What Does the Slave Trade in the Saqaliba Tell Us about Early Islamic Slavery

Bibliographic Data

ID8965322
AuthorsMarek Jankowiak (University of Oxford, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume49
Issue1
Pages169-172
Publication date2017-01-20
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0020743816001240
OpenAlexW2573778512
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited10

The Saqaliba—a term that in medieval Arabic literature denoted the Slavic populations of central and eastern Europe (and possibly some of their neighbors)—offer a particularly insightful case study of the mechanisms of the early Islamic slave trade and the nature of the Muslim demand for slaves. What makes them such an ideal case study is their high visibility in texts produced in the Islamic world between the early 9th and early 11th centuries. Arab geographers and diplomats investigated their origins, while archaeological material, primarily hundreds of thousands of dirhams found in Scandinavia and the Slavic lands, contains traces of the trade in them. By combining these strands of evidence, we can build an exceptionally detailed image of slave trade systems that supplied Saqaliba to the Islamic markets, which, in turn, can be used to illustrate more general mechanisms governing the trade in and demand for slaves in the medieval Islamic world

Ancient history · Arabic · Archaeology · Geography · Ideal (ethics · Islam · Linguistics · Middle Ages · Political science · Slavic languages · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Classics · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Law · Medieval History and Crusades · Philosophy

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