Shamshir: Turkish or Syrian?

[Rivkin]

well my knowledge of both languages is rudinmentary - eved, avod, I would not be able to tell the difference (I thought that they are both simply derived from "avod" - to work), however imho it is also "slave of god" in judaism as well - the one who studied a single passage 101 times.

Returning to arabic - I always was taught that abd is 100% slave, but on a very rare ocasion it can simply mean "black african", and in general _never_ being used to refer to a white-"blood tax", especially military slave.