THE COPTS WERE RARELY INVOLVED IN THE GHASTLY BUISNESS OF SLAVERY BUT BAD APPLES DID GET INVOLVED – AND IT’S RIGHT TO TALK ABOUT THAT.
HOWEVER, THEIR INVOLVEMENT WAS PERSONAL, AND THE COPTS AND THEIR CHURCH LOOK AT THIS HEINIOUS CRIME WITH ABHORRENCE.
The great Swiss Orientalist Jean Louis Burckhardt (1784 – 1817) visited Egypt in the early nineteenth century, arriving in Cairo on 4 September 1812. He travelled to Upper Egypt in January 2013, and then went to Nubia up to Tinareh in the Mahass country just below the 3rd cataract before he returned back to Egypt, spending the summer of 1813 and winter of 1813/4 in Esna. This was his first journey to Sudan. In March 1814 he undertook a second journey to Sudan, up to Shendi from which he then moved to Hijaz, visiting Mecca and Medina, before he returned to Egypt where he died in 1817.
During his long stay in Esna, Burckhardt visited Asyut, and recorded in his Travels in Nubia (1818) the political and social conditions of Egypt and Sudan. He does not talk much about the Copts, except in relation to two matters: first, the enslavement of Copts by the Arabised Berber, Hawwara, which I wrote about in a previous article (How the Hawwara tribe of Upper Egypt enslaved the Copts [July 25, 2020]); and, second, the shameful involvement of two Coptic monks in the village of Al Zawiyya (الزاوية) near Asyut in the grisly business of castration of young slaves that were captured by the slave traders in Darfur, Sennar, the South of Sudan and Ethiopia, making eunuchs who were then sent to Muslim homes in Turkey to guard the hareem of these Muslim men from engaging in external debauchery. The eunuch himself, the guardian of the harem, was, of course, no worry.
The business of slavery, and it was a huge, profitable business, was open to all: Turks, Egyptian and Sudanese Arabs, Circassians, Europeans, Armenians, Greeks, and Copts. It is perhaps surprising to hear that the Copts were engaged in such a horrendous trade, but they did get involved, even though in very tiny numbers. Despite the fact that the Copts were rarely involved, we must accept that bad Copts did exist, and the business they were engaged in was one of the most horrendous crimes against humanity. Still, I would say, the Copts fared better than any other nation in this.
It does not make an easy reading for the Copts but it’s incumbent upon us to expose the evils that some of us have done in the past. True the Copts generally stayed away from the slavery business – their inner instincts were against it, as they were influenced by Christian morality. Racism is not an evil that can define the Copts: they venerated saints and martyrs from all backgrounds, and St. Moses the Black (330 – 405), a Nubian brigand who converted to Christianity in the fourth century, became one of the desert fathers in Nitria and one of the most venerated saints in the Coptic Church. But, again, some rare bad apples did engage in slavery, some as traders, and others as castrators. Castration is considered an anathema in the Coptic Church. The Church Canons forbade it. The canons describe the operation as “a killing of the self, and enmity towards God’s creation”.[1] One of the great Coptic teachers, Origen of Alexandria (185 – 254), who had castrated himself to harness his sexual temptations, was expelled from the Church by St. Demetrius I (d. 232), the 12th patriarch of the Coptic Church.
Burckhardt tells us that castration of slaves was done in Borgho, or the Wadai Empire that lied in between Darfur and Bornu in the eastern Sahel.[2] Their eunuchs were sent to Mecca and Medina via Suakin on the Red Sea. Slaves were also mutilated in Hindostan (later, northern India, Pakistan and Bangladesh areas), and these were sent to Arabia (mainly Hijaz). Both of these, he says, contributed little to the flow of eunuchs. The greatest supplier of eunuchs, described by him as “the great manufactory”, was based at the village of Al Zawiyya, also known as Zawyyat al-Dair (he write it as “Zawyet ed-deyr”), or the Zawiyya village of the Monastery. The monastery exists today, and is known as the Monastery of Al-Zawiyya (دير الزاوية), also as the Monastery of St. Athanasius).[3] Most of the inhabitants of that village were Copts. The two monks engaged in the production of eunuchs most probably belonged to that monastery. They, however, practised their business in a house they possessed in which the victims, and which was, most probably, in the village outside the monastery. The reader must at this stage be clear that: first, we are talking about two Coptic monks only (there is no evidence that other monks or Copts performed that horrendous operation); second, there is no evidence that the village’s monastery itself was involved, or indeed that it was inhabited by more than these two rascal monks; third, the Coptic Church, represented in its leadership or clergy did not join in any castration project. There is simply no evidence to that.
The slaves were brought to Asyut from Darfur and Sennar regions (both now in Sudan) by the slave traders in caravans. The slave trade was, of course, encouraged and protected, and even practised by the officials, top to bottom, of the Ottoman Empire, which included Egypt – motivated by the need for troops to expand their armies, unpaid workers to man the menial jobs at work or homes, and eunuchs to guard the harem. It was a lucrative business, and the castration of young slaves makes it even more profitable.
Every year, about a hundred and fifty eunuchs are made in Zawiyya. These were between the age of eight and twelve years. Older individuals will usually die from the operation, most probably from bleeding as their blood vessels to the testes would be expected to be large. The government protected the practice for it considered it religiously right, taxed it to fill its coffers even more, and even used it to fill in the hareems of the rich and powerful locally and abroad. In 1817, Burckhardt tells us, Muhammad Ali (1805 – 1848), Egypt’s ruler, “caused two hundred young Darfur slaves to be mutilated”, and these he sent to the Grand Signor, that’s the Ottoman Sultan in Istanbul, who was at the time Sultan Mahmud II (1808 – 1839).
