Medieval Christian Nubia and the Islamic World: A Reconsideration of the Baqt Treaty

Author(s): Jay Spaulding

Source: The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3 (1995), pp. 577594
Published by: Boston University African Studies Center
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International Jornal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 28, No. 3 (1995)

577

MEDIEVALCHRISTIAN NUBIA AND

THE ISLAMIC WORLD:
A RECONSIDERATIONOF THE BAQT TREATY
By Jay Spaulding
Between the fall of Egypt to the Arabsin 641 and the Egyptianconquestof the
northernNubian kingdom of Makuriain 1276, contemporaryobservers often
perceived the conduct of foreign relations across this segment of the frontier
betweenChristendomandDaral-Islamto be distinctiveandunusual.Theseunusual
arrangementswere commonly designated "baqt,"from the Hellenistic Greek
pakton, an alien loanword equally foreign to all participants.1The baqt is a
comparativelywell-documentedthemein medievalAfricanhistoryandhas figured
prominentlyin most previousscholarshipaboutChristianNubia.2Froma limited
number of familiar sources a recent generation of scholars has erected, with but
minor variations of emphasis, a single standard edifice of interpretation. Unfortunately this structure of consensus rests upon questionable methodological founda-

tions, so thatthe superficialimage of analyticalclarityandclosureit conveys may

prove upon closer examination,at least in part,to be illusory.The presentstudy
offers an historiographical
critiqueof the receivedunderstandingof the baqt, and
proposes an alternativecontextual frame within which the surviving primary
evidence may be betterinterpreted;the baqtwas primarilya Makurianinstitution
andmeritsconsiderationfroma Nubianperspective.
The Origin and Intention of Islamic Literature about the Baqt
Therewere two partiesto the baqt,the Nubiansand the Muslims.With very few
exceptions,however,the survivingsourcesuponwhich presentknowledgeabout
the baqtrestswere writtenfromthe perspectiveof the Muslims,andvirtuallynone
were producedby Nubians.3Perhapsprecisely because the Arabic sources do
1 The study offered here was preparedin conformity to the orthographiclimitations of the
InternationalJournal of African Historical Studies, and thereforedoes not follow the conventions
requiredelsewhere of scholars in the field. The authorwill be happy to supply orthographically
correctinformationto any readerwho may desire it.
2 Importantrecent discussions of the baqt may be found in the following: A. L0kkegard,
"BAKT,"in H.A.R. Gibb et al., eds., The Encyclopaediaof Islam, 2nd ed. (Leiden, 1960), I, 966;
Joseph Cuoq, Islamisationde la Nubie Chretienne,VIIe-XVIesiecles (Paris, 1986); StuartMunroHay, "Kings and Kingdoms in Ancient Nubia,"Rassegna di Studi Etiopici, XXIX (1982-1983),
87-137; William Y. Adams, Nubia: Corridorto Africa (Princeton, 1977); Yusuf Fadl Hasan, The
Arabs and the Sudanfrom the Seventhto the Early SixteenthCentury(Edinburgh,1967).
3 Most writtencontemporarysources about the baqt are Islamic; however, a significant subset derive from sympatheticeastern Christianauthors,none of whom, however, were themselves
Nubian. The presentstudy has benefittedfrom two importantanthologiesof contemporaryforeign

578

JAY SPAULDING

indeedinspireconsiderableconfidenceconcerningthe qualityof the evidencethey

convey, insufficient attentionhas been paid to their inherentlimitations,which
derivefromthe culturalcontextin whichthe writingsoriginatedandthe intellectual
purposesthey were intendedto serve. No known contemporarysource describes
the establishmentof an agreementbetweenNubiansandMuslims;by the time the
baqtenteredrecordedhistoryduringthe earlyreignsof the Abbasidcaliphateit was
alreadywell over a centuryold, andthe unusualcircumstancesin whichthe sources
appearedmeritcarefulconsideration.
The early Abbasidperiodwitnessedthe creationof the since-authoritative
structureof Islamiclaw. The architectsof the law werepreoccupiedwith the precedents in word and deed set by the ProphetMuhammad,and special attentionwas
lavished upon the detailed chronologyof traditionbecause in some cases later
propheticprecedentsabrogatedearlierones. Scarcelyless importantwerethe activities of the prophet'stradition-bearing
companionsfollowinghis death,andthose of
the individuals to whom traditionshad been entrustedin the generationsthat
followed, for it was throughassessmentof the merits or shortcomingsof these
as witnessedby theirlives, thatthe greatlegal scholarsof the late
tradition-bearers,
eighthandearlyninthcenturiesevaluatedthe qualityof theprophetictraditionsthey
conveyed.A by-productof the searchfor certitudeconcerningpropheticprecedent
in whichthe carefulscholwas thusa magnificentefflorescenceof history-writing,
arlyreconstructionof the storyof the creationof the Nubianbaqtformedone very
smallepisode.
The purposeof the scholarswho firstanalyzedthe creationof the baqt was
not primarilyto discuss the treatyitself, but ratherto assess in legal terms the
moralityof participationin it by prominentearly Muslims.This was found to be
controversial,for by any definitionthe baqt,whateverit may have been, seemedto
deviatefromanythingelse in the Islamicexperience.Oncean appropriate
readingof
historicaleventshadbeen successfullyformulated,however,it cameto enjoymuch
of the authoritativequalitythatinheredin holy law itself. For the next half-millennium subsequentIslamic scholarshipwould repeat and elaborateincreasingly
lengthy and refinedreworkingsof the basic interpretationsof the early Abbasid
scholars;the primarypurposeremainedto justifybeforethe law the actionsof early
and succeedinggenerationsof Islamic leaders.Whatthis traditionof scholarship
may have accomplished for the world of Islam is less importantfor present
purposesthanwhatrecentscholarsbothnativeandforeignhave chosento makeof
it; this themewill be introducedbelow.A few independentsourcesin Arabicdo not
Musad,ed., al-Maktabaal-Sudaniyyaal-Arabiyya
writingsaboutNubia:MustafaMuhammad
(Cairo, 1972) and GiovanniVantini,ed. and trans.,Oriental Sources ConcerningNubia
to criticaleditionsfor
andWarsaw,1975).Wherever
possible,thestudyhasreturned
(Heidelberg
the information
cited.In a few cases,notablyin regardto unpublished
or worksin
manuscripts
SyriacandFarsi,ananthologyor othersecondaryworkhasbeenallowedto serveas thesourceof
reference.

MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN NUBIA AND THE ISLAMIC WORLD

579

belong to the traditionof accretionarylegal self-criticism; these include a letter about

the baqt from a governor of Egypt to a king of Makuria and the simple mention of
actual baqt payments by Nubia to Egypt in the chronicles of contemporary diarists.4
Meanwhile and throughout, what the Nubians might have understood the baqt to
mean remained unknown and irrelevantto Islamic scholarship.
The Baqt of the Orientalists
The presently influential scholarly consensus of interpretation about the baqt was
achieved through the methodological techniques of Orientalism.5 Orientalist analysis has held that the longest, most detailed, written Arabic version of the baqt
agreement must also of necessity be the most authoritative; where alternative
versions appear in the sources, they should be read in philosophically idealist terms
as mere flawed lesser manifestations of the higher reality embodied in the complete
and authoritative text, as mere rough drafts or preliminary stages in the "development of the traditionof a treaty."6From this methodological perspective the authoritative text of the baqt agreement, from which all historical inference should derive,
is the one formulated by the fifteenth-century author al-Maqrizi.7 By the time alMaqrizi wrote down what future scholars would regard as the authoritative text of
the baqt, it was no longer necessary to take into consideration what the medieval
Nubians might have understood the agreement to mean, for their polity no longer
existed. Present Orientalist understanding of the baqt thus rests largely upon a
single hostile Islamic source written eight hundred years after the events it purports
to describe and a full century after the fall of ChristianMakuriato the Muslims.
This is the story of the baqt according to present scholarly consensus. In
652 Abd Allah b. Saad b. Abi Sarh, governor of Egypt for the Caliph Uthman,
entered Nubia with a large army and laid seige to the Makurian capital of Old
Dongola. "The Nubians resisted bravely," according to Yusuf Fadl Hasan, "but,
possibly terrified by the [invaders'] catapults, they sued for peace." Since "the
4 J. MartinPlumley,"AnEighth-Century
ArabicLetterto the Kingof Nubia,"Journalof
EgyptianArchaeology61 (1975), 241-45. Summariesof knownbaqt paymentshave been
and80 [puppetkings]);see also BeshirIbrahim
p. 56 [Fatimids]
compiledby Cuoq(Islamisation,
Beshir, "New Light on Nubian-FatimidRelations,"Arabica XXII (1975), 15-22.
5 For a critical introductionto the Orientalisttradition,see EdwardSaid, Orientalism (New
York, 1978) and Jay Spauldingand Lidwien Kapteijns,"TheOrientalistParadigmin the Historiography of the Late Precolonial Sudan,"in Jay O'Brienand William Roseberry,eds., Golden Ages,
Dark Ages: Imagining the Past in Anthropologyand History (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1991),
139-51.
6 Yusuf Fadl Hasan,TheArabs and the Sudan,20.
7 For al-Maqrizi'stext of the baqt, see Gaston Wiet, ed., "Maqrizi:El-Mawaiz wa'l-itibarfi
dhikrak-khitatwal-athar,"InstitutFrancais d'ArchaeologieOrientale du Caire: Memoires, Tome
46 (Cairo, 1922), 290-92. For the use of this text by recent scholars, see L0kkegard, "BAKT;"
Cuoq, Islamisation, 13-14; Adams, Nubia, 451-52; Yusuf Fadl Hasan, The Arabs and the Sudan,
22-24.

580

JAY SPAULDING

Arabshad no intentionof occupyingNubia,"which they regardedas a poor and

worthlessplace, they were willing to impose "moderateterms."8These terms,said
William Y. Adams, were written down in a document called "the treaty of
Dongola,"which "notonly remainedin force but largelydeterminedthe courseof
Moslem-Nubianrelationsfor six hundredyears."9A writtenversion of the baqt
treaty,accordingto JosephCuoq,was preservedin the Egyptiancapital,where it
was consulted from time to time by the authoritiesand presumablyalso by the
Islamicscholarsof theeighththroughfifteenthcenturieswho claimedto knowwhat
the documentcontained.10The termsof the writtentreatyas eventuallypublished
by al-Maqrizihavebeen summarizedby F. L0kkegardas follows:
The two contractingparties agreed on bestowing free passage
throughthe respective countries,while the right to take up fixed
abode was to be prohibited.The Nubians bound themselves to
repatriatefugitive coloni, slaves, and poll-tax paying dhimmis
[ChristianandJewishsubjectsof the Muslims].Besides they agreed
to defray the costs of the maintenance of a mosque [in Old
Dongola].Moreovertheywereto deliverannually360 slaves.11
The Nubians,accordingto P. Forand,thusenjoyeda uniquelegal status,belonging
neitherto the Islamicworldnorto the non-Islamic"abodeof war"(dar al-harb).12
"Underthe terms of the Baqt, " Adams concluded, "Nubiaseems to have been
grantedsomethinglike the statusof a client kingdomof the Islamic Empire."13
With the conquestof 1276 this unusualstatuscame to an end and conventional
Islamictermsof submissionwere imposed,butthe paymentof slaves stipulatedby
the olderbaqtagreementremainedan obligationof the new tributaryregimefor as
long as any vestige of Nubianauthoritysurvived,apparentlyinto the mid-fourteenthcentury.14Since the Nubianshad often provendilatoryin deliveringtheir
annualquotaof slaveseven at the best of times,it was difficultto specifyprecisely
the pointat whichtheirpaymentsdefinitivelyceased,andthebaqtended.
8 Yusuf Fadl Hasan,TheArabs and the Sudan,20-21.
9 Adams, Nubia, 436, 453.

10 Cuoq,Islamisation,24; Cuoqbaseshis views on the posthumousinterpretation

of alMaqrizi. According to P. Forand, the written version of the baqt treaty took on a virtualy irresistable life of its own: "the history of Muslim relations with Nubia points up the remarkable
continuityof historicaltraditionsin bureaucraticcircles, despite such occurrencesas the burningof
importantdocuments in the conflagrationof the diwan in Egypt." ("EarlyMuslim Relations with
Nubia,"Der Islam 48 [1971], 111-21).
11 L0kkegard,"BAKT,"966. The authoralso mentionscertainfeaturesof the baqt not found
in the version of al-Maqrizi;these will be discussed in variouscontexts below.
12 Forand, "EarlyMuslim Relations," 121.
13 Adams, Nubia, 452.
14 Cuoq (Islamisation, 88-90) gives a translationof the new Islamically conventional terms
of submission;for the end of the baqt see 75, and Adams,Nubia, 527.

MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANNUBIA AND THE ISLAMIC WORLD

581

An Alternative Approach to the Baqt

The treatmentof the baqt offered here differs from the received scholarly consensus
in both methodology and theoretical outlook. It employs methods from the discipline of history, rather than Orientalism, and it proposes to balance conventional
Islamic interpretations with an original Nubian perspective. The adoption of a
professionally historical vision based on Old Dongola allows the familiar source
materials to yield a significantly different new understandingof the baqt.
In the methodology accepted by historians, by contrast to that of Orientalism, a document is a primary source for the time and place at which it is written,
while any claim it may make to convey information about earlier times must be
subjected to critical scrutiny. Ordinarily a source produced shortly after an event
will be granted greater credence than another source created many centuries later.15
In the discussion to follow the earliest sources, not the most distant ones, are
granted analytical priority.
Medieval Nubia participated in an older and wider Northeast African tradition of statecraft that survived the collapse of Makuria and continued to serve the
Sudanese kingdoms that followed up to the eve of the moder colonial era. Many
imperfectly documented aspects of medieval Nubian culture and policy may be
clarified through comparison with the corresponding institutions of the betterknown kingdoms that surrounded and succeeded Makuria. While information
derived from outside Makuria through comparative inference cannot itself address
the question of the baqt directly, it does mobilize hitherto-unexpected and unexploited portions of the surviving medieval source literaturein ways that render new
primarymaterials relevant to historical understandingof the baqt.
It need not be assumed that one and only one understanding of the baqt is
correct and that all others are necessarily false. It is possible, indeed perhaps likely,
that the two parties to the agreement interpreted it in different terms from the very
beginning. Where differences appear in the sources that mention the baqt over the
course of centuries it does not necessarily mean (pace, Orientalism) that the texts are
flawed; it may ratherindicate that authentic disagreements existed, or that historical
change was taking place. On that basis, even al-Maqrizi's posthumous terminal
version of the baqt may also take its rightful place in the structureof interpretation.
The Historical Origin of the Baqt
The earliest surviving account of the diplomatic agreement between Nubians and
Muslims was compiled between one and two centuries after the event by Ibn Abd

15Foranintroduction
to primarysourcesandtheiruse,see NormanF. CantorandRichardI.
Schneider,How to StudyHistory (New York, 1967), 22-24.

