Islamic Slavery in Robinson Crusoe

Student: Cecilia Weiman

Year: 2010

Robinson Crusoe is a novel written by Daniel Defoe in 1719. It tells the story of a merchant who shipwrecks on a desolate island and stays there twenty-eight years. During one of his early voyages he is captured and taken as a slave by Moors.

By the seventeenth century, slavery had increased and become an accepted and very common practice almost everywhere. This paper attempts to contrast the presence of Islamic Slavery in ¨Robinson Crusoe¨ with the historical information available. 

Slavery in Islamic Religion

Slavery can broadly be described as the ownership, buying and selling of human beings for the purpose of forced and unpaid labour. Many societies throughout history have practiced slavery. For instance, the Greeks and Romans kept slaves as soldiers, servants and labourers; the Mayans and Aztecs kept slaves in the Americas, and even religious texts in Judaism and Christianity recognize slaves. Muslim societies were no exception. 

According to the Oxford Advanced Learner´s Dictionary “The word Muslim refers to a person whose religion is Islam. This religion is based on the belief in one God and revealed through Muhammad as the prophet of Allah.”

With reference to the prophet of Allah, Ibrahim remarks, 

¨Muhammad was born in Makkah in the year 570… at the age of forty; Muhammad received his first revelation from God through the Angel Gabriel.  The revelations continued for twenty-three years, and they are collectively known as the Quran.¨ 

¨A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam¨, L. A. Ibrahim 2004 

The Quran makes numerous references to slaves and slavery. It does not explicitly condemn slavery or attempt to abolish it. Nonetheless it does provide a number of regulations. The traditional Islamic law elaborates significantly on the Quranic material concerning slavery. In this sense, Kurzman argues, ¨During the formative stages of sharia (Islamic law) there was no conception of universal human rights anywhere in the world …¨   Charles Kurzman, 1998. 

 Islamic law recognizes slavery as an institution within society and attempts to regulate and restrict it in various ways. 

Under Islamic law people can only be legally enslaved in two circumstances:

-If they are born as the child of two slave parents.

-As a result of being defeated in a lawful jihad, that is a holly war fought by Muslims against those who rejected Islam.

David Brion Davis, professor of History states, 

¨The millennium of warfare between Christians and Muslims took place in the Mediterranean and Atlantic and piracy and kidnapping went along with it…¨

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there was a large –scale enslavement of Europeans. Davis continues saying,

¨In 1617 Muslim pirates … enslaved Christians along the coast of Spain, France, Italy, and even Ireland… By 1624 the Barbary States held at least 1.500 English slaves, mostly sailors captured in the Mediterranean or Atlantic.¨ 

Robinson Crusoe and Xury under Islamic Slavery 

Certainly, it was within this context that Robinson Crusoe was chased and captured by ¨a Turkish rover of Salle¨. Crusoe explains, ¨the pirate gained upon us … we prepare to fight … we were obliged to yield, and were carried all prisoners into Salle.” (page 22-23)

According to Islamic law, it was legal for the Moors to take Robinson Crusoe as a slave because he was conquered in legitimate warfare.

While in America slave trade only involved black Africans, Muslims slavery involved many racial groups. 

Other point to consider is the regulation which forbade Muslims from enslaving other Muslims. But Islamic law established that non-Muslims converted to Islam after enslavement remained slaves. Therefore, they might be legally purchased and sold. 

It is possible to look for instances of this regulation in Defoe´s novel. While escaping from the port of Salle, Robinson Crusoe wonders whether he should take Xury, a young slave, with him or throw him into the sea. Crusoe turns to the boy and threats him saying,

¨Xury, if you will be faithful to me, I’ll make you a great man; but if you will not stroke your face to be true to me, ¨ that is, swear by Mahomet and his father’s beard, ¨I must throw you into the sea too. The boy smiled and swore to be faithful to me.¨  (Page 28)

As Robinson Crusoe makes Xury swear by Muhammad, it might be inferred that Xury was a Muslim, perhaps a converted one, since he was also called ¨the young Maresco¨ and Maresco is a surname whose origin is Spanish. It might be said that Xury was a non-Muslim converted to Islam after being enslaved.

Usual Tasks Performed by Slaves

Another matter of importance has to do with the tasks slaves used to complete. It may be claimed that European and American slavery was motivated by economic reasons. Indeed, people were enslaved to provide a cheap and disposable workforce in plantations. By comparison, “Muslims historically did not used slaves as an engine of economic production, …” although “…some Muslims played a significant role in the slave trade itself as providers of slaves for others” (BBC, 2010). In the Islamic trade, slaves had a variety of roles,

“Servile labour was common in workshops, constructions, mining, water control, transport by land and sea, and the extraction of marine resources.” 

William Gervase Clarence-Smith quoted in (BBC, 2010)

Slaves were also used in domestic work, military service and civil administration.

As for Daniel Defoe´s novel, Robinson Crusoe also describes the tasks he and other slaves had to do in Salle. The following excerpt shows it clearly. Robinson Crusoe explains, 

“He [the master] left me on shore to look after his little garden and do the common drudgery of slaves about his house; and when he came home again from his cruise, he ordered me to lie in the cabin to look after his ship.” (page 24)

Then, he continues saying, 

“He [the master] took me with him to row the boat… I proved very dexterous in catching fish… sometimes he would send me with a Moor… to catch a dish of fish for him.”

Crusoe also mentions the task of another slave. He tells, “The carpenter of the ship, who was also an English slave…”

These excerpts show that the slaves in Salle used to do the tasks which were common and typical in the Islamic Slavery. 

Conclusion

Crusoe´s descriptions of his staying in Salle as slave coincide with the historical information connected to slavery in Islam. In the novel it was possible to find instances of Islamic slavery which show the circumstances under which Robinson Crusoe was captured, some regulations within Islamic law and the tasks Robinson Crusoe and other slaves performed.

Bibliography 

• Ethics and slavery, bbc.co.uk http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/slavery/ethics/intro_1.shtml
• Slavery in Islam, bbc.co.uk, Last updated 2009-09-07. http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/slavery_1.shtml
• The Feminist Sexual Ethics Project, Special Focus: Islam, Islam and Slavery; Kecia Ali; Brandeis University; Revised 2 February 2004. http://www.brandeis.edu/projects/fse/Pages/islamandslavery.html
• Slavery White, Black, Muslim, Christian; Davis Brion Davis; The New York Review of Books; 2001
• http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2001/jul/05/slaverywhite-black-muslim-christian/
• Oxford Advanced Learner´s Dictionary; Oxford University press;
• A Brief Illustrated Guide To Understanding  Islam; I.A Ibraim;  2010. http://www.islam-guide.com/