The profit from capturing slaves and selling them was huge. Selling a mutilated slave male for the purpose of being harem guardian multiplied the profit. One can understand this by having a look at the price of a young slave male before and after his castration:
- The cost of a slave to the slave trader at Asyut before castration : 300 piasters
- The cost of castration (fees to the Coptic monks for the operation) : 45-60 piasters
- The value of the castrated slave at Asyut : 1,000 piasters
This is a huge profit, and it will probably multiply as the price of the eunuch at the destination cities of Islam would be very high. This enormous profit, Burckhardt says, “stifles every sentiment of mercy which the traders might otherwise entertain”.
This ghastly operation, which these two sons-of-the-devil Coptic monks from the village of Zawiyya near Asyut in the early nineteenth century, is repulsive. It is right that we bring it up for the attention of the Copts. Without that, more bad apples, involved in other evil business, may appear. And they tarnish the image of the nation and destroy its soul. But I would like the reader to be balanced in his judgement – such evil is rare in our history; and is readily condemned.
Below, I will reproduce what Burckhardt wrote in his Travels in Nubia. I add a few notes.
“I enquired at Shendy whether any of the slaves were eunuchs, but I was informed that no eunuchs were imported into that place during my stay, and that Borgho, to the west of Darfour, is the only country in eastern Soudan where slaves are thus mutilated for exportation. Their number, however, is very small; a few are carried to Egypt from Darfour, and the remainder are sent as presents by the Negroe sovereigns to the great mosques at Mekka and Medina, by the way of Souakin.
The great manufactory which supplies all European, and the greater part of Asiatic Turkey with these guardians of female virtue, is at Zawyet ed-deyr (زويت الدير), a village near Siout in Upper Egypt, chiefly inhabited by Christians. The operators, during my stay in that part of the country, were two Coptic monks, who were said to excel all their predecessors in dexterity, and who had a house in which the victims were received. Their profession is held in contempt even by the vilest Egyptians; but they are protected by the government, to which they pay an annual tax; and the great profits which accrue to the owners of the slaves in consequence of their undergoing this cruel operation, tempts them to consent to an act which many of them in their hearts abhor. The operation itself, however extraordinary it may appear, very seldom proves fatal. I know certainly, that of sixty boys upon whom it was performed in the autumn of 1813, two only died; and every person whom I questioned on the subject in Siout assured me that even this was above the usual proportion, the deaths being seldom more than two in a hundred. As the greater number undergo the operation immediately after the arrival of the Darfour and Sennaar caravans at Siout, I had no opportunity of witnessing it, but it has been described to me by several persons who have often seen it performed. The boys chosen, are between the age of eight and twelve years, for at a more advanced age, there is great risk of its proving fatal.—[4]
The operation is always performed upon the strongest and best looking boys; but it has a visible effect upon their features when they arrive at full age. The faces of the eunuchs whom I saw in the Hedjaz, appeared almost destitute of flesh, the eye hollow, the cheek bones prominent, and the whole physiognomy having a skeleton-like appearance, by which the eunuch may generally be recognised at first sight.
A youth on whom this operation has been successfully performed is worth one thousand piastres at Siout; he had probably cost his master, a few weeks before, about three hundred; and the Copt is paid from forty-five to sixty for his operation. This enormous profit stifles every sentiment of mercy which the traders might otherwise entertain. About one hundred and fifty eunuchs are made annually. Two years ago, Mohammed Aly Pasha caused two hundred young Darfour slaves to be mutilated, whom he sent as a present to the Grand Signer. The custom of keeping eunuchs has greatly diminished in Egypt, as well as in Syria. In the former country, except in the harems of the Pasha and his sons, I do not think that more than three hundred could be found; and they are still more uncommon in Syria. In these countries there is great danger in the display of wealth, and the individual who keeps so many female slaves as to require an eunuch for their guardian, becomes a tempting object to the rapacity of the government. White eunuchs are extremely rare in the Turkish dominions. In Arabia I have seen several Indian eunuchs of a sallow or cadaverous complexion, and I was informed that slaves are often mutilated in Hindostan. Almost all the eunuchs of Siout are sent to Constantinople and Asia Minor. “[5]
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[1] See, e.g., Chapter 40 on “The eunuch and circumcised” in the Nomocanon of Patriarch Gabriel ibn Turaik (1131 – 1145). In: الراهب القس أثاناسيوس المقاري: قوانين بطاركة الكنيسة القبطية في العصور الوسطى (٢٠١٠)، ص ١٩٦-١٩٧.
[2] The whole area was then called Sudan. The modern state of Sudan did not exist then.
[3] Also called: Monastery of the Copyists (دير النساخ), probably because in the past it acted as a scriptorium, and Monastery of Tamarix (ديرالأثل) because it was marked by an old and large tree of that genius.
[4] Here, Burckhardt gives a description of the operation in Latin:
Puer, corpore depresso, a robustis quibusdam hommibus, super mensâ continetur. Tunc emasculator, vinculis sericis sapone illitis, genitalia comprimit, et cum cultro tonsorio (dum puer pro dolore animo deficit) quam celerrime rescindit. Ad hemorhagiam sistendam plagam pulvere et arenâ calidâ adurunt, et post aliquot dies calido oleo inungunt. Dein vulnus cum emplastro aliquo, quod inter Coptos arcanum est, per quadraginta spatium dierum donec glutinetur curatur. Nunquam de celotomia sub hoc coelo audivi. —
I will try to translate:
The boys who are laid on the table are weighed down by powerful men. The operator uses a barber’s knife as an emasculator [this will involve the severance of the spermatic cord]. The area is covered with hot dust and sand to stop bleeding. The wound is dressed with some ointment that is kept secret by the Copts for forty days.
[5] Travels in Nubia (1819), pp. 328-331.
