#Zanj rebellion

[baebeylik]

13th century Arabic depiction of slaves

Between 869 and 883 CE an attempted insurrection of the Abbasid Caliphate was led by one Ali ibn Muhammad. He was a man of mysterious origin (possibly Persian?) who claimed to be descended from the Rashidun Caliphate. While his claims were not taken seriously by the Abbasids he did garner a following who journeyed with him to modern Iraq.

While in Iraq he made an unlikely alliance with the mistreated African slaves of the Iraqi marshes known collectively as the “Zanj”. These slaves were of mostly East African stock and were forced to work in harsh conditions in Abbasid plantations.

The slaves readily allied with Ali Ibn Muhammad. He also allied with many freed Zanj and Arab peasants who had their own quarrels with the Abbasid Dynasty. The rebellion lasted for years and caused the deaths of thousands of lives. While it ended with an Abbasid victory and the complete eradication of Ali and his allies it also escalated the already steady decline of the Caliphate.

[lightdancer1]

This is history's first great revolt of enslaved Black people put to work on cotton plantations:

The Zanj Revolt was the first large-scale rebellion of enslaved Black people against an imperial power, and in this case directed specifically at the Abbasid Empire. Together with the Fourth Fitna and the emergence of the Tulunids and other smaller emirates it was where the Caliphs turned from Emperors in fact to Japanese Emperor-style spiritual heads who had once had vast temporal power but now no longer did so. The further reality is that the conditions they were put to work in in the Land Between the Rivers were, well....cotton plantations.

In this sense this is the very first shadow of what will be a recurring pattern and theme here, as well as the realities that it is not anywhere near as simple to hold that power as it is to establish it, and that the Abbasids seeking this paid the same price people would in the sugar colonies of the Caribbean and for the same reasons. For a great many reasons, however, the Zanj Rebellion is the great forgotten war of Black history.

[ptseti]

ZANJ REBELLION

Have you ever heard about the Zanj rebellion? 📌The Zanj Rebellion is one of the major African “Captive” revolts in Decolonized history East African captives known as Zanj(meaning Black) revolted against their Arab & Iraqi slavers after hundreds of years of inhuman treatment, dehumanization, and forced eunuchization. The Rebellion lasted for 14 years from 869 to 883 A.D. The Zanj conquered cities, towns, and villages. They freed other captives and built their own towns, where they produced their own currency, collected taxes, and formed their own military What prompted the Revolt? Bantu-speaking people (Zanj) who had been captured from the coast of East Africa and transported to the Middle East were brought into southern Iraq to drain the salt marshes in the city of Basra. (Basra is an Iraqi city located in Southern Iraq) The Zanj were subjected to intense labour, under harsh and unbelievably inhumane conditions. (Read previous posts) They were also seen as inferior and their humanity was systemically denied. The Zanj rebellion was an uprising borne out of resistance and vengeance. It started with a few isolated farms and quickly picked up momentum, leading to larger plantations being attacked and large numbers of captives being freed. To quell the rebellion, the Caliphate sent troops who were unable to withstand the strength and battle skills of the Zanj warriors (with their bows, swords, and sharp-tipped spears) As news of the rebellion spread other captives escaped their captors to join the uprising. Some Zanj captured their former masters to work in the fields as slaves and took their women as concubines. Many provinces fell to the sword of the Zanj. They crushed every Muslim army the Iraq Abbasid empire sent to defeat them. 📌 They captured cities and formed their own towns and systems where they produced their own currency, collected taxes, and had full autonomy over their existence (see any parallels with Black Wall Street?) 📌They also formed their own formidable army. I’ll leave the rest of this bit of history for you to research 🙏🏽 Credit to @Odunifehistory #zanjrebellion #tanzania #africa #iraq #middleeast

[beardedmrbean]

Oh, sorry I probably will be spamming a lot, but the most recent assassin creed game Mirage took place in 9th century Baghdad and you help the leader of The Zanj Rebellion

Cures a long video, but this https://youtu.be/PpwxQ7vzF5w?si=k4wm1ZRxj8q5sElo

But the game was well liked by the Arab world (tbf they mostly been terrorists in gaming for past 20 or so years) and it took place in the golden age where you saw Arab scientists, scholars, and such

Also they have a group of Christians in it…which where I learn that nuns and priests clothing (the priests in mirage look like that where orthodox priests got their looks from) originated in the Middle East

Yeah…I very historically ignorant

But anyways, it getting annoying now woke Muslims act like there is no reasons why the Christians, the Jews, the Hindus, and other groups have beef with their asses.

