the zanj revolt

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Board of Trustees, Boston University

The Zanj Rebellion ReconsideredAuthor(s): Ghada Hashem TalhamiSource: The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3 (1977), pp. 443-461Published by: Boston University African Studies CenterStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/216737 .Accessed: 01/05/2011 14:04

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444 GHADA HASHEM TALHAMI

our own day. 91 t another place he adds: Centuries before the agents

of Europe began the same ugly business in the West, the agents of Asiain the East were stealing men and women from Africa and shippingthem overseas to slavery. 2 Later n his narrative Coupland accepts theZanj Rebellion as proof of his earlier view. To him, the massive uprisingof slaves called Zanj indicates the presence of huge numbers of EastAfrican slaves in the Muslim world.3 Needless to say, Coupland'sstatement is based on several unfounded historical assumptions. Inclaiming that the Arabs, the agents of Asia, were involved in theslave trade from the earliest times, he implies that these people ruledthe coast as early as the eighth century, an assertion that H. NevilleChittick has demolished on the basis of archeological vidence. In hisefforts to correct the Kilwa Chronicle, Chittick proves that Arabcontacts with East Africa were infrequent before the ninth century A.D.He also points out that major Muslim settlements did not emerge eitheron the coast or on Zanzibar until the latter part of the eleventh centuryA.D.4 Obviously, Coupland is projecting backward a nineteenth-century understanding of the Arab presence, a view that does not fit

conditions in the ninth century.The Zanj Rebellion also influenced the conclusions of another noted

historian, G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville. Focusing on the commerce of thecoast prior to the nineteenth century, Freeman-Grenville concludesthat slaves were not exported from the Zanj coast in any significantnumbers:

While, at this time [1498-1840] slaves were an export from Zeila andBerbera, here is, indeed, no evidence to suggest that they were exported

at all from the coast farther south during the sixteenth or earlierseventeenth century, and the contention of Coupland, that the slavetrade was continuous from earliest times, rising to a peak in thenineteenth century, cannot be substantiated.5

But we find the same author reaching a different conclusion, albeit inreference to an earlier period, in another work written a year before theabove. After correctly illustrating how the term Zanj was used bymedieval Arab writers to identify the coast, he moves to the next

1Reginald Coupland, EastAfrica and Its Invaders (New York, 1965), 17.2Ibid., 17-18.3Ibid., 32.4H.N. Chittick, The 'Shirazi' Colonization of East Africa, J.D. Fage and R.A.

Oliver, eds., Papers in African Prehistory (London, 1970), 274-276.5G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville, The Coast, 1498-1840, in Roland Oliver and Gervase

Mathew, History of East Africa, I (London, 1966), 152.


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THE ZANJ REBELLION 445

seemingly logical step of associating the Zanj Rebellion with EastAfrican slaves:

One other event in the main stream of history s remotely connected withthe history of the coast. The revolt of the Zanj slaves in lower Iraq... isamong the most sanguinary events in history.... The estimates of theslain in these years vary, some being more than half a million. It is notpossible to estimate the numbers of slaves involved, but it may beargued, apart from natural ncrease, that no small number of Africanshad been transported o Iraq.6

Both the Zanj Rebellion and the definition of the term Zanj, then,have been prime obstacles to a careful examination of the question of amassive trade in slaves. And in other instances, too, these factors havebeen used to support the existence of an exchange, despite substantialevidence to the contrary. Several historians, Africanists and Arabists,have been influenced in this way. In a work published in 1964, for

example, Chittick accepts the idea of a vast trade in slaves on the basisof identifying the Zanj rebels of Basrah with the East African coast.7Later he revises his opinion, but without necessarily abandoning the

connection between the revolt and the coastal area, and without specificreference to the pertinent Arabic writings on the uprising:

It is certain that large numbers of slaves were exported from easternAfrica; the best evidence for this is the magnitude of the Zanj revolt in'Iraq n the 9th century, though not all of the slaves involved were Zanj.There is little evidence of what part of eastern Africa the Zanj camefrom, for the name is here evidently used in its general sense, ratherthan to designate the particular tretch of the coast, from about 3?N. to5?S., to which the name was also applied.8

Chittick then offers his own hypothesis that the slaves came from theHorn of Africa, and notes correctly the silence of most Arabic sourceson the slave trade.9 George Fadlo Hourani, in his study of Arab

seafaring, accepts the same interpretation without examining the detailsof the rebellion in the original Arabic accounts. 10

Turning to the works of medieval Arab and Persian geographers, one

6G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville, The Medieval History of the Coast of Tanganyika (London,1962), 34.

7H.N. Chittick, The East African Coast and the Kilwa Civilization, B.A. Ogot, ed.,East Africa Past and Present (Paris, 1964), 51.

8H.N. Chittick, East African Trade with the Orient, D.S. Richards, ed., Islam andthe Trade of Asia (London, 1970), 102-103.

9Ibid., 103.I?George Fadlo Hourani, Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in the Ancient and Early

Medieval Times (Beirut, 1963), 79.


