Board of Trustees, Boston University

The Zanj Rebellion Reconsidered

Author(s): Ghada Hashem Talhami
Source: The International Journal of African Historical Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3 (1977), pp. 443-
461
Published by: Boston University African Studies Center
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/216737 .
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THE ZANJ REBELLION
RECONSIDERED
Ghada Hashem Talhami
Few historians have ventured into the dim recesses of medieval
history
on Africa's eastern coast. Those who did faced the laborious
task of
assembling
a coherent
picture
from the
disparate
parts
of
archeological, numismatic,
and oral evidence. As is well
known,
such
historiographical problems
are not restricted to the eastern shores of the
continent,
but
they
have been
compounded
in this case
by
a
special
feature of the area: the
early
arrival of
foreign groups
and their
settlement
along
the
length
of the coast. In
historiographical terms,
the
presence
of these outsiders has
required
consulting
non-African
sources in order to determine the motives for
migration,
the relation
between the settlers and their
homeland,
and the direction and nature
of the commercial contacts
they
stimulated.
As a result of these
exigencies,
Western historians of the medieval
East African coast have
developed
their own version of the
past.
One of
its
major
themes has been a substantial and
thriving
commercial
exchange
between the coast and the eastern
parts
of the Arab 'Abbasid
Empire,
in which Arab sea merchants
supposedly
carried
huge
numbers
of
Zanj,
or East
African,
slaves to the markets of the Middle East.
Contributing
to this
interpretation
are three interrelated issues of
coastal
historiography:
the definition and derivation of the term
Zanj;
a
special reading
of the
Zanj
Rebellion of
Basrah, Iraq,
from 869 to 883
A.D.;
and a
historiographic
bias
perpetuated by
defenders of the
European
colonial
regime,
who asserted that the
Arabs,
the
previous
rulers of coastal East
Africa,
had
long
been attracted to the
region by
the
lure of slaves.
Naturally,
the last of these factors is the easiest to
analyze.
We see it
expressed clearly by Reginald Coupland
in East
Africa
and Its
Invaders,
where he calls the lure of the slave trade "the theme which is to run like
a scarlet thread
through
all the
subsequent history
of East Africa until
The International Journal
of African
Historical
Studies, X,
3
(1977) 443
444 GHADA HASHEM TALHAMI
our own
day."91
At another
place
he adds: "Centuries before the
agents
of
Europe began
the same
ugly
business in the
West,
the
agents
of Asia
in the East were
stealing
men and women from Africa and
shipping
them overseas to
slavery."2
Later in his narrative
Coupland accepts
the
Zanj
Rebellion as
proof
of his earlier view. To
him,
the massive
uprising
of slaves called
Zanj
indicates the
presence
of
huge
numbers of East
African slaves in the Muslim world.3 Needless to
say, Coupland's
statement is based on several unfounded historical
assumptions.
In
claiming
that the
Arabs,
"the
agents
of
Asia,"
were involved in the
slave trade from the earliest
times,
he
implies
that these
people
ruled
the coast as
early
as the
eighth century,
an assertion that H. Neville
Chittick has demolished on the basis of
archeological
evidence. In his
efforts to correct the Kilwa
Chronicle,
Chittick
proves
that Arab
contacts with East Africa were
infrequent
before the ninth
century
A.D.
He also points out that
major
Muslim settlements did not
emerge
either
on the coast or on Zanzibar until the latter
part
of the eleventh
century
A.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 the
coast
prior
to the nineteenth
century,
Freeman-Grenville concludes
that slaves were not
exported
from the
Zanj
coast in
any significant
numbers:
While,
at this time [1498-1840] slaves were an
export
from Zeila and
Berbera,
there
is, indeed,
no evidence to
suggest
that
they
were
exported
at all from the coast farther south
during
the sixteenth or earlier
seventeenth
century,
and the contention of
Coupland,
that the slave
trade was continuous from earliest
times, rising
to a
peak
in the
nineteenth
century,
cannot be substantiated.5
But we find the same author
reaching
a different
conclusion,
albeit in
reference to an earlier
period,
in another work written a
year
before the
above. After
correctly illustrating
how the term
Zanj
was used
by
medieval 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.
THE ZANJ REBELLION 445
seemingly logical step
of
associating
the
Zanj
Rebellion with East
African slaves:
One other event in the main stream of
history
is
remotely
connected with
the
history
of the coast. The revolt of the
Zanj
slaves in lower
Iraq...
is
among
the most
sanguinary
events in
history....
The estimates of the
slain in these
years vary,
some
being
more than half a million. It is not
possible
to estimate the numbers of slaves
involved,
but it
may
be
argued, apart
from natural
increase,
that no small number of Africans
had been
transported
to
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 a
massive trade in slaves. And in other
instances, too,
these factors have
been used to
support
the existence of an
exchange, despite
substantial
evidence 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 basis
of
identifying
the
Zanj
rebels of Basrah with the East African coast.7
Later he revises his
opinion,
but without
necessarily abandoning
the
connection between the revolt and the coastal
area,
and without
specific
reference to the
pertinent
Arabic
writings
on the
uprising:
It is certain that
large
numbers of slaves were
exported
from eastern
Africa;
the best evidence for this is the
magnitude
of the Zanj revolt in
'Iraq
in the 9th
century, though
not all of the slaves involved were
Zanj.
There is little evidence of what
part
of eastern Africa the
Zanj
came
from,
for the name is here
evidently
used in its
general sense,
rather
than to
designate
the
particular
stretch of the
coast,
from about 3?N. to
5?S.,
to which the name was also
applied.8
Chittick then offers his own
hypothesis
that the slaves came from the
Horn of
Africa,
and notes
correctly
the silence of most Arabic sources
on the slave trade.9
George
Fadlo
Hourani,
in his
study
of Arab
seafaring,
accepts
the same
interpretation
without
examining
the details
of 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 and
the 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.