Not all Muslims are evil, but can they do me a favor and STOP PRETENDING THEIR ASSES ARE PURE?!

Arabs get more credit for the 'thirst for knowledge' than they should, they went around and colonized as much of the MENA region as they could under the guise of spreading Islam (by the sword usually) and then absorbed all of the knowledge they could and claimed a bunch of it as their own.

The whole bullshit about inventing zero. You mean to tell me you actually believe nobody up till 700+AD had come up with the concept of nothing?

Ancient Egypt would probably like a word with you, Babylonian ziggaurts ain't shit compared to the pyramids. Both are fairly complicated and would require a fair amount of math including the use of a zero.

I will give them credit for arabic numerals, much easier than their roman counterpart only 10 characters to learn.

That does look like a pretty place though, Baghdad has a whole lot of history going back a whole lot of centuries.

Also you'll probably see it, but if you don't have a scroll down and enjoy a read about Arabic enslavement of black Africans, headline for the piece is kinda dumb, yes you didn't learn it in school, there's millions and millions of things you didn't learn in school, lucky for you we have the internet now so you can learn all you like.

[your-local-hyperfixater]

hes so woke for this /pos

Zanj Rebellion:

Alternative theories (idk what else to call them):

I don't know if we're going to see the revolt itself in Mirage but there's more about it on the wiki page if anyone cares !!

[rrrokamoka]

a short review on Assassin's Creed Mirage noone was asking for

so for starters: Ubisoft wasn't kidding when they said that they are aiming to return to the basics and create an homage to the first game. not only does this episode have very similar medieval arabic desert city vibes, the features are also great, there's hardly anything that would not have fit the first few games also

the story is interesting and surprising (even though we know very well where Basim finally ends up. (no worries, this is not a spoiler)), the characters are very well written, and what I also find rather important nowadays: the conversations, animation and voiceacting also feels rather lifelike in almost every scene

the codex again is not too much but still provides great context for this particular period of time and place in history

the setting is also very well chosen, with Islamic Golden Age Baghdad being a crossroad of worlds, a mixture of cultures, especially with the Zanj Rebellion also being in the center of the story. although I find it somewhat interesting that despite using very many arabic expressions in the game, the "God is great" sentence is never used in its arabic form (you can guess why)

there's no more insane levels of power, no god-challenging arsenal, armoury and skillset. no xp, you get skill points for missions and quests. and that too only sometimes! there is also really only a couple of swords, daggers and outfits, giving different bonuses to better fit your playstyle.

on the downside, the game is very short actually, I finished it completely in about 35 hours, so it's about the lenght of AC1, Brotherhood or Revelations, I think. but I'm reasonably certain there will be another 35 hours worth of DLCs in the next year or two. If you are looking to play more, you might want to wait a while and buy the season pass (or download the game. there's no online features, I think).

of course there's also the occasionally wonky controls, and I think the civilian and guard AI is not as detailed as was in Valhalla.

all in all, it is much simpler, shorter and cleaned down AC game compared to the last 2 episodes. but (or maybe "and because of this") it does indeed fit the vibes of the older titles very well

looking forward to future DLCs! ...and Codename Jade, god I want that so much. and Hexe!!!

bonus: The Young Eagle short quest made me tear up. i'm weak for this shit... (if you know, you know)

[historybizarre]

The Zanj rebellion of Black slaves, which took place in lower Iraq from 868 to 883 CE, is one of the remarkable episodes of Medieval Islamic history that often goes untold. Much of what we know about the rebellion comes from the historical works of Al-Tabari (Annals of Prophets and Kings) and Al Mas’udi Murudj al-Dahab.

