieu. A new world order, if you will.



The pursuit of this idealized world order is their jihad: their struggle. They are as ambitious as the Nazis were, except they aim not to exterminate, but to subjugate, to create an order than serves Muslims at the expense of the infidel, who's purpose in this ideal is servitude, through slavery but also through other mechanisms. The infidel exists to be exploited, plundered and to be yoked to pull the metaphorical chariot of the empire. To prop up the prosperity and glory of Islam on their backs as they themselves sink into the mud beneath. The Hajaris also aim to remake the world in the image of Islam.

For the Quran commands them to make war on the infidel, until they have either converted, or, until they have submitted to Islamic rule. This is important because ultimate victory does not require conversion of the world... it only requires an Islamic chokehold on it.

All of this is sexual to me. All of this fuels my fantasy for the immersion it provides. I obssess over every detail because that makes everything more real. I can lose myself in the dream.

I will be including stories set in this universe, likely involving the experiences of different infidel slaves under Hajari rule. I will also be including bits and pieces of real-life historical material, books (both secondary and primary) and images to contextualize things. But in truth I don't pretend this to be a purely literary, detached project. Because this is my most visceral fantasy, I hope you will indulge me in reading about my own personal relationship to it. Why I love and why and what everything means and does to me. I will be venting here. This will be a sort of confession of my deepest sexual fantasies.

I know the thematic of CF, and I warn you all now that there might be a lack of torture and death in this thread. Rest assured horrors will be described with no compunctions, but they are only a minor element of the whole. There will also be less bondage than you might want. Slavery in this fantasy is about 90% based on historical Islamic slavery, with some 10% being my own kinky additions to it. But you might be surprised how sexy Islamic slavery was all on its own. I didn't need to change much because I already find it so erotic.

What I can promise is a focus on emotional anguish and suffering, on impotence, helplessness, humiliation and defeat. In truth, there will be a lot of non-sexual material here, because I have come to sexualize a great deal about Islamic civilization, down to the architecture. Yes, imagining all of this happening within sight of or inside a gorgeous Islamic palace is erotic to me.

Thank you for reading, and if you are intrigued so far, I hope to make it worth your while.

 

[TheLimey]

I am delighted that you are sharing this with us all here.

 

[Aedile]

Your world sounds incredible! Thank you for sharing your creation with us. I can’t wait to read your stories!

If I may ask for a teaser, what happened to the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire in this universe? I presume it fell to Islam just like the one we know in our reality. The 1453 fall of Constantinople features...prominently...in my fantasies.

 

[Serva]

On Harems, Concubinage and Fiqh in the World of Gulistan

For a sexual relationship to be licit and fully halal, it must involve the control and domination of one man over a woman's sexuality. This legal bond is what justifies sex. It is known as milk, which, depending on context, can be translated as "dominion", "control" "prerrogative" "mastery" or, in the case of a slave, "ownership". Milk, which shall be refered to as dominion, is created by two things alone: marriage, or ownership of a man over a female slave. A father excercises many forms of milk over his daughters, but never sexual milk. This is why incest is never halal. A husband excercises dominion over his wife's sexuality, and also over that of his female slaves.

This dominion of her sexuality, which entails exclusivety, jealously guarded by the man, as well as unilateral access to it, is never created by any other relationship. A husband does not have sexual ask to slave girls belonging to one of his wives, because they are not legally his, and thus there is no bond, and he does not own her sexuality. If he wanted her, the wife would have to give her or sell her to him.

Needless to say, this is not the case for a male slave, whose sexuality is acknowledged in law but cannot be controlled.

So a female slave will always be fully halal for the man who owns her, if a man does. There is no taboo, no guilt on his part, and all over Gulistan and its empire, and in all the House of Islam, there is an insatiable demand for concubines, a bottomless pit demanding beautiful slave girls. One cannot forbid what God allows, nor deny what he offers.

He must maintain her purity, which means she must be exclusive to her master alone (obviously, he is not exclusive to her). A slave girl's beauty is meant for her master, so modesty injunctions apply to them as much as to the most pious of Muslimah ladies. Whenever the eyes of men other than their owner might soil them, they conceal their bodies in chador and opaque robes and abayas. Cocooned in wool or silk, their bodies will be mysteries only their owner can unveil. Slaves can be exchanged and commercialized freely, but with each man that owns her, this purity must be preserved for as long as he owns her.

In addition to her exclusivity for him, milk grants a master the right of enjoyment. This is explicitly agreed upon by the vast majority of faqihs (jurists) and all the major schools. A slave girl has no consent to withhold, and she can never deny her master. He may make use of her sexuality as often as he wants. He may force himself upon her, and incurs no sin. He may punish her for disobedience, though it is obligatory the punishment be proportional to the insult. He may slap her, beat her, flog her, or lock her in solitary confinement. The gravest offense is zina, which is punished by stoning. Zina constitutes an attempt by the slave to escape or soil the purity of milk. To kiss a man other than her master, for example, might be judged zina. Attempts to escape the harem, or to leave it without the proper attire are also deemed zina.

