Mawali

Mawali or mawālá (Arabic: موالي‎) is a term in Classical Arabic used to address non-Arab Muslims.

The term gained prominence in the centuries following the early Arab Muslim conquests in the 7th century, as many non-Arabs such as Persians, Egyptians, and Turks converted to Islam. These converts were treated as second class citizens by the ruling Arab elite - they continued to pay the tax required of nonbelievers and were excluded from government and the military until the end of the Umayyad Caliphate.^[1] Therefore, many of them were drawn to the anti-Ummayyad activities of the Kaysanites Shia.

Under the Abbasid rulers of the 9th century, the mawālī comprised an important part of the army. The fragmentation of the Abbasid around 900 took place with the mawālī rise to power, the Saffarid Dynasty and Ghaznavids in Greater Iran, and the Qarmatians in the Arabian Peninsula. Together, the rise to power of these ethnic groups restricted the power of the Abbasid caliph into Baghdad.

The Word

• Mawālī موالي / master, slaves or servers
• Al-Mawālī الموالي / slaves or servers
• Al-Mawlá المولى / god (one of Names of God in the Arabic language)

In India, the term is also used in a derogatory way to refer to someone who is uncivilized. aka "Riff-raff"

See also

• Anti-Persianism by Arabs
• Dhimmi
• Jizya
• Mawla
• Ajam
• Shu'ubiyya

References

1. ^ Student Resources, Chapter 12: The First Global Civilization: The Rise and Spread of Islam, The Arab Empire of the Umayyads - Converts and "People of the Book"

Hourani, Albert. A History of the Arab People . Chapter 1. Mas'udi The Meadows of Gold Trans. and Eds. Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone.

External links

• Mawali definition