According to these accounts, in about 869 CE, Ali bin Muhammad, a slave-descended Arab, journeyed into the slave quarters in the marshlands East to Basrah, where Black slaves were employed by large landowners to dig away at the nitrous surface soil, reclaiming the land beneath it for future sugarcane cultivation. I

[connectingthediaspora]

Zanj Rebellion

“Zanj rebellion, (AD 869–883), a black-slave revolt against the ʿAbbāsid caliphal empire. A number of Basran landowners had brought several thousand East African blacks (Zanj) into southern Iraqto drain the salt marshes east of Basra. The landowners subjected the Zanj, who generally spoke no Arabic, to heavy slave labour and provided them with only minimal subsistence. In September 869, ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad, a Persian claiming descent from ʿAlī, the fourth caliph, and Fāṭimah, Muḥammad’s daughter, gained the support of several slave-work crews—which could number from 500 to 5,000 men—by pointing out the injustice of their social position and promising them freedom and wealth. ʿAlī’s offers became even more attractive with his subsequent adoption of a Khārijite religious stance: anyone, even a black slave, could be elected caliph, and all non-Khārijites were infidels threatened by a holy war.

Zanj forces grew rapidly in size and power, absorbing the well-trained black contingents that defected from the defeated caliphal armies, along with some disaffected local peasantry. In October 869 they defeated a Basran force, and soon afterward a Zanj capital, al-Mukhtārah (Arabic: the Chosen), was built on an inaccessible dry spot in the salt flats, surrounded by canals. The rebels gained control of southern Iraq by capturing al-Ubullah (June 870), a seaport on the Persian Gulf, and cutting communications to Basra, then seized Ahvāz in southwestern Iran. The caliphal armies, now entrusted to al-Muwaffaq, a brother of the new caliph, al-Muʿtamid (reigned 870–892), still could not cope with the rebels. The Zanj sacked Basra in September 871, and subsequently defeated al-Muwaffaq himself in April 872.

Between 872 and 879, while al-Muwaffaq was occupied in eastern Iran with the expansion of the Ṣaffārids, an independent Persian dynasty, the Zanj seized Wāsiṭ (878) and established themselves in Khuzistan, Iran. In 879, however, al-Muwaffaq organized a major offensive against the black slaves. Within a year, the second Zanj city, al-Manīʿah (The Impregnable), was taken. The rebels were next expelled from Khuzistan, and, in the spring of 881, al-Muwaffaq laid siege to al-Mukhtārah from a special city built on the other side of the Tigris River. Two years later, in August 883, reinforced by Egyptian troops, al-Muwaffaq finally crushed the rebellion, conquering the city and returning to Baghdad with ʿAlī’s head.”

Source: https://www.britannica.com/event/Zanj-rebellion

[beardedmrbean]

The Number of People Enslaved

The number of people enslaved by Muslims has been a hotly debated topic, especially when the millions of Africans forced from their homelands are considered.

Some historians estimate that between A.D. 650 and 1900, 10 million to 20 million people were enslaved by Arab slave traders. Others believe over 20 million enslaved Africans alone had been delivered through the trans-Saharan route alone to the Islamic world. Dr. John Alembellah Azumah estimates in his 2001 book “The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa” that over 80 million more Black people died over that route.

Arab Enslavers Practiced Genetic Warfare

The Arab slave trade typically dealt in the sale of castrated male slaves. Black boys between the age of 8 and 12 had their scrotums and penises completely amputated to prevent them from reproducing. About six of every 10 boys  bled to death during the procedure, according to some sources, but the high price brought by eunuchs on the market made the practice profitable.

Some men were castrated to be eunuchs in domestic service, and the practice of neutering male slaves was not limited to only Black males. “The calipha in Baghdad at the beginning of the 10th Century had 7,000 black eunuchs and 4,000 white eunuchs in his palace,” writes author Ronald Segal in his 2002 book “Islam’s Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora.”

Arab Slave Trade Inspired Arab Racism Toward Blacks

Its important to note that Arab is not a racial classification; an Arab is almost like an American in that people classified as Arab today could be Caucasian (white people), Asiatic or even Arabized Africans. In the beginning there was some level of mutual respect between the Blacks and the more lighter-skinned Arabs. However, as Islam and the demand for enslaved Blacks grew, so did racism toward Africans.