The interior of a harem's premises are the opposite of the outside world. There, chador and abaya are forbidden. For a slave concubine, when inside the harem's sanctuary, all clothes are forbidden except for one: bedlah.



(art by Inkary)

She must strip of her modesty robes once inside the harem; she must don them again if she ever crosses the threshold outside. This way, she is never seen in bedlah by men other than her master. And inside the harem, she is sexualized, like the angelic houris, the submissive virgins of the Islamic paradise of Janna.

This rule of contrast is called purdah. The Veil. The veil that separates the harem from the outside world.

In this way there coexists traditional Islamic modesty and propriety with sexualized Orientalism. The former is everything outside the harem's purdah. So even going outside the harem but staying inside the rest of the residence, be it house, mahal (mansion) or palace, requires the strict adherence to modesty etiquette, with opaque dress and veiling.

Since only slaves can be concubines because of the aforementioned requirement of legalized male domination, that means women in the harems are of two origins: slaves born into slavery from slave parents within the land of Islam, or those enslaved in war (war here being a wide term that encompasses all acts of armed violence against infidels). At the time Gulistan exists, a series of impressive conquests has made it the largest empire in the world, with territories and troops across three oceans. The earlier conquests were of other, surrounding Islamic states. But because in Islam it is forbidden to enslave Muslims, these wars produced very few concubines for the harems scattered across the Plain of Gulistan; these concubines were the infidel subjects of Islamic rule, either pre-existing slaves seized, or free persons freshly pressed into servitude.

But it has only been the reign of the present Badshah, Fateh Muhammad, which has seen the flooding of thousands of women into the slave bazaars and souqs of the whole House of Islam. Gulistan and beyond.

The pattern of conquest has been repeated for centuries. It all begins with raids undertaken by fast-moving columns of horse archers. These are supported by swivel guns mounted on camels, known as zamburak, by light rockets, jezail sharpshooters. For reference, all firearms are ignited with burning matches, from muskets to cannon. The horse archers and their support are followed by trains of mules. These highly mobile divisions probe and raid into enemy territory, deeper and deeper each time. They avoid major battle and instead ravage the countryside. Like locusts they destroy crops systematically; what can be carried away is taken, including people. What can't be, is destroyed. Dead farmers burn with their weathfields while their daughters and wives are abducted. As infidels taken in war, they become slaves.

The raids provoke famine and migrations. The cities swell with refugees, adding to the food shortages.

Then the invasion begins, by land or sea and often both. The enemy army is sought out for a battle of destruction; Hajari armies attack on the operational level, trying to envelop or otherwise out-maneuver the defenders. They will seek to destroy their supplies, and by desperation force a battle on Hajari terms. The invaders seek out a strong position and entrench, building a fortified camp with ditches, stakes, makeshift walls of wooden shields and even foxholes. Inside this position the infantry is aligned, with missile troops and artillery in front, melee infantry at the back. Horse archers and other cavalry spread on the flanks as much the terrain allows. Otherwise, they might be completely detached from the army's center and dispatched on a deep-range raid to sever the enemy's supply lines. When the enemy attacks the fortified position they are blasted by Gulistani firepower: arrows, muskets and jezails, artillery of all calibers, and even rockets. If the enemy closes the melee infantry sallies from camp in front of the missile troops. The cavalry wings will attempt to lay down devastating archery, musketry and artillery on the flanks or rear.

As a Gulistani army advances, it generally leaves peasants that survived the probing raids alone; they will become dhimmis once the war is over.

Cities and towns are the most common sources of captives. If they are taken by storm, they are brutalized. It becomes difficult to control the men in that situation, so much that it is traditional to give the troops three days of plundering when a major prize is taken. Many men are wantonly put to the sword, much more than women, even though women are also murdered. But women, on the other hand, are then enslaved. They are stripped nude and placed in bondage, massed together like so many submissive sheep, and herded into slave ghurabs (Islamic galleons) or overland in caravans. Men also suffer this fate, though in fewer numbers then women, as comparatively fewer survive the sacking of a city. But all prisoners can have a use. The men of the city, once rounded up and chained together, are forced to work in the demolition of the remains of the city, and the creation of a new one.

The city is renamed. Its cathedral ransacked and stripped of all wealth, the statues of saints, angels, the Virgin and even Christ on the cross broken and ritually trodden by the Muslim soldiers. The gangs of chained locals will work in its dismantling, in which case they will then build a congregational mosque in its stead. Often, the cathedrals will be instead remodelled into a mosque. All the reusable stones from a dismantled building are used to create works of Islamic architecture; if not mosques, then madrasas, bathouses, mansions and palaces. Golden crucifixes are melted and the metal reused. Jewels will be plucked out of Christian icons and then set anew, in turbans, on the hilts of scimitars, in horse bridles...

One fifth of all the spoils of war, called the khams, are entitled to the Badshah, by custom. It was the Prophet's share, and the share of every sultan and caliph since. The state's khams. This includes of course, one-fifth of all the slaves. Though he will end up gifting or selling many, others he keeps for work and service, and he has his pick of the rarest beauties taken in the conquest. His harem fills with the daughters, wives and sisters of his enemies. Infidels humbled by God's will, now subjected to the light of Islam. And from his bountiful hand, many more girls and women enter the harems of his amirs, all over the empire and across the oceans.