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is struck by the absence of any mention of slaves as a major export of

the Zanj coast. Although all of these scholars refer to the part of Africafrom south of Cape Guardafui (Ras Hafoun) to Sofala as the Land ofZanj, they say nothing about slaves, yet they describe a variety of tradeitems, mostly gold and ivory, which seem to have been in great demandin Arab ands. Ibn Hauqal, he ninth-century geographer who perfectedthe genre of al-masalik wa al-mamalik routes and kingdoms ), offerslittle information on the Land of Zanj. He merely states that the goldmines of Nubian 'Alwa extended to the Land of Zanj along the sea andthat the area was inhabited by white Zanj. He then goes on to explainthe reason for his undisguised lack of interest in the area: I havealready said that this country was miserable and sparsely populated. Itwas hardly cultivated, with the exception of the outskirts of the king'sresidence. 11 Yet Ibn Hauqal's most valuable comment on EastAfrica's exports to the eastern flank of the 'Abbasid Empire comes notin relation to the Land of Zanj but in the course of his description of thecity of Siraf. The main emporium of the Persian Gulf area during thelate 'Abbasid period, Siraf handled merchandise destined for Chinese,

Indian, Arab, and African markets.12 Not surprisingly, bn Hauqal wasimpressed with the opulence of the city, adding the followingdescription:

The houses of Siraf are constructed of teakwood and of another kind ofwood imported rom the land of Zanj; he houses have several stories, asin Fustat.... There are no orchards or forests in the area around Siraf.13

Thus Ibn Hauqal, whose interest in Siraf made him distinctly aware ofEast African mports, mentions nothing whatsoever about the importa-tion of slaves. A work by an anonymous Persian geographer titledHudud al-'alam ( Boundaries of the World ), dating to the tenth

llIbn Hauqal, Configuration de la terre (Surat al-ardh), J.H. Kramers and G. Wiet,trans., I (Paris and Beirut, 1964), 56. For Ibn Hauqal's role in developing the Arabscience of geography, see Andre Miquel, Ibn Hawkal, B. Lewis, C. Pellat, and J.Schacht, eds., Encyclopedia f Islam, new edition (3 vols., Leiden, 1960-1969), III, 787;Nafis Ahmad, Muslim Contribution o Geography (Lahore, 1965), 31; Andr6 Miquel, La

Geographie humaine du monde musulman jusqu'au milieu du 11'siecle (Paris, 1967), xxiv,

300.12Due to the difficulty of navigating he headwaters of the Persian Gulf, large shipswere unable' o dock at the gulfs two major ports, Basrah and Uballh, on the Tigris canal.Instead, cargoes were usually oaded at Siraf. See Hourani, Arab Seafaring, 9-70.

13Hauqal, Configuration, 77. This description may be taken as confirmation f IbnBattuta's ater remarks, disputed by archeologists, hat the city of Kilwa s one of thefairest cities, with well-built buildings, all of wood, the roofs being of reeds. See IbnBattuta, RihlatIbn Battuta Beirut, 1964), 257-258. Ibn Battuta's original itle is Tuhfatal-nuzzar i ghara'ib al-amsar wa 'adja'ib al-asfar.


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century comes from the major work of 'Ali ibn Husay al-Mas'udi. Born

in Baghdad in 856 A.D., Mas'udi was perhaps one of the mostimportant voyagers and encyclopedists of that era. His great travelaccount, Murudj l-Dahab wa Ma 'adin al-Djawhar Meadows of Goldand Mines of Diamonds ), is the record of his eventful journey to thatpart of the East African coast he termed Qanbalu. t also includes one ofthe most detailed descriptions of elephant hunting and the ivory tradethat we have.20 But while his perceptions of East Africa are oftenquoted by Africanists, few have examined them for evidence of theslave trade. More importantly, ew realize that Mas'udi, who consis-tently assigned the term Zanj to the length of coast south of Guardafui,also provides an account of the Zanj Rebellion in the same work. Murudjal-Dahab hus affords us a singular opportunity o see what contempor-aries meant by Zanj, as well as whether we can determine the originalsource of these slaves. Mas'udi was the one historian and geographer na position to define the relationship between the Land of Zanj and theZanj Rebellion.

First, it should be noted that, like the majority of Arab and Persian

geographers, Mas'udi is silent on the subject of a slave traffic betweenthe coast and Muslim countries. What he does emphasize, under theheading The Blacks, their Origin, the Variety of Races Dispersed intheir Land and a History of their Kings, is the area's rich animalwealth, primarily n panther, giraffe, tortoise, and elephant.21 Theemphasis on animals and the diversionary description of their qualitiescan be attributed o Mas'udi's rivalry with 'Amr bin Bahr bn Mahboubal-Djahiz, whose major work of the period, Kitab al-Hayawan ( TheBook of Animals ), Mas'udi often cites. 'Amr bin Bahr bn Mahboubal-Djahiz was the most illustrious prose writer and philosopher of ninth-century Baghdad. His impact on his contemporaries and on latergenerations of Arab literati was considerable.22 One of the first toattempt a reconciliation between Greek rationalism and the ecclesiasti-cal bent of the Arab intellectual tradition, al-Djahiz considered theinvestigation of natural phenomena a significant endeavor with wide-ranging philosophical mplications. To him, study of the nascent science

20Miquel, La Geographie humaine, xxix. The Soviet Orientalist Krachkovski considersMas'udi the greatest of the geographers of the classic school of tenth-century geographicwriting. He also regards Mas'udi as the most original of his contemporaries. See IgnatiyIulianovich Krachkovski, Tarikh al-Adab al-Jughrafi al-'Arabi ( History of the ArabicGeographic Literature ), Salah al-Din 'Uthman Hashem, trans., I (Moscow, 1957), 177.

