Race, Gender and Slavery in the Mamluk Households of Eighteenth-Century Egypt The subject of this paper is household slavery among the Mamluks in eighteenth-century Cairo with a focus on the role of race in determining status within the Mamluk hierarchy. The issue of race is examined within the context of the dynamics in the household between men and women, the reproduction of gender asymmetry in the household and the role of Islamic law not only in regulating slavery but also in the construction of its social and cultural norms. Although the Mamluk system was a gendered one that privileged men, women were able to achieve a high degree of physical and economic autonomy. As former slave concubines who converted to Islam before their marriage, women had property and other rights that allowed them to become economically autonomous. Documents concerning women’s religious endowments clearly show that females identified as al-bayda were the concubines and wives of the Mamluks. Females identified as al-samra or al-sawda were neither concubines nor wives. Their endowments tended to be very small, often consisting of only one property, while the wives of Mamluks endowed large estates of lucrative income-producing property. The question then is whether the Mamluk system of the eighteenth-century defined elite status, particularly for women, on the basis of race, privileging white women and relegating black women to the lower ranks of the household. Available evidence indicates that the majority of male and female slaves brought to Egypt, purchased for Mamluk households and destined for elite status came from Georgia or Circassia. The evidence of their race or ethnicity comes from their names on legal documents such as waqfiyyat. On the basis of these documents, it appears either that the Mamluk system was a race-based system that privileged white slaves – women and men – from Georgia and Cricassia or that the Mamluks chose concubines/wives of the same ethnicity to construct a ruling class/caste distinct from the Egyptian population. The waqf of Khadija Qadin, former concubine and wife of a powerful Mamluk, provides some evidence of the latter. Only one man with origins in Sub-Saharan Africa is known to have achieved high status in a Mamluk household. Unlike women, Mamluk men did not name themselves in terms of their race or ethnicity. Evidence for this paper comes primarily from the waqfiyyat of 368 men and 126 women in the eighteenth century.