This is sexual colonialism.

 

[Serva]

Your world sounds incredible! Thank you for sharing your creation with us. I can’t wait to read your stories!

If I may ask for a teaser, what happened to the East Roman (Byzantine) Empire in this universe? I presume it fell to Islam just like the one we know in our reality. The 1453 fall of Constantinople features...prominently...in my fantasies.

Thank you very much for your interest Aedile, I'm happy to know there's some audience for this.

The equivalent of the Eastern Roman Empire... well... it will feature prominently, I must say. There is in this universe a city inspired by Constantinople: Juvenopolis. The Empire in this universe holds on just for a generation or two more (as the time period is closer to the Renaissance, after 1500, than to the Late Middle Ages, which 1453 still counts as), until the green Gulistani banners fly like dragons set upon them.

The Fall of Juvenopolis will be the subject of the first stories I post here. After that, things will go slowly downhill for the Christian West, though I'll focus much more on the experiences of Christian slave girls in the harems of the House of Islam, than on the frontier and battle front (but rest assured, there will be some of that too).

Just imagine if Constantinople had been followed by Rome and then Paris. If the Sultans of Morocco had delivered Granada and counter-attacked deep into Castille, Portugal and Aragon, and then had discovered the New World... imagine mosques and minarets in the Caribbean. The Age of Discovery and Empire will belong to Islam.

 

[Aedile]

From Roger Crowley’s “Empires of the Sea”, chronicling the struggle for naval dominance of the Mediterranean in the 16th Century. He spent a great deal of effort describing the raids by Muslim corsairs on the islands and shores of the Christian Mediterranean.

When the prows touched the beach, the corsairs would hit the village at speed; doors were kicked in and the occupants dragged naked from their beds...a few screams and dog barks would echo in the air and a confused straggle of captives were marched down to their own beach and hustled aboard; then they would be gone. “They grabbed young women and children,” wrote a Sicilian villager of one such raid...once seized they could be in the slave mart of Algiers in a couple of days.[\QUOTE]

A young girl in a seaside village goes to sleep just like any other night. Nights are warm in the Calabrian summer, so she sleeps naked. She jerks awake when the Moor kicks down her door. She shrieks, clutching a thin blanket to her chest to cover her budding breasts. This gets the Moor’s attention, and his grin is visible even in the the dim light. He shoulders his way past the girl’s parents, grabs her by the arm, and rips the girl out of bed.

Two other Moors run into the house, subduing her parents as they reach for their terrified daughter. They can’t do anything for her. The Moors are practiced and thorough. The girl joins the other young women of the village in a line, all of them naked and bound to each other, being herded to the waiting ships. Each young woman is naked, calling out to her mother or father or husband. To no avail.

In less than a week, the girl who went to sleep naked in a quiet Calabrian village will stand naked in a slave market as a dozen men bid to own her. She will disappear into a completely foreign world. In just a few days, she will lay on an opulent bed, far softer than anything she ever knew before, and open her legs for the man who now owns her.

 

[Serva]

From Roger Crowley’s “Empires of the Sea”, chronicling the struggle for naval dominance of the Mediterranean in the 16th Century. He spent a great deal of effort describing the raids by Muslim corsairs on the islands and shores of the Christian Mediterranean.

This is absolutely fantastic! It is so erotic, so mesmerizing, this reads like a wet dream. There will indeed be some classic Islamic corsair action; swift like a cobra's lunge, coming into the seaside villages to abduct women and children. But things will go one step further. The reach of Islam is greater in this world. Not just galleys, but ponderous ghurabs (the Islamic world's answer to the galleon) will blow holes into Christian ships and fortifications:



And then will be loaded, crammed with naked, weeping slaves.

And as a little follow-up to your wonderful contribution, here is what the ambassador of Tripoli told Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in London, when they asked him by what right they enslaved American sailors:

It is written in the Quran that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their
(Muslims’) authority were sinners; that it was their right and duty to make war upon
whoever they could find and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners; and that
every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

And here is an excerpt from the book Islamic Jihad:

Sultan Mahmud launched seventeen
devastating incursions into Northern India (1000–27), involving mass slaughter, plunder, destruction of
temples and enslavement in large numbers. In his attack of King Jaipal in 1001–02, records al-Utbi: ‘God
bestowed upon his friends such amount of booty as was beyond all bounds and all calculation, including five
hundred thousand slaves, men and women.’ Among the captives were King Jaipal and his children and
grandchildren, and nephews, the chief men of his tribe and his relatives. He drove them away to Ghazni for
selling.

