Unfree Lives: Slaves at the Najahid and Rasulid Courts of Yemen

Author:   Magdalena Moorthy Kloss
Publisher:   Brill
ISBN:  

9789004747654


Pages:   248
Publication Date:   09 October 2025
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

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Unfree Lives: Slaves at the Najahid and Rasulid Courts of Yemen


Overview

Unfree Lives illuminates Yemen’s forgotten history of slavery, as well as the transregional dimensions of slave trading in the Red Sea and wider Indian Ocean world. By analyzing Arabic narrative and administrative sources, Magdalena Moorthy Kloss reconstructs the lives of women and men who were trafficked to Yemen as children and then placed in various subaltern positions — from domestic servant to royal concubine, from quarryman to army commander. In this first in-depth study of unfree lives in Yemen, Moorthy Kloss argues that slaves and former slaves made significant contributions to social, economic and political processes in the medieval period. She highlights the gendered nature of slavery through a nuanced examination of the social identities of eunuchs and concubines. Unfree Lives also includes detailed information on slave trading between the Horn of Africa and Yemen in the 13th century, as well as an account of the little-known Najahid dynasty that was founded by Ethiopian slaves.

Full Product Details

Author:   Magdalena Moorthy Kloss
Publisher:   Brill
Imprint:   Brill
Dimensions:   Width: 15.50cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.423kg
ISBN:  

9789004747654


ISBN 10:   9004747656
Pages:   248
Publication Date:   09 October 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

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Author Information

Magdalena Moorthy Kloss is an FWF Erwin Schrödinger Fellow at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin and an associate researcher at the Institute for Social Anthropology, Austrian Academy of Sciences. Her research examines slavery, dependency and social hierarchies in Yemen through an interdisciplinary lens. She has published articles in the journals History and Anthropology and Der Islam, and a chapter in The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery throughout History (2023).

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