title: Mamluks in Abbasid Society
abstract: This paper discusses the origins of military slavery in the Muslim world. After a short survey of secondary literature on the topic, a short political history of slave armies in the medieval Middle East before the 13th century is given. The following paragraphs provide the reader with an overview of the geographical origins of slave soldiers in the period and the question of race and racialism in medieval Muslim armies. In conclusion the paper tries to show that Muslim military slavery far from 