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Bukhara slave trade refers to the slave trade in the city of Bukhara in Central Asia (present day Uzbekistan) from antiquity until the 19th-century. Bukhara and Khiva was known as the major centers of slave trade in Central Asia for centuries, until the Russian conquest of Central Asia in the late 19th-century.

The city of Bukhara was an important trade center along the Ancient Silk Road, were slave trade were a part of the trade between Europe and Asia. In the Middle Ages, Bukhara came to lie in a religious border zoone between the Muslim world and the non-Muslim world, which was seen as a legitimate target of slavery by Muslims, and referred to as the "Eastern Dome of Islam". It became the center of the massive slave trade of the Samanid Empire, who bought European saqaliba-slaves from the vikings in Russia and sold them on to Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate in the Middle East, and as such constituted one of the main trade routes of Saqaliba (European) slaves to the Muslim world. Bukhara was also a center for the trade in non-Muslim Turkish people from Central Asia to the Middle East and to India, where they were one of the main ethnicities of military slavery (ghilman) for centuries.

In the early modern age, Bukhara met competition as a slave trade in Khiva, but continued to function as a major slave trade center for non-Muslims slaves to Central Asia and the Middle East. In this time period the two main targets were Christian Eastern Europeans, who where aquired by a trading connection with the Crimean slave trade in the Black Sea; and Persians who, while Muslims, were Shia Muslims and therefore still seen as legitimate to enslave by Sunni Muslims Bukhara. The Ancient Bukhara slave trade was not closed until its closure was forced upon the Emir of Bukhara by the Russians in 1873.

Background

Bukhara was a city along the Silk road since Ancient times, and was thus a center of the Silk road trade. The trade along the Silk road included slave trade. Bukhara is known from at least 6th-century BC. The city belonged to Persia in antiquity and the First Turkic Khaganate.

In the middle ages the city became Islamic after the Islamic conquest of Persia and was a part of the Abbasid Caliphate before gaining independence during the Samanid Empire. Bukhara has been called a center of Islam in Central Asia, or the "Eastern Dome of Islam".^[1]

Antiquity

The Ancient Silk Road connecting Mediterranean world and China in East Asia may have existed as early as the 3rd-century BC, since Chinese silk has been found in Rome has been dated to about 200 BC.^[2] The Silk Road connected to the Mediterranean world via two routes, which met in Bukhars, who thus served as an important center in the Silk Road trade.

From China, the Silk Road continued over the Tian Shan, Hami, Turpan, Almalik, Tashkent, Samarkand and finnally Bukhara, where it split in two main roads: a Southern route from Bukhara to Merv and from there to Antioch, Trebizond, or Aleppo; or the Northern route from Bukhara over the Karakum Desert to the Caspian Sea, Astrakhan and Kazan close to the Black Sea.^[3]

The Silk Road did not sell only textiles, jewels, metal and cosmetic, but also slaves.^[4] connecting the Silk Road slave trade to the Bukhara slave trade as well as the Black Sea slave trade.

Samanid Empire (9th-century–10th-century)

Bukhara was a capital of the Samanid Empire. During the Samanid Empire, Bukhara was a major center of the slave trade in Central Asia. The Samanid Empire was strategically well situated geopgraphically to function as a key supplier of slaves to the Islamic world, because it lay in a religious border zone between Dar al-Islam (The Muslim world), and Dar al-Harb, the world of non-Muslim infidels, who by Islamic law were a legitimate target for slaves to the Muslim world.^[5] Slaves were imported to Bukhara from different non-Muslim lands and via Bukhara to the Muslim world over Persia to the Middle East, and over the Hindu Kush (in present day Afghanistan) in to India.