582

JAY SPAULDING

As soon as the capitalof

al-Hakam(803-871), a scholarof prophetictraditions.16
ByzantineEgyptfell to the Muslimsin 641, one is told,the conqueringgeneralAmr
b. al-As begana programof systematicraidsagainstNubia.These attacks,according to IbnAbd al-Hakam,were analogousto the annualincursionsinto Asia Minor
being undertakenat thattime to softenGreekdefensesin preparationfor the great
Islamicinvasionof Byzantiumand seige of Constantinoplethatfollowed in 670.
Whatis otherwiseknown of Amr leaves little doubtthathe intendedto conquer
Nubia.17A controversialand exceedinglyambitiousgeneral,Amr'sinitialresentmentat havingbeen sidelinedguardingthe westernborderat Gazawhile the main
thrustof earlyIslamicexpansionwas directednorthandeast hadled him to invade
Egyptat his own initiativeif not actuallyin defianceof the caliph'sorders.Now, as
circumstancesmightpermit,he clearlyintendedto matchalongthe southernIslamic
frontierwhateveradvancesrival commanderswere being allowed to undertakein
the distantnorth.
Amr'spatentambitionled to his fall frompowerin 647 buthis successoras
governorof Egypt, Abd Allah b. Saad b. Abi Sarh,was one of the commanders
who had led raids againstNubia,and preparationsfor the invasioncontinued.By
652 all was in readiness,andthe governorstrucksouthwardwith a largearmythat
includedheavy cavalryand artilleryin the formof mangonels.The Muslimslaid
siege to Old Dongola;theircatapultsdestroyeda greatchurchin the Makuriancapital, and therefollowed a memorablebattlewith numerouscasualties."Afterthat,"
accordingto IbnAbd al-Hakam,"AbdAllah b. Saadsigned a trucewith them [the
Thosewordslaid barethe secretthat
Nubians],as he was unableto defeatthem."18
hadenvelopedthe originof the baqtin mysteryandrenderedthe agreementcontroversial; the baqt had come into existence because at Old Dongola the Nubians had

won a decisive militaryvictoryover the advancingarmiesof Islam. "TheMuslims

had never suffereda loss like the one they had in Nubia,"wrotethe tenth-century
ShiitehistorianAhmadal-Kufi,whose heterodoxtraditionboreno love for henchmen of the CaliphUthman.19For the mainstreamof Islamichistoriography,however,the storywas simplytoo bitterto repeat.
As the centuriespassed, succeedinggenerationsof commentatorswould
seek to blunt the force of Ibn Abd al-Hakam's candor by proposing a variety of
alternative interpretations. Perhaps it had been the Nubians who raided the

Muslims,and not vice-versa?Perhapsthe fight at Old Dongola was just a minor

16 CharlesCutlerTorrey,ed., The History of the Conquestof Egypt,North Africa and Spain

Misr"of IbnAbdal-Hakam(NewHaven,1922),169-70(preparations
forthe
knownas the "Futuh
invasionof Nubia)and188-89(twoversionsof thebaqtagreement).
17 A.J. Wensinck, "AMRB. AL-AS," Encyclopaedia of Islam, I, 451.
18 Torrey, Conquest of Egypt, 188.
19 Vantini, Oriental Sources, 95; the British Museum preserves in manuscripta Farsi trans-

lationof the apparentlylost Arabicoriginalof Ahmadal-Kufi'sKitab al-futuhat("Bookof

Conquests").

MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN NUBIA AND THE ISLAMIC WORLD

583

foray, of no great import? Had not the battle already taken place in the days of Amr?
Perhaps it was Amr who imposed the terms of the baqt? Perhaps Nubia was so
poor and worthless that its conquest had never really been contemplated?20 After
eight centuries of imaginative revisionism, al-Maqrizi would be able to describe in
picturesque detail how the defeated Nubian monarch Qalidurat, crushed in battle at
his capital, had "asked for peace, and went out [from Old Dongola] to meet [the
Muslim commander] Abd Allah looking humble, sad and submissive."21 The
magnanimous Muslim conqueror had treated the forlorn little Christian king kindly,
and had granted him terms-the terms delineated by al-Maqrizi's version of the
baqt, the text now commonly regarded as authoritative. This received consensus
interpretation, however, rests upon one serious historical misapprehension. The
battle that had led to the treaty was not an Islamic triumph;the victors had been the
Nubians.
The Oldest Surviving Interpretations

of the Baqt Treaty

Ibn Abd al-Hakam was not only the first historian to expose the circumstances in
which the baqt came into being; he was also the first scholar to claim to know what
the contents of the agreement had actually been. By his day, however, more than a
century after the fact, two rival alternativeversions had already gained currency. As
a conscientious scholar of tradition Ibn Abd al-Hakam not only recorded both
versions, but also cited the sources of information upon which each interpretation
rested. Ultimately, both versions of the baqt treaty had reached Ibn Abd al-Hakam
through the testimony of a man of a previous generation named Yazid. The alternative traditions differed radically, however, as to who this informant might have
been and whence his information about the baqt had originated.
According to one version, Yazid was simply a man who had found occasion
to read a written text of the baqt treaty, a document since destroyed and therefore
unavailable for confirmation by Ibn Abd al-Hakam, that had once existed in the
state archives of Egypt. The treaty had been written in the days of Amr b. al-As and
had been signed by the Nubians; the latter, as the price of peace, had committed
themselves not to settle in Islamic territory,to the extradition of runaway slaves and
fugitives, and to the payment of annual tribute of 360 slaves (singular, abd ). Aside
from toleration of the Nubians' existence, the victorious Muslims owed the
Nubians nothing. This version of the baqt treaty, clearly a linear ancestor to the text
elaborated centuries later by al-Maqrizi, is vulnerable to critique within the tradition
of Islamic scholarship because it misrepresents the agreement as an accomplishment
of Amr b. al-As; this was a serious flaw in an interpretationthat claimed to be based

20 Forvarianttraditions
of thisepisodein thehistoryof IslamicEgyptas reconstructed
by
latergenerations
of writers,andsomediscussionof theirmerits,see Cuoq,Islamisation,
9, andthe
sourcescitedtherein.
21 Wiet,"Maqrizi:
290.
Khitat,"