446 GHADA HASHEM TALHAMI
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 Africa
from south of
Cape
Guardafui (Ras Hafoun) to Sofala as the Land of
Zanj, they say nothing
about
slaves, yet they
describe a
variety
of trade
items, mostly gold
and
ivory,
which seem to have been in
great
demand
in Arab lands. Ibn
Hauqal,
the
ninth-century geographer
who
perfected
the
genre
of al-masalik wa al-mamalik ("routes and
kingdoms"),
offers
little information on the Land of
Zanj.
He
merely
states that the
gold
mines of Nubian 'Alwa extended to the Land of
Zanj along
the sea and
that the area was inhabited
by
white
Zanj.
He then
goes
on to
explain
the reason for his
undisguised
lack of interest in the area: "I have
already
said that this
country
was miserable and
sparsely populated.
It
was
hardly cultivated,
with the
exception
of the outskirts of the
king's
residence."11 Yet Ibn
Hauqal's
most valuable comment on East
Africa's
exports
to the eastern flank of the 'Abbasid
Empire
comes not
in relation to the Land of
Zanj
but in the course of his
description
of the
city
of Siraf. The main
emporium
of the Persian Gulf area
during
the
late 'Abbasid
period,
Siraf handled merchandise destined for
Chinese,
Indian,
Arab, and African markets.12 Not
surprisingly,
Ibn
Hauqal
was
impressed
with the
opulence
of the
city, adding
the
following
description:
The houses of Siraf are constructed of teakwood and of another kind of
wood
imported
from the land of
Zanj;
the houses have several
stories,
as
in Fustat.... There are no orchards or forests in the area around Siraf.13
Thus Ibn
Hauqal,
whose interest in Siraf made him
distinctly
aware of
East African
imports,
mentions
nothing
whatsoever about the
importa-
tion of slaves. A work
by
an
anonymous
Persian
geographer
titled
Hudud 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 Arab
science of
geography,
see Andre
Miquel,
"Ibn
Hawkal,"
B.
Lewis,
C.
Pellat,
and J.
Schacht, eds., Encyclopedia of Islam,
new edition (3 vols., Leiden, 1960-1969), III, 787;
Nafis
Ahmad,
Muslim Contribution to
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
the headwaters of the Persian
Gulf, large ships
were unable' to dock at the
gulfs
two
major ports,
Basrah and
Uballh,
on the
Tigris
canal.
Instead, cargoes
were
usually
loaded at Siraf. See
Hourani,
Arab
Seafaring,
69-70.
13Hauqal, Configuration,
277. This
description may
be taken as confirmation of Ibn
Battuta's later
remarks, disputed by archeologists,
that "the
city
of Kilwa is one of the
fairest cities,
with well-built
buildings,
all of
wood,
the roofs
being
of reeds." See Ibn
Battuta,
RihlatIbn Battuta
(Beirut, 1964),
257-258. Ibn Battuta's
original
title is
Tuhfatal-
nuzzar
fi ghara'ib
al-amsar wa
'adja'ib al-asfar.
THE ZANJ REBELLION 447
century,
refers to
Zangistan (Pers., "Zanj country")
as rich in
gold,
with Sofala as the seat of its
kings.
14
Al-'Omari,
an
Egyptian writing
in
the fourteenth
century
and
keenly
interested in the Muslim
kingdoms
of West
Africa, briefly
mentions the
people
known as
Zanj
without
alluding
to
any
trade in slaves.15 Yet in
recording
a conversation with
Mali's Mansa Musa in
Cairo,
al-'Omari notes in
great
detail the
condition of the West African slaves
working
the
gold
mines of the Mali
Empire.16 Finally,
Ibn
Battuta,
who visited the Swahili coast in the
fourteenth
century, emphasizes
the
gold
of Sofala and the habit of
conferring gifts
of slaves or
ivory
in cities such as
Kilwa,
but mentions
neither slave markets nor an oceanic trade in slaves. More
importantly,
the learned
voyager,
who must have read accounts of the
Zanj
Rebellion
by
earlier Arab
historians,
does not link the coastal cities he
visited with the rebellious slaves of Basrah.
17 In his
description
of other
parts
of
Africa, however,
Ibn Battuta
specifically
talks about the
export
of slaves and what
they
were
exchanged
for. When
describing Tekedda,
a Berber town in West
Africa,
he relates that
copper,
a
great export
of
the
town,
was
exchanged
for
slaves, specifically
Bornu slaves:
Thick
copper
bars are used for the
purchase
of
slaves, servants, millet,
butter and
grain.
The
copper
is carried to the town of
Kober,
an infidel
place,
and to
Zaghaw
and to Bornu. Bornu is situated at a
forty-day
distance from Tekedda. Its
people
are Muslims ruled
by
a
king
named
Idris who does not
appear
in
public
but addresses his
subjects
from
behind a
partition.
From this
country,
the most handsome female slaves
and male slaves are
exported.18
In
addition,
a work
by
a Persian
sailor,
Kitab
'Adja'ib
al-Hind ("The
Book of the Wonders of
India"),
describes a fictional
slave-catching
escapade
off the East African
coast,
but also illustrates
vividly
that
Persian seamen were unfamiliar with Sofala.
19
Our best
description
of the eastern African coast
during
the tenth
14V.
Minorsky
and V.V.
Barthold, eds.,
Hudud al-'alam ("Boundaries of the World")
(London, 1937),
163.
15Ibn Fadl Allah
al-'Omari,
Masalik
al-absarfi
mamalik al-amsar,
Maurice
Gaudefroy-
Demombynes,
trans. (2 vols., Paris, 1927), II,
85.
16Ibid., I,
58.
17Ibn
Battuta, Rihlat,
257-259. On Ibn Battuta's
background,
see Andr6
Miquel,
"Ibn
Battuta," Encyclopedia of Islam, III,
736. See also the introduction to H.A.R.
Gibb,
Ibn
Battuta: Travels in Asia and
Africa,
1325-1354
(London,
1953).
18Ibn
Battuta, Rihlat,
697-698.
19S.
Maqbul Ahmad, "Djughrafiya," Encyclopedia of Islam, II,
583. The full text of
Buzurg's tale,
which describes this
adventure,
is included in G.S.P.
Freeman-Grenville,
ed.,
The East
African
Coast: Select Documents
from
the First to the Earlier Nineteenth
Century
(London, 1966),
9-13.
448 GHADA HASHEM TALHAMI
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 most
important
voyagers
and
encyclopedists
of that era. His
great
travel
account, Murudj
al-Dahab wa Ma 'adin
al-Djawhar
("Meadows of Gold
and Mines of
Diamonds"),
is the record of his eventful
journey
to that
part
of the East African coast he termed
Qanbalu.
It also includes one of
the most detailed
descriptions
of
elephant hunting
and the
ivory
trade
that we have.20 But while his
perceptions
of East Africa are often
quoted by Africanists,
few have examined them for
evidence
of the
slave trade. More
importantly,
few 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.
Murudj
al-Dahab thus affords us a
singular opportunity
to see what
contempor-
aries meant
by Zanj,
as well as whether we can determine the
original
source of these slaves. Mas'udi was the one historian and
geographer
in
a
position
to define the
relationship
between the Land of
Zanj
and the
Zanj
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 between
the coast and Muslim countries. What he does
emphasize,
under the
heading
"The
Blacks,
their
Origin,
the
Variety
of Races
Dispersed
in
their Land and a
History
of their
Kings,"
is the area's rich animal
wealth, primarily
in
panther, giraffe, tortoise,
and
elephant.21
The
emphasis
on animals and the
diversionary description
of their
qualities
can be attributed to Mas'udi's
rivalry
with 'Amr bin Bahr ibn Mahboub
al-Djahiz,
whose
major
work of the
period,
Kitab
al-Hayawan
("The
Book of
Animals"),
Mas'udi often cites. 'Amr bin Bahr ibn Mahboub
al-Djahiz
was the most illustrious
prose
writer and
philosopher
of ninth-
century Baghdad.
His
impact
on his
contemporaries
and on later
generations
of Arab literati was considerable.22 One of the first to
attempt
a reconciliation between Greek rationalism and the ecclesiasti-
cal bent of the Arab intellectual
tradition, al-Djahiz
considered the
investigation
of natural
phenomena
a
significant
endeavor with wide-
ranging philosophical implications.
To
him, study
of the nascent science
20Miquel,
La
Geographie humaine,
xxix. The Soviet Orientalist Krachkovski considers
Mas'udi the
greatest
of the
geographers
of the classic school of
tenth-century geographic
writing.
He also
regards
Mas'udi as the most
original
of his
contemporaries.
See
Ignatiy
Iulianovich
Krachkovski,
Tarikh al-Adab
al-Jughrafi
al-'Arabi
("History
of the Arabic
Geographic 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.
THE ZANJ REBELLION 449
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 of
his own,
Kitab al-Amsar wa
'Adja
'ib al-Buldan ("The Book of Countries
and Wonders of the World").
Significantly, al-Djahiz
was
severely
criticized
by
some of his
geographer contemporaries, including
Mas'udi,
for
writing
a book without
visiting
the
places
he describes.23
This is
particularly important
because Mas'udi worked in the
period
when
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's
secular
approach
to the
study
of
geography
and his
attempt
to emulate
Kitab
al-Hayawan,
he was not
likely,
as a
professional geographer
and
voyager,
to overlook an oceanic traffic in slaves.
25
And when one recalls
that most of these
geographers
record in accurate detail slave raids in
Bilad al-Sudan (West Africa) and al-Nuba
(Nubia),
their failure to
mention a slave trade with the East African coast becomes
very
meaningful. Moreover,
we cannot
regard
the omission as an
oversight
or the deliberate
eschewing
of a delicate
topic,
since all
aspects
of the
slave trade in other countries are
fully
described.
Nor are slaves overlooked because of their
overwhelming presence
as
an item of
trade,
since the
preponderance
of
gold
and
ivory
is
amply
noted
by
most
geographers
of that
period. Moreover,
as a field of
learning, geography
was
governed by
definite
perimeters
and strict
standards of
accuracy.
Modern Western students of the Muslim science
are
particularly cognizant
of what these scholars
emphasized
and what
they
did not. Andre
Miquel
reminds
us,
for
instance,
that the
geographic genre
of al-masalik wa
al-mamalik,
as
exemplified by
Ibn
Hauqal
and
Mas'udi, invariably
contains a
description
of human
conditions,
the
physical environment,
and the
corporate
character of
23Miquel,
La
Geographie humaine, 39,
58. The exact title of this work is still a matter of
debate. 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 but
focusing
on the 'Abbasid
Empire
in
particular.
The
output
of this school was
decidedly
secular and utilized the Persian Kishwar
system,
which divided the known world into
seven
regions.
The other main
school,
known as the Balkhi school after the
geographer
Abu
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 term
Iklim,
rather than Kishwar, for
geographic
divisions. The best
representative
of this school
is Ibn
Hauqal,
known for his
religious leanings
and
strong
Fatimid
preference.
See
Ahmad, "Djughrafiya,"
579-581.
450 GHADA HASHEM TALHAMI
the
area, including
the
mentality
of the
people,
their
languages,
and
their diseases. Focus on the total milieu
they
achieved
by describing
the
economy
and
sociology
of the
regions:
Finally,
in the environment thus
defined,
the activities and attitudes of
the inhabitants were noted: economic activities such as
production,
commercial
exchanges, routes, weights
and
measures, taxes, money
and
prices,
collective
attitudes,
social behavior and
customs, folklore,
proverbs,
or the calendar.26
References to black slaves
by
other
ninth-century
'Abbasid authors
tend to confirm the above conclusions.
During
the
reign
of Harun al-
Rashid,
an
eighth-century
'Abbasid
caliph,
a
popular
account listed the
characteristics of female slaves of various
origin.
Indian slaves it
regarded
as
friendly, calm,
and
good
tenders of
children, but, alas, they
aged
quickly.
Sindhi women were best known for their
long
hair and
thin waistlines. Medina-born slaves were
coquettish, gay, humorous,
and sometimes
dissolute,
but
they
were talented
singers.
Meccan slaves
had delicate wrists and beautiful
eyes.
Berber slaves bore
many
children,
were
adaptable,
and could be trained for domestic work.
Sudanic slaves were found
everywhere,
but were known for their
instability
and lovd of
dancing. Abyssinian slaves, though incapable
of
perfecting
the art of dance and
song,
had character and could be
trusted;
however, they
were
prone
to
premature
flabbiness and tubercular
diseases. The ideal female
slave,
continued the
account,
was of Berber
origin,
left her
country
at
age nine, spent
three
years
at
al-Medina,
three
in Mecca, and then went to
Iraq
at sixteen to
acquire
some of that
country's
culture. When resold at
twenty-five,
she combined the
coquettishness
of
al-Medina,
the
gentle
manners of
Mecca,
and the
culture of
Iraq.
27
Again,
the absence of
Zanj
women is
noteworthy.
One
exception
to the marked silence on
Zanj
slaves occurs in an
essay
by al-Djahiz
titled "Fakhr al-Sudan 'ala al-Bidhan" ("The Blacks'
Boast to the Whites"). Here the definition of
Zanj
is
significant.
Designed
to attack
contemporary prejudices against blacks,
the
essay
is
constructed as a
dialogue
between individuals of the two races. For
instance,
the blacks
say:
You [the whites] have
yet
to see the true
Zanj,
since
you only
know the
enslaved kind
brought
from the shores of
Qanbalu....
But the
people
of
Qanbalu
are devoid of
brains, Qanbalu being
the one
place
at which
your
26Miquel,
La
Geographie humaine,
281.
27Mustafa
al-Jiddawi, Al-Riqqfi
al-Tarikh
wafi
al-Islam
("Slavery throughout History
and
during
Muslim Times")
(Alexandria, 1963),
92-93.
THE ZANJ REBELLION 451
vessels dock. And that is because the
Zanj
are of two main lines of
descent, Qanbalu
and
Langawiya, just
as are the Arabs of two main lines
of
descent, Qahtan
and 'Adnan. You have
yet
to see a member of the
Langawiya kind,
either from the coast
[al-Sawahil],
or from the interior
[al-Jouf].
If
you
could meet
these, you
would
forget
the issue of fair
looks and
perfection. Now,
if
you
refuse to believe
this, saying
that
you
have
yet
to meet a
Zanji
with the brains even of a
boy
or a
woman,
we
would
reply
to
you,
have
you
ever met
among
the enslaved of India and
Sindh individuals with
brains, education,
culture and manners so as to
expect
these same
qualities
in what has fallen to
you
from
among
the
Zanj.28
This statement
proves that,
while the Arabs
may
have
imported
some
slaves from
Qanbalu (Zanzibar, Pemba,
or
Madagascar), they hardly
ever saw slaves from the coast
proper
or the interior. Also
noteworthy
is
al-Djahiz's
enumeration of other racial stocks
inhabiting
the eastern
flank of the
empire: Ethiopians, Nubians, Fezzanis, people
from
Meroe,
and
Zaghawians.29 Al-Djahiz clearly
considers the
Zanj
one of
many
racial elements
contemporaneous-with
himself. But in another
work,
A41-Bukhala' ("The
Misers"),
he follows the
practice
of his
age
in
referring
to all black slaves
collectively
as
Zanj.30
So does Ibn
Butlan,
a
Christian
physician
of
Baghdad
and Cairo who wrote
during
the
Mameluke
period
and who refers to black slaves
generically
as
Zanj.31
The
problem, then,
is one of
nomenclature,
and as a result
any
understanding
of the
Zanj
Rebellion must
begin
with an effort at
defining
the term
Zanj
and at
gauging
its multifarious uses
by
all classes
of writers
during
the 'Abbasid
period. Although
African historical
literature is
replete
with
attempts
to trace the
origin
and
linguistic
derivations of the
term,
no one has endeavored to determine its
application.
Freeman-Grenville examines
Greek, Indian,
and Arabic
derivations
equating Zanj
with "black" or "inhabitant of
jungles,"
and
dismisses 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 further on the varieties of black
slaves in another
work, stating
that the
Zanj
were of four
types: Qanbalu, Langawiya,
al-
Naml ("ants") and al-Kilab
("dogs"),
and
Tikfu,
and Tinbu. The term al-Naml, he
explains,
was
applied
to a certain
group
of
people
noted for their
ability
to
multiply
quickly,
and al-Kilab were a
people
known for their
strong physical
build.
Al-Djahiz,
Al-
Bayan
wa
al-Tabyeen,
Hassan
al-Sindoubi, ed.,
VIII
(Cairo, 1956),
50-51.
29Haroun, Majmou'at,
211.
30Al-Djahiz,
Al-Bukhala'("The Misers")
(Damascus, 1938),
253.
31Faisal
al-Sarhir,
Thawrat
al-Zanj
("The
Zanj
Rebellion")
(Baghdad, 1971),
27. See
J.
Schacht,
"Ibn
Butlan, al-Mukhtar," Encyclopedia of Islam, III,
740.
452 GHADA HASHEM TALHAMI
bells tied to their ankles.32 But the best illustration of the
futility
of this
research are the erroneous inferences on the
Zanj
Rebellion to which it
has led. A
meaningful
assessment of this event
requires
an
analysis
not
of the
origin
of the
term,
but of what it becomes in the hands of
'Abbasid scholars.
Significantly,
the few brief extant
Western-language
studies of the
Zanj
Rebellion
unconsciously
confirm that the
Zanj
rebels included
every variety
of black slave in the 'Abbasid
Empire.
