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Slave soldiers in the Islamic world

Ghilman (singular غُلاَم , plural غِلْمَان ) were slave soldiers and/or mercenaries in armies throughout the Islamic world. Islamic states from the early 9th century to the early 19th century consistently deployed slaves as soldiers, a phenomenon that was very rare outside of the Islamic world. The Quran mentions ghilman (غِلْمَان) as serving boys who are one of the delights of Jannah or paradise/heaven of Islam, in verse 52:24 (Verse 56:17 is also thought to refer to ghilman. ).

The words ghilman (غِلْمَان) and its singular variant ghulam (غلام) are of Arabic origin, meaning boys or servants. It derives from the Arabic root ḡ l m (غ ل م‎).

The ghilman were slave soldiers taken as prisoners of war from conquered regions or frontier zones, especially from among the Turkic people of Central Asia and the Caucasian peoples (Turkish: Kölemen). They fought in bands, and demanded high pay for their services. The use of slave soldiers in the Islamic world stretches back to 625, when African slave soldiers were mentioned serving under Muhammad and the Rashidun Caliphate. Slavs and Berbers were also used under the Umayyad Caliphs. However it was only in the mid 9th century that this became used on a large scale. The first Muslim ruler to form an army of slave soldiers, before the Abbasid Caliphs, seems to have been Ibrahim I ibn al Aghlab (800–812), founder of the Aghlabids of Ifriqiya, where there was already a large population of agricultural slaves and access to extensive slave trading networks across the Sahara Desert. Ghilman were introduced to the Abbasid Caliphate during the reign of al Mu'tasim (r. 833–842), who showed them great favor and relied upon them for his personal guard. Accounts cite that their numbers increased in the caliphal household as Mu'tasim tried to address the court factionalism. These slave soldiers were opposed by the native Arab population, and riots against them in Baghdad in 836 forced Mu'tasim to relocate his capital to Samarra. The use of ghilman reached its maturity under al Mu'tadid and their training was conceived and inspired through the noble furusiyya. From a slave, a ghulam attained his freedom after completing the formative training period and joined the elite corps as a mounted warrior. A ghulam was trained and educated at his master's expense and could earn his freedom through his dedicated service. Ghilman were required to marry Turkic slave women, who were chosen for them by their masters. Some ghilman seem to have lived celibate lives. The absence of family life and offspring was possibly one of the reasons that ghilman, even when they attained power, generally failed to start dynasties or to proclaim their independence. There are, however, a few exceptions to that rule, such the Ghaznavid dynasty of Afghanistan and the Anushtegin dynasty, which succeeded it. Slave soldiers became the core of Islamic armies as the Bedouin, Ghazi holy warriors and Hashariyan conscripts were not as reliable, while Ghilman were expected to be loyal as they had no personal connections to the rest of society. However, the Ghilman often did not remain as loyal as expected. (Unlike the Seljuks, who quickly abandoned their tribal warriors for an increase in slave soldier forces, the Mongols did not adopt the institution of slave soldiers)

The Delhi Sultanate also made extensive use of Turkish cavalry ghilman as their core shock troops. After Central Asia fell to the Mongols they switched to capturing Hindu boys to convert into Islamic slave soldiers. There were violent ethnic conflicts between the different groups of ghilman, the Turks, Slavs, Nubians and Berbers in particular.

The Quran mentions ghilman in verse 52:24: "There will circulate among them ghilman for them, as if they were pearls well protected." Ghilman are traditionally described as servant boys provided especially for believers in heaven. In verse 56:17: "There will circulate among them [the faithful in heaven] young boys made eternal" "them" refer to the faithful in heaven and "young boys made eternal" to ghilman. Some have suggested that homosexuality might not apply in heaven where there is no need for procreation, and that the ghilman might be the male equivalent of the famously beautiful female houris that the faithful marry in heaven. However, another interpretation is that they are simply a symbolic gesture to the pleasures of heaven due to the fact that it is impossible for humans to imagine heaven in the Islamic religion.