21Mas'udi, Les Prairies d'or, Charles Pellat, trans., II (Paris, 1962), 321-322.22Charles Pellat, Al-Djahiz, Encyclopedia of Islam, II, 357-358; Krachkovski, Tarikh

al-Adab, 128.


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of geography and descriptions of observable phenomena were an

affirmation of the significance of Muslim man's physical environment.His interest in the former received expression in a geographic work ofhis own, Kitab al-Amsar wa 'Adja ib al-Buldan ( The Book of Countriesand Wonders of the World ). Significantly, al-Djahiz was severelycriticized by some of his geographer contemporaries, includingMas'udi, for writing a book without visiting the places he describes.23This is particularly important because Mas'udi worked in the periodwhen geographical research was based on the principle of 'iyan(observation) and not on

qiyas (theory),with the

journey(al-rihlat) the

prerequisite to scholarship of any significance.24 Thus, given Mas'udi'ssecular approach to the study of geography and his attempt to emulateKitab al-Hayawan, he was not likely, as a professional geographer andvoyager, to overlook an oceanic traffic in slaves. 25And when one recallsthat most of these geographers record in accurate detail slave raids inBilad al-Sudan (West Africa) and al-Nuba (Nubia), their failure tomention a slave trade with the East African coast becomes verymeaningful. Moreover, we cannot regard the omission as an oversightor the deliberate eschewing of a delicate topic, since all aspects of theslave trade in other countries are fully described.

Nor are slaves overlooked because of their overwhelming presence asan item of trade, since the preponderance of gold and ivory is amplynoted by most geographers of that period. Moreover, as a field of

learning, geography was governed by definite perimeters and strictstandards of accuracy. Modern Western students of the Muslim scienceare particularly cognizant of what these scholars emphasized and what

they did not. Andre Miquel reminds us, for instance, that thegeographic genre of al-masalik wa al-mamalik, as exemplified by IbnHauqal and Mas'udi, invariably contains a description of humanconditions, the physical environment, and the corporate character of

23Miquel, La Geographie humaine, 39, 58. The exact title of this work is still a matter ofdebate. See Al-Djahiz, Kitab al-Buldan, Salah Ahmad al-'Ali, ed. (Baghdad, 1970).

24Ahmad, Djughrafiya, 578-579.25Historians of the Arab science of geography classify Mas'udi with the Iraqi school of

geographers, which produced works dealing with the known world as a whole butfocusing on the 'Abbasid Empire in particular. The output of this school was decidedlysecular and utilized the Persian Kishwar system, which divided the known world intoseven regions. The other main school, known as the Balkhi school after the geographerAbu Zayd al-Balkhi, produced works dealing with Dar al-Islam ( the Islamic world )only. This school treated Muslim provinces like separate regions, and used the termIklim, rather than Kishwar, for geographic divisions. The best representative of this schoolis Ibn Hauqal, known for his religious leanings and strong Fatimid preference. SeeAhmad, Djughrafiya, 579-581.


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vessels dock. And that is because the Zanj are of two main lines of

descent, Qanbalu and Langawiya, ust as are the Arabs of two main linesof descent, Qahtan and 'Adnan. You have yet to see a member of theLangawiya kind, either from the coast [al-Sawahil], or from the interior[al-Jouf]. If you could meet these, you would forget the issue of fairlooks and perfection. Now, if you refuse to believe this, saying that youhave yet to meet a Zanji with the brains even of a boy or a woman, wewould reply to you, have you ever met among the enslaved of India andSindh individuals with brains, education, culture and manners so as toexpect these same qualities in what has fallen to you from among the

Zanj.28This statement proves that, while the Arabs may have imported some

slaves from Qanbalu (Zanzibar, Pemba, or Madagascar), they hardlyever saw slaves from the coast proper or the interior. Also noteworthy is

al-Djahiz's enumeration of other racial stocks inhabiting the easternflank of the empire: Ethiopians, Nubians, Fezzanis, people from

Meroe, and Zaghawians.29 Al-Djahiz clearly considers the Zanj one ofmany racial elements contemporaneous-with himself. But in another

work, A41-Bukhala' The Misers ), he follows the practice of his age inreferring to all black slaves collectively as Zanj.30 So does Ibn Butlan, aChristian physician of Baghdad and Cairo who wrote during theMameluke period and who refers to black slaves generically as Zanj.31

The problem, then, is one of nomenclature, and as a result anyunderstanding of the Zanj Rebellion must begin with an effort at

defining the term Zanj and at gauging its multifarious uses by all classesof writers during the 'Abbasid period. Although African historicalliterature is replete with attempts to trace the origin and linguisticderivations of the term, no one has endeavored to determine itsapplication. Freeman-Grenville examines Greek, Indian, and Arabicderivations equating Zanj with black or inhabitant of jungles, anddismisses both as unsatisfactory. Instead, he favors the Persian Zang,meaning bell, on the basis of the known Zanj love of dancing with

28'Abd al-Salam M. Haroun, ed., Majmou'at Rasa'il al-Djahiz ( Letters of al-Djahiz ), I (Cairo, 1964), 212. Al-Djahiz elaborates urther on the varieties of black

slaves in another work, stating hat the Zanj were of four types: Qanbalu, Langawiya, l-Naml ( ants ) and al-Kilab ( dogs ), and Tikfu, and Tinbu. The term al-Naml, heexplains, was applied to a certain group of people noted for their ability to multiplyquickly, and al-Kilab were a people known for their strong physical build. Al-Djahiz, Al-Bayan wa al-Tabyeen, Hassan al-Sindoubi, d., VIII (Cairo, 1956), 50-51.

