SAKALIBA

With this strange word the Arabic sources name the land of Slavs.

The hunch says that sa-prefix and ib-suffix (which may be mangled eb-suffix) are here for reason. Isn't there a Kartvelian word SAKALEBO which could have been crooked by the Arabs into SAKALIBA?

Yes, it exists. It used to mean 'women's part of the house', and can be broken down as SA+KAL+EB+O. SA is the prefix of place, KAL is the root meaning 'woman', EB is the suffix of plural form, and O is an abstract noun flexion. A perfectly Kartvelian word, that has never been regarded as such.

Why women? What so womenish did the Arabs see in Slav countries to call them 'land of women'?

There may be two explanations (or more?):

1. It may be related to the story of Herodotus in which he tells about the tribe of non-Scythian-speaking Amazones living next to Scythians.
2. It may refer to the tribe of Agathyrsi (Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine) that was described by Herodotus as womanly with passion to embellishments.

Now let's see how SAKALIBA interrelates with SKLAVINES, another name for Slavs from which, as many think, the word Slav actually originated.

The consonants coincide virtually completely: SKLB = SKLV (B-V can be regarded as practically the same sound). If so, then the root for the word Slav should be looked for in the Kartvelian word of 'kali' - 'woman', from which only L finally remained.