Yet we must
remember that the
authors,
Orientalists who relied
primarily
on
original
Arabic
sources,
were
totally
oblivious to the
implications
of their
studies for the
history
of the East African coast. Theodor Noldeke's
brief narrative of the
uprising,
which
appeared
in
Sketchesfrom
Eastern
History
in
1892, begins by repeating
the received view that the
Zanj
slaves were
imported
from the East African coast.33 But as his
story
unfolds,
he uses the term Soudan
("blacks")
interchangeably
with
Zanj.34
In an article in which he examines a
Zanj coin,
another
Orientalist,
P.
Casanova, merely
defines
Zanj
as "a name
given
to the
black slaves of the Basrah outskirts."35
Finally,
the short notice in the
Encyclopedia of
Islam on the leader of the
uprising,
'Ali bin
Muhammad,
merely
calls the
Zanj
"rebel
Negro
slaves."36
Primary
Arabic sources do not indicate that the
Zanj
were the
major
segment
of the
rebels,
nor that
any
other
group
was
numerically
predominant. They do,
on the other
hand, yield
much indirect
information on their
origin
and the reasons for their
protest.
Arabists
agree
that
only
two sources on the event can be considered
primary:
Tabari's Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk ("Annals of
Prophets
and
Kings")
and Mas'udi's
Murudj
al-Dahab. Several other
works, although
containing
additional
secondary
information on the same
episode,37
are
in the main derived from Tabari's and Mas'udi's accounts. Of this
32Freeman-Grenville,
Medieval
History,
29. Another source has also
postulated
a
Persian
origin
for the term
Zanj,
but claims that it means
"Ethiopia."
See
Stephen
and
Nandy Ronart, eds.,
Concise
Encyclopedia of Arabic Civilization: The Arab East (2
vols.,
New
York, 1960-1966), I,
576. A number of
interpretations
and derivations for the term
are also included in W.H.
Ingrams,
Zanzibar: Its
History
and Its
People (London, 1967),
24-26.
33Theodor
N6ldeke,
Sketches
from
Eastern
History, John S.
Black,
trans.
(London,
1892), 149; 149,
n. 1.
34Ibid.,
153.
35p. Casanova,
"Monnaie du Chef des
Zendj,"
Revue
Numismatique,
series 3
(1893),
512.
36B.
Lewis,
"Ali B. Muhammad
al-Zandji," Encyclopedia of Islam, I,
388.
37Ibn
al-Athir,
for
instance, usually prefaces
his
year-by-year
account of the rebellion
with "Abu
Dja'far
al-Tabari related...." See Ibn
al-Athir, Al-Kamilfi
al-Tarikh ("The
Complete History"),
VII
(Beirut, 1965),
206.
THE ZANJ REBELLION 453
group,
the best known are
al-Djawzi's Al-MuntazamfiAkhbar
al-Umam
("History
of
Nations"),
and Biruni's Al-Athar
al-Baqiyah
'an
al-Qurun
al-Khaliyah ("Surviving
Relics of Past Centuries"). Two modern
studies in Arabic have
analyzed
the
uprising's impact
on the
ailing
structure of the 'Abbasid
Caliphate.
These are 'Abd al-Aziz al-Duri's
Dirasat
fi
al-'Usur
al-'Abbassiyya
al-Muta'akhira ("Studies in Late
'Abbasid
Times"),
and Faisal al-Samir's Thawrat
al-Zanj
("The
Zanj
Rebellion"),
the latter
totally
devoted to an examination of the
rebellion in its 'Abbasid context.
Tabari's annalistic account leaves no doubt as to the nature and cause
of the
uprising
at its
inception.38
The revolt
began
in 869
A.D.,
when a
slave-descended Arab named 'Ali bin Muhammad was able to
rally
to
his side black slaves
employed
in the extraction of salt and in land
reclamation in Basrah's marshlands. 'Ali bin Muhammad's
paternal
grandfather
was said to have been a member of the 'Abd
al-Qays
lineage
and his
paternal grandmother
a Sindhi slave woman. His
mother,
a free
woman,
was a member of the Asad bin Khuzaimah
lineage.39
This
genealogy
is of doubtful
authenticity, however,
and later
commentators have
presumed
him to have been of Persian rather than
Arab
origin.
More
importantly,
his
repeated
claim to an 'Alid
patrimony
was
constantly questioned. Despite
his birth in the
village
of
Warzanin,
near
modern-day Tehran,
his
family
was traced to
Bahrein,
where a
large
branch of the 'Abd
al-Qays,
a
sept
of the
great
Arab
lineage
of
Banu
Rabi'a,
made their home.40 'Ali bin Muhammad's
pretense
to an
'Alid descent was
rarely accepted
even
by
his
contemporaries,
and
Mas'udi states:
Sahib
al-Zanj
['Ali's title] declared his rebellion at
al-Basrah, during
the
reign
of
al-Muhtadi,
in 255 A.H. He claimed that he was descended from
'Ali ibn Abi
Talib,
but most
people recognize
this as a false claim and
reject
it.41
'Ali's
early years
are shrouded in
mystery,
since his humble
origin
and
poverty-stricken
life did not attract the attention of
contempo-
raneous
biographers
and historians. But we know that
just prior
to the
rebellion 'Ali lived in
Samirra',
then the 'Abbasid
capital,
where he
mixed with some of the influential slaves of
Caliph
al-Mustansir (861-
862
A.D.). This afforded him an
opportunity
to witness at close hand
38Tabari's historical
methodology
is discussed in Franz Rosenthal's
History of Muslim
Historiography (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.
454 GHADA HASHEM TALHAMI
the extremes of wealth and
poverty
in the
capital
and to familiarize
himself with the weaknesses of the
caliphate.42
Later he
emigrated
to
Bahrein,
where his 'Abd
al-Qays
relations
resided,
and
began
to
advocate a rebellion as a Shi'i
pretender.
