This paper will examine the geo-political and economic relationships between the medieval Egyptian state (ca. 10th-13th c.) and the non-Muslim kingdoms and peoples along its southern frontier by analyzing the history of the slave trade. One of the best-known aspects of this history is the baqt treaty between Nubia and Egypt in the seventh century. The dominant interpretation of this treaty is that Egypt ceased hostilities against the Nubians in exchange for an annual tribute. The Nubians paid this tribute by delivering slaves to Egypt (as many as 400 according to Ibn ‘Abd al-Hakam, d. 871) along with exotic animals. In this paper, I will survey recent scholarship that challenges the traditional view of the baqt treaty. Evidence from Arabic papyri, Syriac and Arabic narrative sources, as well as Nubian sources, suggest that the baqt was in fact an agreement that emphasized a mutual exchange of tribute between Egypt and Nubia as part of normal diplomatic relations. When relations between Islamic Egypt and Nubia soured (as was frequently the case), the baqt exchange was suspended. Further, my presentation will explain why states like Nubia, and other African states in the Lake Chad region, willingly traded in slaves with the Muslim world by considering how this trade (along with other luxury items) was an integral part of African statecraft. Another group on the Egyptian frontier that is poorly understood are the semi-nomadic pastoralists, known as the Buja, who inhabited the region between Aswan and the Red Sea coast. While some sources depict the Buja as perennial victims of slave raids that fed Egyptian markets (e.g. Nasir-i Khusraw, fl. 11th c.), other medieval authors describe the Buja as themselves raiders involved in the slave trade. These sources indicate that the Buja benefited from the transit economy (including slave traffic) by collecting tolls and provisioning merchant caravans. In this manner they benefited directly and indirectly from the larger slave trade to Egypt. By reconsidering the baqt and the Buja people, this paper argues that scholars need to more carefully analyze the relationship between the Islamic world and medieval Africa to account for a more dynamic history of interaction and interdependence.