This essay is the first scholarly exploration of slavery's visual representation in medieval Islam. Close examination of thirteenth-century paintings from Arabic manuscripts, considered alongside textual sources, reveals how images may contribute to the study of slavery in the premodern Middle East. In particular, these paintings confirm the link between domestic service and the trade in black African slaves. They also suggest that if skin colour did not determine enslavement, it might have shaped the perception of slaves and the division of labour among them. This essay further attends to the semantic operations of slavery within the picture. One of its suggestions is that images of slaves functioned as signs of pure labour, as well as liminal figures, framing, highlighting, and creating a contrast with light-skinned Arab characters, mostly seen engaged in acts of discourse and leisurely activities. A visual dialectic seems to be at work, creating a series of asymmetrical relationships, between light-skinned and dark-skinned, freedom and slavery, speech and labour, high culture and servitude. Such a dialectic may ultimately be read as a comment on the mechanisms and limits of archival power.

中文翻译：

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13 世纪阿拉伯手稿中的家庭奴隶制、肤色和形象辩证法

这篇文章是对中世纪伊斯兰教中奴隶制视觉表现的第一次学术探索。仔细检查阿拉伯手稿中的 13 世纪绘画，同时考虑文本来源，揭示图像如何有助于研究前现代中东的奴隶制。特别是，这些画作证实了家政服务与非洲黑人奴隶贸易之间的联系。他们还认为，如果肤色不能决定奴隶制，它可能会塑造奴隶的观念和他们之间的劳动分工。本文进一步关注图片中奴隶制的语义操作。它的一个建议是，奴隶的形象作为纯劳动的标志，以及阈限人物，框架，突出，并与浅肤色的阿拉伯人物形成对比，多见于从事话语行为和休闲活动。一种视觉辩证法似乎在起作用，在浅肤色和深肤色、自由和奴隶制、言论和劳动、高雅文化和奴役之间创造了一系列不对称的关系。这种辩证法最终可能被解读为对档案权力机制和限制的评论。