29Haroun, Majmou'at, 211.30Al-Djahiz, Al-Bukhala'( The Misers ) (Damascus, 1938), 253.31Faisal l-Sarhir, Thawrat l-Zanj The Zanj Rebellion ) (Baghdad, 1971), 27. See

J. Schacht, Ibn Butlan, al-Mukhtar, Encyclopedia f Islam, III, 740.


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452 GHADA HASHEM ALHAMI

bells tied to their ankles.32 But the best illustration of the futility of thisresearch are the erroneous nferences on the

ZanjRebellion to which it

has led. A meaningful assessment of this event requires an analysis notof the origin of the term, but of what it becomes in the hands of'Abbasid scholars.

Significantly, the few brief extant Western-language tudies of theZanj Rebellion unconsciously confirm that the Zanj rebels includedevery variety of black slave in the 'Abbasid Empire. Yet we mustremember hat the authors, Orientalists who relied primarily n originalArabic sources, were totally oblivious to the implications of their

studies for the history of the East African coast. Theodor Noldeke'sbrief narrative of the uprising, which appeared n Sketchesfrom EasternHistory n 1892, begins by repeating the received view that the Zanjslaves were imported from the East African coast.33 But as his storyunfolds, he uses the term Soudan ( blacks ) interchangeably withZanj.34 In an article in which he examines a Zanj coin, anotherOrientalist, P. Casanova, merely defines Zanj as a name given to theblack slaves of the Basrah outskirts. 35 Finally, the short notice in the

Encyclopedia fIslam on the leader of the uprising, Ali bin Muhammad,merely calls the Zanj rebel Negro slaves. 36Primary Arabic sources do not indicate that the Zanj were the major

segment of the rebels, nor that any other group was numericallypredominant. They do, on the other hand, yield much indirectinformation on their origin and the reasons for their protest. Arabistsagree that only two sources on the event can be considered primary:Tabari's Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk ( Annals of Prophets andKings ) and Mas'udi's Murudj l-Dahab. Several other works, althoughcontaining additional econdary nformation on the same episode,37 arein the main derived from Tabari's and Mas'udi's accounts. Of this

32Freeman-Grenville, Medieval History, 29. Another source has also postulated aPersian origin for the term Zanj, but claims that it means Ethiopia. See Stephen andNandy Ronart, eds., Concise Encyclopedia of Arabic Civilization: The Arab East (2 vols.,New York, 1960-1966), I, 576. A number of interpretations nd derivations or the termare also included in W.H. Ingrams, Zanzibar: Its History and Its People (London, 1967),24-26.

33Theodor N6ldeke, Sketches rom Eastern History, John S. Black, trans. (London,1892), 149; 149, n. 1.

34Ibid., 153.35p. Casanova, Monnaie du Chef des Zendj, Revue Numismatique, eries 3 (1893),

512.36B.Lewis, Ali B. Muhammad l-Zandji, Encyclopedia f Islam, , 388.37Ibn l-Athir, or instance, usually prefaces his year-by-year ccount of the rebellion

with Abu Dja'far al-Tabari elated.... See Ibn al-Athir, Al-Kamilfi al-Tarikh TheComplete History ), VII (Beirut, 1965), 206.


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group, the best known are al-Djawzi's Al-MuntazamfiAkhbar l-Umam

( Historyof

Nations ),and Biruni's Al-Athar

al-Baqiyahan al-Qurun

al-Khaliyah ( Surviving Relics of Past Centuries ). Two modernstudies in Arabic have analyzed the uprising's impact on the ailingstructure of the 'Abbasid Caliphate. These are 'Abd al-Aziz al-Duri'sDirasat fi al-'Usur al-'Abbassiyya al-Muta'akhira Studies in Late'Abbasid Times ), and Faisal al-Samir's Thawrat l-Zanj ( The ZanjRebellion ), the latter totally devoted to an examination of therebellion in its 'Abbasid context.

Tabari's annalistic account eaves no doubt as to the nature and cause

of the uprising at its inception.38 The revolt began in 869 A.D., when aslave-descended Arab named 'Ali bin Muhammad was able to rally tohis side black slaves employed in the extraction of salt and in landreclamation in Basrah's marshlands. 'Ali bin Muhammad's paternalgrandfather was said to have been a member of the 'Abd al-Qayslineage and his paternal grandmother a Sindhi slave woman. Hismother, a free woman, was a member of the Asad bin Khuzaimahlineage.39 This genealogy s of doubtful authenticity, however, and later

commentators have presumed him to have been of Persian rather hanArab origin. More importantly, his repeated claim to an 'Alid patrimonywas constantly questioned. Despite his birth n the village of Warzanin,near modern-day Tehran, his family was traced to Bahrein, where alarge branch of the 'Abd al-Qays, a sept of the great Arab lineage ofBanu Rabi'a, made their home.40 Ali bin Muhammad's pretense to an'Alid descent was rarely accepted even by his contemporaries, andMas'udi states:

