Events

LABOR in the Late Antique and Early Islamic Near East

(ca. 300-900 CE)

May 27, 2022

LABOR in the Late Antique and Early Islamic Near East
(ca. 300-900 CE)
Conference organized by Fred M. Donner (The Oriental Institute and Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations) and
Richard E. Payne (The Oriental Institute and Dept. of History)

Many aspects of the economic history of the Late Antique and Early Islamic Near East (chronological parameters: ca. 300-900 CE) remain understudied and undertheorized. This conference invites a number of scholars who study economic history to examine in particular the question of labor in the Near East during this period. Who actually did the work in these societies? Since slavery was widely practiced at this time, how much labor was done by slaves, and how much by workers who were legally free? Was there a market for free labor (as there certainly was for slaves)? How much “free” labor was actually bound by social and family ties that limited their ability to work outside a restricted social setting (e.g., the family shop)? How much labor mobility was there? How, in general, was the labor force structured? Were there recognized worker grades (such as apprentice, journeyman, master craftsman, in medieval European guilds)? Were certain kinds of work reserved for or consigned to particular kinds of laborers? To what extent were laborers employed by small shops or producers, and to what extent were large labor forces employed by a single concern? What were, in the most basic terms, the dominant or most common forms of labor, and did they reflect a socially-accepted hierarchy? (agriculture, animal husbandry and herding, domestic service, food handling and processing, mining, textile manufacture, pottery manufacture, tanning and leather working, metalworking, stone carving, teaching, trading, etc.?

Many of these questions are touched on in general terms Maya Shatzmiller's landmark book Labour in the Medieval Islamic World (Brill, 1994), but the time seems right to embark on a closer examination of what we may have learned about specific cases or particular industries in the quarter-century since its publication, especially on the basis of more recent archaeological and documentary evidence.

Each invited contributor will write a scholarly paper on some aspect of the question of labor, which will be published in a volume after the conference. The papers will not be read at the conference; rather, papers will be submitted in draft form in advance of the conference and distributed to all participants, and will form the basis of conference discussions. Feedback from these discussions will help authors in preparing the final version of their papers for publication.

PROGRAM