As casual association with Black skin and slave began to be established, racist attitudes towards Blacks began to manifest in Arabic language and literature. The word for slave —abid — became a colloquialism for African. Other words, such as haratin, express social inferiority of Africans.

Arab Enslavers Targeted Women For Rape

The eastern Arab slave trade dealt primarily with African women, maintaining a ratio of two women for each man. These women and young girls were used by Arabs and other Asians as concubines and menials.

A Muslim slaveholder was entitled by law to the sexual enjoyment of his slave women. Filling the harems of wealthy Arabs, African women bore them a host of children.

This abuse of African women would continue for nearly 1,200 years.

Arab Slave Trade Ushered in The European Slave Trade

The Arab slave trade in the 19th century was economically tied to the European trade of Africans. New opportunities of exploitation were provided by the transatlantic slave trade and this sent Arab slavers into overdrive.

The Portuguese (on the Swahili coast) profited directly and were responsible for a boom in the Arab trade. Meanwhile on the West African coast, the Portuguese found Muslim merchants entrenched along the African coast as far as the Bight of Benin. These European enslavers found they could make considerable amounts of gold transporting enslaved Africans from one trading post to another, along the Atlantic coast.

The Arab Slave Trade Sparked One of The Largest Slave Rebellions in History

The Zanj Rebellion took place near the city of Basra, located in present-day southern Iraq, over a period of fifteen years (A.D. 869–883). The insurrection is believed to have involved enslaved Africans (Zanj) who had originally been captured from the African Great Lakes region and areas further south in East Africa.

Basran landowners had brought several thousand East African Zanj people into southern Iraq to drain the salt marshes in the east. The landowners forced the Zanj, who generally spoke no Arabic, into heavy slave labor and provided them with only minimal subsistence. The harsh treatment sparked an uprising that grew to involve over 500,000 enslaved and free men who were imported from across the Muslim empire.

Arab Enslavers Avoided Teaching Islam to Blacks to Justify Enslaving Them

According to some historians,  Islam prohibited freeborn Muslims from being enslaved, so it was not in the interest for Arab slavers to convert enslaved Africans to the religion. Since converting enslaved Africans to Islam would grant them more rights and reduce the potential reservoir of people to enslave, propagators of Islam often revealed a cautious attitude toward proselytizing Africans.

Still, if an African converted to Islam he was not guaranteed freedom nor did it confer freedom to their children. Only children of slaves or non-Muslim prisoners of war could become slaves, never a freeborn Muslim.

The Time Period

The Arab slave trade was the longest yet least discussed of the two major slave trades. It began in seventh century as Arabs and other Asians poured into northern and eastern Africa under the banner of Islam. The Arab trade of Blacks in Southeast Africa predates the European transatlantic slave trade by 700 years. Some scholars say the Arab slave trade continued in one form or another up until the 1960s, however, slavery in Mauritania was criminalized as recently as August 2007.

The Arab Slave Trade Allowed More Upward Mobility Than the European Slave Trade

Upward mobility within the ranks of Arab slaves was not rare. Tariq ibn Ziyad — who conquered Spain and whom Gibraltar was named after — was a slave of the emir of Ifriqiya, Musa bin Nusayr, who gave him his freedom and appointed him a general in his army.

Son of an enslaved Ethiopian mother, Antarah ibn Shaddād, also known as Antar, was an Afro-Arabic man who was originally born into slavery. He eventually became a well-known poet and warrior. Extremely courageous in battle, historians have dubbed him the “father of knighthood … [and] chivalry” and “the king of heroes.”

This kind of upward mobility did not occur in the European slavery system.

Arab Slave Trade Not Limited To Africa or Skin Color

One of the biggest differences between the Arab slave trade and European slaving was that the Arabs drew slaves from all racial groups. During the eighth and ninth centuries of the Fatimid Caliphate, most of the slaves were Europeans (called Saqaliba), captured along European coasts and during wars.

Aside from those of African origins, people from a wide variety of regions were forced into Arab slavery, including Mediterranean people; Persians; people from the Caucasus mountain regions (such as Georgia, Armenia and Circassia) and parts of Central Asia and Scandinavia;  English, Dutch and Irish; and Berbers from North Africa.

