Saqaliba (, singular ) is a term used in medieval Arabic sources to refer to Slavs, and other peoples of Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe. The term originates from the Medieval Greek slavos/sklavenos (Slav), which in Hispano-Arabic came to designate Slavic slaves.
The word was often used to refer specifically to Slavic slaves, but it could also refer more broadly to various other ethnicities of Eastern Europe traded by the Arab traders, as well as all European slaves in some Muslim regions like Spain and Portugal including those abducted from raids on Christian kingdoms of Spain and Portugal.Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery saqaliba&f=false The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery: A-K; Vol. II, L-Z, by Junius P. Rodriguez According to Sudár and B. Szabó, the word Saqaliba meant 'forest dweller', regardless of ethnicity.Sudár Balázs, B. Szabó János. Dentumoger II. - Tanulmányok a korai magyar történelemből – Gyula népe - Madzsgarok a 10. századi muszlim földrajzi irodalomban (2022). ISBN 9789634163039 pp. 136
There were several major routes for the trading of Slavic slaves into the Arab world: through Central Asia (Mongols, Tatars, Khazars, etc.) for the East Slavs; through the Balkans for the South Slavs; through Central and Western Europe for the West Slavs and to al-Andalus.World History Encyclopedia [21 volumes]: [21 volumes] Alfred J. Andrea Ph.D. p. 199 The Volga trade route and other European routes, according to Ibrahim ibn Jakub (10th century), were serviced by Radanite Jewish merchants. Theophanes mentions that the Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I settled a whole army of 5,000 Slavic mercenaries in Syria who had defected from the Byzantine side in the 660s. After the battle of Sebastopolis in 692, Neboulos, the archon of the Slavic corps in the Byzantine army, and 30,000 of his men were settled by the Umayyads in the region of Syria.
In the Arab world, the Saqaliba served or were forced to serve in a multitude of ways: as servants, harem concubines, eunuchs, craftsmen, mercenaries, slave soldiers, and as Caliph's guards. In Iberia, Morocco, Damascus and Sicily, their military role may be compared with that of mamluks in the Ottoman Empire. In al-Andalus, Slavic eunuchs were so popular and widely distributed that they became synonymous with the term Saqāliba, though not all Saqaliba were eunuchs.The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery: A-K; Vol. II, L-Z, by Junius P. Rodriguez Some Saqāliba became rulers of taifas (principalities) in Iberia after the collapse of the Caliphate of Cordoba in 1031. For example, Mujāhid al-ʿĀmirī organized the Saqaliba in Dénia to rebel, seize control of the city, and establish the Taifa of Dénia (1010–1227), which extended its reach as far as the island of Majorca.
Etymology The Arabic term ṣaqāliba derives from Greek Sklavoi and Sklavenoi (Σκλάβοι, Σκλαβηνοί), the Slavic ethnonym (used for the Sclaveni), entering Arabic usage in the 7th century. Due to the multitude of Slavic slaves, the term "slave" replaced Latin servus. The term was usually used for the Slavic peoples of central and eastern Europe. It was variously used for Slavic peoples and countries in the 10th century; Persian polymath Abu Zayd al-Balkhi (850–934) described three main centers of the Saqaliba: Kuyaba, Slawiya, and Artania, while traveller Ibrahim ibn Yaqub ( 961–62) placed the Saqāliba, Slavs, west of Bulgaria and east of other Slavs, in a mountainous land (Western Balkans), and described them as violent and aggressive.
The word was often used to refer specifically to Slavic slaves, 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 from raids on Christian kingdoms of Spain and Portugal. According to Sudár and B. Szabó, the word Saqaliba also meant "forest dweller", regardless of ethnicity, in 10th-century Muslim usage.Sudár Balázs, B. Szabó János. Dentumoger II. - Tanulmányok a korai magyar történelemből – Gyula népe - Madzsgarok a 10. századi muszlim földrajzi irodalomban (2022). ISBN 9789634163039 p. 136
Saqaliba slave trade
The Volga trade route was established by the Varangians (Vikings) who settled in Northwestern Russia in the early 9th century. About south of the Volkhov River entry into Lake Ladoga, they established a settlement called Ladoga (Old Norse: Aldeigjuborg).Brøndsted (1965), pp. 64–65 It connected Northern Europe and Northwestern Russia with the Caspian Sea, via the Volga River. The Rus used this route to trade with Muslim countries on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, sometimes penetrating as far as Baghdad. The route functioned concurrently with the Dnieper trade route, better known as the trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks, and lost its importance in the 11th century.
Saqaliba originally was used to denote Slavic people, however later it came to denote all European slaves in some Muslim regions like Spain including those abducted from raids on Christian kingdoms of Spain. The Franks started buying slaves from the Slavs and Avar Khaganate while Muslims also came across slaves in the form of mercenaries serving the Byzantine Empire and settlers in addition to among the Khazars. Most Slavic slaves were imported to the Muslim world through the border between Christian and Islamic kingdoms where castration centres were also located instead of the direct route. From there they were sent into Islamic Spain and other Muslim-ruled regions especially North Africa. The Saqaliba gained popularity in Umayyad Spain especially as warriors. After the collapse of the Umayyads, they also came to rule over many of the taifas. With the conversion of Eastern Europe, the trade declined and there isn't much textual information on Saqaliba after 11th century.
