Race, slavery, and Islamic law in the early modern Atlantic: Ahmad Baba al-Tinbukti's treatise on enslavement

This paper examines one of the earliest intellectual works to directly address the intersecting issues of race and slavery that emerged with the rise of the plantation system that took root in the early modern Atlantic. I examine the works of a Muslim scholar, Ahmad Baba al-Tinbukti, who himself was enslaved, and I examine his use of scholarly traditions and innovative thoughts on the origins of race by Muslim scholars such as Ibn Khaldoun to author a resounding critique of not just race-based slavery, but the entire practice of enslavement as he experienced it in the realms of the Moroccan caliphate of Ahmad al-Mansur. The latter's Caliphal aspirations were aimed at rivalling the Ottoman Empire, whose westward expansion had recently been curtailed. Within this context, Ahmad Baba's rulings served as a critique of the Sa`dis claim to just rule as a Muslim dynasty. This paper aims to bring discussions of race and slavery in the Muslim world into larger discussions about the emergence of slave-based agricultural economies in the West and suggest the importance of Islamic law in our study of the early modern Atlantic.