MUNDI Peterson
Racialization and the Politics of Lineage in the Zanj Rebellion
Africa
Jediael Peterson
Abstract: In the Ninth century, a group of enslaved Africans called the Zanj, from the
Bantu speaking regions of East Africa, revolted against their slave masters. Under the leadership of Ali Ibn Muhammad, they staged several bloody guerilla wars until their inevitable fall. This paper looks at the role of politicization of lineage, racialization in Islamic societies, specifically the Abbasid
Empire, and how racial contestation and class subjugation can manifest amongst a group of people. All these things led to the
Zanj rebellion, which was one of the largest and longest-lasting slave rebellions in the history of the world.
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Slavery has existed throughout through literature, art, and proverbs, shows history in various forms, including domestic us that we cannot discuss the rebellion servitude, military servitude, and chattel without including race as an important slavery. From the Americas to the Middle factor. The Zanj rebellion was a result of the
East, one thing these forms of slavery have racialization that took place in the Abbasid in common is the existence and frequencies Caliphate and the hierarchical structures in of slave rebellions. One of these rebellions place that dictated that Africans like the was the Zanj rebellion as it was the longest, Zanj would be relegated to the lowest social most significant slave rebellion in pre- class, lack autonomy over themselves and modern history and lasted from 869 - 883.1 work as slaves for the upper class.
The Zanj, under the leadership of Ali Ibn The Trans-Atlantic slave trade,
Muhammad, staged a 14-year bloody majority of the time, is seen as the beginning guerilla war against the Abbasid Caliphate of the end of Africa’s autonomous existence that killed thousand of Zanj slaves and slave in their land of origin. The arrival of owners. A combination of their race and Europeans and Christianity into several class birthed the Zanj rebellion and has African countries is the first marker we similar ties to that of the revolt in Haiti, discuss when we learn about slavery. What staking their place in the history of the most people tend to neglect when discussing
African diaspora. Historically, this rebellion the autonomy of the African people is the has been analyzed through the lens of class. Arab-Islamic slave trade, as it stands as a
Further analysis of the history of the Zanj nearly unexplored area, as many seem to people and the racialization of non-Arabs, only focus on the causes and effects of the
1 Jackson, D. E. P. Iranian Studies 28, no. 1/2 (1995): 100-03.
2 MUNDI Peterson slave trade. While we must continue to study against the Quran and Haram,2 but the it, the lack of prioritization around the Arab- consensus about blackness was that they
Islamic slave trade has led us to a narrow were pagans and nonbelievers, making the definition of what it means to belong to the process of enslavement easier for the Arabs. diaspora. From the Haitian revolution to the "The rights of one possessed are that he slave rebellions in Bahia, Brazil, one thing should share in the owner’s food and people in the diaspora have in common, is clothing and should not be assigned work revolting against their slave masters in ways above his capacity."3When the region came that alter the history of the country. The under the leadership of Prophet Muhammad,
Zanj slave rebellion that took place in he created a moral code for slave owners to modern day Iraq lets us know that it is not abide by, instead of slaves being targeted only part of the diaspora through a shared and blamed. heritage of being African, but the presence Medieval Arab writers derived much of Africans in the Middle East is one mured of their initial understanding of Africa from with a history of rebellion that deserves to translations of Greek works, most notably be studied. the geography of the second century
To understand why the Zanj Alexandrian Claudius Ptolemaeus.4 With rebellion took place, we must look at the this understanding, the world was divided role of slavery in the society that they were into seven latitude zones, the first being in. In Islam, enslaving another Muslim is closest to the Equator and the seventh being
2 Tabaråi. History of al-Tabari: The Caliphate of 'Ali 3 John Hunwick and Eve Troutt Powell, The African I A.D. 656-657/A.H. 35-36, trans. David Wines Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997) (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers Princeton, 299. 2002) 9. 4 Hunwick and Powell, 35.