Sahibal-Zanj

['Ali'stitle]

declared his rebellion atal-Basrah, during

thereign of al-Muhtadi, n 255 A.H. He claimed that he was descended from'Ali ibn Abi Talib, but most people recognize this as a false claim andreject t.41

'Ali's early years are shrouded in mystery, since his humble originand poverty-stricken ife did not attract the attention of contempo-raneous biographers nd historians. But we know that just prior to therebellion 'Ali lived in Samirra', then the 'Abbasid capital, where hemixed with some of the influential slaves of Caliph al-Mustansir 861-862 A.D.). This afforded him an opportunity o witness at close hand

38Tabari's historical methodology is discussed in Franz Rosenthal's History of MuslimHistoriography Leiden, 1968), 488.

39Abu Dja'far al-Tabari, Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk (Annales Quos Scripsit), M.J.Goeje, ed., tertia series (4 vols., Leiden, 1964), III, 1742-1743.

40AI-Samir, Thawratal-Zanj, 52.41Macoudi, Les Prairies d'or, VIII, C. Barbier de Meynard, trans. (Paris, 1930), 31.


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the extremes of wealth and poverty in the capital and to familiarize

himself with the weaknesses of the caliphate.42 Later he emigrated toBahrein, where his 'Abd al-Qays relations resided, and began toadvocate a rebellion as a Shi'i pretender. Bahrein was ready for theseeds of violent protest; its alienation from the Iraqi caliphate laybehind a later revolt by the Qaramathians, n extremist Isma'ili sect. Inaddition, 'Ali's following in the city grew so large that land taxes werecollected in his name.43 Despite these favorable conditions, however,'Ali's attempts at incitement failed, although he was able to win theloyalty of some devoted followers who later held positions of leadershipin the Zanj uprising. These Bahrani followers were either smallcraftsmen or clients of powerful amilies. They included one Yahya binMuhammad al-Bahrani, client of the Bani Darem; Yahya bin abi-Tha'lab, a small merchant; butcher Muhammad bin Salim; and Hassanal-Sidhnani, as well as a black client of the Banu Handhala namedSuleiman bin Jamei'.44

'Ali bin Muhammad first went to Basrah, the scene of the. Zanjuprising, in 868 A.D. (254 A.H.). There he preached his cause in the

main mosque until the caliph's soldiers chased him away. But his firstactual contact with Ba'srah's laves seems to have been motivated by avicious outbreak of hostilities between two Turkish regiments, theBilaliyah and the Sa'diyah, which contributed to the weakening ofBasrah's political regime. Hoping to exploit the resultant anarchy o hisadvantage, he tried to win to his side members of one of these groups.45When news of another armed conflict between Basrah's regimentsreached him at his hideaway n Baghdad he following year, 869 A.D.,he immediately returned. This time he

beganto seek out black slaves

working in the Basrah marshes and to inquire into their workingconditions and nutritional standards. Once shown their economic andsocial deprivations under the troubled rule of the caliphs, the slavesquickly rallied behind 'Ali as a Kharijite eader bent on saving thecaliphate rom religious mpurities and social abuses.46

The ideology of the rebellion was carefully defined at the beginning.In his 'Id sermon in 255 A.H. 'Ali explained his program, naming theslaves' pathetic iving and working conditions as his main impetus and

42Tabari, Tarikh, III, 1742-1744; al-Samir, Thawratal-Zanj, 54-55.43Tabari, Tarikh, III, 1743-1744.44Al-Samir, Thawratal-Zanj, 55-56.45Ibid., 57-58; Tabari, Tarikh, III, 1745. Noldeke mistakenly identifies these two

fighting factions of Basrah as rival quarters or guilds of the town. Noldeke, Sketches, 147;147, n. 1.

46Al-Samir, Thawratal-Zanj, 58-59, 70.


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assuring them that he was their savior, sent by God. Despite his

adoption of an 'Alid genealogy he was careful not to espouse Shi'idoctrines, since these confined the succession of the caliphate to anelitist group limited to 'Ali ibn abi-Talib and his descendants. To avoidalienating the slaves, 'Ali bin Muhammad adopted instead theextremely egalitarian doctrine of the Kharijites, who preached that themost qualified man should reign, even if he was an Abyssinian slave.47The Kharijite tinge to the rebellion is also evident in its slogan: AllahuAkbar, Allahu Akbar, la ilaha illa Aallah, wa Allahu Akbar, illa laHukma illa lilah ( God is

great,God is

Great,there is no God but

Allah, and God is great, no arbitration except by God ). Sahib al-Zanjrepeatedly and systematically began his Friday mosque sermon with this

slogan, which everyone knew was the war cry used by the Kharijiteswhen they defected from the ranks of 'Ali ibn abi-Talib during thebattle of Siffin.48 'Ali bin Muhammad also promised to elevate theslaves' social position and their right to the ownership of wealth,homes, and slaves.49

The slaves were merely one among several oppressed classes who

participated in the rebellion, which was not an attack on the institutionof slavery but on social inequality. 'Ali's rebels seem to have includedsemi-liberated slaves, clients of prestigious families, a number of smallcraftsmen and humble workers, some peasantry, and some Bedouinpeoples who lived around Basrah. All shared with the black slaves anintense hatred not only of the caliphate but of the large landowners andslave holders of Basrah. If one group contributed more than others tothe success of this drawn-out revolt, it was not the black slaves but theBedouins from the

surrounding region,who

provisionedthe

fightersthroughout the insurrection.50Hostilities began in and around Basrah in the area known formerly as

