Saqaliba (Arabic:صقالبة,romanized: ṣaqāliba, singularArabic:صقلبي,romanized: ṣaqlabī) was a term used in medievalArabic sources, initially to refer toSlavs, but it also came to be used as a designation for European slaves in Muslim countries in the 10th and 11th centuries. In the Arab world, the Saqaliba served as servants,haremconcubines,eunuchs, craftsmen, mercenaries,slave soldiers, and asCaliph's guards. In theIberian Peninsula, their military role may be compared with that ofmamluks in theOttoman Empire. Many rose to prominent positions in the caliphates of theMaghreb, and some became rulers oftaifas (small independent states) inLevante at the beginning of the 11th century (known as the "Amirids").
The Arabic termṣaqāliba derives from GreekSklavoi andSklavenoi (Σκλάβοι, Σκλαβηγοι), theSlavic ethnonym (used for theSclaveni), entering Arabic usage in the 7th century. Due to the multitude of Slavic slaves, the term "slave" replaced Latinservus.[1] The term was usually used for the Slavic peoples of central and eastern Europe.[2] It was variously used for Slavic peoples and countries in the 10th century; Persian polymathAbu Zayd al-Balkhi (850–934) described three main centers of the Saqaliba:Kuyaba,Slawiya, andArtania, while travellerIbrahim ibn Yaqub (fl. 961–62) placed theSaqāliba, Slavs, west of Bulgaria and east of other Slavs, in a mountainous land (Western Balkans), and described them as violent and aggressive.[3]
The word was often used to refer specifically to Slavic slaves,[4] but it was also broadly used for Eastern European slaves traded by the Arabs, as well as all European slaves in some Muslim regions like Spain and Portugal including those abducted fromraids on Christian kingdoms of Spain and Portugal.[5][6] According to Sudár and B. Szabó, the wordSaqaliba also meant "forest dweller", regardless of ethnicity, in 10th-century Muslim usage.[7]
The Rus made slave raids and sold slaves to Muslim merchants.[2] GeographerIbn Khordadbeh (840–880) used the termSaqaliba for Eastern Slavs and called the Bulgars "kings of the Saqāliba", meaning that the ruler had held "a reservoir of potential slaves".[8] He called the Rus "a kind of Saqaliba". TravellerIbn Fadlan (fl. 921–22) called Almish, the ruler ofVolga Bulgaria, the "King of the Saqaliba" due to his involvement in Slave trade.[2] Fadlan visited Volga Bulgaria in 922 and noted how Rus sold slave girls, undoubtedly of Slavic origin.[2] Apart from Slavs, the Saqaliba slaves provided by Vikings perhaps included also Scandinavian, Baltic and Finnic slaves.[9]
In theAghlabid caliphate, most of the Saqaliba were Slavic slaves, captured by Franks and Germans and brought via Germany to France and Spain where traders took them to Tanger and then to Kairouan, or sold in Italy by Venetian traders, captured by Venice or Slavic pirates themselves.[10] The Saqaliba provided to the Aghlabids thus hailed from central Europe, the Baltics and the Balkans.[10] The Saqaliba trade is dated to the beginning of the 9th century.[10] Ziyad ibn al-Saqlabiyya ("son of a Saqlabi woman") raised an army revolt in 822–823 when emirZiyadat Allah I started eliminating his enemies.[10] Most information of the Saqaliba of the Aghlabids come from the reign ofIbrahim II (875–902).[11]
In theFatimid caliphate in the Maghreb, the Saqaliba were a distinct group of people in the 10th century. They were slaves brought mostly from Slavic lands in East Europe. Many among them rose to prominent positions, especially Ustadh Jawdhar and Qa'id Jawhar al-Siqilli. Jawdhar became the senior administrator and most trusted confidant of the Fatimid imam-caliph.[12]
In Western Europe, a major slave trade route went from Prague in Central Europe via France to Moorishal-Andalus, which was both a destination for slaves as well as a center of slave trade to the rest of the Muslim world in the Middle East.Prague in theDuchy of Bohemia, Christianized in the early 10th century, became a major center of the European slave trade by the mid-10th century. The revenue from thePrague slave trade has been named as one of the economic foundations of the Bohemian state.[13] Bohemia was located in a religious border zone, bordering with pagan Slavic lands to the north and east. In the Middle ages, religion was the determining factor on who was considered a legitimate target for enslavement. Christians and Muslims were prohibited from enslaving their co-religionists; however, both approved enslavement of pagans, who thereby became a legitimized and lucrative target for the slave traders, dominated by JewishRadhanite merchants.[14] Bohemian slave raids were conducted mainly in the Slavic lands to the north and east of Prague, such as southern Poland and western Ukraine.[13]
In the first half of the 9th century, Byzantium competed with Arabs regarding slaves and thus blocked maritime traffic in the Mediterranean; the Arabs thus imported Slavic slaves via the Caucasus and Caspian Sea, and in the west through Raffelstetten–France–Spain.[15]Liutprand of Cremona noted in 986 thatVerdun was a center for castration of slaves sent to Spain.[16]al-Maqdisi (946–991) mentionedsaqaliba castrated in Spain and sent to Egypt.[16] France was a slave transit to Umayyud which had largesaqaliba markets.[16] TheCaliphate of Córdoba was dependent on slave soldiers.[13]
The country [of the Saqaliba] is long and wide ... Half of their country ... is raided by the Khurasanis [Khorezm] who take prisoners from it, while its northern half is raided by the Andalusians who buy them in Galicia, in France, in Lombardy and in Calabria so as to make them eunuchs, and thereafter they ferry them over to Egypt and Africa. All the Saqaliba eunuchs in the world come from Andalusia ... They are castrated near this country. The operation is performed by Jewish merchants.