Joshua Davis

Every time I think that surely we've hit rock bottom I've been swiftly proven wrong. I am disgusted.

[lightdancer1]

There is always an irony in claiming Cleopatra was Black but never claiming the various Sultans and Caliphs of medieval Egypt:

The change from individuals playing smaller-scale roles to true armies begins with the Tulunids, the very first independent Egyptian dynasty since the Ptolemies. Equally ironically in spite of them relying on an all-Black/Zanj Mamluk force Hoteps have never been as willing to claim Muslim Egypt as they are the Pharaonic version when the Black history of Muslim Egypt was of a wholly different order than that of Pharaonic. The founding Sultan of the dynasty made his bones and built his dynasty by establishing the first Mamluk force, and was the first person to hive off from the Abbasids.

This happened in the western part of the Abbasid Caliphate around the time of the Zanj Rebellion in the East, and it marked a profound turning point in the history of both Egypt and the broader Middle East. From this point a great many of the Mamluk armies of the late medieval and modern Muslim world in the southern and African parts of it overwhelmingly recruited Black soldiers, though this was rather less true of the Seljuk and Ottoman Empires and the smaller Ghazi emirates in between them.

This pattern would repeat itself with the Fatimids, which would play a key role in the onset of the First Crusade and ultimately in the downfall of the dynasty and with it the end of early medieval Islamic culture in Africa, with the Seljuks marking the turning point in the Levant, and the Ilkhanate in Iran.

[fdhfjdafdajfa]

ok i need to process things i read

race, rebellion, and arab muslim slavery (mcleod, 2016) argues for the existence of antiblackness in pre-islamic arabia based largely on the authority of jahili poets, who were also slaves, who wrote about their skin colour in relation to their social position

from these poets theres a gap of 200-odd years, when it skips to al jahiz, a prolific scholar known for among other things his “book of animals” which predates darwin by like a thousand years in describing natural selection

but the reason he’s in this paper is because of his On The Superiority of Blacks over Whites, in which McLeod accuses him of intentionally distancing himself from his blackness while at the same time al jahiz asserts that the arabs are in fact black, and so was the prophet, and he names several members of the prophets family who were also black

modern scholars have interpreted Superiority in a way that is all things considered pretty patronising, as a series of potentially satirical and extraordinary claims not unlike some of the more vulnerable claims of modern black nationalists, who themselves claim the text as an ideological forebear

otoh in Anyone Who Says the Prophet is Black Should Be Killed by Wesley Williams (WIP), a far more thoroughly-sourced piece it must be said, argues that the Arabs at the time of the Prophet regarded their own black skin as a sign of pure lineage, and that while they did recognise other racial types the skin differences were in luminosity rather than hue (the arabs were regarded as having smoother, more luminous skin)

willians describes all the words used in arabic to refer to different skin colours at incredible length, with citations from classical scholars fwiw, noting that some terms are used differently in describing humans than their general usage, a fact about which mcleod agrees but does not analyse in as much depth

the short version of williams’ conclusions is that he brings up a shitload of examples of descriptiions which all end up corroborating al jahiz’s

even going so far down the timeline as rumi who accuses the persians of persecuting the sayids due to their dark skin

mcleod does not provide the original terms used by the jahili poets in describing their own skin that could provide some guidance on the hue vs luminosity debate

this is markedly less scrutiny than mcleod pays to terms like “red” “green” and “blue” used to refer to lighter skinned people

williams does offer an explanation of some of the (few, as I understand it) cited examples of jahili antiblackness, noting that the man who mocked a peer for his black skin was himself also known to be dark skinned

it is a commonly known fact that the abbasid revolution was caused by the fact that the umayyads were giant arab chauvanists who never really got their minds wrapped around multiculturalism, and considered themselves a superiour racial group

mcleod doesnt talk about al jahiz much but it must be said that he was born 25 years after the abbasid revolution. as williams tells the story, the abbasids slowly but very clearly changed the ethnic dynamics of the empire over the course of a century or so, changing it to a comparatively lightly persian-dominant empire rather than an arab supremacist one