584

JAY SPAULDING

upon the same body of writtenarchivalevidence that had otherwise specifically

attributedthe Nubianinvasionand the baqt not to Amr, but to his successorAbd
Allah.Moregenerally,it is unlikelythatthepartyvanquishedat Old Dongolawould
have been in a positionto impose uponthe victorsa treatydemandingtributeand
unilateralconcessions.
The secondinterpretation
of the baqttreatyalso reachedIbn Abd al-Hakam
throughthe testimonyof Yazid,butin thisalternativetraditionthe sourceof Yazid's
informationwas said to be very different;Yazid hadacquiredhis knowledgefrom
his father,a Nubianprisonerof warenslavedby the Arabsduringthe campaignof
652 itself. Accordingto this traditiontherehad never been a writtentreatyand
neitherthe Muslimsnorthe Nubianssignedany document;all thatexistedafterthe
battlewas a hudnataman,a "truceof security"or cease-fire,on the condition"that
they would not invade each other'scountry,the Nubianswould hand over to the
Muslimsevery yeara certainnumberof captives(singular,sabi ) andthe Muslims
wouldgive the Nubiansa specifiedquantityof wheatandlentilsevery year."22
This
version in no way contradictswhat is otherwiseknown about the expedition of
652, and the termsit delineatesare eminentlycompatiblewith the circumstances
createdby the unexpectedNubianvictory. As long as peace was maintainedthe
Makuriansagreedto repatriateArabprisonersof war at intervalsin returnfor an
indemnityto be paid in the form of foodstuffs.Nothingin the agreementobliged
the baqt to last beyondthe completionof these exchanges,and the motive for the
fact thatit did so mustbe soughtelsewhere.
The present study would suggest that both versions of the baqt treaty
recordedby Ibn Abd al-Hakamare "correct"
in the sense thatversiontwo conveys
the originalintentionof the Makurianauthoritiesand version one the prevailing
interpretationof the Islamic theoristsof the early Abbasidperiod. By the ninth
centurythe Muslimsweredecidingto believethatthe baqthadbeen a fixed written
documentagreedto if not actuallysignedby the Nubians,a conventionthatlegally
boundMakuriain perpetuityto a statusof subordination
to the Islamiccaliphate;in
returnfor tolerationof theirexistence,the Nubiansconcededunilateralprivilegesto
the Muslimsand agreedto pay forevera substantialannualtributein the form of
slaves. Meanwhile,however,the actionsof Nubianleadersin the generationsthat
followed 652 stronglysuggest thatMakuria,in the conductof her foreignpolicy,
was guidednot by any Islamiclawyer'sunderstanding
of the baqtbutby herown.
The Baqt in the Context of Nubian Diplomacy
The monarchsof old agrarianNortheastAfricanstatesengagedin an endlesscycle
of royalreciprocitythatincludedfrequentcommunicationby letteror courier,occasional diplomaticmarriages,extendedvisits by foreignnoblemenor officials and
not least, the periodic exchange of gifts. Presentsbetween kings articulatedthe
22 Torrey, Conquest of Egypt, 188.

MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN NUBIA AND THE ISLAMIC WORLD

585

discourse of diplomacy in a material idiom; an insulting gift, archtypically a stone

axehead with which to circumcize the recipient's mother, was tantamountto a declaration of war, while generous and unusual gifts of high quality deserved a correspondingly positive response. It was considered appropriate to express politely
one's own special preferences to guide a friendly foreign king in his selection of
suitable counter-gifts; the specific content of exchange was thus eminently
negotiable. If pushed too far, however, expression of preference could be interpreted as a demand for tribute, to which the normal response was to sever communication and break the cycle of exchange until more moderate views prevailed.23
The medieval Makurian baqt was a typical expression of the system of
diplomatic gift exchanges sponsored by Northeast African kings. The institution
was neither unusual, peculiar to Makuria's relations with the Muslims, nor even
new; by chance it is known, for example, that in the year 573 (when the Prophet
Muhammad, if yet born, was only a small child), the Makurians were already
sending typical diplomatic gifts of ivory and exotic beasts to the great northern
monarch of those days, the Roman emperor Justin.24 Neither then nor in the
Islamic age to follow did the Nubians need a written instrument to direct the
conduct of diplomacy; for them the baqt had no fixed text, and imposed no terms
other than customary practices so rooted in prevailing usage as to seem self-evident
and inevitable.25
The baqt agreement, from a Nubian perspective, marked acceptance of the
new Islamic regime in Egypt as a legitimate foreign government with which,
following the unfortunate initial encounter, normal relations would be possible.
While the full course of medieval diplomatic history inevitably remains dim, it is
reasonably clear that the Nubians broke contact during wartime and whenever an
established Egyptian government fell until the successor regime indicated its willingness to resume the relationship; it would also seem that ties were broken and
restored on numerous other occasions for less momentous reasons that remain
obscure.26 Given the tendency of Muslims to construe the Nubian baqt as a unilat23 For the NortheastAfricantraditionof diplomacy,see LidwienKapteijnsand Jay
Relations,"SudanicAfrica,I
Spaulding,"GiftsWorthyof Kings:An Episodein DarFur-Taqali
(1990), 61-70; After the Millennium:Diplomatic Correspondencefrom Wadaiand Dar Fur on the
Eve of Colonial Conquest, 1885-1916 (East Lansing, 1988) and Jay Spaulding and Lidwien
Kapteijns,An Islamic Alliance: Ali Dinar and the Sanusiyya,1909-1916 (Evanston, 1994).

24 "Legatigentis Maccurritarum
Constantinopolimveniunt dentes elephantinoset
Johnof
IustinoprincipimuneraofferentessibicumRomanisamicitiascollocant."
camelopardam
AbbatisBiclarensisChronica,
Monumenta
Germaniae
Historica
DLXVII-DXC,"
Biclar,"Iohannis
Auctorum Antiquissimorum, Tomus XI: Chronicorum Minorum Saec. IV. V. VI. VII. [1894]

(Berlin,1961),II, 213.
25 Adams(Nubia,436) hascorrectlynotedthattheNubiansdidnotfindit necessaryto rely
in theconductof governmental
affairs.
heavilyuponwrittendocuments
26 It is unlikelythatMakurian
kingswouldhaveinitiatedbaqtexchangesin wartime.The
authorsal-Nuwayri
andIbnal-Furat
fourteenth-century
compileda registerof theperiodsknownto

