Abbasid Caliphate

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Lore & Background

During the Abbasid Caliphate, the slave trade reached a more permanent commercial industrial scale, establishing commercial slave trade routes that were to remain for centuries. Since Islamic law prohibited enslavement of Muslims, non-Muslim slaves (kafir) were imported from non-Muslim lands (Dar al-harb). These included pagan Africa in the south; Christian and pagan Europe in the north; and pagan Central Asia and India in the east. African slaves were referred to as Zanj and were favored for hard labor. Turkic peoples from the Central Asian Steppe (Turkestan) were a major supply source, favored for military slavery, and were trafficked via the Bukhara slave trade. The Red Sea slave trade expanded significantly during the Abbasid Caliphate, with African slaves transported in the 9th century to the slave markets of Jeddah, Mecca and Medina, and from there by caravan to the slave market of Baghdad. The Indian Ocean slave trade trafficked slaves from East Africa across the Indian Ocean by dhow through the Persian Gulf to Basra.

In Their Own Story

In 806, Caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809) led a retaliatory attack against the Byzantines. He captured the strongly fortified city of Herakleia after a month-long siege in August or September. The city was plundered and razed, and its inhabitants enslaved and deported to slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate. The fall of Herakleia was considered by Arab chroniclers the most significant achievement of Harun's expeditions against the Byzantines. During the Sack of Amorium in 838, the city was systematically destroyed. Many inhabitants were slaughtered, and the remainder driven off as slaves. The sale of spoils went on for five days. The Byzantine chronicler Theophanes Continuatus mentions 70,000 dead, while the Arab al-Mas'udi records 30,000. The surviving population were divided as slaves among the army leaders. Prominent officials were taken to Samarra and executed years later after refusing to convert to Islam, becoming known as the 42 Martyrs of Amorium.

Reader's Guide

The Abbasid Caliphate was a major slave trade destination. Slaves were imported from several destinations. From the north came slaves via the Balkan slave trade and the Volga trade route. From the east came slaves via the Bukhara slave trade, including Turkic people from the Central Asian Steppe, who were Pagans (adherents of Tengrism) and thereby viewed as legitimate targets of slavery. From the west came slaves via the Andalusian slave trade, the Trans-Saharan slave trade and the Red Sea slave trade. From the south came slaves from the Indian Ocean slave trade. The Christian kingdom of Makuria was obliged to provide between 360 and 400 slaves every year to Islamic Egypt (then an Abbasid province) in accordance with the terms of the Baqt treaty. During the Ghaznavid campaigns in India in the 11th century, hundreds of thousands of Indians were captured and sold on the Central Asian slave markets; in 1014 'the army of Islam brought to Ghazna about 200,000 captives'.

Did You Know?

• The Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258) established commercial slave trade routes that were to remain for centuries.
• During the Sack of Amorium in 838, the sale of spoils went on for five days, with 30,000 to 70,000 dead according to different chroniclers.
• The Christian kingdom of Makuria was obliged to provide between 360 and 400 slaves every year to Islamic Egypt under the Baqt treaty.
• In 1014, the Ghaznavids brought about 200,000 captives to Ghazna from India, so that the capital 'appeared like an Indian city'.
• The Red Sea slave trade between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula continued until its final abolition in the 1960s, when slavery in Saudi Arabia was abolished in 1962.