3 MUNDI Peterson closest to the Arctic circle.5 The Zanj, who Jihad, and military conquest, which fell into the first latitude zone, which we produced an unending stream of male and know as Africa, were viewed as savages and female prisoners, many of whom were made beasts. Long before the enslavement of the into slaves.
Zanj, negative ideologies about their The Abbasid Empire was the third blackness and place in society were being major Islamic caliphate to succeed the spread. Shams al-Din Muhammad b. Abi Islamic Prophet Muhammad and expanded
Talib al-Dimashqi, a Syrian author, writes through Southern France, across Africa, from popular perception of people who live through the Arabian Peninsula and into the in the first latitudes. “The equatorial region Persian empire of the East.8 Due to its size, is inhabited by communities of blacks who Baghdad became the new capital of the are numbered among the savages and beasts. Empire, drawing many from the Persians to
Their complexion and hair are burnt, and the Turks and Africans for trade. The influx they are physically and morally deviant.”6 of non-Arab speakers and non-Muslims led
Bilad-as-Sudan, “the country of to a clear racialization in this empire long black people,” which we know as Sub- before the Zanj rebellion.9 For a society to
Saharan Africa, offered a vast hunting become racialized, the idealization of others ground for Arab slave traders.7 Islam and self must be created. Around this time, facilitated the growth of slavery and its when Baghdad had a high influx of non- development on a transcontinental scale due Arabs, the Arab minority felt threatened, and to slaves mainly being obtained through a clear distinction was needed.
5 Hunwick and Powell, 35. 9 Nicholas C Mcleod, Race, Rebellion, and Arab 6 Ibid, 35. Muslim slavery:the Zanj Rebellion in Iraq, 869 - 883 7 Ibid, 9. C.E.. (Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2016) 8 Popovic, 9. 107.
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Racialization did not only affect attempt to understand what the motivations
Africans but also Persians, Turks, Greeks, behind the rebellions were. Some authors and Slavs. The difference between them and such as Ghada Hashem Talhamis view it as
Africans was that they were viewed as easily motivated by class and minimize the role of assimilable. 10 In this society, blackness had Africans, "The slaves were merely one always been equated with paganism, among several oppressed classes who unbelief, and slavery.11 It did not help that participated in the rebellion, which was not many Africans who had converted to Islam, an attack on the institution of slavery but included elements of their pre-Islamic social inequality."13 beliefs. An example would be the Gnawa Class does play an essential role in people in Morroco who, while they are the Zanj rebellion, but to ignore the intersect
Muslim, incorporate aspects of trance into of class and race during the Abbasid their rituals, which many Muslims view as Caliphate ignores the racialization that went syncretic and thus haram.12 Ideologies of on in this society and removes the Zanj blackness, are in part, what led to smaller population from Islamic history. rebellions and, finally, the Zanj rebellion in Understanding race not through a modern
869. lens, but looking at it from the way society
While the topic of the Zanj rebellion incorporated the ideology of Paganism and is one that is lacking in scholarly research, blackness into their daily lives will help us some scholars have come together in an
10 McLeod, 107. 13 Ghada Hashem Talhamim, The Zanj Rebellion 11 Hunwick and Powell, 9. Reconsidered (The International Journal of African 12 Hamel, Chouki El Hamel, Constructing A Historical Studies 1977), 443. Diasporic Identity: Tracing the Origins of the Gnawa Spiritual Group in Morocco (The Journal of African History 2008), 241.
