Ṣaqālibah

Ṣaqālibah, in medieval Muslim Spain, Slavs, or people from the Black Sea coast north of Constantinople. Later, by extension, the term came to designate all foreign slaves in the military.

The custom in 10th-century Spain was to buy Slavs captured by the Germans on their expeditions into eastern Europe. These and other slaves from Galicia, Lombardy, Calabria, and the land of the Franks—generally young boys—became Muslims, learned Arabic, and were then trained for military service or for administrative positions in the palaces and harems.

The number of Ṣaqālibah in Spain kept pace with the designs of the Umayyad rulers for expanding their territories in the Iberian peninsula and possibly into North Africa. In the reign of ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān III (912–961) alone, the number of slaves was reported to have grown from about 4,000 to 14,000. This increase was accompanied by a corresponding rise in their status in Muslim society. The Ṣaqālibah accumulated wealth and property and slaves of their own and became scholars and poets. Eventually they wielded significant political force in the capital, occupying high civil offices and military posts; they were used by the Umayyads to counterbalance the influential Arab aristocracy. Thus the Slav Najda led the Umayyad armies against Ramiro II of Leon in 939. With the deposition of the caliph Hishām II in 1009, the Ṣaqālibah emerged as one of the three major factions or parties (taifas) in Córdoba who for the next 23 years controlled the caliphate, making and unmaking rulers at will. In this same period of civil war and general confusion (1009–91), the Ṣaqālibah founded kingdoms in Denia, Tortosa, Valencia, and Almería, though they did not establish dynasties as did the other taifas—e.g., the Arabs and the Berbers. The various petty kingdoms, however, were liquidated in 1090–91 and incorporated in the new Almoravid empire in Spain.