ABSTRACT
A great deal has been written of late concerning the development in the Islamic world of what has generally been called 'military slavery'. The consensus holds that the system of 'military slavery' was native and particular to the Islamic world, by Islamic proximity to non-Islamic but militarily and genetically more robust nations, including most conspicuously the Turks of Central Asia. There is one element in common among all known early Islamic cases where an Arab possessed a personal bodyguard characteristic of the fully developed 'guard corps system'. The Turks and Sogdians of Central Asia passed on the guard corps, as part of their common heritage, to the Arabs, who then made it 'Islamic'. When al-Mamun was living in Central Asia, he acquired a largely Turkic personal guard corps, a closely-knit group of adult male servants skilled in warfare who were bound to and loyal to the caliph personally, not to the state.