— Ibn Hawqal (10th century)[17]
In Islamic lands, the slave market had specific requirements. Female slaves were used for either domestic orsexual slavery asconcubines. Male slaves were used for one of two categories: either formilitary slavery or aseunuchs. The latter category of male slaves were subjected to castration for the market. Both Christians and Muslims were prohibited from performing castrations, but there was no such ban for Jews, which made it possible for them to meet the great demand for eunuchs in the Muslim world.[18] The nature of the market for Saqaliba slaves meant that most Saqaliba slaves would have been prepubescent children when enslaved.[19] In Moorish al-Andalus, European Saqaliba-slaves were considered as exotic display objects with their light hair, skin and eye colors.[19] Seen as luxury goods, a White European slave could be sold for as much as 1,000dinars, a substantial price.[20]
The Prague slave trade to al-Andalus via France lost its religious legitimacy when the Slavs to the north gradually adoptedChristianity from the late 10th century. The caliphate disintegrated in 1031, corresponding to a period of instability in Bohemia in parallel with the end of the slave trade.[13]
During the Middle ages,Saracen pirates established themselves in bases in France,the Baleares, southern Italy and Sicily, from where they raided the coasts of the Christian Mediterranean and exported prisoners as Saqaliba slaves to theslave markets of the Muslim Middle East.[21] TheAghlabids ofIfriqiya was a base for Saracen attacks along the Spanish east coast as well as against southern Italy from the early 9th century; they attackedRome in 845,Comacchio in 875–876,Monte Cassino in 882–83, and established theEmirate of Bari (847–871), theEmirate of Sicily (831–1091) and a base inGarigliano (882–906), which became bases of slave trade.[22] During the warfare between Rome and theByzantine Empire in southern Italy in the 9th century the Saracens made southern Italy a supply source for slaves toMaghreb by the mid-9th century; the Western EmperorLouis II complained in a letter to the Byzantine Emperor that the Byzantines inNaples guided the Saracens in their raids toward south Italy and aided them in their slave trade with Italians to North Africa, an accusation noted also by the Lombard chroniclerErchempert.[23]
Moorish Saracen pirates fromal-Andalus attackedMarseille andArles and established a base inCamargue,Fraxinetum or La Garde-Freinet-Les Mautes (888–972), from where they made slave raids into France;[22] the population fled in fear of the slave raids, which made it difficult for the Frankish to secure their southern coast,[22] and the Saracens of Fraxinetum exported the Frankish prisoners they captured as slaves to theslave market of the Muslim Middle East.[24] The Saracens captured the Baleares in 903, and made slave raids also from this base toward the coasts of the Christian Mediterranean and Sicily.[22] Many of the enslaved "Frankish" Saqaliba inAl-Andalus were really ethnicVisigoths andHispano-Romans from theHispanic March in northeastern Iberia, later to be known as theCatalan counties.[25]
While the Saracen bases in France was eliminated in 972 and Italy in 1091, this did not prevent the Saracen piracy slave trade of the Mediterranean; bothAlmoravid dynasty (1040–1147) and theAlmohad Caliphate (1121–1269) approved of the slave raiding of Saracen pirates toward non-Muslim ships in Gibraltar and the Mediterranean for the purpose of slave raiding.[26]
The Umayyud state of Córdoba began to crumble at the beginning of the 11th century following the death ofAlmanzor (d. 1002).[27] As opposed to Almanzor, who relied on different elements of military such as Saqaliba, Berbers andTujibi Arabs, his brotherAbd al-Rahman Sanchuelo relied only on Berbers, thereby alienating the other groups.[28]Muhammad al-Mahdi took power in Córdoba in 1009, and he was supported by many military groups, including the Saqaliba leader Wadih ofMedinaceli.[29] Many Saqaliba groups instead left Córdoba for theLevante.[30] The unpopular al-Mahdi, only supported by the Saqaliba and not the populace, lost their favour and was executed in June 1010.[31] Wadih was himself executed by the Berbers in November 1011.[31] Following the sacking of Córdoba other cities became power centres in al-Andalus following 1013.[32]Ali Hammud took advantage of Berber dissent to take power in 1016, but he was assassinated in 1018 by domestic slaves; his supporters summoned his brotherAl-Qasim who managed to conciliate the Córdobans and had good relations with the Saqaliba leaders.[33] He confirmed Saqaliba rulers Khaywan in Almería and Zuhayr in Jaen.[33] Al-Qasim sought to free himself of Berber dependence and gathered Negro bodyguards, which made the Berbers support rebellion (1021) and a civil war broke out which madehis dynasty unable to restore the caliphate.[33]
With the disintegration of Córdoba, small states (known astaifa, "factions, groups") became independent in al-Andalus.[34] The Saqaliba came to rule Denia, Valencia and Tortosa.[35] When the Berbers took Córdoba in 1013, the Saqaliba leaders had taken power in several Levante areas: Mujahid in Dénia and the Balearics, Khayran in Almería, Mubarak and Muzaffar in Valencia, and shortly afterwards, Muqatil in Tortosa.[36] The Saqaliba struggled in maintaining position, probably due to them being eunuchs and the fact that no Saqaliba were purchased for increasing their number following the fall of the caliphate.[36] Their taifas were taken over by the Arab dynasties in 1021, 1038, 1042, 1060 and 1076.[36]
Among the "Amirids" who set up taifas in the Levante in Iberia at the beginning of the 11th century were also Saqaliba, such as:
