中东在历史上曾经盛行军事奴隶制。在这种制度下，军事奴隶作为专职化军事力量服务于统治者，他们中有不少人跻身统治阶层，有的军事奴隶甚至建立了政权。关于中东军事奴隶制的起源众说纷纭，最常见的观点是由阿拔斯王朝哈里发穆阿台绥姆开创。据考证，伊斯兰世界的军事奴隶制最早于8世纪下半叶出现在西班牙后倭马亚王朝，9世纪初北非阿格拉布王朝也先于阿拔斯王朝实行军事奴隶制。在阿拔斯哈里发组建奴隶军队之后，各个伊斯兰割据政权也纷纷效仿，军事奴隶制遂在中东普及开来，并长盛不衰，一直存在到20世纪。军事奴隶制是传统中东社会的统治者应对支配力有限的一种措施，是在伊斯兰政治框架内谋求专制权力的一种特殊的制度。
Military slavery prevailed in the Middle East in history. In this system，military slaves served the rulers as full-time military forces，many of whom entered the ruling class，and some military slaves even became rulers. Scholars hold different opinions on the genesis of military slavery in the Middle East，with the most popular view being that it was initiated by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mu‘taṣim（r.833-842）. Research shows that the military slavery of the Islamic world first appeared in the Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba in the second half of the 8th century，and in the early 9th century the Aghlabid dynasty in North Africa also practiced a system of military slavery，which preceded the one of the Abbasid Caliphate. After the Abbasid Caliphs established slave armies，various Muslim separatist regimes followed suit，and then military slavery became widespread in the Middle East，which flourished for a long time and didn’t disappear until the 20th century. Military slavery，a measure taken by rulers in traditional Middle Eastern societies to deal with the dilemma of limited dominance over subjects，was a special system to seek authoritarian power within the Islamic political framework.