5 MUNDI Peterson understand why race is an essential factor in structure as blacks were casts as the Zanj rebellion. intellectually inferior and against everything
Race is an important distinction Islam stood for due to them being linked to when discussing the rebellion, but for us to paganism. Another ideology that was be sure that the Zanj were black, and from popular around the time was the story of
Africa, an examination of the word 'Zanj' is their skin color. It was believed that their needed. Using Tabarîs' text The Revolt of the skin color was the way it was due to a
Zanj, we know that the Zanj were taken deformity and a curse from the time of from the Bantu region of East Africa and Noah15. This is known as the Hamitic Myth; brought to southern Iraq as slaves to remove Ham, son of Noah, was of lighter skin, but nitrous topsoil to make the land more due to a curse from Noah, God changed the cultivable. "They were recruited from skin color of Ham and his descendants and among important Negro slaves and local left them to live in what we know today as peasants, and grouped in camps of 500 - East Africa. The curse was simply that Ham
5,000 workers, packed without family or and his descendants would be slaves to his hope, given a handful of flour, semolina, and brothers and their descendants who retained dates as their only food."14 their lighter skin.16 While this myth is
Because the Abbasid Caliphate was unfounded, it is one that has currency and responsible for creating much of early has furthered the belief and justification for
Islamic theology, the racial ideologies the enslavement of Africans.With this dispensed through the Islamic doctrine justification came loathing; Taous al- heavily reinforced the racialized social Yemani, lieutenant of Abdallah, son of
14 Tabaråi, 299. 16 Ibid, 38. 15 Hunwick and Powell, 37.
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Abbâs, refused to eat the meat of any animal for all blacks regardless of region of killed by a Zanj, calling them “a hideous origin.20 slave.”17 Since the word Zanj is not of Arab
The racial stratification that took origins, there are many hypotheses as to place during the Abbasid empire, and the where the word originated from as it would medieval Islamic world, resulted in the help us solidify the idea that the Zanj were confinement of black people to the lowest indeed black people who were forcibly position in the social structure. They were removed from Africa and brought to positioned and considered inferior to their Southern Iraq. Some historians think the lighter-skinned counterparts and were word is borrowed from Ethiopia, seeing as relegated to a role of permanent servitude Amharic, the Ethiopian language, is a sister whether they were free or enslaved. 18 language to Arabic. In Amharic, the verb
The meaning of the word Zanj is one Zanega, meaning to prattle, or to stammer is that has been debated amongst scholars for what some historians believe is where the decades. The earliest mentions of the Zanj word originated from.21 Others think the were found in an excerpt from Al Fazarai, word is of Persian origin zang, zangî an Arab astronomer, around 780C.E.19 (Pahlawi Zoroastrian Zangîk "Negro"), but
Initially, the term meant those who the most popular one is the belief that it is a originated from Eastern Africa and practiced mixture of Persian and Indian Zanz-bar, a pagan religion, but as the slave trade which means "country of the black man."22 continued to grow it became a general term
17 Popovic, 21. 20 Ibid, 15. 18 McLeod, 126. 21 Ibid, 15. 19 Popovic, 15. 22 Ibid, 16.
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By the ninth century, around the time We also know that due to the size of slaves of the Zanj rebellion, the word Zanj was brought over, these camps were operated by used by Caliphates to describe Africans who the wealthy, simply because during that belonged to a specific socio-economic period, only they could afford to own vast category. Kazouini, the Arab cosmographer amounts of land to accommodate the slaves and geographer from the thirteenth century, brought over. states that there are ten unique The type of slavery imposed on the characteristics to the Zanj: black Zanj is even more striking when one looks at complexion, kinky hair, flat nose, thick lips, the conditions of slavery in the Middle East. slender hands and feet, fetid odor, limited In The African Diaspora in the intelligence, extreme exuberance, and Mediterranean Lands of Islam by John cannibalistic customs.23Phenotypically, this Hunwick and Eve Troutt Powell, slavery in description lets us know that the Zanj were other Middle Eastern countries was mainly indeed black, and the last three domestic servitude, which makes the characteristics describe the racial ideologies conditions of the Zanj unusual even for that Arab societies had of Africans. Medieval Muslim society.24 Unlike the
The slaves were brought over to Atlantic slave trade that forcibly relocated work camps located in southern Iraq, at slaves for the purpose of labor, slavery in
Furât al-Basra, and while we cannot verify the Middle East, for the most part, was the number of slaves brought over, fifteen mainly for black people to work in harems, thousand, which is the figure given to us by as eunuchs and serve in the military.25
Tabari, has been cited by other historians. Unlike the Zanj who were taken to southern
