Slavic 'Regulos' and the 'Guardia Eslavona'. The other ''Moors'' of Spain.

[Menydh]

Régulo. Spanish voice from Latin Regŭlus, diminutive of Rex, Regis (king).

A king or a lord of a small state.

Taifa. Spanish voice from Classic Arabic ṭā'ifah, a 'fraction'.

Each of the small kingdoms in which Muslim Spain was divided after the dissolution of the Caliphate of Córdoba.

Guardia Eslavona. A small army in Al-Andalus composed by libertos of mainly Slavic origin. A liberto was an enslaved prisoner who was granted freedom after converting to Islam.

Muladí. From Andalusi Arabic muwalladín, the plural form of muwállad, which in turns derives from Classic Arabic muwallad, meaning born of a non Arab mother.

In Muslim Spain they were the bulk of the Islamic population and the word was applied to the Christians who had converted to Islam.

Mozárabe or Mossarab. From Andalusi Arabic musta‘rabí, a gentilitium form of the Classic Arabic musta‘rab, meaning "arabicised" or culturally influenced by the Arabs.

In Al-Andalus the word was used to identify the Christian population which lived under Islamic rule as tributaries to Islam. This is most commonly known outside Spain as dhimmi, a word of the Islamic Law, and the status as dhimmitude.

In the Christian kingdoms of Northern Spain, the word Mozárabe continued to be applied to the individuals from these communities who fled north bringing with them some Islamic cultural elements (like the fashion in dressing).

The individuals who belonged to the Mossarab community of Toledo, after the conquest of Toledo by the Christians, who had the privilege of keeping the old Visigothic liturgy instead of the Roman liturgy that was official in all Western Christendom. As a side note, such liturgy is still celebrated today on special days in Toledo and in one church of Valencia.

Each of the extinct Romance languages derived from the Visigothic Vulgar Latin, spoken by the Christians and Muslims of Islamic Spain. As a personal note, modern day Castilian as spoken in Andalusia and other areas could be heavily influenced by such languages.

I've stumbled upon a web page from an old member of another forum board, which I had read long time ago. The said web page is a collection of evidence of Slavic input in so-called Moorish Spain.

However interesting it is, I suggest to take the claims there with a grain or two of salt, since as far as I remember at its early stages it claimed a Slavic or Baltic origin of the Visigoths. Mind you, not that I would mind if it was proved that the origins of the Goths were Slavic or Baltic, and not Germanic, as that matters little to me since the blood lineage of the Visigoths pertains solely to Hispania/Spain, and even if they were a people of Germanic origins (and everything suggests that they were) they were distinctive enough, and dare I say that even ''superior'' to all other Germanic tribes.

I did know that during the period of the Caliphate of Córdoba (929-1010), and even earlier during the period of the Emirate of Córcoba (756-929), there was a corps guard army, known as the Guardia Eslavona, made up by people of Slavic origin. Initially I assumed that all of these Slavs were slaves which had been made prisoner during the raids of the Muslims in the coasts of Dalmatia. So presumably of Serbo-Croatian origin. However in an online document that I've found there are allegations pointing to other Slavic regions too.

What I did not know is that there were more news of these Slavs after the fall of the Caliphate and into the period of the kingdoms of Taifas, and that in some of these Taifas they became rulers.

After the decline of the Caliphate of Cordoba, the Taifas (or kingdoms of taifas) which followed, were often tributaries of the Christian kingdoms of the north. It must be stressed that the process of the Reconquista in the Spains was NOT a racial war as some would like to believe in their fanaticism and ignorance, but a religious war. Thus it was not unusual that a Christian king would not attack a neighbouring Muslim kingdom and prefer to keep if for the much needed tributes, which would help him to wage war even against other Christian kings. Or that Christian frontier warriors hired their swords to Hispanic Muslim kings, in their wars between Taifas.

One reason for a need of a "Slavonic Guard" (Slavic, Germanic, or other non Hispanic) may well be the same why the Arab rulers prefered from the start the Hispanic Muladis to the Berber warriors. After all, all of them (including the Berbers) were Muladis, converted to Islam.

