Conference | workshop
Motherhood and Unfreedom in the Islamicate World
- Date
- Wednesday 4 June 2025
- Location
- Allard Pierson
Oude Turfmarkt 127-129
Amsterdam - Room
- volgt
Workshop
The intersection between slavery and gender shaped the history of early Islam; the seventh-century conquests brought a large number of slaves into the Islamicate world. Over the course of subsequent centuries these women gave birth to an increasingly large number of elite Muslim children, whose birth-circumstances had far-reaching implications for family structure, gender roles, and rulership. Simultaneously, the emergence of Islam brought changes to enslaved women, who, unlike their pre-Islamic counterparts, had clearer rights in terms of their children's paternity, could not be sold once they bore children, and were theoretically granted freedom upon their master's death. By the mid-eighth century, the Abbasid caliphs, Umayyad amīrs of al-Andalus, and Twelver Shi’i Imams were predominantly born to concubine mothers. Endogamous marriage (marrying within one’s family) amongst elites further represents a shift away from the maternal family and prosopographical research has shown a sharp increase in concubinage, especially in genealogical records.
Organizers
This workshop is organized by Dr. Zahra Azhar and Dr. Leone Pecorini-Goodall, and supported by ERC Horizon Starting Grant Project, “Embodied Imamate: Mapping the Development of the Early Shiʿi Community 700-900 CE (ImBod),” grant number 101077946, led by Dr. Edmund Hayes with the generous support of the Allard Pierson and their collaborative partner, the National Slavery Museum.
For more information on the project, please see our website: https://embodiedimamate.hcommons.org/