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The Jewish slave merchants handled slaves, sold to them by the Rus or local Slav merchants. The jews on their part transfered them to the the Abbasid Caliph.

Background

According to Abraham ibn Ya'ḳub, Byzantine jewsih merchants bought Slavs from Prague to be sold as slaves. Louis the Fair granted charters to Jews visiting his kingdom, permitting them to trade with slaves, provided the latter had not been baptized; three of these charters are still extant. Agobard claimed that the Jews didnot abide to the agreement and kept Christians as slaves, citing the instance of a Christian refugee from Cordova who declared that his coreligionists were frequently sold, as he had been, to the Moors. Many, indeed, of the Spanish Jews owed their fortune to the trade in Slavonian slaves brought from Andalusia (Grätz, "Gesch." vii.). Similarly, the Jews of Verdun, about the year 949, purchased slaves in their neighborhood and sold them in Spain (Aronius, "Regesten," No. 127).

The Khazaria Route 7th-10th century

The Khazar route was the safest route in the early 7th century because it gave the Jewish merchants a safe route through the Khazari Kingdom Crimean/Caucas region all the way to the Islamic Caliph land. The female slaves were sold as Hareem and the males were sold as Siqaliba and were bought by the Caliph in Baghdad to serve as local Royal guard, because they didnt have any local loyalities.

Rus competition

From the 10th century The Khazaria route was not safe anymore, mianly to the Rus attacks against Khazaria and the piracy/competition on the Volga trade route, by the 10th century the Rus dominated the slave trade along the Volga trade route and the Jews shifted their trade routes to the open seas.

The Sea Route

The Sea route was the older route slave trade flourished in the Syrian Coasts starting in the 5th century AD, Jews played a major role in the slave trade that grew stronger by the 7th century mainly to the fall of the Roman trade system with the rise of Islam. The Syrian coasts Jewish slave trade didnt stop till the Crusades period then the trade flow moved to Egypt and Al-Andalus, it regained its momentum after the defeat of Crusades. , but it became the primary route after the fall of the Khazars kingdom and the weakenning of the Caliph in Baghdad, Jewish owned ships moved to the coasts of Syria, Egypt and Al Andalus, now the trade was mostly ran in the small trade posts along the coasts. the Jewish slave tradres marketed their slaves as (sarmatians), mostly females - which was linked by Almsaodi to the Mideastern slur - Sharmuta. At that period the locals lost interest in Siqaliba and used Turkic males Mamlukes instead, so it was mainly Slavic females. which explains the common Maternal Slavic DNA prsence in the levant (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, South Turkey) till this day.

Refrences

• Roth, Norman medieval Jewish civilzation
• Tertullianus, Qunitus Codex Agobardinus
• Almsaodi, Ali The Meadows of Gold
• Ibn Fadlan, Ahmad Kitāb ilā Malik al-Saqāliba
• Ibn Khordadhbeh, Hudud al-Alam
• The Jewish Slave trade entry in Jewish encyclopedia
• Slave markests in East Europe
• Jewish slave trade
• Slavs in Andalusia
• MTDNA European DNA in the Near East