In the early years after the 711 AD invasion, there were a number of rebellions of the Berbers against the Emirs. For the Arabic ruling class, the Berber military class supposed more of a liability than an asset. Already in the invasion, after the initial moments when the Berber army of the liberto Berber Tariq arrived in Hispania to help in a rebellion of a Visigothic party, the Arab ruler of Ifriqiya (N. Africa) who was at the time still ending the conquest of Northern Africa, Musa, came in Hispania with his personal army of Araba and Syrians because he realized of the possibility of conquering Spain for Islam but he did not trust the loyalty of the Berbers.

Later on, there were also rebellions of Muladis who returned to the faith of their parents, like the rebel Ibn Marwan (aka "the Galician") or the more important one of Umar ben Hafsun, who managed for long years to control a vast territory in Southern Spain and hostigate the Emirate in its last years, and into the Caliphate.

In this context, the Slavic Muladis could be trusted as they had initially no direct interests in waging such wars. At least until they became Hispanicised and assimilated the Hispanic character of "taifism" or "fractionism", which extends from the days of the Punic wars until the modern days.


For anyone interested to read the mentioned web page of that fomer member of Skadi forums, who goes by the name of Odin of Ossetia, the link is: http://michalw.narod.ru/SlavicSpain.html

Next, I will translate a writing on the Slavic input in Spain, based on a document found in the National Library of Moscow.

[Menydh]

Spain and Russia. Contributions to the research of little known links

On two works about Spain found in the Russian National Library of Moscow
by Dimitri Lopatnikov

The present article has two parts dedicated to two two studies on Spain published in Russia. The first part is about the Slavic diaspora in the Iberian Peninsula during the Xth and XIth centuries, and the second part reveals some correspondence between the flora and the fauna of Russia and Spain.¹

Eventhough they are two totally different works, we have united them under one document because their authors lived in the same time and because both of them reveal common aspects between the two "peripheries of Europe" which are little known.

The subjects are of interest not only to Geographers, Historians and Biologists, but also to a wide audience of readers, especially to those who wish to know about links between Spain and Russia.

Given that none of the works has been translated into Spanish, the author will try to quote them as much as possible.

The Slavs in Andalusia²

by Karol Szajnocha

Karol Szajnocha is a well known Polish historian³. Nearly all of his work deals with the old Poland, mainly of her period of most glory, i.e. the XVIth and XVIIth centuries. He was an excellent scientist, of wide criteria and much erudition. The Slavs in Andalusia is a good example of his extraordinary ability to orientate himself in the historical documents relative to different epochs and peoples. Already from the first pages of his work it is revealed the scientific rigour and the detail with which the author collected and generalized the data which he had obtained from numerous Arabic and European works. His book, which has a total of eight chapters, describes in detail the history of the Slavs in Andalusia during the first times of Arabic domain.

The data about the destiny of the Slavs who were taken under Arab captivity in Spain during several centuries are not few. Such destiny, at first not an enviable one, improved in time until reaching splendour and grandeur (page 1).

Karol Szajnocha talks first of the origin of the Slavic diaspora in Spain and, then, of the importance which it would achieve later on, as well as the influenced which it exercised in the Caliphate, to later be assimilated in the population of Southern Spain and to dissolve in it.

All the story of these Slavs, thrown to a coast in decline, sounds more like an fabulous oriental tale than a real event. The Slav, taken from the areas of the Vistula and the Danube, where he had his home, becomes the bodyguard of the Moorish king, he receives from him favours and honours, he shares with him the power of governing, and finally he becomes a king himself. Is this not an historical dream? (page 2).

