About the Slave Trade and Abolitionism in Qajar Iran.

With Britain’s politics of abolitionism since the beginning of the 19th century and a growing, worldwide politicization of the issue, slave trade and slavery became an international concern. Britain’s interference in slavery in Iran was a corollary of her immediate interests in the Persian Gulf and the Ottoman Empire; without Iranian cooperation, the abolition of the slave trade in Ottoman domains was not feasible. In 1847 Sultan Abd al-Majid issued a decree for the prohibition of the import of slaves through the Persian Gulf, agreements had also been concluded with the Imam of Muscat in 1845 and again in 1847. In 1846 Britain began to pressure Muhammad Shah (1843-1848), who reacted defensive. Britain’s attempt to draw in high ranking Shi’i clerics to support the prohibition of the slave trade led to a few standard Islamic statements about the positive aspects of freeing slaves, but otherwise had little effects and rather engendered tacit resistance. Under the sustained diplomatic pressure, Muhammad Shah, shortly before his death in 1848, gave in and issued a decree for the prohibition of the import of slaves via the sea, but explicitly authorized the continued trade of humans via the land routes. Historians who have worked on the slavery of Iran have called this decree the first „abolitionist decree.“ However, a more precise reading of the accessible reports makes clear that this was a measure which had been suggested by the British to the shah very early on in the debate and that the decree was a canny diplomatic move to end constant British pressure.
Pursuing the discussion about slavery and the abolition of slavery in Iran through the available archival sources shows internal Iranian criticism on traditional social hierarchies, including slavery, emerged extremely slowly. Decisive changes toward the abolition of slavery and trade in humans were introduced only during the Constitutional Revolution and even in the 1930s slavery was still common in certain areas (i.e. Baluchestan).
The paper will be based on European archival repositories (BNA and IOL) and published Persian materials. Depending on the possibilities of access to materials in early 2016, the discussion of the paper will be able to draw on those sources or not.