In the attack of Ninduna (Punjab) in 1014, writes al-Utbi, ‘slaves were so plentiful that they became
very cheap; men of respectability in their native land were degraded by becoming slaves of common shopkeepers
(in Ghazni).’ From the next year’s assault in Thanesar (Haryana), the Muslim army ‘brought 200,000
captives so that the capital appeared like an Indian city; every soldier of the army had several slaves and
slave girls,’ testifies Ferishtah. From his expedition to India in 1019, he brought 53,000 captives. Of his
seventeen expeditions to India, the campaign to Kashmir was the only failure. In each victorious campaign, he
plundered booty, which normally included slaves, but their records have not been recorded systematically.
The caliph’s one-fifth share of the booty was kept aside, which, records Tarikh-i-Alfi, included 150,000 slaves.
This means that a minimum of 750,000 slaves were captured by Sultan Mahmud.

And another one!

Next, Sultan Alauddin Khilji (r. 1296–1316) beat all earlier sultans in the capture of slaves. He sent a
large expedition to Gujarat in 1299 sacking all major cities and towns: Naharwala, Asaval, Vanmanthali,
Surat, Cambay and Somnath. According to the records of Muslim chroniclers Isami and Barani, he acquired
great plunders and a large number of captives of both sexes. In the sack and plunder of Somnath alone,
testifies Wassaf, the Muslim army ‘took captive a great number of handsome and elegant maidens, amounting
to 20,000’, as well as ‘the children of both sexes.’ Ranthambhor was attacked in 1301 and Chittor in 1303. In
the Chittor invasion, 30,000 people were massacred; and as a standard practice, their women and children
were enslaved although some of the Rajput women had committed Jauhar. Large numbers of slaves were
captured in the expeditions to Malwa, Sevana and Jalor between 1305 and 1311. Sultan Alauddin also
captured slaves in his expedition to Rajasthan. During his reign, capturing slaves became like a child’s play as
Amir Khasrau puts it, ‘the Turks whenever they please, can seize, buy or sell any Hindu.’ So stupendous was
his slave-taking that he had ‘50,000 slave boys in his personal service’ and ‘70,000 slaves worked on his
buildings,’ record Afif and Barani, respectively. Barani testifies that ‘fresh batches of captives were
constantly arriving’ in the slave-markets of Delhi during Alauddin’s reign.’

The jauhar mentioned in this paragraph was the self-immolation of Hindu women to avoid becoming the sex slaves of the Muslim conquerors. They knew what it meant to be enslaved, and chose to keep their honor. But it is only obvious that most women did not have the courage to commit jauhar.

 

[Jackie1111]

Heavens to Betsy! This should provide me some juice for my white slavery fantasies.

I don't think you mentioned it, but I take it that belly dancing slave girls exist in this fascinating world?

I look forward to more. I have a feeling we will be going to some wonderful places.

 

[Serva]

I don't think you mentioned it, but I take it that belly dancing slave girls exist in this fascinating world?

Why do you think I didn't mention it? I thought it would be obvious there's belly dance in the harem! Belly dance training comprises a significant part of a concubine's routine. They are trained to dance solo and in ensembles. And for that matter, those with musical aptitudes are also trained in playing music and singing. There will even be a canon of books written on the subject...by mature concubines!

What do you think of those quotes on historic enslavement by Muslim armies? They, and so much more material like that, I found to be fuel for my fantasies.

And what is your opinion on the bedlah outfit?

 

[Jackie1111]

Why do you think I didn't mention it? I thought it would be obvious there's belly dance in the harem! Belly dance training comprises a significant part of a concubine's routine. They are trained to dance solo and in ensembles. And for that matter, those with musical aptitudes are also trained in playing music and singing. There will even be a canon of books written on the subject...by mature concubines!

What do you think of those quotes on historic enslavement by Muslim armies? They, and so much more material like that, I found to be fuel for my fantasies.

And what is your opinion on the bedlah outfit?

I too thought some of them read like "a wet dream," as you put it. And I love the bedlah! Is there just the one basic style and color, or are there variations, perhaps based on an owner's tastes?

Happy to hear that belly dancing is a big part of this world. I'd like to think that's something a slave girl could manage to have fun with, and appreciate as an art form. Plus a skill to be proud of. Of course, it will be even more fun if she happens to be a raging exhibitionist like me.

 

[KageKamen]

I too thought some of them read like "a wet dream," as you put it. And I love the bedlah! Is there just the one basic style and color, or are there variations, perhaps based on an owner's tastes?

Happy to hear that belly dancing is a big part of this world. I'd like to think that's something a slave girl could manage to have fun with, and appreciate as an art form. Plus a skill to be proud of. Of course, it will be even more fun if she happens to be a raging exhibitionist like me.

A bit harder if she's a shy, prudish girl like Serva, though.

 

[TheLimey]

There are some very interesting examples of Western pirates heading to the Barbary Coast, and entire crews converting to Islam, in order to maintain their raiding ways. John Ward was one. A privateer for Queen Elizabeth I, he did exactly what I said.

Imagine being captured in a raid, being brought on board a ship to find an English captain. The feeling of maybe this will not be too bad. Ransom will be all that is needed. The relief turning to horror as you realise he's going to be just as bad as the stories have said the corsairs are.

