The Volga trade route was established by the
Varangians (Vikings) who settled in
Northwestern Russia in the early 9th century. About south of the
Volkhov River entry into
Lake Ladoga, they established a settlement called
Ladoga (Old Norse:
Aldeigjuborg). It connected
Northern Europe and Northwestern Russia with the
Caspian Sea, via the
Volga River. The
Rus used this route to trade with
Muslim countries on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, sometimes penetrating as far as
Baghdad. The route functioned concurrently with the
Dnieper trade route, better known as the
trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks, and lost its importance in the 11th century.
Saqaliba originally was used to denote
Slavic people, however later it came to denote all European slaves in some Muslim regions like Spain including those abducted from raids on Christian kingdoms of Spain. The Franks started buying slaves from the Slavs and
Avar Khaganate while Muslims also came across slaves in the form of
mercenaries serving the
Byzantine Empire and settlers in addition to among the
Khazars. Most Slavic slaves were imported to the
Muslim world through the border between Christian and Islamic kingdoms where castration centres were also located instead of the direct route. From there they were sent into Islamic Spain and other Muslim-ruled regions especially
North Africa. The Saqaliba gained popularity in Umayyad Spain especially as warriors. After the collapse of the Umayyads, they also came to rule over many of the
taifas. With the conversion of
Eastern Europe, the trade declined and there isn't much textual information on Saqaliba after 11th century. The
Emirate of Bari also served as an important port for this trade. Due to the
Byzantine Empire and
Venice blocking Arab merchants from European ports, they later started importing in slave from the
Caucasus and the Caspian Sea. The
Saqaliba were also imported as eunuchs and concubines to Muslim states. The slavery of
eunuchs in the Muslim world however was expensive and they thus were given as gifts by rulers. The
Saqaliba eunuchs were prominent at the court of
Aghlabids and later
Fatimids who imported them from Spain and Portugal. The Fatimids also used other
Saqaliba slaves for military purposes.
Central Asian route Slavery in the Muslim world provided a great market for the slaves captured by the Vikings in Europe. Islamic law banned Muslims from enslaving other Muslims, and there was a big market for non-Muslim slaves on Islamic territory, where European slaves were referred to as
saqaliba; these slaves were likely both pagan Slavic, Finnic and Baltic Eastern Europeans as well as Christian Europeans and these slaves where often transported along the
Black Sea slave trade route. People taken captive during the Viking raids across Europe could be sold to
Moorish Spain via the
Dublin slave trade or transported to
Hedeby or
Brännö in Scandinavia and from there via the
Volga trade route to present day Russia, where slaves and furs were sold to Muslim merchants in exchange for Arab silver
dirham and silk, which have been found in
Birka,
Wollin and
Dublin; initially this trade route between Europe and the Abbasid Caliphate passed
via the Khazar Kaghanate, but from the early 10th-century onward it went via
Volga Bulgaria and from there by caravan to
Khwarazm, to the
Samanid slave market in Central Asia and finally via Iran to
the Abbasid Caliphate. This was one of the major routes of the Viking slave trade, alongside the
Black Sea slave trade. The slave trade between the Vikings and the Muslims in Central Asia are known to have functioned from at least between 786 and 1009, as big quantities of silver coins from the Samanid Empire has been found in Scandinavia from these years, and people taken captive by the Vikings during their raids in Europe were likely sold in Islamic Central Asia, a slave trade which was so lucrative that it may have contributed to the Viking raids across Europe.
Balkan slave trade The Balkan slave trade went by route from the
Balkans via
Venetian slave traders across the
Adriatic and the
Aegean Seas to the Islamic Middle East, from the 7th-century until the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the 15th century. Until the 6th and 7th century, the Balkans belonged to the
Byzantine Empire, but was split by invasions of the
Avars, Slavic tribes and other peoples. The new peoples populating the Balkans did not initially create any centralized state, which created a situation of permanent political instability on the Balkans. The various tribes conducted warfare against each other and took war captives. Due to the lack of a centralized state to negotiate for ransom, a habit formed in which war captives from the tribal wars on the Balkans were often sold to merchants from the Republic of Venice at the Adriatic coast. This developed in to a major slave trade in which Venetians bought captives from the Balkans whom they sold to the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic Middle East, which contributed to the growth of Venice as a major commercial empire by the 11th century. The slaves bought by the Venetians at the Adriatic coast were transported by the Venetians to the slave market at the
Aegean Islands where the majority continued to Egypt. The Duchy of Bohemia was a state in a religious border zone, bordering to Pagan Slavic lands to the North, East and South East. In the Middle ages, religion was the determining factor on who was considered a legitimate target for enslavement. Christians prohibited Christians from enslaving other Christians, and Muslims prohibited Muslims from enslaving other Muslims; however, both approved of the enslavement of Pagans, who thereby became a lucrative target for slave traders. In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Slavs in Eastern Europe were still adherents of the
Slavic religion, making them Pagans to the Christians and infidels to the Muslims and considered as legitimate targets for enslavement by both. Bohemia, being a religious border state close to Pagan lands, were thus in an ideal position to engage in slave trade with both Christians and Muslims, having access to a close supply of Pagan captives. The slaves were acquired through slave raids toward the Pagan Slavic lands North of Prague. The Pagan Slavic tribes of Central and Eastern Europe were targeted for slavery by several actors in the frequent military expeditions and raids alongside their lands. The slaves sold by the Vikings via the Eastern route could be Christian Western Europeans, but the slaves provided by the Vikings to the slave route of Prague-Magdeburg-Verdun were Pagan Slavs, who in contrast to Christians were legitimate for other Christians to enslave and sell as slaves to Muslims; according to
Liutprand of Cremona, these slaves were trafficked to
slavery in al-Andalus via Verdun, where some of them were selected to undergo castration to become eunuchs for the Muslim slave market in al-Andalus. Traditionally, the slave traders acquiring the slaves in Prague and transporting them to the slave market of al-Andalus are said to have been dominated by the Jewish
Radhanite merchants. While Christians were not allowed to enslave Christians and Muslims not allowed to enslave Muslims, as well as Pagan slaves to both. The Prague slave market was a part of a big net of slave trade in European Saqaliba slaves to the Muslim world.
Ibn Hawqal wrote in the 10th century: :‘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.' 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. Many male slaves selected to be sold as eunuchs were subjected to castration in
Verdun. The nature of the market for Saqaliba slaves meant that most Saqaliba slaves would have been prepubescent children when enslaved. In Moorish al-Andalus, European Saqaliba-slaves were considered as exotic display objects with their light hair, skin and eye colors. The slaves were not always destined for the al-Andalus market; similar to Bohemia in Europe, al-Andalus was a religious border state for the Muslim world, and Saqaliba slaves were exported from there further to the Muslim world in the Middle East. The Duchy of Bohemia and the
Caliphate of Córdoba were both dependent on each other because of the from the slave trade; the Caliphate of Córdoba was dependent on enslaved bureaucrats and slave soldiers to build and manage their centralised state, while the new state of the Duchy of Bohemia built their economic prosperity in the profit earned by trading captives for
slavery in the Caliphate of Córdoba. 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. 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 a slave trade 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. 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 which they made slave raids in to France; 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. The Saracens captured the Baleares in 903, and made slave raids also from this base toward the coasts of the Christian Mediterranean and Sicily. ==Saqaliba slave market by place==