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Saqaliba

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Slavic and Black slaves in Córdoba; illustration from the Cantigas de Santa Maria (13th century).

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").

Etymology

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The Arabic term ṣaqāliba derives from Greek Sklavoi and Sklavenoi (Σκλάβοι, Σκλαβηγοι), 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.[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 polymath Abu Zayd al-Balkhi (850–934) described three main centers of the Saqaliba: Kuyaba, Slawiya, and Artania, while traveller Ibrahim ibn Yaqub (fl. 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.[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 from raids on Christian kingdoms of Spain and Portugal.[5][6] According to Sudár and B. Szabó, the word Saqaliba also meant "forest dweller", regardless of ethnicity, in 10th-century Muslim usage.[7]

Rus and Bulgars

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The Rus made slave raids and sold slaves to Muslim merchants.[2] Geographer Ibn Khordadbeh (840–880) used the term Saqaliba 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". Traveller Ibn Fadlan (fl. 921–22) called Almish, the ruler of Volga 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]

Aghlabids and Fatimids

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In the Aghlabid 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 emir Ziyadat Allah I started eliminating his enemies.[10] Most information of the Saqaliba of the Aghlabids come from the reign of Ibrahim II (875–902).[11]

In the Fatimid 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]

al-Andalus and Maghreb

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Slave trade

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See also: Slavery in al-Andalus
Caliphate of Córdoba in 1000.

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 slaves as well as a center of slave trade to the rest of the Muslim world in the Middle East. Prague in the Duchy 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 the Prague 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 Jewish Radhanite 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 that Verdun was a center for castration of slaves sent to Spain.[16] al-Maqdisi (946–991) mentioned saqaliba castrated in Spain and sent to Egypt.[16] France was a slave transit to Umayyud which had large saqaliba markets.[16] The Caliphate 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 or sexual slavery as concubines. Male slaves were used for one of two categories: either for military slavery or as eunuchs. 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 1,000 dinars, a substantial price.[20]

The Prague slave trade to al-Andalus via France lost its religious legitimacy when the Slavs to the north gradually adopted Christianity 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]

Saracen slave raids

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See also: Saracen

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 the slave markets of the Muslim Middle East.[21] The Aghlabids of Ifriqiya was a base for Saracen attacks along the Spanish east coast as well as against southern Italy from the early 9th century; they attacked Rome in 845, Comacchio in 875–876, Monte Cassino in 882–83, and established the Emirate of Bari (847–871), the Emirate of Sicily (831–1091) and a base in Garigliano (882–906), which became bases of slave trade.[22] During the warfare between Rome and the Byzantine Empire in southern Italy in the 9th century the Saracens made southern Italy a supply source for slaves to Maghreb by the mid-9th century; the Western Emperor Louis II complained in a letter to the Byzantine Emperor that the Byzantines in Naples 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 chronicler Erchempert.[23]

Moorish Saracen pirates from al-Andalus attacked Marseille and Arles and established a base in Camargue, 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 the slave 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 in Al-Andalus were really ethnic Visigoths and Hispano-Romans from the Hispanic March in northeastern Iberia, later to be known as the Catalan 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; both Almoravid dynasty (1040–1147) and the Almohad 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]

Saqaliba taifas in the Levante

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Main articles: Amirids and Taifa
A map showing the extent of the Amirid-Saqalabid alliance in 1018.

The Umayyud state of Córdoba began to crumble at the beginning of the 11th century following the death of Almanzor (d. 1002).[27] As opposed to Almanzor, who relied on different elements of military such as Saqaliba, Berbers and Tujibi Arabs, his brother Abd 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 of Medinaceli.[29] Many Saqaliba groups instead left Córdoba for the Levante.[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 brother Al-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 made his dynasty unable to restore the caliphate.[33]

With the disintegration of Córdoba, small states (known as taifa, "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:

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Korpela 2018, p. 33.
  2. ^ a b c d Jankowiak 2021, p. 163.
  3. ^ H. T. Norris (1993). Islam in the Balkans: Religion and Society Between Europe and the Arab World. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. p. 12. ISBN 978-1-85065-167-3.
  4. ^ Jankowiak 2017.
  5. ^ Mishin 1998.
  6. ^ Rodriguez 1997, p. 565.
  7. ^ 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
  8. ^ Abraham Ascher; Tibor Halasi-Kun; Béla K. Király (1979). The mutual effects of the Islamic and Judeo-Christian worlds: the East European pattern. Brooklyn College Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-930888-00-8.
  9. ^ Korpela 2018, p. 35.
  10. ^ a b c d Mishin 1998, p. 238.
  11. ^ Mishin 1998, p. 239.
  12. ^ Jiwa, Shainool (2017-12-18). The Fatimids: 1 - The Rise of a Muslim Empire. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 34. ISBN 978-1-78672-174-7.
  13. ^ a b c d Biermann 2021, p. 165.
  14. ^ Korpela 2018, pp. 92, 242, Rotman 2009, pp. 73–74
  15. ^ Rotman 2009, p. 74.
  16. ^ a b c Rotman 2009, p. 73.
  17. ^ Jankowiak 2012.
  18. ^ Korpela 2018, p. 92.
  19. ^ a b Biermann 2021, p. 166.
  20. ^ Korpela 2018, p. 37.
  21. ^ The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2, AD 500–AD 1420. (2021). (n.p.): Cambridge University Press. p. 34
  22. ^ a b c d The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages. (1986). Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. p. 408
  23. ^ The Heirs of the Roman West. (2009). Tyskland: De Gruyter. p. 113
  24. ^ Phillips, W. D. (1985). Slavery from Roman Times to the Early Transatlantic Trade. Storbritannien: Manchester University Press.[page needed]
  25. ^ Al-Eidi, Ekhlas Mohammad (2017). The Saqaliba at Bani Umayyad palaces. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science. p. 1
  26. ^ The Cambridge World History of Slavery: Volume 2, AD 500–AD 1420. (2021). (n.p.): Cambridge University Press. p. 37
  27. ^ Kennedy 2014, p. 124.
  28. ^ Kennedy 2014, pp. 124–125.
  29. ^ Kennedy 2014, p. 126.
  30. ^ Kennedy 2014, pp. 126, 140.
  31. ^ a b Kennedy 2014, p. 127.
  32. ^ Kennedy 2014, p. 128.
  33. ^ a b c Kennedy 2014, p. 129.
  34. ^ Kennedy 2014, p. 130.
  35. ^ Kennedy 2014, p. 131.
  36. ^ a b c Kennedy 2014, p. 140.

Sources

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