 

[Aedile]

This is absolutely fantastic! It is so erotic, so mesmerizing, this reads like a wet dream. There will indeed be some classic Islamic corsair action; swift like a cobra's lunge, coming into the seaside villages to abduct women and children. But things will go one step further. The reach of Islam is greater in this world. Not just galleys, but ponderous ghurabs (the Islamic world's answer to the galleon) will blow holes into Christian ships and fortifications:

View attachment 878858

And then will be loaded, crammed with naked, weeping slaves.

Amazing historical sourcing! Please forgive my quote formatting error. It was getting late and I rushed the post

 

[Glenarvon]

I like your world and your fantasy... I suspect you could do an interesting contribution to this forum!
(I love Islamic architecture and art ... and often I have some dark fantasy in that scenery)

 

[malins]

Thanks @Serva for all the background on this world!

What's interesting is how the rules you describe will affect some popular tropes of slavery.

Slave-fueled orgies, where the girls are shared around freely for everyone ...
Visiting friends of the head of the household are allowed to make use of slavegirls as a 'courtesy' etc...

... these wouldn't really be on the table, as here would still be male strangers, non-owners/non-relatives breaking the purdah.

A way around it would be to 'temporarily transfer ownership'? -- which might be a decadent practice that is frowned upon by scholars of jurisprudence but happens behind closed doors.

Of course such a thing could exist for other intentions. A slave-owning citizen wants to help out a family that has been stricken by some hardship (death of multiple important family members in an accident, destruction of home or business due to natural disaster etc.) and temporarily transfers some of his slaves to them, in order to help with the crisis, with the understanding that ownership reverts when the situation is under control or a set period of time passes. That would be acceptable.

Abusing such a tradition (which would be man made anyway) in order to effectively promote vice would be discouraged but it could happen.... there would always have to be guardians of virtue keeping a close eye on everything.

The 'naked slave market' also would have to be closely regulated.
Buyers do need to be able to inspect the wares, but any kinds of displays that serve to promote vice and cause a decay of public morals would be frowned upon - so public parading of naked slavegirls on a market acccessible to pretty much everyone wouldn't happen.

In fact the problem would be recognized that some 'potential buyers' are merely visiting the slave market with the intent to 'check out girls', satisfy lusts, but never actually seal a purchase.
This could be countered by a rule that slaves are first viewed clothed, and can only be inspected after expression of buying interest by handing over a kind of token or deposit that will be returned to the potential buyer either after purchase, or in case he declines buying, after being stored for a month with the trader.
If everyone only gets a limited number of such tokens, anyone visiting the slave market with only an intent to inspect but not to buy, would soon run out of tokens...

The initial naked marching off of slaves after capture could easily be justified as a case where they are under collective ownership of the conquering Islamic army, who struggled collectively to gain the rewards of victory. Only once the slaves are distributed to individual owners do they fall under the rules of purdah.

 

[KageKamen]

Thanks @Serva for all the background on this world!

What's interesting is how the rules you describe will affect some popular tropes of slavery.

Slave-fueled orgies, where the girls are shared around freely for everyone ...
Visiting friends of the head of the household are allowed to make use of slavegirls as a 'courtesy' etc...

... these wouldn't really be on the table, as here would still be male strangers, non-owners/non-relatives breaking the purdah.

A way around it would be to 'temporarily transfer ownership'? -- which might be a decadent practice that is frowned upon by scholars of jurisprudence but happens behind closed doors.

Temporary marriage might also be an option - I believe it was a common loophole for prostitution in the Islamic world.

Of course such a thing could exist for other intentions. A slave-owning citizen wants to help out a family that has been stricken by some hardship (death of multiple important family members in an accident, destruction of home or business due to natural disaster etc.) and temporarily transfers some of his slaves to them, in order to help with the crisis, with the understanding that ownership reverts when the situation is under control or a set period of time passes. That would be acceptable.

Is a formal transfer required to lend slaves, any more than if you lent someone your carriage?

In fact the problem would be recognized that some 'potential buyers' are merely visiting the slave market with the intent to 'check out girls', satisfy lusts, but never actually seal a purchase.
This could be countered by a rule that slaves are first viewed clothed, and can only be inspected after expression of buying interest by handing over a kind of token or deposit that will be returned to the potential buyer either after purchase, or in case he declines buying, after being stored for a month with the trader.
If everyone only gets a limited number of such tokens, anyone visiting the slave market with only an intent to inspect but not to buy, would soon run out of tokens...

It's always in the seller's favour when people have to pay just to look at your goods - at least, as long as demand is high enough people are willing to either do so or buy sight unseen rather than passing you over altogether.

 

[old slave]

In fact the problem would be recognized that some 'potential buyers' are merely visiting the slave market with the intent to 'check out girls', satisfy lusts, but never actually seal a purchase.

It's common practice with some specialised trade shows and fairs to charge an admission fee, sometimes refundable against a purchase, but often not.
I imagine buying the highest-class girls will be like buying a house or yacht, brokers negotiating the deal, and plenty of hospitality to oil the wheels.

 

[Serva]

Thanks @Serva for all the background on this world!

What's interesting is how the rules you describe will affect some popular tropes of slavery.