586

JAY SPAULDING

eral obligation to pay tribute, it is likely that one common motive for severing relations was often Islamic violation of the principle of reciprocity. As one Makurian
monarch put it, "now, in as much as they have cut off [their payments], we have
also cut off [ours]."27 Particularly eloquent testimony to the primacy of Nubian
diplomatic initiative in the maintenance of the baqt may be found in the behavior of
the last puppet kings of Makuria who survived under Egyptian tutelage for most of
a century after the conquest of 1276. Though nothing in the stipulations of the
treaty imposing tributarystatus obliged them to do so, these pathetic figures nevertheless optimistically continued to offer their new masters supererogatory gifts that
both contemporaries and modem scholars have recognized as baqt payments.28
themduringwhich,priorto the actualinvasionandconquestof Makuriain 1276, the Islamic
limitedmilitaryoperations
of Egypthadconducted
government
againstNubia;thefifteenth-century
andal-Taghribirdi
authorsal-Maqrizi
addedanadditional
hadoverlooked.
episodetheirpredecessors
The intervalsof knownhostilitiespriorto the conquestwere:723-742;761-769;854-868 [alMaqriziandal-Taghribirdi];
910-915;935-969;1066;1171-1175.Thesourcescitedare:ShihabalDin AhmadAbdal-Wahhab
al-Nuwayri,Nihayatal-arabfi fununal-adab;therosterof known
periodsof hostilitybetweenIslamicEgyptandMakuriais foundnot in anypublishedportionof
thisverylargework,butin thethirty-volume
Nationale
manuscript
preserved
by theBibliotheque
in Paris;cited here is the translationanthologizedin Vantini,OrientalSources,476-477;C.
Jamalal-DinYusufb.
Ruzayq,ed., TarikhIbnal-Furat,(Beirut,1942),VII,44-45;Abu'l-Mahasin
al-Taghribirdial-Zahiri,al-Nujwn al-zahirafi mulukMisr wal-Qahira (Cairo, 1932), II,295-296;
273-277.
Wiet,"Maqrizi:
Khitat,"
Khitat,"
294), fromtheIslamicconquestof Egypt
Accordingto al-Maqrizi
(Wiet,"Maqrizi:
thedefeatedNubiansdutifullypaidtheirannualtributeunder(hisversionof) thebaqtforabouttwo
centuries,up to thereignof theAbbasidcaliphal-Mutasim
(833-842).Thatis notcorrect.Inaddiin 723-742 and761-769becauseof hostilities,it is specifically
tion to probableinterruptions
knownthatthefirstAbbasidgovernorof Egyptafter752 foundthatno shipmentswereforthcoming forseveralyears;"Youdo notbringto us thatto whichyouareliableaccordingto thebaqt,"
he wrotein 758 (Plumley,"Letter,"
theriseof the
243).A similarbreakin relationsaccompanied
Fatimids(969-1171);in thiscase,a sympathetic
was eagerto restoregood
Egyptiangovernment
relations.(Fortheaccountof theFatimidambassador
IbnSalimal-Aswani,baseduponportionsof
his writingspreserved
"Ladescription
de la Nubied'albylatermedievalauthors,see G. Troupeau,
Aswani,"ArabicaI [1954],276-88).Withtheriseof theAyyubids(1171-1250)a Nubianattempt
to inititebaqtexchangewasrebuffed;see Shihabal-DinAbuShamaAbdal-Rahman
b. IsmailalMaqdisi al-Dimishqi al-Shafii, Kitab al-rawdataynfi akhbar al-dawlatayn (Cairo, 1870), I, 209.

Finally,therewasanextendedperiodof turmoilalongthefrontierbetweentheseizureof powerin

Egyptby the Mamluksin 1260andtheopeningof diplomaticrelationsby Makuriathroughthe
dispatchof a baqtshipmentin 1269 (Cuoq,Islamisation,72; the uncitedsourcefor thisepisode
of al-Nuwayri).
Thereis wisdomin theretrospective
visionof
appearsto be theParismanuscript
IslamicEgyptianauthorwhobelievedthatthebaqt"wasinterrupted
thefifteenth-century
at times,
andthenresumed,accordingto theprevailingstateof obedienceor rebellion;"
see Shihabal-Din
Abu'l-Abbasb. Ahmadb. Abd Allahal-Qalqashandi,
Subhal-aashafi sinaatal-insha(Cairo,
1915), VIII, 6.

27E.A.WallisBudge,trans.,TheChronography
of Barhebraeus
(London,1932),134.
28Forthetextof thetreatyof surrender
Islamicterms,see
imposingtributeon conventional
al-Mufaddal,
al-Nahjal-sadidwa'l-durral-faridfima baadtarikhIbn al-Amid,ed. E. Blochet,
"Histoire
des SultansMamlouks,"
PatrologiaOrientalis14, 3 (1920),400-403;a Frenchtranslationmaybe foundin Cuoq,Islamisation,
88-90.BothCuoq(Islamisation,
76) andAdams(Nubia,

MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN NUBIA AND THE ISLAMIC WORLD

587

Surprisingly, at least some of these initiatives were reciprocated; this was not
because the foreign conquerors were willing to palliate the lowly status of defeated
Makuria, but because, through centuries of usage, the economic dimension to the
baqt exchange had taken on a life of its own.29
The Baqt in the Context of Nubian Economy
The economic organization of the old agrarian states of Northeast Africa differed
significantly from that of the more highly commoditized societies of the Mediterranean and Red Sea.30 Each African monarch closely regulated all spheres of
exchange activity; conspicuously, the right to trade into and out of the kingdom was
a royal monopoly, to be exercised precisely through the exchange of diplomatic
gifts with neighbors introduced above.31 Such exchanges provided kings with
exotic luxury items with which to elevate their own lifestyle or to reward deserving
subordinates; in relation to the state economy as a whole, however, the royal trade
abroad was trivial in magnitude and never a matter of more than secondary significance.32
The baqt, in addition to its diplomatic function, may also be viewed in
economic terms as one fortuitously documented branch of the royally administered

527) assumethatsince baqtpaymentscontinuedafterthe fall of Makuriatheymusthavebeen

required;nothingin the treatyof surrender
says this,however,andthey ignorethe primacyof
Nubianinitiativein al baqttransactions.
29 The one tangiblepiece of evidenceconcerningEgyptiancounter-giftsunderthe baqt
systemof exchangeseemsto datefromafterthefallof Makuria.
Accordingto Adams(Nubia, 738,
note62), "N.B.Milletinformsme that'Wefounda pieceof cottonclothmarkedbaqtin Arabicat
century."'
[Gebel]Adda,in oneof theburialsthoughtto be theendof thethirteenth
30 FortheNortheastAfricantraditionof politicaleconomy,see JaySpauldingandLidwien
of LandTenurein thePrecolonial
"TheConceptualization
Sudan:EvidenceandInterpreKapteijns,
tation,"in Donald Crummey,ed., State, Land and Society in the History of SudanicAfrica, forthcoming; the same authors'The Periodization of Precolonial African History, Boston University

AfricanStudiesCenterWorkingPaperNo. 125 (Boston,1987);andEen Kennismaking

metde
Geschiedenis
Afrikaanse
(Muiderberg,
1985),47-75.
31 For the NortheastAfricantraditionof royallyadministered
commerce,see Lidwien
andJaySpaulding,"Precolonial
TradeBetweenStatesin theEasternSudan,c. 1700- c.
Kapteijns
1900,"in NormanO'NeillandJayO'Brien,eds.,EconomyandClassin Sudan(Aldershot,1988),
of Exchangein Precolonial
WesternSudan,"in Leif
60-89;LidwienKapteijns,"TheOrganization
0. Manger,ed., Tradeand Tradersin the Sudan(Bergen,1984),49-80; Jay Spaulding,"The
of Exchangein Sinnar,c. 1700,"in Manger,Tradeand Traders,25-48, andThe
Management
Heroic Age in Sinnar (East Lansing, 1985), 104-119.

