Al-Asrūshanī’s Jāmi͑ ahkām al-sighār as a Source for the History of Childhood in Muslim Societies: The Case of Enslaved Children

A comprehensive compilation of legal rulings about children, one of particular historical utility and yet largely overlooked, is Muhammad al-Asrūshanī’s Jāmi͑ ahkām al-sighār. It offers a rather holistic view of the legal status of Muslim children and, more importantly, insight into common concepts of childhood and attitudes to children in premodern Muslim societies. Moreover, although drawing on the written heritage of middle-class urban scholars, the normative yet multilayered text of Jāmi͑ provides many precise details on children’s lives and their social environment. This article introduces al-Asrūshanī’s unique work—its structure, contents, and sources—and offers, as a case study, an analysis of the chapter the author dedicates to enslaved children. While al-Asrūshanī intended some, or even the majority, of instances discussed in this chapter to address theoretical legal debates, others, particularly those drawn from fatwas, mirror the real experiences of enslaved minors, concubines, and enslavers. Together they provide a picture of a moderate form of domestic slavery in the Islamic world, particularly in Central Asia of the Mongol period.