Slave-fueled orgies, where the girls are shared around freely for everyone ...
Visiting friends of the head of the household are allowed to make use of slavegirls as a 'courtesy' etc...

... these wouldn't really be on the table, as here would still be male strangers, non-owners/non-relatives breaking the purdah.

Yes. In truth what I'm aiming for is, by having less of a "porn" wantoness vibe and making things seem more "realistic" and "historic" is to make the actual debauchery more powerful, if that makes sense. Islamic medieval law was more sex-positive than anyone realizes, but there were still rules. It's something else I love about Islam. It codifies rules for sex, rules for slavery, and rules for sex with slaves. The rules and restriction in a way give it a sense of "religious debauchery".

Orgies could occur but they'd be secret, and illegal. The mighty can get away with breaking the rules to a certain extent, but then they'd risk giving their enemies within the court weapons to use against them. Pious Muslims would not do such things. For that matter, homosexuality is a sin too yet many perverted masters would make use of pretty little boy eunuchs. But all of these would be closely guarded secrets.

A way around it would be to 'temporarily transfer ownership'? -- which might be a decadent practice that is frowned upon by scholars of jurisprudence but happens behind closed doors.

Of course such a thing could exist for other intentions. A slave-owning citizen wants to help out a family that has been stricken by some hardship (death of multiple important family members in an accident, destruction of home or business due to natural disaster etc.) and temporarily transfers some of his slaves to them, in order to help with the crisis, with the understanding that ownership reverts when the situation is under control or a set period of time passes. That would be acceptable.

Abusing such a tradition (which would be man made anyway) in order to effectively promote vice would be discouraged but it could happen.... there would always have to be guardians of virtue keeping a close eye on everything.

What you say about transfer of ownership would technically allow the guest to make use of the slave, yes, but would still be frowned upon, criticized and denounced by the ulema and the most pious Muslims. Though it might be that to prevent this, temporary ownership does NOT also convey ownership of a slave's sexuality. The terms used by the jurists were "farj", which literally translates as "vagina" or "sexual organ", and "bud", which means sexuality.

Here's an excerpt from the book Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam. The Abu Hanifa mentioned is the founder of the Hanafi school of law, one of the four main Sunni schools. The argument is about whether there is a minimum worth for a dower paid in a marriage. Abu Hanifa argues there should be, and the counter-argument is: "if it is permissible to buy a slave girl for a trifle and have sex with her, why not with a wife?"

Some of the companions of Abu Hanifa said: We find it
objectionable that a [woman’s] sexual organ (farj) be made permissible
so cheaply (bi shay' yasir). We said, What is your view if a man buys a
slave girl for a dirham, is her sexual organ lawful to him? They said:
Yes. We said: You have permitted a sexual organ and added [ownership
of] the [slave girl’s] body for a trifle.

To be clear wives aren't literally bought, but they must be paid a dower, the purpose of which is to protect her in the case of divorce or widowhood. However the jurists made comparisons between paying dower and paying for a slave girl.

So it could be temporary transfer does not include farj or bud of a slave girl.

When it comes to the Badshah or great lords of the empire, the outright gifting of slave girls would be very common as a gesture of favor. Gift-giving is a well-established protocol of the elites. It mostly occurs from subordinates towards superiors, but a superior giving a gift to a subordinate also has its meaning. Naturally, when a slave girl is giften full ownership is irrevocably transferred.

The 'naked slave market' also would have to be closely regulated.
Buyers do need to be able to inspect the wares, but any kinds of displays that serve to promote vice and cause a decay of public morals would be frowned upon - so public parading of naked slavegirls on a market acccessible to pretty much everyone wouldn't happen.

In fact the problem would be recognized that some 'potential buyers' are merely visiting the slave market with the intent to 'check out girls', satisfy lusts, but never actually seal a purchase.
This could be countered by a rule that slaves are first viewed clothed, and can only be inspected after expression of buying interest by handing over a kind of token or deposit that will be returned to the potential buyer either after purchase, or in case he declines buying, after being stored for a month with the trader.
If everyone only gets a limited number of such tokens, anyone visiting the slave market with only an intent to inspect but not to buy, would soon run out of tokens...

A buyer in Islam always has the right not to be deceived. So their right to see the slave displayed naked supersedes the necessities of purdah. It would in fact be possible to void a sale if the buyer was not allowed to see the slave naked and then was disappointed at what they found out when they took her home. For that matter, seeing male slaves naked is a necessity too, to fully ascertain their physical condition and worth.

There would be a local officer called the muhtasib, tasked with maintaining public morality and order, but also with overseeing market activity. The strictness of this rules would vary from place to place, with the backwater frontier regions perhaps having the infamous open-air nudity in their markets.

The initial naked marching off of slaves after capture could easily be justified as a case where they are under collective ownership of the conquering Islamic army, who struggled collectively to gain the rewards of victory. Only once the slaves are distributed to individual owners do they fall under the rules of purdah.

