slavery and bondage in medieval north india: thirteenth to eighteenth centuries ce

This book examines slavery in India from the Turkish conquest of North India to the centuries of Mughal rule. It focuses on the northern Islamic regimes’ treatment of slavery but not limited or determined by the actions and demands of the ruling class alone. Societies normalized the practices, and the norms were socially constituted, which included slaves’ acceptance, resistance, and use of agency in the process. It shows how the transformations on the ground made the social-economic and ethical environment of slavery no longer the same over the centuries and the expansion or contraction of slavery corresponded to the structural changes and ethical developments specific to the Indian milieu.

The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of South Asian studies, history and slavery.

Shadab Bano is Professor in the Department of History (Women’s College section) at Aligarh Muslim University. Her primary research thrust is on slave studies and gender history in medieval India, and she has several publications on the social and economic dimensions of slavery and on marginalized women and gender. Her other research interest is in Muslim women’s education and rights in colonial and contemporary India. She has co-edited the volume Teaching/Writing Resistance: Women’s Studies in Contemporary Times with Panchali Ray, which is in press.