Dajlah al-'Awra', but eventually they spread to the whole area betweenShatt al-'Arab and Waset. Much of this area of southern Iraq wasswampland; Basrah was noted for its numerous rivulets, reputed to

47Ibid., 83-84; Noldeke, Sketches, 151. The Kharijites were originally an extremistrepublicanist group that defected from the ranks of the fourth Orthodox caliph, 'Ali ibnabi-Talib, because he accepted arbitration after the battle of Siffin, fought against the

Umayyads. Like the regular Shi'i party, their movement was initially political, centeredaround theories of succession to the caliphate, but beginning with the reign of 'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan it acquired religious and philosophical overtones. Al-Samir, Thawratal-Zanj, 84.

48Al-Samir, Thawrat al-Zanj, 85. See also Casanova, Monnaie du Chef des Zendj,512-513. Mas'udi even claims that 'Ali was an Azrakite, an extremist Kharijite, becausehe sanctioned the killing of women and children. See Macoudi, Les Prairies d'or, 31-32.

49Tabari, Tarikh, III, 1751.50Al-Samir, Thawratal-Zanj, 75-76.


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number as many as one hundred and twenty thousand. Naturally, thisgeographic feature hindered the movements of the 'Abbasid army, withits many soldiers and heavy equipment. It also meant that the rebelswere able to fight a very successful guerrilla war in which their mobilityand maneuverability gave them a clear advantage.51 'Ali's forces soonoccupied the famous port of Uballa on Shatt al-'Arab and the Persiancity of 'Abadan, thereby disrupting the flow of goods in and out ofcentral Iraq.52

But the rebels seemed to want complete control of Basrah above all,and were dissatisfied with limited forays inside the city. They finally

accomplished their objective with a tight blockade that prevented goodsand victuals from reaching the beseiged inhabitants, and by exploitingthe sectarian and ethnic differences among sections of the population.Basrah was finally taken in 871 A.D. and totally devastated, thenburned. 53It was a major defeat for the central government and, with itsaccompanying acts of great cruelty against the vanquished, includingthe women and children, it received a great deal of attention fromhistorians. Mas'udi's account of events is not only vivid and detailed, it

expressesthe horror which the

uprisinginstilled in the

peopleof

Iraq.Describing the famine which ravaged the city after its fall, he writes,Most people hid in homes and wells appearing only at night, when

they would search for dogs to slay and eat, as well as for mice.... Theyeven ate their own dead, and he who was able to kill his companion, didso and ate him. 54 But the most outrageous aspect of Basrah'soccupation was the enslavement of free Arab women. Mas'udi suppliesmost of the details:

'Ali's soldiers were so outrageous as to auction off publicly women fromthe lineage of al-Hassan and al-Hussein and al-'Abbas [meaningdescendants of 'Ali ibn abi-Talib and the ruling 'Abbasids] as well asothers from the lineage of Hashem, Qureish [the Prophet's ineage] andthe rest of the Arabs. These women were sold as slaves for a mere one orthree Dirhams, and were publicly advertised according o their properlineage, each Zanji receiving ten, twenty and thirty of them asconcubines and to serve the Zanji women as do maids.55

Basrah's fall alerted the central government to the gravity of the

situation, and it dispatched a substantial military force led by the heir to

5bid., 96-100.21bid., 102-107.

53Ibid., 109-111.54Macoudi, Les Prairies d'or, 59.55Ibid., 60.


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the throne, al-Muwafak. After marching as far as Uballa, al-Muwafak

camped and began to organize for an encounter. At this point we hearaccounts of the army's extreme cruelty toward captured Zanj. Forinstance, Yahya of Bahrein, a noted leader of the rebel troops, wastaken with a small group of men and sent to Samirra'. There he wasflogged two hundred times while Caliph al-Mu'tamid watched. Both hisarms and legs were amputated and he was slashed with swords. Finally,his throat was slit and he was burned.56 But such acts did nothing toalleviate the Zanj threat, and their raids against southern towns andvillages continued unabated. When the caliphate became preoccupiedwith the al-Saffarid ecessionist movement in Persia, the Zanj extendedtheir control further north with the aid of the surrounding Bedouinpeoples. 57

The turning point of the rebellion came in 879 A.D., when the Saffarswere defeated and al-Muwafak again took charge of the campaign.58Confined to their last stronghold, he city of al-Mukhtara, he Zanj wereseverely hurt by the effects of an organized eige. Even so, they resistedstubbornly or three years, capitulating nly after the death of 'Ali bin

Muhammad.59 This signaled the beginning of the end of the mostbrutal uprising n the history of the 'Abbasid Empire.

