ghulam

Ghulam, also transliterated ghulam, is an Arab-origin term meaning "boy" or "servant" and appears in Persian, Urdu, Turkish, and Arabic texts. Historically, it referred to enslaved or contracted youths who were trained for military or administrative service and owned by a master or ruler. The ghulam system developed across several Islamic polities where slave-soldier and court-service corps were used to staff armies and bureaucracies, often as a counterweight to the native nobility.

In practice, ghulams were captured or purchased as youths, educated in warfare, governance, and etiquette, and gradually integrated into the ruling household. They could achieve high rank and influence; some rose to senior military or administrative positions. Notable examples appeared in the Delhi Sultanate (13th–16th centuries) and in later Persianate empires, where the loyalty and training of ghulams helped stabilize regimes but also occasionally sparked power struggles.

The term remains common in South Asian and Persianate names; it is widely used as a given name in many Muslim communities, as in Ghulam Khan or Ghulam Nabi, and in compound names. In modern usage, the term largely denotes historical slave-soldier practices or is encountered in literature and historical discussion, while in contemporary Arabic it more often simply means "boy" rather than a slave.

The ghulam tradition is often compared with other slave-soldier systems, such as the Mamluks of Egypt, reflecting a broader medieval pattern in which enslaved youths formed powerful military-administrative elites across the Muslim world.