Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Shams al-Dīn al-Muqaddasī (circa 945 – circa 1000) was an Arab geographer and author of Aḥsan al-taqāsim fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm (The Best Divisions in the Knowledge of the Regions). There are a few mentions of Slavs in the book, albeit among those mentions is a particularly graphic description of the castration process (it appears that is the writer’s lurid fascination with it that that we have to thank for it being conveyed to us).
An Account of the Climates of the World
“The Sixth Climate begins where the shadow is six feet plus six tenths and a sixth of a tenth of a foot; its shadow at the extremity differs from that at the beginning by just one foot. Its breadth is somewhat more than two hundred miles, as the crow flies. Its lower extremity towards the south coincides with the upper northern border of the adjacent fifth climate; and that is the latitude of Dabll, to the east and to the west. Its uppermost limit towards the north lies close to the land of Khwarazm and what is beyond it, and to Isbijab beside the territory of the Turks. Its middle part lies close to al-Qustantiniyya, Amul in Khurasan, Farghana, and places on this latitude, to the east and to the west. In itlieSamarqand, Bardhaca, Qabala, al-Khazar, al-Jil, the parts of al-Andalus which are towards the north, and the southernmost territories of the Slavs.”
“The Seventh Climate has its beginning where the shadow there is seven feet plus a half plus a tenth plus a sixth of one tenth of a foot, as at the end of the sixth; in fact the end of the sixth is the beginning of the seventh. Its southernmost limit corresponds with the northernmost limit of the climate adjacent to it, which is the sixth. That is the latitude of Khwarazm and Turarband, to the east and to the west. Its furthermost extremity towards the north lies in the remotest parts of the land of the Slavs, and on the territories of theTurks, which adjoin Khwarazm on the north. Its middle portion lies in the country of al-Lan, without any well-known towns.”
The Region of the Maghrib (including Andalusia)
“The black eunuchs whom you encounter are of three classes: the class that is taken to Egypt, and the are the best kind; the class that is taken to Adan – the Berber – and they are the worst kind. The third kind resemble the Abysssinians. Of white eunuchs there are two classes: the Slavs, whose land is beyond Khwarazm; they are, however, taken to al-Andalus where they are castrated, then exported to Egypt. Then there are the Romaeans. who are exported to Suria and Aqur; however this source has been cut off because of the ravaging or our frontiers.”
“I asked a group of them about the process of castration, and I learn that the Romaeans castrate their youngsters intended for dedication of the church, and they confine them so that they do not preoccupy themselves with women, or suffer carnal desires. When the Muslims raid, they attack the churches and taken the youngsters away from them.”
“The Slavs are taken to a town beyond Pechina, where the people are Jews, and they castrate them. There was disagreement among my informants about how the castration was done. According to some of them the penis and the scrotum are cut off at the same time. Others asserts that the scrotum is cut and testicles removed, after which a stick is inserted under the penis which is then cut off at the base. I inquired of the eunuch Urayb, a learned and truthful man, ‘Muallim, tell me about eunuchs, seeing that the scholars are not in agreement about them. Abu Hanifa asserts that they are able to have legitimate children, and are recognized as the fathers of the children their wives bear them: this is a matter that can be properly settled only by you.’ To this he said: ‘Abu Hanifa is correct – nat God have mercy on him – and I will tell you how this is. You should know that when the youngsters are about to be castrated, the scrotum is cut open for the removal of the testicles. It may be that the youngster is frightened, so that one of his testicles ascends into his abdomen. If it is searched for and not found at the time, it will descend after the cut has healed. If it is the left testicle that remains, the eunuch can experience lust and have sperm; if it is the right one he may grow a beard, as in the case of so-and-so, and so-and-so Abu Hanifa – may God have mercy on him – adhered to the saying of the Prophet – may God’s peace and blessings be upon him – ‘The child pertains to the conjugal bed,’ for it might be that the eunuch would be one of those to whom a testicle remained.'”
“I related this to Abu Said al-Juri in Naysabur, and he said, ‘This is perfectly possible, for one of my testicles is small, ‘ and in fact, his beard was light and thin.”
“When the castration is done, a little pencil of lead is placed in the urinary opening; this is removed during urination, and [then put back after] until the wound heals, so that the hole will not close up.”*
[*note: This practice may be what the Spanish priest, bishop Agobard of Lyon was hinting at when he wrote the following (note that he did not specifically name Slavs though he did mention in his other writings pagan slaves): “At that moment it was discovered that many Christians are sold by Christians and bought by Jews and that many unspeakable things are perpetrated by them which are too foul to write.”]
List of Exports From Bulghar or Khorezmia (Khawarazm) to Baghdad
“Sables, squirrels, miniver, ermines and the fur of steppe foxes, martens, foxes, beavers, spotted hares and goats, wax, arrows, birch-bark (cork), high fur caps, fish glue, fish teeth (walrus), castoreum oil, amber, prepared horse hides, honey, hazelnuts, falcons, swords, armour, khalanj wood (birch wood), Slavonic slaves, sheep and cattle. All these came from Bulghar. Khorezmia also exported jujubes, raisins, almond pastry, sesame, fabric of striped cloth, carpets, blankets cloth, satin for royal gifts, veils of malham fabric, locks, Aranj arrows for bows which only the strongest could bend, rakhbin (a kind of cheese) yeast, fish, boats hewn and smoothed (the latter also exported from Tirmidh). Bows of Khorezmia.”
The castration center was somewhere around Pechina
From the local tourism website we find this description (suggesting the region is, unfortunately not yet ready to confront its troubling past in a mature and responsible fashion):
“During the Al-Andalus period it was the capital of a region and of the Maritime Republic Bayyana. It was Abderraman II who commissioned the defence of the coast of Almeria to the Yemenite tribes of Gassan and Ru’ayn. These tribes together with the andalusi merchants and sailors formed the Maritime Republic of Pechina. This zone was called Urs al-Yaman. Its capital Bayyana perhaps took its name from a Roman country house called Fundus Baianus which existed there. This Maritime Republic of Pechina maintained a certain independence from the Caliphate, with governors like Umar Ben Aswad al-Gassani who built the walls and a splendid mosque in the style of the mosque in Cordoba. Its products such as linen and silk were exported through its port al-mariyya Bayyana, currently Almeria. In the X century Pechina was a cultural and spiritual centre. Abderraman III, when he saw the predominance that the port of Almeria had acquired, converted it into the headquarters of the Caliphate’s admiralty and the port for Cordoba in the trade with the East in the middle of the X century. Almeria was elevated to the category of “medina” and the capital of the region of Bayyana. Pechina was reduced to a hamlet.”
The Cambridge Illustrated hIstory of the Middle Ages provides a slightly different emphasis:
An interesting mention of the word pech comes from the Brothers’ Grimm Dictionary:
“— pech haben (wie der mit vogelpech gefangene vogel an den federn hat), unglück haben, kein glück bei unternehmungen haben, in einer fatalen lage sein, aus der man sich nicht losreiszen kann, etwas widriges und unangenehmes erfahren, hindernisse und anstosz finden und dergl.”
but also:
“siedendes pech, das schon bei den Römern den sklaven zur marter auf den leib geträufelt wurde, galt in christlicher zeit als eine der höllenstrafen und geradezu als hölle, die man sich als einen mit brennendem pech und schwefel erfüllten pfuhl vorstellte, worin die seelen der verdammten ewig brennen sollen.”
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The place where the castration took place, near Pechina (Almeria), was Lucena, according to historians. It was a town, 50km South east of Cordoba, inhabited by Jews exclusively.