The Samanid regulated the transit slave trade across their territories, requiring a fee of 70-100 dirhams and a license (jawāz) for each slave boy; the same fee but no license for each slave girl; and a lesser fee, 20-30 dirhams, for each adult woman.^[6]

Viking slave trade

The Samanid Empire had important trade contacts with Scandinavia and the Baltics, where many Samanid coins have been found. During the early Middle Ages, the Samanid Empire was one of the two major destinations of the Viking Volga trade route, along which the Vikings exported slaves captured in Europe to the Abbasid Caliphate in the Middle East via the Caspian Sea and the Samanid Empire to Iran (the other route was to the Byzantine Empire and the Mediterranean via Dnieper and the Black Sea slave trade).^[7][8]

Islamic law prohibited Muslims from enslaving other Muslims, and there was thus a big market for non-Muslim slaves in Islamic territory. The Vikings sold both Christian and Pagan European captives to the Muslims, who referred to them as saqaliba; these slaves were likely both Pagan Slavic, Finnic and Baltic Eastern Europeans ^[9] as well as Christian Western Europeans.^[10] 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 Western Europe were likely sold in Islamic Central Asia, a slave trade which was so lucrative that it may have contributed to the Viking raids in Western Europe, used by the vikings as a slave supply source for their slave trade with Islamic world.^[11]

The slave trade between the vikings and Bukhara via Russia ended when the vikings converted to Christianity in the 11th-century. However, East Europeans were still exported to the slave trade in Central Asia. During the warfare between the Russian principalities in the 12th-century, Russian princes allowed their Cuman (kipchak) allies to enslave peasants from the territory of oposing Russian principalities, and sell them to slave traders in Central Asia.^[12]

Turkish peoples

A major source of slaves to the Samanid Empire was the non-Muslim Turkish peoples of Central Asian steppe, which were both bought as well as regularly kidnapped in slave raids by the thousands to supply the Bukhara slave trade.^[13]

The slave trade with Turkish people was the biggest slave supply for the Samanid Empire. Until the 13th-century, the majority of Turkish peoples were not Muslims but adherents of Tengrism, Buddhism and various forms of animism and shamanism, which made them infidels and as such legitimate targets for enslavements by Islamic law. Many slaves in the Mideaval Islamic world referred to as "white" were of Turkish origin.

From the 7th century onward, when the first Islamic military campaigns were conducted toward Turkish lands in Caucasus and Central Asia, Turkish people were enslaved as war captives and then trafficked as slaves via slave raids via southern Russia and the Caucasus into Azerbaijan, and through Karazm and Transoxania into Khorasan and Iran^[6]; in 706 the Arab governor Qotayba b. Moslem killed all men in Baykand in Sogdia and took all the women and children as slaves in to the Umayyad Empire ^[14][6] and in 676 eighty Turkish nobles captured from the queen of Bukhara were abducted to the governor Saʿīd b. ʿOṯmān of Khorasan to Medina as agricultural slaves, where they killed their enslaver and then comitted suicide. ^{[15] [6]}

The military campaigns were gradually replaced by pure commercial Muslim slave raids against non-Muslim Turks into "infidel territory" (dār al-ḥarb) in the Central Asian steppe, resulting in a steady flow of Turks to the Muslim slave markets of Bukhara, Darband, Samarkand, Kīš, and Nasaf.^[6] Aside from slave raids by Muslim slave traders, Turkish captives were also provided to the slave trade as war captives after warfare among the Turkish peoples themselwes in the steppes (as was the case of Sebüktigin), and in some cases sold by their own families.^[6]

Turkish slaves were the main slave supply of the Samanid slave trade, and regularly formed a part of the land tax sent to the Abbasid capital of Baghdad; the geographer Al-Maqdisi (ca. 375/985) noted that in his time the annual levy (ḵarāj) included 1,020 slaves.^[6] The average rate for a Turkish slave in the 9th-century was 300 dirhams, but a Turkish slave could be sold for as much as 3,000 dinars.^[6]

The trade in Turkish slaves via Bukhara continued for centuries after the end of the Samanid Empire.

Slave market

The slaves were both sold at the Bukhara slave market for domestic use in the Samanid Empire, as well as sold to slave traders and exported to other lands in the Middle East, particularly to the Abbasid Caliphate.^[16]

The slave market in the Muslim world prioritized women for the use of domestic servants and concubines (sex slaves) and men as eunuchs, laborers and slave soldiers.

In the sexual slave market, light skinned girls were considered more exclusive for slave concubinage in the harems of the Muslim world than African women from the Trans-Saharan and the Red Sea slave trade, and European women were popular, but Turkish girls were a more common ethnicity.

