BARDA and BARDA-DĀRI iv. From the Mongols to the Abolition of
Slavery 1. The Il-khanid, Timurid, Safavid, and Zand periods
(1300-1800). Male slaves were referred to as ḡolām (in Arabic
lit. a youth) or zar-ḵarīd (lit. bought by gold), while black
slaves also were commonly called kākā sīāh.Female slaves were
referred to as kanīz(ak) (Polak, I pp. 248, 258; Mostawfī, I, p.
213 n.; Naḵjavānī, II, pp. 67, 68, 70). Sources of supply. After
the Mongol period, the manner in which white slaves were
obtained basically remained unchanged, i.e., warfare and raids
continued to be the main slave-producing activities. Tīmūr, for
example, “had as many as a thousand captives, who were skilful
workmen, and laboured all the year round at making head pieces,
and bows and arrows” (Clavijo, p. 172). Of course prisoners of
war (asīr)could be ransomed as happened to the Portuguese
captured after the conquest of Hormuz (Anonymous, I, p. 218 n.
1). Poor parents who sold their children were a small source of
supply of slaves. Slaves w