al jahiz would have been like at least 30 before he wrote anything of consequence and that’s lowballin it. meaning that he would have been around and watched this gradual de-arabisation, while also the lines between ethnic groups blended and persians became more araby and arabs became more persiany

so in this version of the story al jahiz is actually a super racist arab chauvanist especially considering he maintains the superiority of the arab blacks over the southeast african ones (zanj) which mcleod handles as internalised antiblackness but this is fallacious because it obviously presumes that all black people are the same which is not true and was not considered to be true in arabia at this time (for example ethiopians were well-respected and had had long relations with the arabs since forever (al jahiz was half ethiopian))

also mcleod agrees that white skin was also taken as a marker of low status during al jahiz’s time, although he claims not as much so as (non-arab) black skin (although again mcleod does not make this distinction assuming arabs to have been light skinned)

but regardless he was writing at a time when “pure” black arabs were being persecuted and de-statused as a matter of state policy

then williams traces the gradual de-arabisation of the prophet by the persians, then the peoples of the lands acquired from the byzantines in early centuries, then the lkhanids, then the ottomans, all of which were pretty light skinned

[indomitablekushite]

The largest African slave rebellions

Thirty years of black and Diaspora studies have shed light on the scale, intensity and impact of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, the 400-year traffic of Africans between the continent, Europe and the colonies of the alleged new world. Less attention has been paid, though, to the millennium-long slave trade that scattered African slaves throughout present-day Iraq, Turkey, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan and India. Emerging European capitalism and the labor requirements of cash crops like sugar, cotton and tobacco drove the Trans-Atlantic trade; the Trans-Saharan trade, which flourished from the eighth century AD through the 1840s, brought African labor to the hazardous enterprises of pearl diving, date farming and the raw, brutal work of clearing Iraqi salt marshes.

African boys were commonly castrated to serve as eunuch guards of royal harems. Unlike those who were enslaved in the west, however, blacks enslaved in the Arabic-speaking world also served as guards, sailors and high-ranking soldiers. In the 19th century, Basra was one of the most profitable slave ports in the region, commonly offering slave traders as much as 50% returns upon their "investments."

There has been a black presence in Basra present-day Southern Iraq as early as the 7th century, when Abu Bakra, an Ethiopian soldier who had been manumitted by the prophet Muhammad himself, settled in the city. His descendants became prominent members of Basran society. A century later, the writer Jahiz of Basra wrote an impassioned defense of black Africans referred to in Arabic as the Zanj against accusations of inferiority which had begun to take root even then. The Zanj, who were primarily persons of East African descent, were to have a significant impact upon Iraqi history.

They had been traded from ports along the African coast (Zanzibar, which is derived from the term "Zanj," was a major slave exporting center during the era) to clear salt marshes. Laboring in miserable, humid conditions, the Zanj workers dug up layers of topsoil and dragged away tons of earth to plant labor-intensive crops like sugarcane on the less saline soil below. Fed scant portions of flour, semolina and dates, they were constantly in conflict with the Iraqi slave system. Between the 7th and 9th centuries, the Zanj staged three rebellions, the largest of which occurred between 868 and 883 AD. Led by an Iraqi poet named Ali Ibn Muhammad, the Zanj uprising of 868 galvanized thousands of black slaves who laid siege to and eventually overran the city of Basra. In short order, black soldiers in the army of the ruling Abbasid emperors based in Baghdad began to desert and swelled the ranks of the rebellion.

Similar to later rebellions that created liberated "maroon" communities throughout the new world, the 15-year conflict, known as "The Revolt of the Zanj," led to the establishment of an independent Zanj capital city, minting of currency and the decade-long control of Basra one of the most important trade ports in the Abbasid empire. At their zenith, the Zanj armies marched upon Baghdad and got within 70 miles of the city. The Zanj uprising was crushed in 883 by the Abbasids, but doing so required vast amounts of the empire's extensive resources. African slavery in Iraq continued to exist throughout both the Ottoman and British empires which incorporated the region into their holdings. In the mid-19th century, decades after the Trans-Atlantic trade had been (technically) outlawed, the Arab trade persisted. As historian Joseph Harris writes in his African Presence in Asia: "From Kuwait, slave parties were dispatched in small groups on land and sea to Zubair and Basra, where brokers sold slaves in their homes."