Bahrein was
ready
for the
seeds of violent
protest;
its alienation from the
Iraqi caliphate lay
behind a later revolt
by
the
Qaramathians,
an extremist Isma'ili sect. In
addition, 'Ali's
following
in the
city grew
so
large
that land taxes were
collected in his name.43
Despite
these favorable
conditions, however,
'Ali's
attempts
at incitement
failed, although
he was able to win the
loyalty
of some devoted followers who later held
positions
of
leadership
in the
Zanj uprising.
These Bahrani followers were either small
craftsmen or clients of
powerful
families.
They
included one
Yahya
bin
Muhammad
al-Bahrani,
client of the Bani
Darem; Yahya
bin abi-
Tha'lab,
a small
merchant;
butcher Muhammad bin
Salim;
and Hassan
al-Sidhnani,
as well as a black client of the Banu Handhala named
Suleiman bin Jamei'.44
'Ali bin Muhammad first went to
Basrah,
the scene of the.
Zanj
uprising,
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 first
actual contact with Ba'srah's slaves seems to have been motivated
by
a
vicious outbreak of hostilities between two Turkish
regiments,
the
Bilaliyah
and the
Sa'diyah,
which contributed to the
weakening
of
Basrah's
political regime. Hoping
to
exploit
the resultant
anarchy
to his
advantage,
he tried to win to his side members of one of these
groups.45
When news of another armed conflict between Basrah's
regiments
reached him at his
hideaway
in
Baghdad
the
following year,
869
A.D.,
he
immediately
returned. This time he
began
to seek out black slaves
working
in the Basrah marshes and to
inquire
into their
working
conditions and nutritional standards. Once shown their economic and
social
deprivations
under the troubled rule of the
caliphs,
the slaves
quickly
rallied behind 'Ali as a
Kharijite
leader bent on
saving
the
caliphate
from
religious impurities
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
the
slaves'
pathetic living
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.
THE ZANJ REBELLION 455
assuring
them that he was their
savior,
sent
by
God.
Despite
his
adoption
of an 'Alid
genealogy
he was careful not to
espouse
Shi'i
doctrines,
since these confined the succession of the
caliphate
to an
elitist
group
limited to 'Ali ibn abi-Talib and his descendants. To avoid
alienating
the
slaves,
'Ali bin Muhammad
adopted
instead the
extremely egalitarian
doctrine of the
Kharijites,
who
preached
that the
most
qualified
man should
reign,
even if he was an
Abyssinian
slave.47
The
Kharijite tinge
to the rebellion is also evident in its
slogan:
"Allahu
Akbar,
Allahu
Akbar,
la ilaha illa
Aallah,
wa Allahu
Akbar,
illa la
Hukma 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-Zanj
repeatedly
and
systematically began
his
Friday mosque
sermon with this
slogan,
which
everyone
knew was the war
cry
used
by
the
Kharijites
when
they
defected from the ranks of 'Ali ibn abi-Talib
during
the
battle of Siffin.48 'Ali bin Muhammad also
promised
to elevate the
slaves' 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 institution
of
slavery
but on social
inequality.
'Ali's rebels seem to have included
semi-liberated
slaves,
clients of
prestigious families,
a number of small
craftsmen and humble
workers,
some
peasantry,
and some Bedouin
peoples
who lived around Basrah. All shared with the black slaves an
intense hatred not
only
of the
caliphate
but of the
large
landowners and
slave holders of Basrah. If one
group
contributed more than others to
the success of this drawn-out
revolt,
it was not the black slaves but the
Bedouins from the
surrounding region,
who
provisioned
the
fighters
throughout
the insurrection.50
Hostilities
began
in and around Basrah in the area known
formerly
as
Dajlah al-'Awra',
but
eventually they spread
to the whole area between
Shatt al-'Arab and Waset. Much of this area of southern
Iraq
was
swampland;
Basrah was noted for its numerous
rivulets, reputed
to
47Ibid., 83-84; Noldeke, Sketches,
151. The
Kharijites
were
originally
an extremist
republicanist group
that defected from the ranks of the fourth Orthodox
caliph,
'Ali ibn
abi-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,
centered
around 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,
Thawrat
al-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,
because
he 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.
456 GHADA HASHEM TALHAMI
number as
many
as one hundred and
twenty
thousand.
Naturally,
this
geographic
feature hindered the movements of the 'Abbasid
army,
with
its
many
soldiers and
heavy equipment.
It also meant that the rebels
were able to
fight
a
very
successful
guerrilla
war in which their
mobility
and
maneuverability gave
them a clear
advantage.51
'Ali's forces soon
occupied
the famous
port
of Uballa on Shatt al-'Arab and the Persian
city
of
'Abadan, thereby disrupting
the flow of
goods
in and out of
central
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 goods
and victuals from
reaching
the
beseiged inhabitants,
and
by exploiting
the sectarian and ethnic differences
among
sections of the
population.
Basrah was
finally
taken in 871 A.D. and
totally devastated,
then
burned.
53
It was a
major
defeat for the central
government and,
with its
accompanying
acts of
great cruelty against
the
vanquished, including
the women and
children,
it received a
great
deal of attention from
historians. Mas'udi's account of events is not
only
vivid and
detailed,
it
expresses
the horror which the
uprising
instilled in the
people
of
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....
They
even ate their own
dead,
and he who was able to kill his
companion,
did
so and ate him."54 But the most
outrageous aspect
of Basrah's
occupation
was the enslavement of free Arab women. Mas'udi
supplies
most of the details:
'Ali's soldiers were so
outrageous
as to auction off
publicly
women from
the
lineage
of al-Hassan and al-Hussein and al-'Abbas
[meaning
descendants of 'Ali ibn abi-Talib and the
ruling
'Abbasids] as well as
others from the
lineage
of
Hashem, Qureish
[the
Prophet's lineage]
and
the rest of the Arabs. These women were sold as slaves for a mere one or
three
Dirhams,
and were
publicly
advertised
according
to their
proper
lineage,
each
Zanji receiving ten, twenty
and
thirty
of them as
concubines 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.
