Saqaliba (Arabic: صقالبة, romanized: ṣaqāliba, singular Arabic: صقلبي, romanized: ṣaqlabī) was a term used in medieval Arabic sources, initially to refer to Slavs, 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, harem concubines, eunuchs, craftsmen, mercenaries, slave soldiers, and as Caliph's guards. In the Iberian Peninsula, their military role may be compared with that of mamluks in the Ottoman Empire. Many rose to prominent positions in the caliphates of the Maghreb, and some became rulers of taifas (small independent states) in Levante at the beginning of the 11th century (known as the "Amirids").
>>>PUT SHARE BUTTONS HERE<<<
In this Dossier
Saqaliba in the context of Mamluk
Mamluk or Mamaluk (/ˈmæmluːk/; Arabic: مملوك, romanized: mamlūk (singular), مماليك, mamālīk (plural); translated as "one who is owned", meaning "slave") were non-Arab, ethnically diverse (mostly Turkic, Caucasian, Mongol, Eastern and Southeastern European) enslaved mercenaries, slave-soldiers, and freed slaves who were assigned high-ranking military and administrative duties in the Muslim world.
The most enduring Mamluk realm was the knightly military class in medieval Egypt, which developed from the ranks of slave-soldiers. Originally the Mamluks were slaves of Turkic origins from the Eurasian Steppe, but the institution of military slavery spread to include Circassians, Mongols, Abkhazians, Georgians, Armenians, Russians, and Hungarians, as well as peoples from the Balkans such as Albanians, Greeks, and South Slavs (see Saqaliba). They also recruited from the Egyptians. The "Mamluk/Ghulam Phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior class, was of great political importance; for one thing, it endured for nearly 1,000 years, from the 9th century to the early 19th. (See: Ghilman.)
Saqaliba in the context of Bukhara slave trade
The Bukhara slave trade refers to the historical slave trade conducted in the city of Bukhara in Central Asia (present-day Uzbekistan) from antiquity until the 19th century. Bukhara and nearby Khiva were known as the major centers of slave trade in Central Asia for centuries until the completion of the Russian conquest of Central Asia in the late 19th century.
The city of Bukhara was an important trade center along the ancient Silk Road, through which slaves were traded between Europe and Asia. In the Middle Ages, Bukhara came to lie in the religious border zone between the Muslim and non-Muslim world, which was seen as a legitimate target of slavery by Muslims, and referred to as the "Eastern Dome of Islam". It became the center of the massive slave trade of the Samanid Empire, who bought saqaliba (European) slaves from the Kievan Rus' and sold them on to the Middle East, and as such constituted one of the main trade routes of saqaliba slaves to the Muslim world. The conquests and plundering of the Ghaznavid Empire brought a large number of slaves from India into the markets of Bukhara in the 10th and 11th centuries. Bukhara was also a center for the trade of non-Muslim Turkic slaves from Central Asia to the Middle East and India, where they composed the main ethnicity of ghilman (military slaves) for centuries.
Saqaliba in the context of Sakalava
The Sakalava are an ethnic group primarily found on the western edge of Madagascar, ranging from Toliara in the south to the Sambirano River in the north. They constitute about 6.2 percent of the total population of Madagascar, or about 2,079,000 in 2018.
The origin of the word Sakalava is not fully known. The most common explanation is that their name means "people of the long valleys", or a similar modern Malagasy translation of long ravines, which denotes the relatively flat nature of the land in western Madagascar. Another theory is that the word is possibly from the Arabic saqaliba (which is in turn derived from Late Latin sclavus), meaning slave.