The surplus was marched along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to Baghdad.British officials during the era noted how widespread slave ownership was among the Iraqi families. The descendants of the Zanj exist in the region today in (often self-contained) communities with names like "Zanjiabad, Iran" that hint at the history of the peoples living there. The status of these black Iraqis is little discussed — though Iranians have written of persistent racism and stereotypes directed at the Zanj in their country. One can only wonder, though, what the addition of hundreds of oilmen will do for a black minority community living in Basra — because word-association for the terms "oil" "money" and "slavery" yields the following results: Texas; see also: Presidential Politics.

*This was the famous Zanj rebellion in which Bantu, Sudanese, Nubian and local slaves organized themselves into a large army and occupied Iraqi cities.

*The Zanj rebellion had a number of effects on the perception of blacks in the Arab world. It was during and after this period that negative stereotypes of blacks began to proliferate in the Muslim world (see Arab and other Asian views on black Africans). The military skills shown by the Africans during the Zanj rebellion also caused an increased interest among Arab rulers for recruiting black soldiers. Abbassid Caliph al-Amin (d 813) formed "the Crows" - a special corps of Ethiopian bodyguards. Caliph al-Muktadir (d 932) also employed 7000 black soldiers in battle.5 In the early 10th century, Ali ibn Muhammad, founder of the Sulayhi dynasty of Yemen, had in his employ 5000 Ethiopian soldiers.

Http://www.assatashakur.org

[diallokenyatta]

Would you consider the Zanj Rebellion in the Islamic World a revolutionary effort and why weren't there more revolts of enslaved Africans against the Islamic Invaders historically speaking ?

Yes, the Zanj Uprising was a Revolutionary effort. There were many rebellions, revolts, and uprisings throughout the Arab/Islamic Slave Trade, up to today. I the reason there weren't even more uprisings against the Islamic Invaders is because so many, too many Africans embraced the Religion of Islam, it’s the same reason some many Africans today and in the past don’t rise up and overthrow colonizers and enslavers; adopting the worldview and religions of our enemies.   We need to reject all Colonizer Religions on the African Continent and throughout the Africa Diaspora. 

www.diallokenyatta.com www.patreon.com/dialloikenyatta #BroDiallo

[rienfleche]

THE ZANJ REVOLT (ZINJ)

The most celebrated resistance to Arab enslavement occurred by the Zanj . The Zanj were predominately-enslaved peoples from East Africa.

It is a common myth, created by European translations of Arabic that there is a transhistorical meaning for Zanj— this is not the case. The term had different meanings at different times. However, the Zanj were subjected to work in the cruel and humid salt pans of Shatt-al-Arab, near Basra in modern day Iraq. Conscious of their large numbers and oppressive working conditions the Zanj rebelled three times. The largest of these rebellions lasted from 868 (eight hundred and sixty eight) to (883) eight hundred and eighty three [A.D.], during which time they inflicted defeat after defeat upon the Arab armies sent to suppress the revolt. For some 14 years, they succeeded in achieving remarkable military victories and even building their own capital--Moktara, the Elect City, which at its peak was within 70 miles of Baghdad. Moktara had huge resources that allowed the building of no less than six impregnable towns in which there were arsenals for the manufacture of weapons and battleships.

Their achievements are even more impressive considering that they occurred at the height of the Abbasid Empire. An Empire that presided directly over Iraq, Mesopotamia, and Western Persia, and indirectly over territories from North Africa to Central Asia, and from the Caspian Sea to the Red Sea. After the Zanj were finally crushed the victorious Abbasid general Muwaffaq dismissed all claims of their masters who sought their return. Instead, Muwaffaq recognised their strength and incorporated thousands of Zanj into his own government forces.The effects of this powerful rebellion would echo in the Arab world, dampening all attempts at mass labour enslavement until the 19th Century when European markets where furnished with spices and coconuts from Arab controlled Zanzibar.

by Owen 'Alik Shahadah.