It could also be justified as being due to the necessities of war. An army cannot be expected to account for clothing for their prisoners. The logistics necessary for victory are already complicated and fragile enough. Food for the troops, fodder for the horses and pack animals, gunpowder, and so much more. Prisoners would be transported away from the battle front as quickly as possible to minimize the strain on the supply chain. Islam is a practical religion. Soldiers in a war zone need not observe fasting during Ramadan. They would also need not make sure their prisoners are clothed.

Furthermore, traditionally there has been element of "Islam humbles the proud" as part of the mindset of jihad. The infidels are seen as proud and arrogant for thinking they know better than to be Muslim. I would want to emphasize this through various means, that is, humiliation as one of the rituals of conquest. It could be prisoners of war must be naked to humiliate them, to teach them their error. It would be for their own good, a penitence.

They would cease being prisoners of war once they were taken away from the mass and ended up in the households of their owners. It might even be before that, after their trek to the market is over. Once they get to the salepoint, purdah could come into effect.

But not all slaves captured in war end up in a market. Many are directly chosen at the battlefront, by nobles and elites, and given to soldiers directly as rewards. These slaves bypass any market, though of course they can be sold later.

All in all you make some excellent points and suggestions and I will most likely incorporate them!

 

[Serva]

It's common practice with some specialised trade shows and fairs to charge an admission fee, sometimes refundable against a purchase, but often not.
I imagine buying the highest-class girls will be like buying a house or yacht, brokers negotiating the deal, and plenty of hospitality to oil the wheels.

The admission fee is also an interesting idea. It could work for those mid-level or higher-end markets.

But you hit on a very good point also. Brokers.

Let me copy this fragment from another book I have, Concubines and Courtesans, about the famous traveller Ibn Battuta and his purchase of sex slaves:

As he prepared for the major venture of his life, the journey to India, Ibn Battuta’s modest household was already a cultural mosaic. From North Africa he was accompanied by a male Tunisian friend, al-Tuzari; from Iran, Amir-amiran al-Kirmani, who later died in India; and other male companions who remain unnamed. Of the two Greek slave girls that Ibn Battuta purchased in Anatolia, he tells us the name of one, acquired at Bali Kasri: “I bought in this city a Greek slave-girl named Margalita.” A few days earlier, at Ephesus (Aya Suluq), he had bought another Greek slave girl, a virgin, for 40 gold dinars. Ibn Battuta does not describe their looks, but we may assume he was attracted by the girls’ fair complexion.

It is difficult to say whether Ibn Battuta thought the price of the Greek virgin too high or a great bargain. At the time of the purchase, as during much of the first half of the fourteenth century, the supply of Eurasian slave girls reached a possible high point. The Mamluk sultan al-Malik al-Nasir (r. 1299–1340), whose pilgrimage of 1331 coincided with one of Ibn Battuta’s own, increased purchases of male and female slaves from Rum (Byzantine Anatolia) and Central Asia. Rapoport, referring to an important archive in Jerusalem, indicates that during the Mamluk period, the prices of slave-girls appear to have been fairly stable, except for a possible rise at the end of the fifteenth century. The Haram documents show that at the end of the fourteenth century one could still buy an Ethiopian female slave for a mere 300 dirhams (about 12 dinars), while the highest price mentioned is 550 dirhams (about 22 dinars). These prices are slightly lower than those quoted for the first half of the century. We do not know if Ibn Battuta purchased the girl in public from a slave market, although it is more likely he used an intermediary, an agent, because slave dealers were officially considered disreputable.

A lot of text just to say that Ibn Battuta used a broker because that's what refined men did, but I figure the rest of that information will also be appealing! And some context was necessary.

So already we know by this that a Greek slave girl was worth 40 gold dinars, while an Ethiopian slave girl was recorded as being worth, at the highest, 22 dinars. White slaves were always extremely coveted in the Islamic world, for concubinage. And that is luxury slave, a rare item, was possibly acquired through a broker. Even if she wasn't, we can be sure that reputable men would've commonly sought luxury slave girls through agents.

 

[cynthia the inocent]

"Muhammad's God has borne us triumph
Low are the necks of conquered girls
Under our swords.

The ignorant kafir is ruined;
Rejoice! Their tears fall down like pearls
Unto our swords.

Rejoice! The evil-doers are disgraced
Their wealth now stripped and lead away
To our mahals.

Their women fair and fragrant does
Are now asleep in our harems
In our mahals.

The ghosts of men may weep without end."

A friend of mine one described my worldbuilding approach as "history filtered through a dream", and I believe this to be accurate.

The world described here is a calque of the real world as it was at the dawn of the Modern Era, the 1500s. It is built through analogies drawn from real history, yet remains a fictional world in its entirety. I love history, but I also love having the chance to be creative, so this is my ideal balance. I make of history a sandbox. If anyone is familiar with Rockstar Games such as Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead (many of you might be as they're popular games) my approach is fairly similar to theirs. Just as in their universe Los Santos is clearly based on Los Angeles but it's really not, and how St. Denis is clearly New Orleans... that's what I do with the entire world. Except my style aims to be more serious than the frequent tongue-in-cheek veneer of the Rockstar worldbuilding.

Religion is that aspect of this world which is closest to its real-world counterpart. I have kept the major religions largely unchanged from our own, to take advantage of their symbolic weight, which is why I’ve even kept their names and the names of their major figures intact.

But with religion too I took liberties. Mainly, with Islam. In this world I’ve made a few tweaks to the religion. Here Islam is more emphatic of conquest and empire. This is an Islamic supremacy fantasy. Islamic sexual jurisprudence (fiqh) has also been edited to emphasize sexual slavery (concubinage) and the concept of the harem. For this dream world exists to indulge my love for and fascination with Islamic civilization. It is a celebration of its splendor and glory, but taken one step beyond reality. While I have many sexual fantasies, this is without a doubt my most enduring one. I am afraid it has become practically an obsession, to the point where I have acquired over 60 books of Islamic history over the past year, having so far read around 10 of them. I must be very odd, because I fixate on the most minute details, as you will surely see for yourselves if I catch your attention with this.

This is a world in which, instead of the West expanding its civilization and domain across the globe, it falls under the sway of Islam, as does much of the globe, to varying degrees of subjugation.

The main focus of this excercise (though not the only) is be the Hajarid Empire, also known as Gulistan (Country of Flowers) after its imperial heartland, a realm that primarily draws from historic Islamic Persianate dynasties.

Gulistan is conceived as an Islamic superpower, an empire to eclipse the wealth of the real-world Mughals and the breadth of the Umayyad Caliphate, largest of the historic Islamic empires. Its heartland, Gulistan proper, is a fertile land rich in rice, wheat, fruit and cattle, and much more bounty.

It is criss-crossed by navigable rivers that together with reliable roads drive trade through an increasingly urbanized (for the era) country. The medieval and early modern Islamic world was highly urbanized, or at least possessed a plethora of bustling, thriving cities, larger and better designed than any contemporary European city. The Empire houses many such cities, both in Gulistan proper and in the outlying provinces.

The Hajarid Empire is at the height of its Golden Age. Paper and the movable type printing press are widespread within it. Literature pours from dozens of celebrated pens, as do works of history, geography, philosophy, medicine and biology, astronomy, politics, theology and much more. Engineering and construction marvels take the form of mosques, madrasas, mausoleums, sufi monasteries, palaces, fortifications, public and private gardens, canals and dams, and ocean-going ships.

Craftsmanship in Gulistan is also of immense achievement. My model for this is Mughal craftsmanship, which excelled in the making of, among many things, early firearms, textiles and jewelry.

Gulistan is a military, economical and intellectual juggernaut about to greet the first millennium of Islam, and it is in the context of this momentuous date that a new and distinctively zealous dynasty (distinctively because they bring original developtments to the interpretation of shariah) has take over this empire, and put these resources of empire to one purpose.

This is a dynasty (dawlat) of warrior-scholars, one emperor (padishah) after another beholden to a unified vision, an ideal of the perfect world that becomes ingrained into the Gulistani milieu. A new world order, if you will.

View attachment 878587

The pursuit of this idealized world order is their jihad: their struggle. They are as ambitious as the Nazis were, except they aim not to exterminate, but to subjugate, to create an order than serves Muslims at the expense of the infidel, who's purpose in this ideal is servitude, through slavery but also through other mechanisms. The infidel exists to be exploited, plundered and to be yoked to pull the metaphorical chariot of the empire. To prop up the prosperity and glory of Islam on their backs as they themselves sink into the mud beneath. The Hajaris also aim to remake the world in the image of Islam.

For the Quran commands them to make war on the infidel, until they have either converted, or, until they have submitted to Islamic rule. This is important because ultimate victory does not require conversion of the world... it only requires an Islamic chokehold on it.

All of this is sexual to me. All of this fuels my fantasy for the immersion it provides. I obssess over every detail because that makes everything more real. I can lose myself in the dream.

I will be including stories set in this universe, likely involving the experiences of different infidel slaves under Hajari rule. I will also be including bits and pieces of real-life historical material, books (both secondary and primary) and images to contextualize things. But in truth I don't pretend this to be a purely literary, detached project. Because this is my most visceral fantasy, I hope you will indulge me in reading about my own personal relationship to it. Why I love and why and what everything means and does to me. I will be venting here. This will be a sort of confession of my deepest sexual fantasies.

I know the thematic of CF, and I warn you all now that there might be a lack of torture and death in this thread. Rest assured horrors will be described with no compunctions, but they are only a minor element of the whole. There will also be less bondage than you might want. Slavery in this fantasy is about 90% based on historical Islamic slavery, with some 10% being my own kinky additions to it. But you might be surprised how sexy Islamic slavery was all on its own. I didn't need to change much because I already find it so erotic.

What I can promise is a focus on emotional anguish and suffering, on impotence, helplessness, humiliation and defeat. In truth, there will be a lot of non-sexual material here, because I have come to sexualize a great deal about Islamic civilization, down to the architecture. Yes, imagining all of this happening within sight of or inside a gorgeous Islamic palace is erotic to me.

Thank you for reading, and if you are intrigued so far, I hope to make it worth your while.

interesting. I have very limited knowledge of the history of islam