Author(s)

Feifei Xu

Corresponding Author

Feifei Xu

Abstract

Military slavery prevailed in medieval Islamic world. In this system, military slaves served the rulers as full-time military forces, many of whom even became elites and entered the ruling class. While the practice of using slaves to fight and using slave soldiers was not unusual in the world history, it was only in medieval Islamic world that this practice was so popular. And only in medieval Islamic world did a large number of military slaves become elites and enter the ruling class, some of whom even became rulers. The prevalence of military slavery in medieval Islamic world is a unique and strange phenomenon, the reason of which is worth pondering.

Keywords

Military slavery, Military slave, Slave soldier, Mamlūk, Ghulām