The
ghilman were slave-soldiers taken as prisoners of war from conquered regions or frontier zones, especially from among the
Turkic people of
Central Asia and the
Caucasian peoples (
Turkish:
Kölemen). They fought in bands, and demanded high pay for their services. The idea of slave soldiers is sometimes projected back to the earliest Islamic period, but there is no evidence that the Prophet Muhammad or the Rashidun Caliphs organized slave armies. While individuals of slave origin, such as freedmen or war captives, may have joined battles voluntarily, the systematic use of slave soldiers did not exist at that time. Under the Umayyads, some Slavs and Berbers were employed in military roles, but it was only by the mid-9th century, particularly under the Abbasids, that the large-scale recruitment of slave soldiers, such as the ghilman, became a defining feature of Islamic military systems. The first Muslim ruler to form an army of slave soldiers, before the Abbasid Caliphs, seems to have been
Ibrahim I ibn al-Aghlab (800–812), founder of the
Aghlabids of Ifriqiya, where there was already a large population of agricultural slaves and access to extensive slave trading networks across the Sahara Desert.
Ghilman were introduced to the
Abbasid Caliphate during the reign of
al-Mu'tasim (r. 833–842), who showed them great favor and relied upon them for his personal guard. Accounts cite that their numbers increased in the caliphal household as Mu'tasim tried to address the court factionalism. These slave-soldiers were opposed by the native Arab population, and riots against them in
Baghdad in 836 forced Mu'tasim to relocate his capital to
Samarra. The use of
ghilman reached its maturity under
al-Mu'tadid and their training was conceived and inspired through the noble
furusiyya. From a slave, a
ghulam attained his freedom after completing the formative training period and joined the elite corps as a mounted warrior. A ghulam was trained and educated at his master's expense and could earn his freedom through his dedicated service. Ghilman were required to marry Turkic slave-women, who were chosen for them by their masters. Some ghilman seem to have lived
celibate lives. The absence of family life and offspring was possibly one of the reasons that ghilman, even when they attained power, generally failed to start
dynasties or to proclaim their independence. There are, however, a few exceptions to that rule, such the
Ghaznavid dynasty of
Afghanistan and the
Anushtegin dynasty, which succeeded it. Slave soldiers became the core of Islamic armies as the
Bedouin,
Ghazi holy warriors and conscripts were not as reliable, while Ghilman were expected to be loyal as they had no personal connections to the rest of society. However, the Ghilman often did not remain as loyal as expected. (Unlike the Seljuks, who quickly abandoned their tribal warriors for an increase in slave-soldier forces, the Mongols did not adopt the institution of slave-soldiers). The
Delhi Sultanate also made extensive use of Turkish cavalry ghilman as their core shock troops. After Central Asia fell to the Mongols they switched to capturing Hindu boys to convert into Islamic slave soldiers. There were violent ethnic conflicts between the different groups of ghilman, the Turks, Slavs,
Nubians and Berbers in particular. ==Tactics and equipment==