32 Withthepossibleexceptionof firearmsandammunition
on theeve of WorldWarI; see
Spauldingand Kapteijns,Islamic Alliance.

588

JAY SPAULDING

import-export trade of Makuria.33 Surviving evidence suggests that the goods

imported into Nubia included luxury foods such as wheat, lentils, olive oil, exotic
vegetables, vinegar and wine, horses, and a wide variety of textile goods including
special fabrics, luxury clothing and carpets. In return, the Nubians are known to
have offered the Muslim princes ivory, leopard skins, dates, ebony for furniture
manufacture, spears, emery, alum, exotic live animals such as monkeys, lions,
leopards, elephants and giraffes, and especially cattle, camels and slaves.34 Nubian
usage would have demanded that each royal exchange be governed by reciprocity,
and the fact that the Muslims understood and accepted the principle is confirmed by
several of the earlier Islamic sources.35One is told that each party named an official
to supervise the transfer of goods, which took place near the border at a specified
time and location.36
Concerning the frequency of baqt exchange, given the extreme paucity and
polemical intent of the evidence, one is forced to choose between rival hypotheses.
Should one follow mature Islamic legal theory in believing that since (from that
perspective) baqt payments were to be made annually, such payments were in fact
made, unless otherwise indicated? Or alternatively, should one believe that each
baqt exchange was an unusual and colorful event of which contemporary chroni33 The economic significance of the baqt was correctly emphasized by Munro-Hay("Kings
and Kingdoms,"97). He was not well-advised, however, to call the baqt "anagreement... for
mutualsupply of commodities,"as this phrasingobscures the differences in regardto the political
economy of exchange that distinguished the two parties to the baqt. For an introductionto the
conceptual issues at stake, see Rhoda H. Halperin,CulturalEconomies Past and Present (Austin,
1994).
34 Lists of goods exchanged via the baqt appearin sources from several centuries. The items
mentioned are gathered from works of the following authors:Abu'l-Abbas Ahmad b. Yahya b.
Jabir al-Baladhuri, Futuh al-buldan, ed. M.J. De Goeje, El-Beladhuri Liber Expugnationis
Regionum(Leiden, 1866), 238; Abu Bakr Ahmadb. Muhammadb. Ishaqb. al-Faqihal-Hamadani,
Kitab al-buldan,ed. M.J. De Goeje, Bibliotheca GeographorumArabicorum(Leiden, 1885), V, 76;
Michael the Syrian, ed. and trans.J.B. Chabot, "Chroniquede Michel le Syrien,"Corpus scriptorum christianorumorientalium (Paris, 1905) III, 90-91; Muhyi al-Din Ibn Abd al-Zahir,al-Altaf
al-khafiyyamin al-sira al-sharifaal-malikiyyaal-ashrqfiyya;cited here is Axel Moberg,ed., Ur Abd
Allah b. Abd ez-Zahir'sbiografi over Sultanenel-Melik el-Asraf Halil (Lund, 1902), 40-41; Wiet,
"Maqrizi:Khitat,"292-293.
35 The necessity for reciprocityin the conduct of baqt exchange was mentioned by several
early authors,but often overlooked from the tenth century on. For example, see: Ubayd Allah b.
Ali b. Abu'l-Qasim al-Khurdadhbeh,Kitab al-masalik wa'l-mamlik,ed. M.J. De Goeje, Bibliotheca GeographorumArabicorum(Leiden, 1889), VI, 92; Ahmadb. Ali Yaqub b. Jaafarb. Wahb
b. al-Wadihal-Abbasi, TarikhYaqubi(Beirut, 1960), II, 166; al-Baladhuri,Futuh, 238; Abu Jaafar
Muhammadb. Jariral-Tabari,Kitab akhbar al-rusul wa'l-muluk,ed. Fadl Ibrahim(Cairo, 19601969), IV, 111. By al-Tabari'sday, the early tenthcentury,the traditionthatbaqt exchange required
reciprocitywas matchedby anotherthatcharacterizedit as a unilateralpaymentof tribute.
36 The most detaileddescriptionsof the organizationof baqt exchange are those of al-Masudi
from the tenth century and al-Maqrizi,retrospectively,from the fifteenth. See Abu'l-Hasanb. Ali
al-Masudi,Murujal-dhahabwa-maadinal-jawahir,ed. C. Barbierde Meynardand P. de Courteille
(Paris, 1864), III, 40-41; Wiet, "Maqrizi:Khitat,"289.

MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN NUBIA AND THE ISLAMIC WORLD

589

clers normally took note? The implications of one's choice of interpretationsmay be

illustrated by focusing upon the two hundred two years of Fatimid rule in Egypt
(969-1171). During this comparatively well-documented period the Nubians are
known to have conducted baqt exchanges only six times; how many more
exchanges took place, if any, can derive only from speculation.37
Royally Administered Nubian Trade versus Islamic Private
Commercial Enterprise
When Northeast African kings entered into exchange relationships with the
Mediterranean world, a spotlight was cast upon the contrast between the principles
of royally administered diplomatic trade and the institutions of commercial capitalism. Different from both of these were the presently less well-documented
exchange institutions of neighboring decentralized non-state societies. Upon contact
with Mediterraneanusages, medieval African leaders of all descriptions were likely
to find themselves pressured to open their homelands to Islamic private merchants.
For example certain chiefs of the Beja community, a non-state society resident in
the highlands between Nubia and the Red Sea, were led to sign an early agreement
with the Islamic conquerors of Egypt that specifically allowed the penetration of
their home by private traders from Islamic lands.38 Predictably, the acquisitive
foreigners soon made an industry of kidnapping Beja children as slaves-the land
held few other exportable resources-and a long age of bitter conflict followed.39
Meanwhile on the Nile the Makuriangovernment, however eager to conduct
official exchanges under the baqt system, resisted the opening of Nubia to Islamic
private enterprise. That pressure to do so had arisen even within the first century of
the baqt became apparent in 758, when the new Abbasid governor of Egypt wrote
to the Makurian monarch: "[Here] no obstacle is placed between your merchants
and what they want-[they are] safe and contented wherever they go in our land.
You, however . .. behave otherwise . . . nor are our merchants safe with you."40
37 In additionto the five paymentsmentionedby Cuoq(Islamisation,56, note 172) and
Beshir("NewLight,"15-22),it wouldbejudiciousto addtheroyalgift thattheNubiankingsent
thefugitivenorthern
rebelAbuRakwain 1006:"(Thekingof Nubia)
to Cairowhenhe extradited
hadhimaccompanied
by one of his princes(Sahib),whobroughtpresentsto (theEgyptianruler)
al-Hakim."
(AbuYali Hamzab. al-Qalanisi,
DhaylTarikhDimishqi,ed. H.F.Amedroz,History
ofDamascus[Leiden,1908],64-65).
38 Foran introduction
to the earlytreatiesbetweenthe Muslimsandthe Beja,see Cuoq,
38-42.Incontrastto theNubianbaqt,thesearrangements
didnotestablisha reciproIslamisation,
to conductbusinessin freedomand
cal exchange,butratherassuredtherightsof privatemerchants
safety.
39 At theheightof hostilitiesa perceptiveeleventh-century
Persiantravelerobserved:"The
Bejawholive in thisdesertarenotbadpeople,noraretheyrobbers.It is theMuslimsandothers
whokidnaptheirchildrenandtakethemto thetownsof Islam,wheretheysell them."AbuMuin
ed. Ch.Schefer(Paris,1881),178.
Hamidal-DinNasr-iKhusraw,
Sefername,
40 Plumley,"Letter,"
243.