Eastern Europe was the most favoured destination for importation of slaves alongside Central Asia and Bilad as-Sudan, though Balkan and Turkic slaves from Southeastern Europe were also valued. This slave trade was controlled mostly by European slave traders. France and Venice were the routes used to send Slavic slaves to Muslim lands and Prague served as a major centre for castration of Slavic captives. The Emirate of Bari also served as an important port for this trade. Due to the Byzantine Empire and Venice blocking Arab merchants from European ports, they later started importing in slave from the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea.
The Saqaliba were also imported as eunuchs and concubines to Muslim states. The slavery of eunuchs in the Muslim world however was expensive and they thus were given as gifts by rulers. The Saqaliba eunuchs were prominent at the court of Aghlabids and later Fatimids of Ifriqiya who imported them from Spain and Portugal. The Fatimids also used other Saqaliba slaves for military purposes.
Central Asian route
Slavery in the Muslim world provided a great market for the slaves captured by the Vikings in Europe. Islamic law banned Muslims from enslaving other Muslims, and there was a big market for non-Muslim slaves on Islamic territory, where European slaves were referred to as saqaliba; these slaves were likely both pagan Slavic, Finnic and Baltic Eastern EuropeansKorpela, J. (2018). Slaves from the North: Finns and Karelians in the East European Slave Trade, 900–1600. Nederländerna: Brill. p. 33–35 as well as Christian Europeans and these slaves where often transported along the Black Sea slave trade route.Slavery in the Black Sea Region, C.900–1900: Forms of Unfreedom at the Intersection Between Christianity and Islam. (2021). Nederländerna: Brill. 3
People taken captive during the Viking raids across Europe could be sold to Moorish Spain via the Dublin slave trade or transported to Hedeby or Brännö in Scandinavia and from there via the Volga trade route to present day Russia, where slaves and furs were sold to Muslim merchants in exchange for Arab silver dirham and silk, which have been found in Birka, Wollin and Dublin;The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 3, C.900-c.1024. (1995). Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 91 initially this trade route between Europe and the Abbasid Caliphate passed via the Khazar Kaghanate,The World of the Khazars: New Perspectives. Selected Papers from the Jerusalem 1999 International Khazar Colloquium. (2007). Nederländerna: Brill. p. 232 but from the early 10th-century onward it went via Volga Bulgaria and from there by caravan to Khwarazm, to the Samanid slave market in Central Asia and finally via Iran to the Abbasid Caliphate.The New Cambridge Medieval History: Volume 3, C.900-c.1024. (1995). Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 504 This was one of the major routes of the Viking slave trade, alongside the Black Sea slave trade.Pargas & Schiel, Damian A.; Juliane (2023). The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery Throughout History. Tyskland: Springer International Publishing. p. 126
The slave trade between the Vikings and the Muslims in Central Asia are known to have functioned from at least between 786 and 1009, as big quantities of silver coins from the Samanid Empire has been found in Scandinavia from these years, and people taken captive by the Vikings during their raids in Europe were likely sold in Islamic Central Asia, a slave trade which was so lucrative that it may have contributed to the Viking raids across Europe.
Balkan slave trade
The Balkan slave trade went by route from the Balkans via Venetian slave traders across the Adriatic and the Aegean Seas to the Islamic Middle East, from the 7th-century until the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the 15th century.
Until the 6th and 7th century, the Balkans belonged to the Byzantine Empire, but was split by invasions of the Avars, Slavic tribes and other peoples. The new peoples populating the Balkans did not initially create any centralized state, which created a situation of permanent political instability on the Balkans. The various tribes conducted warfare against each other and took war captives. Due to the lack of a centralized state to negotiate for ransom, a habit formed in which war captives from the tribal wars on the Balkans were often sold to merchants from the Republic of Venice at the Adriatic coast. This developed in to a major slave trade in which Venetians bought captives from the Balkans whom they sold to the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Middle East, which contributed to the growth of Venice as a major commercial empire by the 11th century.The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2, AD 500–AD 1420. (2021). (n.p.): Cambridge University Press. 117-120
The slaves bought by the Venetians at the Adriatic coast were transported by the Venetians to the slave market at the Aegean Islands where the majority continued to Egypt.
Prague slave trade
In Western Europe, a major slave trade route went from Prague in Central Europe via France to Moorish al-Andalus, which was both a destination for the slaves as well as center of slave trade to the rest of the Muslim world in the Middle East. Prague in the Duchy of Bohemia, which was a recently Christianized state in the early 10th century, became a major center of the European slave trade in between the 9th and the 11th century. The revenue from the Prague slave trade has been named as one of the economic foundations of the Bohemian state, financing the armies necessary to form a centralized state, which was not uncommon for the new Christian state in Eastern Europe.World History Encyclopedia [21 volumes]: [21 volumes] Alfred J. Andrea Ph.D. p. 199