Ghulam

A ghulam was a page and slave soldier, bought as a boy, educated at court and raised to arms. The recruitment that made Turkic slaves the core of the caliph’s army began in the markets of Samarkand. Al-Ya’qubi records the account of Ja’far al-Khushshaki. Under al-Ma’mun, the future caliph al-Mu’tasim sent him to Samarkand to buy Turks every year. Some three thousand pages had been gathered before al-Mu’tasim became caliph.^[1] Al-Mu’tasim preferred these Turkic slaves to the Sogdian nobles who had served al-Ma’mun.^[2]

The slaves were bought in Chach or Ferghana. They came from the neighbouring Turkic tribes, whose federation would later form the Karakhanid state.^[3] The trade in them was probably one of the last activities of the Sogdian merchants.^[4] The life of Sebüktegin shows the path. He was stolen as a child, sold at Chach and trained as a ghulam at Nasaf before he rose to rule at Ghazna.^[1]