590

JAY SPAULDING

By the dawn of the ninth century, attempts by foreign Muslims at Aswan to assert
the right to purchase property across the border in Nubia precipitated an international incident. Significantly, the Makurian king was obliged to give way; the
northernmost Nubian district thereafter became a zone of special status within
which Mediterraneanconcepts of private ownership and commercial exchange were
allowed to prevail. No foreign merchant was to pass southward, however, upon
pain of death.41 Yet the pressure was relentless; two hundred years later, by the
close of the tenth century at least some northerntraderswere being admitted into the
heartland of Nubia; by that time the Alodian capital of Soba had a quarterassigned
to foreign merchants.42
Meanwhile some Nubian subjects themselves, especially from the northern
zone of special status, had also become private merchants and had begun to conduct
their own commercial ventures northwardinto Egypt.43 The Nubian king attempted
to maintain his hold over subjects living abroad, and to profit from their private
commerce, by negotiating an arrangement according to which a royal Makurian
agent was authorized to reside and to travel within the Islamic caliphate in order to
collect taxes from Nubians living abroad. This attempt by the Nubian kings to
maintain some form of control over the incipient class of Makurian private
merchants may well have been new when first recorded during the ninth century,
and since the arrangement was never mentioned again, it is not likely that it long
endured.44
As the medieval Beja community made the transitionfrom victims to participants in private trade, the Red Sea-based commerce too began to impinge upon
Makuria's southeastern frontier. By the twelfth century a new entrepot had arisen
midway between Old Dongola and the Alodian capital of Soba at a site near the
confluence of the Nile and the Atbara River; there "merchantsfrom the Nubians and

41 An accountof thedisputethatresultedin theopeningof northern

Nubiato Mediterranean
conceptsof propertyandexchangewasgivenin thetenthcenturyby al-Masudi(Murujal-dhahab
III,41-43). The strictcustomsbarrierbetweenthe northernzone of specialstatusandMakuria
properwasdescribedin thetenthcenturyby IbnSalimal-Aswani(Troupeau,
"Description,"
282)
andagainat theclose of thetwelfthcenturyby AbuSalihthe Armenian;
see B.T.A.Evetts,ed.,
The Churchesand Monasteriesof Egyptand SomeNeighbouringCountriesAttributedto Abu
SalihtheArmenian(Oxford,1894), 120. An archaeologically-grounded
discussionof medieval
zoneof specialstatusis givenby Adams(Nubia,468-70);conspicuous
was
societyin thenorthern
to Islam.
thepracticeof privatetradeandconversion
42 Al-Aswani'sdescriptionof Old Dongolawas mentioned,but not copied,by the later
authorswhopreservedhis account.PerhapsthecityresembledtheAlodiancapitalof Soba,which
at thattimealreadyhada quarterof residentMuslimtraders.Certainly,theambassador's
mission
itself illustratedhow, withroyalpermission,a few prosperousMuslimswerebeingallowedto
importtheirmoneyandtheirreligionpasttherigorouscustomsbarrier.(Troupeau,
"Description,"
267-288andVantini,OrientalSources,601-615and722.)
43 Adams,Nubia,468-70.
44 MichaeltheSyrian,"Chronique,"
135.
III,93;Budge,Chronography
ofBarhebraeus,

MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN NUBIA AND THE ISLAMIC WORLD

591

the Ethiopians gather; those from Egypt also come here, when there is peace
between them."45By the fourteenth century the prince of al-Abwab, lord of what
had formerly been the northernmost district of Alodia but now the prosperous
patron of the new commercial entrepot at the Atbara confluence, was eager to assist
the Muslims of Egypt in their conquest of Makuria.46
In short, while the traditionalNubian royal exchange institutions of the baqt
may well have remained the Makurian kings' preferred vehicle for the conduct of
foreign trade, the rival Mediterranean institutions of private enterprise had challenged the baqt system from the beginning and gradually won significant ground at
its expense. In the end, after the fall of Makuria, ideological partisans of free enterprise even more extreme than al-Maqrizi were willing (retrospectively of course) to
write freedom of access for Islamic private merchants into the original baqt agreement itself; according to the fourteenth-centuryhistorian Ibn Khaldun, for example,
the baqt had decreed that the Nubians "must not hinder the traders going to, and
coming from [their country]."47Here as elsewhere in Northeast Africa the hidden
agenda of Islam often included commercial capitalism.
Medieval Nubia and the Slave Trade
A recent generation of Cliometricians, inspired by efforts to quantify slavery in
West Africa, have undertaken to enumerate slave exports from medieval Nubia
also. The success of this praiseworthy but difficult endeavor is contingent upon the
establishment of convincing figures both for slave exports under the baqt system
and for the slaves acquired outside the baqt system by private merchants. The
present study will argue that neither of these objectives has been achieved.
The tradition of legally oriented Islamic scholarship introduced above
claimed that by rights the Nubians should deliver several hundred slaves a year, and
the Cliometricians have embraced this figure uncritically, as if it represented real
data about real slaves rather than professorial casuistry. "The famous baqt paid by
Dongola to the rulers of Egypt for several centuries," says Patrick Manning,
"included some 400 slaves per year."48While the surviving sources of information
45 Al-Idrisi,ed. R. Dozy andM.J.De Goeje,Descriptionde l'Afriqueet de l'Espagnepar
Edrisi [1866](Leiden,1968),Arabicpagination
20. Al-Idrisireferredto thisentrepotas a "town,"
a designation not confirmed by archaeology;perhapsa seasonal fair or bandar would be a better
image. The name of the entrepotwas Bulaq, a name used also in regardto the river-portsof Cairo
and Aswan; the termmay simply have meant "port"or "entrepot."
46 For the history of al-Abwab the present authoris indebted to Mr. Ahmad al-MutasimalShaykh for permission to consult his extended unpublished study, "Mamlakatal-Abwab alMasihiyya fi'l-usural-wusta;"alternatively,see Vantini, Oriental Sources, 485, 491-92, 499, and
537-38.

47 Abdal-Rahman
b. Muhammad
IbnKhaldun,Kitabal-ibarwa-diwanal-mubtadawa'lkhabar(Beirut, 1960-1967) 1I,971-72.

48 PatrickManning,SlaveryandAfricanLife:Occidental,
OrientalandAfricanSlaveTrades
(Cambridge, 1990), 90. Manning elsewhere (29) states that annual tribute was paid "fromabout

592

JAY SPAULDING

about actual baqt payments are so fragmentary and ambiguous that they should
probably not be asked to bear the weight of any elaborate interpretive edifice, it is
reasonably clear that the Nubian kings had no principled objection to slavery and
were willing to include slaves in their contribution to baqt exchanges. Whoever
expected to receive 400 slaves a year, however, was likely to be disappointed;
under ordinary circumstances, young King George explained to the Abbasid caliph
during a diplomatic mission to Baghdad in 836, Makuria simply lacked the capacity
to produce that number. His host agreed, and proposed a reduction by two-thirds,
which target, however, subsequent generations of Makurian leaders did not necessarily meet.49 In many years no baqt shipments at all were forthcoming, and in
other years goods other than slaves assumed a prominent position. In only one
specific instance do surviving records from independent Makuria specify the actual
number of slaves sent to Egypt as a baqt payment; that number is two.50 Of course,
during the century of terminally bitter Nubian civil war that followed the Islamic
conquest of Old Dongola in 1276, the puppet kings installed by Cairo and backed
by garrisons of Egyptian troops were able to do considerably better; they sent north
200 slaves in 1292 and a thousand in 1313.51 These puppet kings, unlike their free
predecessors, were surrounded by armed chaos and had no need to acquire their
slaves abroad. "[The Nubians] are Christians and have a hard life," wrote a fourteenth-century observer from Egypt; "They are imported and sold."52 The arithmetic average of 2, 200, and 1,000 does in fact approach 400; surely, however,
this is very slim evidence upon which to base sweeping statistical inferences about
most of a millennium of historical experience?
650 untilthe fourteenthcentury,andrequiredDongolato furnishsome400 slaves each year."
to truckandbarterin humanfleshto thereligionof Islam:"Islam
a propensity
Manningattributes
seemsto havedonemoreto protectandexpandslaverythanthereverse.Inanearlyexampleof this
of Egyptleviedanannualtributeon theChristiankingdomof
influence,the Muslimconquerors
SlaveTrade:A TentativeCensus,"in
Dongola"(28). See alsoRalphAusten,"TheTrans-Saharan
Henry A. Gemery and Jan S. Hogendom, eds., The UncommonMarket:Essays in the Economic

