Fighting Eunuchs

[JesusA (imported)]

I’ve written here before of the frequency of eunuch military commanders in world history. From at least the time of the Assyrian army, there were military leaders who were eunuchs. The Chinese military had eunuch admirals and generals well into the 19th century. The many battles between the rising Islamic caliphate and the Byzantine Empire often had eunuch commanders on both sides. At least by the time of the Assyrian Empire, there were eunuch chariot drivers and ranks of eunuch archers in battle. I was not, however, aware of how many eunuch foot soldiers took part in some later battles. Saladin’s army that fought against the Christian Crusaders in the 12th century included large numbers of eunuchs.

The influence of eunuchs was present in another area of the kingdom under Saladin. In an illuminating piece of information in Muslim and Latin sources alike, we see that Saladin’s army depended heavily on eunuchs for many years. William of Tyre (d. 1186) mentioned in 1177 that Saladin’s army contained 18,000 soldiers, and that ‘8,000 belonged to those splendid soldiers called in their own language “toassin-tawashi”. Al-Maqrizi, in his account of 1181, wrote that Saladin’s army ‘consisted of nearly 11,000 soldiers, 111 emirs and 6,976 tawashi-eunuchs. We can see that in both reports almost half the army was composed of eunuchs, which reflects how the Ayyubid state needed and depended on their great skills.

_______

El-Azhari, Taef. (2019). Queens, Eunuchs and Concubines in Islamic History, 661–1257. Edinburgh: University Press, p. 391.