THE ZANJ REBELLION 457
the
throne,
al-Muwafak. After
marching
as far as
Uballa,
al-Muwafak
camped
and
began
to
organize
for an encounter. At this
point
we hear
accounts of the
army's
extreme
cruelty
toward
captured Zanj.
For
instance, Yahya
of
Bahrein,
a noted leader of the rebel
troops,
was
taken with a small
group
of men and sent to Samirra'. There he was
flogged
two hundred times while
Caliph
al-Mu'tamid watched. Both his
arms 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
to
alleviate the
Zanj threat,
and their raids
against
southern towns and
villages
continued unabated. When the
caliphate
became
preoccupied
with the al-Saffarid secessionist movement in
Persia,
the
Zanj
extended
their control further north with the aid of the
surrounding
Bedouin
peoples.
57
The
turning point
of the rebellion came in 879
A.D.,
when the Saffars
were defeated and al-Muwafak
again
took
charge
of the
campaign.58
Confined to their last
stronghold,
the
city
of
al-Mukhtara,
the
Zanj
were
severely
hurt
by
the effects of an
organized seige.
Even
so, they
resisted
stubbornly
for three
years, capitulating only
after the death of 'Ali bin
Muhammad.59 This
signaled
the
beginning
of the end of the most
brutal
uprising
in the
history
of the 'Abbasid
Empire.
This brief outline of events
hardly explains
all the circumstances that
lay
behind the
Zanj
Rebellion.
However,
the
original
texts that recorded
these events
can,
on careful
reading,
shed a
great
deal of
light
on the
identity
of the slaves who
participated
in them. Tabari's narrative
proves beyond
doubt that
Zanj
was
applied indiscriminately
to all black
slaves
throughout
the eastern
parts
of the 'Abbasid
Empire.
Tabari
himself
frequently
refers 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, Tarikh, III,
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
the
Saffarid
dynastic
claims over most of the eastern flank of the
empire.
A
great
deal of the
'Abbasids'
inability
to crush the
Zanj
stemmed from their
preoccupation
with the Saffarid
attack, particularly
when
Baghdad
was threatened in 875 A.D. A natural alliance seems to
have
developed
for a time between the Saffarid
agent
in al-Ahwaz and the
Zanj,
but
when 'Ali bin Muhammad wrote to
Ya'qub proposing
a formal alliance the latter balked.
Once the
caliph
neutralized
Ya'qub's successor,
his brother
'Amru, the
central
government
was able to turn its attention to
curbing
the
Zanj. Al-Samir,
Thawrat
al-Zanj,
116-118.
58Ibid.,
132-133.
59Ibid., 141-151; Tabari, Tarikh, IV,
2085.
60Tabari, Tarikh, III, 1750,
1756.
61
bid.,
1752.
458 GHADA HASHEM TALHAMI
participants according
to racial
origin
occurs
only
once in Tabari's
account,
in a section
relating
to the
languages they spoke.
That
particular passage
nevertheless is clear
only
with
respect
to the Nubian
slaves,
who are identified
directly by name;
the racial
origin
of the
others is
open
to
dispute.
This
ambiguity,
which
requires
a
very
close
and careful
reading
of the Arabic texts as well as deductive
analysis,
has
led one modern historian to assume that East African
Zanj
were a
conspicuous
element in the revolt. J.
Spencer Trimingham hurriedly
concludes that
just
because Tabari mentions the
Zanj by name,
he must
mean slaves from the
Zanj
coast.
Then, having
established this
category, Trimingham
breaks down the rebels into several
groups: Zanj,
Nubian, Euphrates,
and
Qaramathian.
He
compounds
his error further
by failing
to
properly identify
the
Qaramathians.62
Tabari's crucial
passage
details 'Ali's efforts to assure his followers of
his
loyalty
and trustworthiness. The slaves
apparently
had been
disturbed
by
a rumor that their former masters had offered 'Ali bin
Muhammad 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 to
assemble that
night
and
prepared
to address them. Tabari relates:
He ['Ali bin Muhammad] then called Muslih [his
interpreter]
and
separated
the
Zanj
from the
Furatiyya
and ordered Muslih to inform
them that he does not intend to return
them,
not a
single one,
to their
masters. He took several oaths to that effect. Then he added: Let some of
you stay
around me so that if
they
detected a
sign
of
betrayal they
will be
able to
slay
me. Then he
gathered
the
rest,
and these were the
Furatiyya,
Qaramathiyya,
Nuba and others who
spoke Arabic,
and he took the same
oaths before them.63
The last sentence holds the
key
to the
meaning
of the whole
passage.
Since the
Furatiyya appear
to be of unknown
origin-their
name
merely
indicates that
they
worked the banks of the
Euphrates
River near
Basrah-the
significance
of their
designation presumably
lies in their
knowledge
of Arabic. Tabari first
distinguishes
them from the
Zanj
as
Arabic-speaking,
then divides them into the three further
categories
of
Nuba, Qaramatiyya,
and
Furatiyya.
Thus
Zanj
must refer to non-
Arabic-speaking
individuals. Even
so,
the reference is
very vague,
for
one 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.
THE ZANJ REBELLION 459
its looser
application
to all the
slaves,
and its alternate' use with the term
Soudan. His recurrent and indiscriminate reference to all the rebels as
either Soudan or
Zanj clearly proves
that the term
Zanj,
at least for
Tabari,
does not
designate
a distinct
place
of
origin. Moreover,
it would
be
myopic
to focus on Tabari's text while
ignoring
the
implications
of
the
general appelation
of the rebellion. If Tabari sets out
deliberately
to
isolate the
Zanj
as one of several
categories
of
slaves, why
does he retain
the term
Zanj
for the entire conflict? Theodor Noldeke's account of the
uprising,
the first in a Western
language (1892),
defines the
Zanj
as
non-Arabic
speakers:
The most numerous class of these
negroes-the Zanj, properly
so
called-were almost all of them
ignorant
of Arabic. With these
accordingly,
Ali (leader of the
Zanj)
had to use an
interpreter.
