Saqaliba (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Saqaliba refers to the Slavs, particularly Slavic slaves and mercenaries in the medieval Arab world, in the Middle East, North Africa, Sicily and Al-Andalus. The Arabic term is a Byzantine loanword: saqlab, siklab, saqlabi etc. is a corruption of Greek Sklavinoi for "Slavs." The word was also often used more generally to refer to all slaves from Central and Eastern Europe. (The English word "slave" is ultimately derived from the same source.) The Arab chronicler Ibn al-Faqih wrote that there were two types of saqaliba: those with swarthy skin and dark hair that live by the sea and those with fair skin and light hair that live farther inland.