The Polish scholar states that it was in the Xth century when the Slavs are mentioned for the first time. Between the years 943 and 948, the writer Al Masudi wrote a treaty entitled Prairies of Gold and Mines of Gems, where he speaks of a Slavic people, the Serbians, who traded in the sea ports of the Mediterranean Sea. On another occasion he mentions the beavers which lived near Kiev, from where the Slavs exported furs to Andalusia. But it is in the Book of Travels written by the imam Ibn Gaukal in 976 where we can find more important data related to the origins of the Slavic diaspora in Andalusia. The imam says:

The lands of the Slavs are so vast that they supply with slaves to Karasan in the East and to Andalusia in the West. The Andalusians buy them in Galicia, France, Lombardy and Calabria, they make them eunuchs and then re-sell them in Egypt and Africa. All the eunuch slaves, wherever they may be found, come from Andalusia (page 2).

Then the first Slavs in the Peninsula were slaves.

There were not other coasts more rich in human plunder and merchandise than the Slavic littoral in the Adriatic Sea, where until the XVth century there were slave markets as important as the one of Dubrovnik (page 2).

The roads for the transport of Slavic serfs were two.

The Arabs received our captives from Galicia, i.e. from the littoral which occupies the NW corner of Spain. The merchant ships from a merchant nation, which was not just neighbour of the Slavs but also subjugated during long time the nations along the coasts of the Baltic Sea, the Normans, sailed to there (pages 3-4).

According to one of the hypotheses about the formation of the Russian State, which has been the object of sharp scientific and political polemics, and which received the name of "the norman", it was in the XIth century that the Slavic tribes invited the Varengans (Normans) to govern in Kiev.

The famous words of the chronicler have become proverbial: "Our land is rich, but there is no order in her". The first Slavic princes were three Varengan brothers: Rürik, Sineus and Truvor. Rürik is considered the founder of the Russian State. If we take the data brought in by Karol Szajnocha, we can suppose that the first princes promoted the slave trade.

Seeing the captive slaves who arrived from the East to Lombardy and Calabria on one side, and from the West and the North to Galicia on the other side, Gaukal ws right to be amazed before the dimensions of the country which supplied slaves to the different "parts of the world". In reference to the much divulged that Slavic slavery was in those times, in the XIIth century Benjamin de Tudela gave to all the Slavic lands the name of Land of Canaan, because "their inhabitants sell their sons and daughters to all the nations (page 4).

We then learn that later the Slavic males, brought to the Emirate of Cordoba, started to serve as warriors of the personal guard of the emir. According to the historian Conde, to whom Szajnocha refers,

Emir Hixem I (ruled from 796 to 822) organized a guard in the court, made up by 5,000 armed men among which there were three thousand Mossarabs and two thousand Slavs (page 7).

Abd-al-Rahman III, the most famous Arab ruler in Spain, had in his service some 6,000 Slavs. The Slavs enjoyed of the special trust of the Caliphs. Initially they were free of the political and religious wars which took place inside the Caliphate, so soon the old slaves saw themselves in a privileged position.

Both the Slavic servants and the guards who croweded the interior of the Alcazar (a fortified palace), surrounded the king at all time and therefore they enjoyed of his trust and benevolence (pages 9-10).

Continuing with the reading:

Being favoured by the caliphs and given their favourable circumstances, some of them achieved, in the early XIth century during the reign of the succesors to Hizem II, the most honorific title in the court, that of Gadzib, which in Cordoba was like the Prime Minister in Peace and War issues. A few went beyond and, taking advantage on the terrible internal wars which fractioned in those times the domains of the Ummeyahs into small domains, they became rulers of some of the new independent lands (page 10).

Under different caliphs, five Slavs were made gazibs: Vagda, Gairan, Naya, Razikalia and Sekan.

Being them "silent" foreigners, without origins nor family links among them, the caliphs trusted them better and, as they were used in important cases and paid generously, they [the Slavs] were right to serve them with loyalty and abnegation. All of the Slavic gadzibs stood out for their special loyalty to the house of the Ummeyahs, and only after the fall of them they dared to take part of their domains. (page 11)

Al Mansur had the most important Slavic guard. Everything points to that in time the Slavs started to take part in the political fights of the court of Cordoba, and they allied with the Almoravids. The Slavic influence was increasing. The Gadzib Vagda was the loyal servant of Hixem II, saving his life and his throne in 1010, according to the data found by Karol Szajnocha.