This brief outline of events hardly explains all the circumstances hatlay behind the Zanj Rebellion. However, the original exts that recordedthese events can, on careful reading, shed a great deal of light on theidentity of the slaves who participated n them. Tabari's narrativeproves beyond doubt that Zanj was applied ndiscriminately o all blackslaves throughout the eastern parts of the 'Abbasid Empire. Tabarihimself

frequentlyrefers to the rebels as al-Sudan.60 His work also

makes it clear that their numbers included a variety of black slaves,semi-slaves, and some white slaves. A certain lieutenant of Sahib al-Zanj, Abi Saleh, he describes as a Nubian.61 The isolation of the

56Tabari, arikh, II, 1868-1869.57The Saffarid revolt began in 872 A.D., when the ambitious Ya'qub ibn Laith al-

Saffar seized control of much of Persia, eventually forcing the caliph to recognize theSaffarid dynastic claims over most of the eastern flank of the empire. A great deal of the'Abbasids' nability o crush the Zanj stemmed from their preoccupation ith the Saffaridattack, particularly hen Baghdad was threatened n 875 A.D. A natural alliance eems tohave developed for a time between the Saffarid agent in al-Ahwaz and the Zanj, butwhen 'Ali bin Muhammad wrote to Ya'qub proposing formal alliance he latter balked.Once the caliph neutralized Ya'qub's successor, his brother 'Amru, the centralgovernment was able to turn its attention o curbing he Zanj. Al-Samir, Thawrat l-Zanj,116-118.

58Ibid., 132-133.59Ibid., 141-151; Tabari, Tarikh, IV, 2085.60Tabari, Tarikh, II, 1750, 1756.61 bid., 1752.


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participants according to racial origin occurs only once in Tabari's

account, in a section relating to the languages they spoke. Thatparticular assage nevertheless is clear only with respect to the Nubianslaves, who are identified directly by name; the racial origin of theothers is open to dispute. This ambiguity, which requires a very closeand careful reading of the Arabic exts as well as deductive analysis, hasled one modern historian to assume that East African Zanj were aconspicuous element in the revolt. J. Spencer Trimingham hurriedlyconcludes that ust because Tabari mentions the Zanj by name, he mustmean slaves from the Zanj coast. Then, having established thiscategory, Trimingham breaks down the rebels into several groups: Zanj,Nubian, Euphrates, and Qaramathian. He compounds his error urtherby failing to properly dentify the Qaramathians.62

Tabari's crucial passage details 'Ali's efforts to assure his followers ofhis loyalty and trustworthiness. The slaves apparently had beendisturbed by a rumor that their former masters had offered 'Ali binMuhammad five dinars for each life slave he returned to them.Although 'Ali rejected the proposal, the rebels believed their betrayal

was imminent and spoke of resistance. Sahib al-Zanj ordered them toassemble that night and prepared o address them. Tabari relates:

He ['Ali bin Muhammad] then called Muslih [his interpreter] andseparated the Zanj from the Furatiyya and ordered Muslih to informthem that he does not intend to return them, not a single one, to theirmasters. He took several oaths to that effect. Then he added: Let some ofyou stay around me so that if they detected a sign of betrayal hey will beable to slay me. Then he gathered he rest, and these were the Furatiyya,Qaramathiyya, uba and others who spoke Arabic, and he took the sameoaths before them.63

The last sentence holds the key to the meaning of the whole passage.Since the Furatiyya ppear o be of unknown origin-their name merelyindicates that they worked the banks of the Euphrates River nearBasrah-the significance of their designation presumably ies in theirknowledge of Arabic. Tabari irst distinguishes them from the Zanj asArabic-speaking, hen divides them into the three further categories ofNuba, Qaramatiyya, and Furatiyya. Thus Zanj must refer to non-Arabic-speaking ndividuals. Even so, the reference is very vague, forone cannot ignore the other salient points about Tabari's usage of Zanj:

62j. Spencer Trimingham, The Arab Geographers and the East African Coast,H.N. Chittick and Robert I. Rotberg, eds., East Africa and the Orient New York, 1975),116-117, n. 4.

63Tabari, Tarikh, III, 1756-1757.


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its looser application to all the slaves, and its alternate' use with the term

Soudan. His recurrent and indiscriminate reference to all the rebels aseither Soudan or Zanj clearly proves that the term Zanj, at least forTabari, does not designate a distinct place of origin. Moreover, it wouldbe myopic to focus on Tabari's text while ignoring the implications ofthe general appelation of the rebellion. If Tabari sets out deliberately toisolate the Zanj as one of several categories of slaves, why does he retainthe term Zanj for the entire conflict? Theodor Noldeke's account of theuprising, the first in a Western language (1892), defines the Zanj asnon-Arabic

speakers:The most numerous class of these negroes-the Zanj, properly socalled-were almost all of them ignorant of Arabic. With theseaccordingly, Ali (leader of the Zanj) had to use an interpreter. But othersof the negroes-those from more northern countries (Nubia and thelike) already poke Arabic.64

Al-Samir also uses the term linguistically; he says that Zanj were thosewho were recently captured and so spoke no Arabic.65 Tabari

distinguishes an additional category of slaves as al-Shourajiyah, whosename derives from the Persian word for salt (shourah). These wereslaves employed by the entrepreneurs who collected and sold salt in theprocess of. preparing land for cultivation.66 Al-Samir hypothesizes thatNubians and Euphrates were both from Nubia, the latter known asEuphrates because they worked the land bordering the river.67However, Tabari's text is noncommital on the identity of these people.A degree of confusion also has long surrounded the identity of theQaramathians. Certain students of the rebellion have identified them

with members of the extremist Isma'ili sect known in Arabic as al-Qaramiteh; the slaves themselves were called al-Qaramathiyeen.68 Thisambiguity is exacerbated by the fact that the Qaramiteh, who weremainly Iraqi or Persian in origin, were preaching their extremistreligious doctrine in southern Iran around the time of the revolt. Butthere is little doubt that the al-Qaramathiyeen were African, morespecifically Garamantes of Fezzan, a people of Sudanic-Hamitic stock.The geographer al-Muqaddasi describes them earlier in the following

words: The land of these Sudan adjoins this region [al-Maghreb] andEgypt from the south. Their land is extensive and desolate and there are

