An interesting reference to al-Rayy in the province of D̲j̲ibāl (or Jibal) is found in al-Muqaddasī. It does not discuss Slavs per se… but, well, see for yourself:
“The people of a-Rayy alter their names. They say for ‘Ali and Hasan and Ahmad: “‘Alka, and Haska and Hamka.“
Now, if these masculine names had instead ended in -o, I’d say that we were dealing with someone whose habits were very close to those of Slavs. The question really is whether the suffixes here are properly labeled as -a’s.
The fact that the Slavic word for “paradise” is “raj” or “rayy” is also curious given this town’s name.
al-Rayy smack in the middle on the trading route from Baghdad to Khorasan
Here is some more:
“In al-Rayy speakers use the ra’ [r]. saying ‘radah’, ‘rakin’… The fairest in complexion are the people of al-Rayy; the others are swarthy.”
Al-Rayy itself is about five miles SSE from Tehran (today just ruins). It lay in the Median province and was also known as Rag̲h̲ā. Here is a write up from the Encyclopedia Britannica:
“A settlement at the site dates from the 3rd millennium BCE. Rayy is featured in the Avesta (the original document of Zoroastrianism, an Iranian religion) as a sacred place, and it is also mentioned in the book of Tobit, of the biblical Apocrypha, and by classical authors. Rayy was one of the capital cities of the Parthian empire (3rd century BCE–3rd century CE). It was captured by the Muslim Arabs in 641 CE. During the reign of the Muslim caliph al-Mahdī in the 8th century, the city grew in importance until it was rivaled in western Asia only by Damascus and Baghdad. Islamic writers described it as a city of extraordinary beauty, built largely of fired brick and brilliantly ornamented with blue faience (glazed earthenware). It continued to be an important city and was briefly a capital under the rule of the Seljuks, but in the 12th century it was weakened by the fierce quarrels of rival religious sects. In 1220 the city was almost entirely destroyed by the Mongols, and its inhabitants were massacred. Most of the survivors of the massacre moved to nearby Tehrān, and the deserted remnants of Rayy soon fell into complete ruin. Rayy was famous for its decorated silks, of unsurpassed artistic perfection, and for ceramics. Only two architectural monuments survive: the tower of Toghrïl (1139) and a partially ruined tower.”
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