Al-Nadïm blamed family negligence for allowing Sudanese slave women authority in Egyptian homes.

Evidence

These are men of substance, of education (as al-Nadïm’s literary references make clear), who must not shirk the responsibility of sharing their knowledge charitably with the rest of Egyptian society. If they fail in this, then even the structure of the family is challenged, with a female black slave in the guise of a man of learning becoming the authoritative figure and deciding the fate of Egyptian children. Things fall apart if the center cannot hold. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 449

Categorization

• XREF: Directly echoes the reader’s stated goal: Sudanese presence inside Egypt posed a threat to idealized Egyptian household order, a microcosm of colonial/civilizational anxieties.