Underlooked Medieval/Arabic/Byzantine PODs?

I always wondered whether al-Andalus could have some equivalent of the Janissaries: Christian boys levied and raised as Muslim ghazis?

Also they quite extensively used Slavic men (saqaliba) as harem concubines in al-Andalus, so why couldn't they also use some as slave soldiers a la the Mamluks?
They did use Saqaliba, or were starting to - the royal guard was mostly Slavic men. As of Abd ar-Rahman III Saqaliba were being used militarily more often. A lot of their commanders were Saqaliba - often the general stationed at Medinaceli was one. That fizzled a bit once Almanzor gutted their leadership and started relying more on entire tribes of Berbers brought in at once, who had more loyalty to the tribe than to the Umayyads.
 
They did use Saqaliba, or were starting to - the royal guard was mostly Slavic men. As of Abd ar-Rahman III Saqaliba were being used militarily more often. A lot of their commanders were Saqaliba - often the general stationed at Medinaceli was one. That fizzled a bit once Almanzor gutted their leadership and started relying more on entire tribes of Berbers brought in at once, who had more loyalty to the tribe than to the Umayyads.

So why did Almanzor do that? (Sorry if it's a dumb question, it's not exactly my area of expertise)
 
Then prevent him from getting ill and give him time to better plan his succession.

While I would add to the succession discussion, I have my own reason not to - and that's because a longer living Dušan Nemanjić in of itself changes things. He had grand intentions; as he called himself Emperor and Autocrat of the Serbs and Greeks, the Bulgarians and Albanians, he was effectively a pretender to the Byzantine crown. He intended to hold Hum, Belgrade, Macva, Durrës, Phillipopolis, Adrianople, Thessalonica, and Constantinople. He wanted to head a crusading army against the Muslim Turks in Anatolia. Whatever could've happened in this scenario would've shaped how and when he would've planned his succession.
 
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