Saqaliba

Saqaliba (Arabic: صقالبة, sg. Siqlabi) refers to Slavicslaves, kidnapped from the coasts of Europe or in wars, as well as mercenaries in the medieval Muslim world, in the Middle East, North Africa, Sicily and Al-Andalus. It is generally thought that the Arabic term is a Byzantine loanword: saqlab, siklab, saqlabi etc. is a corruption of Greek Sklavinoi meaning Slavs (from which the English word slave is also derived). The word is often misused to refer only to slaves from Central and Eastern Europe, but it refers to all Eastern Europeans and others traded by the Arab traders during the war or peace periods.

Ibn Fadlan referred to the ruler of the Volga Bulgaria, Almış, as "King of the Saqaliba". This may have been either because many Slavs, both slaves and ordinary settlers, lived in his domain at that time; or a lack of ethnographic knowledge.

The Persian chronicler Ibn al-Faqih wrote that there were two types of saqaliba: those with swarthy skin and dark hair who lived by the sea and those with fair skin and light hair who lived farther inland. Abu Zayd al-Balkhi described three main centers of the Saqaliba: Kuyaba, Slavia, and Artania.