Later on, the Emir Hixem III gave the titles of alcaides (governors) to the Slavs and the Almoravids who stayed under his rule, and granted them in perpetual ownership the domains located to the south of Spain: Cartagena, Alicante, Almería, Dénia, Xàtiva and others. (page 8)

An Arab chronicler comments in a concise and expressive way:

From that minute the gadzib Vagda, helped by his Slavs, became the absolute governor of Cordoba. His allies occupied all the superior offices and the Slavs assumed the government of the bigger cities. (Karol Szajnocha quotes the book by Aschbah, Geschichte der Ommajaden). However, the intrigues of Suleyman made that in 1011 Hixem II ordere to behead Vagda... He was releaved by another Slav, Gairan. Later Gairan became a king of Almeria and Denia, according to the history written by Conde. Another Slav, Zogair, became a king of Murcia. (page 23)

Concluding with his work, Karol Szajnocha resumes:

In this way, the main period in which the Slavs stayed in Spain is prolongued approximately from the time of Hixem I to the end of the internal wars, which started after the fall of the Ummeyahs, or until the moment in which Spain fell under the Almoravids, who returned from Africa, i.e. from 796 until 1086. It was the most brilliant time of the Arab domain in Andalusia, famous in history for her richness, the development of sciences, and the soft habits... All of it influenced especially on the Slavs who lived in Spain who, playing an important role in the Arabic society, had to rise to its standards in education. (page 32)

Starting in the XIIth century and in a rather fast way, the Slavs were assimilated almost completely, coming to an extintion for good in Andalusia that interesting and unique ethnic group.

1. For obvious reasons I'm only translating here the work about the Slavs in Islamic Spain.
2. Szajnocha K., Slaviane v Andaluzii (Los eslavos en Andalucía), Moscow, Moskovski Universitet, 1874.
3. The fact that the author has included this work of the Polish scholar must not be interpreted in any case as evidence for an "imperial mentality", but a reflection of the historical reality of the XIXth century, in which most of the territory of Poland was a part of the Russian Empire. All seems to point to that this is the only work on Spain, with a sheer scientific character, which was realized during the XIXth century within the borders of the Russian Empire. The book includes a cycle of conferences that the author gave before the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities, attached to the University of Moscow.

[source]

[Menydh]

A list of Slavic regulos of the taifas. Notice that the Slavic taifas concentrated in the eastern areas of Al-Andalus, except for the Taifa of Badajoz which I read somewhere else that it extended as far as Lisbon.

Also, notice that the source does not mention the Slavic regulos of the taifas of Dénia and Xàtiva/Játiva.

- TAIFA DE ALMERÍA -

RÉGULOS ESLAVOS
1. Aftah (1011/2-1014)
2. Jayran (1014-1028)
3. Zuhayr (1028-1038)
4. Abu Bakr al-Ramimi (1038)
A Valencia (1038-1042 ó 1043/4)

- TAIFA DE MURCIA -

RÉGULOS ESLAVOS
1. Jayran (h. 1011/2-1014)
Unida a Almería (1014-1038)
A Valencia (1038-1065)

- TAIFA DE VALENCIA -

RÉGULOS ESLAVOS
1 y 2. Mubarak y Muzaffar (1010/1-1017)
2. Muzaffar (1017)
3 y 4. Lab'ib (De Tortosa) y Muyahid (De Denia) (1017-1019)
4. Muyahid (De Denia) (1019-1021)

- TAIFA DE TORTOSA -

REGULOS ESLAVOS
1. Lab'ib (h. 1009-Antes de 1039/40)
2. Muqatil Sayf al-Milla (Antes de 1039/40-1053/4)
3. Ya'la (1053/4-1057/8)
4. Nabil (1057/8-1060)
A Zaragoza (1060-1081 ó 1082/3)

- TAIFA DE BADAJOZ -

RÉGULOS ESLAVOS
5. Sabur b al-Jatib al-Amirí (h. 1009-1022)

- TAIFA DE MÁLAGA - -

RÉGULOS ESLAVOS
5. Naya (Usurpador) (1042)

[source]