Turkish male slaves were considered supremely suitable as slave soldiers for their background in the hard life style of the steppe, a stereotype al-Jahiz described in his Resāla fī manāqeb al-Tork wa ʿāmmat jond al-ḵelāfa ("epistle on the excellences of the Turks"), who were characterized as loyal and having a "single-minded devotion to their masters", being slaves and as such without any loyalty to their own families.^[6] Turkish men were particularly preferred to supply the Abbasid Army of ghilman slave soldiers in Baghdad.^[17] Mamluk soldiers were introduced in Yemen during the Ziyadid dynasty (818-981),^[18] and Turkish slave soldiers were to become a popular ethnicity from the beginning, eventually the preferred choice of ethnicity for this slave category.^[19]

In addition to slave soldiers, Turkish male slaves were also popular as palace slaves, and Turkish slaves served as cupbearers to rulers such as the Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni, whose Turkish cupbearer and favorite Ayāz b. Aymaq played a political role at the Ghaznavid court.^[6]

The slave trade was the main trade income of the Samanid Empire, ^[20] and alongside agriculture and other trade, the slave trade was the economic base of the state.^[21]

Chagatai Khanate and Timurid Empire (13th-century–15th-century)

By the time of the Mongol campaigns in Central Asia, Bukhara belonged to the Khwarazmian Empire. The city was a still flourishing as a commercial center of the slave trade in Central Asia. During the Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire, Bukhara was pillaged after the Siege of Bukhara in February 1220. After the conquest of the Mongol Empire, Bukhara belonged to the Chagatai Khanate (1266–1347) and then the Timurid Empire (1370–1501).

Slave trade

Bukhara was rebuilt after have been pillaged by the Mongols in 1220. Having been a major center of slave trade in Central Asia for centuries, Bukhara was integrated in the extensive network of the slave trade of the Mongol Empire. The Mongol Empire conducted a massive international slave trade with captives during the continuous Mongol invasions and conquests, and founded a network of cities to traffick slaves from one end of the Empire to the other.^[22] This network functioned to traffick different categories of slaves to slave markets where they were most requested; such as trafficking Muslim slaves to Christian lands and Christian slaves to Muslim lands.^[23]

The slave trade network of the Mongol Empire was organized in a route from North China to North India; from North India to the Middle East via Iran and Central Asia; and from Central Asia to Europa via the Steppe of the kipchak territory between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea and Caucasus.^[24] This slave trade route was connected via a number of cities used to transport slaves to the peripheries of the Empire, consisting of the capitals of the Mongol Khanates - with the capital of Qaraqorum as the main center - and already excisting slave trade centers, notably the old slave trade center of Bukhara.^[25]

Slave market

The slave market of Bukhara continued as a major center of export of slaves to the Muslim world. The Middle East continued to have a big market for the categories female sex slaves and male eunuchs and slave soldiers. Turkish girls continued to be a popular target for sexual slavery as concubines; Shajar al-Durr were likely originally a Turkish slave concubine.^[26] The supply of Turkish slaves started to be reduced from the 14th-century because of the growing conversion of Turkish peoples to Islam. However, the demand for Turkish slave soldiers were still high. Turkish men were popular as slave soldiers in the slave market of the Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526) and the Rasulid dynasty of Yemen (1229-1454).^[27]

Khanate and Emirate of Bukhara (16th-century–19th-century)

The slave trade in Khiva and Bukhara was described by the English traveller Anthony Jenkinson in the mid 16th-century, at a time when they were major global slave trade centers and the "slave capitals of the world".^[28]

In the 16th-century, most slaves trafficked via Khiva and Bukhara were either Persians or Russians. About 100,000 slaves were sold in the slave market of Khiva and Bukhara every year, most of them Persians or Russians.^[29]

In the 19th-century the Khivean slave trade became bigger than the Bukhara slave trade,^[30] but both maintained many similarities. Turkmen tribal groups performed regular slave raids, referred to as alaman, toward two sources of slaves; Russian and German settlers along the Ural, and Persian pilgrims to Mashad, two categories who as Christians and Shia-Muslims respectively were seen as religiously legitimate to target for enslavement.^[31]

Russians

A major source for slaves to the Khiva and Bukhara slava trade were Persians; while Islam banned Muslims from enslaving other Muslims, the Persians were Shia-Muslims while Khiva and Bukhara were Sunni-Muslims, and were therefore seen as legitimate targets for slavery.^[32]

Persians

During the early modern era (16th-century–18th-century), Khiva and Bukhara imported large numbers of Europeans slaves kidnapped by the Crimean Tatars (normally Russians).^[33] A source of slaves were Hindu India imported via the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan, who were popular for the domestic market in Bukhara.

