Understanding masculinity in the treatment of Jawaris in Abbasid Baghdad

Understanding masculinity in the treatment of Jawaris in Abbasid Baghdad

While the Bedouin poets showed the emotional vulnerability of men in some cases, the treatment of enslaved women, or jawaris, displays an err of dominance, violence, and injustice. Comparing these excerpts to those in desert tracings, both sources use poetry as a medium to explore gender relations, albeit the latter source more critically. Dominance is displayed as the "Slave woman poses as the perfect subordinate. As a woman she submits to her husband, as a slave she submits to her master, and as a subject she submits to the sovereign." However, there is still a sort of mutual morality for the man, who must treat her justly as she is in his custody, and she is guaranteed a moral right for protection even while subordinated. The text goes on to describe how jawari represented this in verse: "jawari who represent themselves as obedient slaves and, yet, mistreated subordinates in poems, improvised verses..."

Pernilla Myrne

Chapter 3 of Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History: A Jariya's Prospects in Abbasid Baghdad

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