Historyof theAtlanticSlaveTrade(NewYork,1979),23-76.
49Forsourcesanda discussionsee GiovanniVantini,"Leroi Kirkide Nubiea Baghdad:
Un
ou deux voyages?" in Erich Dinkler, ed., Kunst und Geschichte Nubiens in Christlicher Zeit

1970),41-48. At the timeof KingGeorge'smissionto Baghdadtheinabilityof

(Recklinghausen,
in regardto slaveexportswasalreadyanissueof longstandMakuria
to meetIslamicexpectations
(Futuh,238),
ing;see theearlieraccountof al-Baladhuri
50 AbuShama,Kitabal-rawdatayn,
I, 209.
51 Fora baqtshipmentof 200 slaves by the puppetking Shamamun,probablyin about
1292, see the accountof Ibn Abd al-Zahirin al-Altaf (Moberg,Biografi, 40-41). Cuoq
(Islamisation,77, note232) offersa figureof 190 slavesandattributesthe missionto the year
on the authorityof M. Kamil'seditionof IbnAbdal-Zahir'sTashrifal-ayyam
1286,apparently
wa'l-usur,butCuoq'scitationis incompleteandmaybe defective.Fora shipmentof 1,000slaves
b. lyas, Badaial-zuhurfiwaqaialby the puppetkingKerenbesin 1312-1313,see Muhammad
Mustafa(Wiesbaden,
duhur,ed. Muhammad
1975),I, 441.
52 Abu'l-Fadail
Safial-DinAbdal-Haqqal-Baghdadi,
Marasidal-ittlaala asmaal-amkinat
wa'l-biqa, ed. T.G.J. Juynboll,Lexicon geographicum(Leiden, 1854), III, 236.

MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANNUBIA AND THE ISLAMIC WORLD

593

Many slaves were imported into Egypt by Islamic private merchants,

conspicuously in early years from among the Beja, but in later times also from
Makuria itself; by the early thirteenth century the northern Nubian zone of special
status at the Egyptian border had become famous as a market for the purchase of
slaves by foreign private merchants.53No figures whatsoever exist concerning the
magnitude of this trade at any period; yet without such data, no remotely plausible
assessment of total slave exports is possible.54 Even in the absence of absolute
numbers, however, it is possible to challenge the assertion by Cliometricians that
most slaves exported from Northeast Africa to the Islamic Orient were female, for
the claim is difficult to reconcile with a source literature from medieval Egypt in
which corps of black male military slaves are conspicuous while African females
are not.55 The actual primary evidence on the question is perhaps instructive; the
one known baqt shipment in the form of slaves by an independent Makurian
monarch comprised one male and one female.56
Conclusion
The decisive victory of Makuria over the Arab invasion of 652 allowed her to
conduct subsequent diplomatic and economic relations with the Islamic world
according to her own distinctively Nubian tradition of royal exchange. These
customary usages, which outsiders called the baqt, were never committed to writing
nor had they any fixed content other than the principles of Nubian royal initiative in
the conduct of each exchange and the anticipation of reciprocity in kind on the part
of the recipient Islamic prince. At various points in the long history of the institution
of baqt exchange, contemporary observers mentioned some of the types of goods
being transferredand described various specific features of individual transactions.
Missing, however, is any realistic sense of the composition, magnitude, or
frequency of baqt exchanges; one may suggest that perhaps each may have varied
considerably over the course of centuries. From the beginning private merchants
devoted to commercial principles of the Mediterranean world challenged the
precapitalist African assumptions of the baqt, and in time the Makurian monarchs
were obliged to make substantial concessions to northern preference. Meanwhile,
even after the fall of Old Dongola in 1276 and the reduction of Makuria to tributary

53Yacutb. AbdAllahal-Rumi,Mujamal-buldan,ed.F. Wiistenfeld,

Jacutsgeographisches

W5rterbuch(Leipzig,1869),IV, 515. Beshir("NewLight,"21) arguesthatprivatetradein slaves

quicklyovertookdeliveriesunderthebaqt;thisis a plausiblespeculation.
theImmeasurable:
The AtlanticSlaveTrade,West
54 CompareDavidHenige,"Measuring
andthePyrrhonian
AfricanPopulation
Journalof AfricanHistory,XXVI, 2 (1986),295Critic,"
313.
55 Manning(SlaveryandAfricanLife,51) assertsthatmostslavesimportedintotheIslamic
OrientfromAfricawerefemales;compareVantini,OrientalSources,301-307,354, 364-68,38993, 732-33.
56 AbuShama,Kitabal-rawdatayn,
I, 209.

594

JAY SPAULDING

status,herlast puppetkingscontinuedto exercisetheirroyalprerogativeof initiating baqtexchanges.

Islamic historiographyfound the ChristianNubian defeat of God's holy
warriorsdifficult to accept. As memoryof the events of 652 faded into an evermore-distantand comfortablyobscurepast, scholarsof the ninthcenturybeganto
formulate a more tolerable interpretationof history, according to which the obvious

propensityof Makuriankingsperiodicallyto sendsubstantialshipmentsof valuable

goods to Egypt could be interpretednot as the initiation of a reciprocalroyal
exchange, but as a unilateraland allegedly obligatoryannualtribute.The final
expression of this Islamic revisionist interpretationhad to await the eventual
destructionof Makuriaandthe eradicationof hercourtculture;it was formulated,in
authoral-Maqrizi,who needfearno Nubianrebutthe end, by the fifteenth-century
tal.
Modem Orientalistscholarship,committedto the primacyof authoritative
text over observableexperience, has chosen to subordinateall other historical
formulatedby
evidenceaboutthebaqtto the singleIslamicrevisionistinterpretation
al-Maqrizi.This commitmenthas not only obscuredthe militaryvictorythatmade
the sheersurvivalof medievalChristianNubiapossible andblottedout the Nubian
originof the baqtinstitutionitself, buthas also imposedan unrealisticallyrigidand
probablyexaggeratedconceptionof the frequencyandmagnitudeof Nubianbaqt
shipmentsto Egypt.The latterdistortion,in turn,has misled a school of historians
dedicated to the quantificationof African slavery; al-Maqriziis simply not an
adequateguide to the baqt, while a privatecommerceof significantmagnitude
remainstotallyunenumerated.
Rivalrybetweencommercialcapitalismandthe institutionsof old agrarian
state society has been an importantthemein the precolonialhistoryof Northeast
Africa.The hithertobest-documented
examplesof thisconflicthave been episodes
of the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies that culminatedin modern colonial
conquest.The admittedlyless generousevidence concerningthe Makurianbaqt
stronglysuggests,however,thata similarparadigmof historicalprocesswas also
at workin medievaltimes.Beforethe conservativeold agrarianAfricankingdoms
of Christian Nubia could be defeated by Islamic armies they must first be
subverted,througha medieval version of glasnost or infitah, by pressuresand
temptationsimpingingfromthe rival systemof politicaleconomythatprevailedin
andRed Sea.
adjoininglandsthatborderedtheMediterranean