Work · African & Africana Philosophy
The Ladder of Ascent towards Grasping the Law Concerning Transported Blacks
Answers to questions from the Tuat oasis: unbelief alone, not colour, can make a person enslaveable under Islamic law; he names the Muslim peoples of West Africa who must not be enslaved and rejects the claim of a curse on the descendants of Ham.
Introduction
Ahmad Baba wrote this legal opinion in 1615 in Timbuktu in answer to questions sent by Saʿīd ibn Ibrāhīm al-Jirārī of the Tuat oasis about slaves brought from West Africa. He held that under Islamic law unbelief is the only ground for enslavement, never colour or ethnicity, listed the peoples of West Africa who were Muslim and therefore not to be enslaved, and ruled that a slave claiming to be a free-born Muslim should be believed. He also rejected the claim that Black Africans were destined for slavery by a curse on Ham. The text was edited and translated by John Hunwick and Fatima Harrak (2000).
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