Slave market

In the 16th-century Bukhara exported slaves to Central Asia, the Middle East and India. The Bukhara slave market was a destination for slave merchants from India and other countries of the "East", who came to Bukhara to buy slaves.^[34] The slaves were exported from Bukhara to other Islamic khanates in Central Asia.

Bukhara also used slaves for their domestic market. The use of slaves in Bukhara followed the normal model of slavery in the Islamic world. Female slaves were used as domestic servants or as concubines (sex slaves). Male slaves were used as ghilman slave soldiers. Bukhara also used slave labor in their agriculture, normally Indian slaves.^[35]

In the 19th-century, the slave markets of Khiva and Bukhara were still among the biggest slave markets in the world. The Turkmen were so known for their slave raids that it was said that Turkmen "would not hesitate to sell into slavery the Prophet himself, did he fall into their hands".^[36] The constant raids against travellers constituted a problem for travelling in the region.

Between 20.000 and 40.000 slaves are estimated to have excisted in Bukhara in 1821, and around 20.000 in the 1860s.^[37]

Royal harem

The royal harem of the ruler of the Emirate of Bukhara (1785–1920) in Central Asia (Uzbekistan) was similar to that of the Khanate of Khiva. The last Emir of Bukhara was reported to have a harem with 100 women, but also a separate "harem" of ‘nectarine-complexioned dancing boys’.^[38] The harem was abolished when the Soviets conquered the area and the khan Sayyid Mir Muhammad Alim Khan was forced to flee; he reportedly left the harem women behind, but did take some of his dancing boys with him.^[38]

Abolition

The slave market in Bukhara as well as that in Khiva was banned in 1873 after Russian conquest. However, the process was different. Bukhara became a Russian protectorate after the Russian conquest of Bukhara in 1868. The Russians did not have complete control over Bukhara, where the Emir was still formally in charge. When the slave trade in neighboring Khiva was abolished after the after the Russian conquest of Khiva in 1873, this put pressure on the Russians to use their power to abolish slavery also in Bukhara. Russia was under pressure by both nationally and internationally Western opinion to abolish slavery and slave trade.^[39]

The Russian-Bukharan Treaty of 1873 abolished the Bukhara slave trade.^[40] In contrast to neighboring Khiva, slavery as such was not banned in Bukhara after slave trade was banned.^[41] The Russian General Governor congratulated Emir Muzaffar bin Nasrullah for having abolished the slave trade in Bukhara, and expressed his hope that also slavery itself would be gradually phased out during a ten year period.^[42]

The Emir promised the Russians that he would abolish slavery in 1883 on condition that the former slaves remained with their enslavers until then, after which they would be given the right to buy themselwes free; after this promise, the Russians abstained from pressuring the emir more in the issue to avoid damaging their diplomatic contact with him.^[43]

Aftermath

However, despite the official abolition of 1873, the slave trade continued illegally with the blessing of the emir, who himself continued to buy Persian slaves from Turkmen slave traders to staff his harem with slave soldiers and his harem with slave concubines.^[44] In 1878, a Russian agent reported that he had wittnessed slave trade in Bukhara, ^[45] and in 1882 the English traveller Henry Lansdell was made aware about the still ongoing slave trade.^[46]

Emir Muzaffar bin Nasrullah did not abolish slavery in 1883 as he had promised the Russians. However his son Emir 'Abd al-Ahad Khan fullfilled his father's promise by officially abolishing slavery in the Emirate of Bukhara.^[47] However, slavery in Bukhara continued, and the Royal Household and the Royal Harem continued to be staffed with slaves aquired from Turkmen slave trade agents in secrecy;^[48] when the Emirate of Bukhara was annexted by the Communist Soviet Union after the Bukharan Revolution and the Bukhara operation (1920), when the last Emir, Sayyid Mir Muhammad Alim Khan, fled from the Red Army and left his slave concubines behind.^[38]