64Noldeke, Sketches, 153.65AI-Samir, Thawratal-Zanj, 36.66Tabari, Tarikh, III, 1750; al-Samir, Thawrat al-Zanj, 34.67Al-Samir, Thawratal-Zanj, 36.68Ibid., 87.


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many races among them.... While the Nubians and Abyssinians use

cloth asa

medium of exchange, these use salt. 69The names of the slaves and their leaders rarely provide evidence oforigin. In a very few cases, the ethnic identity of an individual isrevealed in his last name or title, such as those of Rashid al-Qaramathyor Nader al-Aswad ( Nader the Black ), each a distinguished militaryleader. Certain first names could indicate slave status since they areoften the same as those of Arab slaves in the contemporary literature,for example, Rihan ibn Salah al-Mughrabi (Rihan means fragrantplant ) and Shibl bin Salem (Shibl means cub lion ). However, the

majority are typically Arab and indistinguishable from the names of freeArabs. Tareef, Zoureiq, Sabih al-'Asar, Suleiman ibn Musa al-Sha'rani,Muhammad ibn Sam'aan, and 'Ali bin Iban al-Muhallabi are not onlyuseless as indicators of country of origin, they are also racially oblique.70

Thus the Zanj Rebellion was not restricted to slaves of East Africanorigin; in fact, it was not even a slave rebellion in the strict sense of theword. 'Ali ibn Muhammad was definitely head of a religious uprisingwith social overtones in which slaves provided much of the manpower.

In return, as individual converts and as soldiers of the religious cause ofKharijism, they were able to win their freedom. The protest made noconcerted attack on the institution of slavery as such. Moreover, itsparticipants included Bahranis, Bedouins, and lower-class artisans aswell as black slaves, some Arabic-speaking and some still speaking theirnative tongues. Perhaps the most convincing proof against theparticipation of East African slaves is Tabari's interchangeable use ofthe terms Zanj and Soudan, and his allusion to the Zanj as slaves whomerely were unfamiliar with the Arabic language. Noldeke's interpreta-tion of the Tabari passage mentioned above also supports this view.

Mas'udi's account of the rebellion supplies additional support for theimplications of Tabari's history. Of all the observers of the ZanjRebellion, Mas'udi should have been able to recognize the Zanj as EastAfrican since he visited the East African coast personally and knew thearea well. Instead, his garrulous account, detailing such secondaryaspects of the rebellion as the Basrah famine and the enslavement ofaristocratic Arab women, never discusses the slaves' alleged country of

origin. Adab writers such as al-Djahiz even indicate that Zanj slaveswere imported only from Qanbalu, although these scholars continue touse Zanj in a general and undefined way. The term consequently must

69Shams al-Din al-Muqaddasi, Ahsan al-Taqaseem fi Ma'rifat al-Aqaleem (Leiden,1906), 241-242, quoted in al-Samir, Thawrat al-Zanj, 35.

70Al-Samir, Thawratal-Zanj, 102, 146, 168.


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be considered here a blanket term for black slaves that had long lost its

association with East Africa. Indeed, in his recent study al-Samirdirectly disputes an eastern coastal origin for these people: the 'land ofZanj' was a wide and loose expression [ta'beerfadhfadh] pplied by theArabs to large areas n Africa. 71

In addition, the works of contemporary geographers give noindication of an oceanic trade in slaves between the East African coastand the 'Abbasid Empire before the tenth century. This is a startlingfact, considering he consistent attention of these men to major tems of

exportfrom the East African coast. Not

onlywere contacts with this

partof Africa tenuous, as is clear from the account of al-Djahiz, but Africanslaves were not the major attraction drawing Arab and Persian seafarersthere. For these reasons, the claim that huge numbers of slaveparticipants n the Zanj Rebellion were carried from the Swahili coastand Zanzibar cannot be sustained. In fact, if the uprising provesanything about the origin of slaves in the 'Abbasid Empire, it is thatmost came from the modern-day Sudan and the Libyan desert. Othercontemporary writing, of course, indicates the availability f Ethiopian

and Maghrabi laves as well.The Zanj Rebellion occupies a unique place in the historiography f

East Africa. Despite much evidence to the contrary, including theabsence of major Arab settlements along the coast, the silence of Araband Persian geographers on an oceanic trade, and the generalizedequation of Zanj with black, it has been used to infer an importantcommercial relationship between Africa and the Middle East severalcenturies before such an exchange can be proven to have existed. This

overemphasison one set of historical events

mightbe warranted were

there some agreement on the etymology and derivation of the termZanj. Without such consensus, however, the assumption hat 'Abbasidwriters used Zanj to mean specifically he East African coast, and thattherefore the people they called Zanj originated n a specific part of thatregion, is completely unjustified.

71Ibid., 33.

the zanj revolt

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