But others
of the
negroes-those
from more northern countries (Nubia and the
like)
already spoke
Arabic.64
Al-Samir also uses the term
linguistically;
he
says
that
Zanj
were those
who were
recently captured
and so
spoke
no Arabic.65 Tabari
distinguishes
an additional
category
of slaves as
al-Shourajiyah,
whose
name derives from the Persian word for salt (shourah). These were
slaves
employed by
the
entrepreneurs
who collected and sold salt in the
process
of.
preparing
land for cultivation.66 Al-Samir
hypothesizes
that
Nubians and
Euphrates
were both from
Nubia,
the latter known as
Euphrates
because
they
worked the land
bordering
the river.67
However,
Tabari's text is noncommital on the
identity
of these
people.
A
degree
of confusion also has
long
surrounded the
identity
of the
Qaramathians.
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
This
ambiguity
is exacerbated
by
the fact that the
Qaramiteh,
who were
mainly Iraqi
or Persian in
origin,
were
preaching
their extremist
religious
doctrine in southern Iran around the time of the revolt. But
there is little doubt that the
al-Qaramathiyeen
were
African,
more
specifically
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]
and
Egypt
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.
460 GHADA HASHEM TALHAMI
many
races
among
them.... While the Nubians and
Abyssinians
use
cloth as a medium of
exchange,
these use salt."69
The names of the slaves and their leaders
rarely provide
evidence of
origin.
In a
very
few
cases,
the ethnic
identity
of an individual is
revealed in his last name or
title,
such as those of Rashid
al-Qaramathy
or Nader al-Aswad ("Nader the
Black"),
each a
distinguished military
leader. Certain first names could indicate slave status since
they
are
often the same as those of Arab slaves in the
contemporary literature,
for
example,
Rihan ibn Salah
al-Mughrabi
(Rihan means
"fragrant
plant")
and Shibl bin Salem (Shibl means "cub lion").
However,
the
majority
are
typically
Arab and
indistinguishable
from the names of free
Arabs.
Tareef, Zoureiq,
Sabih
al-'Asar,
Suleiman ibn Musa
al-Sha'rani,
Muhammad ibn
Sam'aan,
and 'Ali bin Iban al-Muhallabi are not
only
useless as indicators of
country
of
origin, they
are also
racially oblique.70
Thus the
Zanj
Rebellion was not restricted to slaves of East African
origin;
in
fact,
it was not even a slave rebellion in the strict sense of the
word. 'Ali ibn Muhammad was
definitely
head of a
religious uprising
with social overtones in which slaves
provided
much of the
manpower.
In
return,
as individual converts and as soldiers of the
religious
cause of
Kharijism, they
were able to win their freedom. The
protest
made no
concerted attack on the institution of
slavery
as such.
Moreover,
its
participants
included
Bahranis, Bedouins,
and lower-class artisans as
well as black
slaves,
some
Arabic-speaking
and some still
speaking
their
native
tongues. Perhaps
the most
convincing proof against
the
participation
of East African slaves is Tabari's
interchangeable
use of
the terms
Zanj
and
Soudan,
and his allusion to the
Zanj
as slaves who
merely
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 the
implications
of Tabari's
history.
Of all the observers of the
Zanj
Rebellion,
Mas'udi should have been able to
recognize
the
Zanj
as East
African since he visited the East African coast
personally
and knew the
area well.
Instead,
his
garrulous account, detailing
such
secondary
aspects
of the rebellion as the Basrah famine and the enslavement of
aristocratic Arab
women,
never discusses the slaves'
alleged country
of
origin.
Adab writers such as
al-Djahiz
even indicate that
Zanj
slaves
were
imported only
from
Qanbalu, although
these scholars continue to
use
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.
THE ZANJ REBELLION 461
be considered here a blanket term for black slaves that had
long
lost its
association with East Africa.
Indeed,
in his recent
study
al-Samir
directly disputes
an eastern coastal
origin
for these
people:
"the 'land of
Zanj'
was a wide and loose
expression [ta'beerfadhfadh] applied by
the
Arabs to
large
areas in Africa."71
In
addition,
the works of
contemporary geographers give
no
indication of an oceanic trade in slaves between the East African coast
and the 'Abbasid
Empire
before the tenth
century.
This is a
startling
fact, considering
the consistent attention of these men to
major
items of
export
from the East African coast. Not
only
were contacts with this
part
of Africa
tenuous,
as is clear from the account of
al-Djahiz,
but African
slaves were not the
major
attraction
drawing
Arab and Persian seafarers
there. For these
reasons,
the claim that
huge
numbers of slave
participants
in the
Zanj
Rebellion were carried from the Swahili coast
and Zanzibar cannot be sustained. In
fact,
if the
uprising proves
anything
about the
origin
of slaves in the 'Abbasid
Empire,
it is that
most came from the
modern-day
Sudan and the
Libyan
desert. Other
contemporary writing,
of
course,
indicates the
availability
of
Ethiopian
and
Maghrabi
slaves as well.
The
Zanj
Rebellion
occupies
a
unique place
in the
historiography
of
East Africa.
Despite
much evidence to the
contrary, including
the
absence of
major
Arab settlements
along
the
coast,
the silence of Arab
and Persian
geographers
on an oceanic
trade,
and the
generalized
equation
of
Zanj
with
"black,"
it has been used to infer an
important
commercial
relationship
between Africa and the Middle East several
centuries before such an
exchange
can be
proven
to have existed. This
overemphasis
on one set of historical events
might
be warranted were
there some
agreement
on the
etymology
and derivation of the term
Zanj.
Without such
consensus, however,
the
assumption
that 'Abbasid
writers used
Zanj
to mean
specifically
the East African
coast,
and that
therefore the
people they
called
Zanj originated
in a
specific part
of that
region,
is
completely unjustified.
71Ibid., 33.