Fatima.Mernessi_The-Forgotten-Queens-of-Islam-EN

3
The jawari or
Revolution in the Harem
Every history has its landmarks and its reference points, its periods
of order and disorder, its golden ages and its eras of decadence,
and, among them all, the events that 'count'. One of the traumatic
events studied by historians, which they always view from the point
of view of the palace, is the revolt of the zanj, black slaves, which
took place under the Abbasids in 255/869. However, it could be
argued that the first slave revolt was that of women slaves, the
jawari, who well before that date launched an assault on the caliphs.
The only difficulty is dating the event, which might be done by
identifying the first caliph who became hostage to the charm of his
slave singer. Was it Yazid II, Ibn 'Abd al-Malik, the ninth Umayyad
caliph, who took power in 101/720, according to Tabari, only to
surrender it to Hababa, his jaryal 1 It was she, the slave, who had
to remind the besotted caliph of his mission on earth and the
necessity not to depart too far from it. 2 Or was it al-Mahdi, the
third Abbasid caliph, who took power in 158/775, and whose wife
Khayzuran was not content like Hababa just to captivate her husband,
but made him share power with her? After her death her
influence continued in the reigns of her two sons, al-Hadi and then
Harun al-Rashid.
The power of the women slaves over the caliphs effected some
transformations not foreseen by the shari'a - transformations at the
very centre of the system —in the relations of women with 'the
representative of God on earth'. Unlike the zanj, who tried to seize
power from the periphery of the system, the jawari operated within
the caliph's palace itself, in the bed and heart of the man whom the