The Buyids, like the khalifas, began importing the children of Turkish barbarians to Baghdad as slaves and raising them in dormitories over which they had absolute control, to serve as their personal bodyguards. Once the Buyids had their system in place, no one could oppose them, for their Turkish bodyguards had come to town at such a young age they had no memory of their families, their fathers, their mothers, their siblings: they knew only the camaraderie of the military schools and camps in which they grew up, and they felt soldierly allegiance only to one another and to the men who had
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