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TheKhazar slave trade took place in theKhazar Khaganate inCentral Asia andEastern Europe.
The Khazar Khaganate was a buffer state between Europe and theMuslim world and played a major part in the trade between Europe and the Middle East between the 8th and 10th centuries, and slaves were one of the main goods. The Khazar slave trade was one of the major routes of thehuman trafficking ofsaqaliba slaves from Europe to the Muslim world, between the 8th-century until the 10th century, when it was replaced by theVolga Bulgarian slave trade.
The Khazar Khaganate had initially been an enemy of theUmayyad Caliphate. In the late 8th century however, the Khazar Khaganate made peace with theAbbasid Caliphate, and betweenc. 775 – c. 900 the state served a key role as the intermediary in trade between Europe and the Muslim world, in which the slave trade played a major part.[1]
The Khazar Khaganate played a key role for the viking trade route in the 8th and 9th-centuries: the Khazars bought slaves captured by the Vikings in Europe, and exported them to the Abbasid Caliphate of the Middle East via Iran.[2]
People taken captive during the viking raids in Western Europe, such as Ireland, could be sold toMoorish Spain via theDublin slave trade[3] or transported toHedeby orBrännö and from there via theVolga trade route to present-day Russia, where slaves and furs were sold to Muslim merchants in exchange for Arab silverdirham andsilk, which have been found inBirka,Wolin, andDublin;[4] until the early 10th-century, this trade route between Europe and theAbbasid Caliphate passed via the Khazar Kaghanate.[5]
TheMagyar tribes were another supplier of slaves to the Khazar slave trade, and the Khazar reportedly bought slaves from the Magyars described as war captives.[6]
The Khazar did not only buy slaves from other people, but also conducted their own slave raids to supply slaves for their slave trade. To perform slave raids was a common practice among the Nomadic people of the Central Asian Steppe, and the Khazars conducted regular slave raids toward several neighboringdar al-harb peoples, among them particularly thePechenegs, theGhuzz, and theBurta peoples.[7]
The majority of the slaves trafficked to the Khazar Khaganate where exported toslavery in the Abbasid Caliphate, but there were also a slave market for domestic use in the Khazar Khaganate. Slaves bought for the domestic market were all officially categorized as pagans, since the Khazars did not formally approve of the enslavement of Monotheists (Christians, Jews or Muslims).[8] There were a market for slaves used as domestic servants, agricultural laborers, slave soldiers and other tasks within the Khazar Khaganate.[9]
Slaves bought for export were transported from the Khazar Khaganate to either theBlack Sea slave trade in the west via the Black Sea port ofKerch, or east from the capital ofAtil via the Caspian Sea to Central Asia and from there to the Caliphate.[10]
The Khazar slave trade flourished in the 9th century until a crisis occurred during theAnarchy at Samarra which destabilized the Caliphate during the 860s, and thedirham found in Europe diminished.
In the early 10th century, the trade of saqaliba slaves from Europe to the Caliphate was redirected, and the Khazar slave trade was replaced by theVolga Bulgarian slave trade.[11] During the 10th century, the vikings instead sold their captives to Volga Bulgaria, who exported them by caravan around the Khazar Khaganate to the Abbasid Caliphate via theSamanid slave trade in Central Asia instead, and the Arab silver dirham found in Europe now came from theSamanid Empire rather than directly from the Abbasid Caliphate.[12]
The Khazar Khaganate initially reacted to this change by making Volga Bulgaria their tributary state in order to continue to profit by the slave trade to the Caliphate,[13] but it resulted in Volga Bulgaria converting to Islam in the 920s and becoming directly aligned with the Caliphate. The Volga Bulgarian slave trade and its connection with theslave trade via Bukhara to the Caliphate continued to theMongol invasions of the 13th-century.