23 Popovic, 16. 25 Ibid, 24. 24 Hunwick and Powell, 24.
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Iraq for manual labor in the salt marshes, Ali Ibn Muhammad was believed to slaves who were brought over for the have been born in a village in the vicinity of purpose of military or harem work had the Al Rayy called Warzanin.29 Little is opportunity to move up in society and were mentioned about his life growing up, but protected by the laws of the land, regardless according to Tabaris’ text, Ali was taken of how horrifying slavery was for them.26 from his mother by his father after an
The Zanj however, had little to no protection argument about the nature of slaves in their and were relegated to the bottom of society. house.30 He later returned to his mother after
Stereotyped as thieves, rapists, and devoid the death of his father but subsequently left of reasons, the Zanj were forcibly packed and moved to Samarra, where he became a into camps by hundreds and thousands, poet and earned a living by teaching without family, and given meager rations of children the art of writing, grammar, and food. 27 astronomy.31
Little is known about the life of Ali Compared to other rebellions that
Ibn Muhammad, the man who instigated the have taken place in the diaspora, little is
Zanj rebellion. What we do know is known about what radicalized him to start insufficient to allow us to make any definite the Zanj rebellion, but class, the politics of statements, but the little we are given from lineage, and claiming religious revelations
Tabaris texts are only fragments or disparate play a part in peoples’ belief in the rebellion. details presented to us about the man Ali Ibn Muhammads claim to have received responsible for the Zanj Rebellion.28 supernatural revelations in the form of
26 Ibid, 24. 29 Ibid, 35. 27 Popovic, xi. 30 Ibid, 35. 28 Ibid, 33. 31 Ibid, 36.
9 MUNDI Peterson verses of the Qur'an helped legitimize him in precarious situation and headed to Baghdad. the eyes of his followers. There, he claimed to be a descendant of
The Zanj rebellion did not happen Ahmad ibn Isa b. Zayd, who had led a revolt immediately, but instead, it took two defeats against the Umayyad Caliphate but was for it to take place officially. The first one is unsuccessful.34 He was able to elevate his known as The First Sojourn in Basra; to status amongst his followers by invoking the garner support for his movement, he sent supernatural and claiming to know what his four men who had been long supporters of men were doing and thinking.35 This led to his to preach in front of the Abbad mosque his supporters growing in size during his in Basra.32 Their mission was unsuccessful, time spent in Baghdad. and they were driven out by the governor of It is important to note, that while the city, Muhammad b. Raja al-Hidari. lineage and religion played a role in
Fleeing to Baghdad, some of the recruiting people into Alis camp, Rayhan supporters he did manage to garner in Basra ibn Salih and Rafiq, black slaves who had were jailed, including wives, eldest sons, been loyal to Ali, were instrumental in daughters, and servants.33 The second garnering the support of other black slaves instance that fueled the rebellion was The in this revolt.36 It was Rayhan ibn Salih’s
Sojourn in Baghdad. On their way to camp that the slave revolts first took place.
Baghdad, Ali and his men were captured Without Rayhan and Rafiq, Ali would not while crossing into Al-Batiha, he managed have been able to garner the amount of to extract himself and his men from their slaves he had to support him. Taking
32 Ibid, 38. 35 Popovic, 39. 33 Ibid, 38. 36 Ibid, 39. 34 The Contested Life of Isa b. Zayd: Notes on the Construction of Zaydi Historical Narratives
10 MUNDI Peterson advantage of the fact that Rayhan and Rafiq them that they deserved death for the way were both former slaves and staunch they had behaved towards their slaves and supporters of Ali, enslaved Africans were for doing things forbidden by God. Ordering more likely to believe in Alis’ vision as it the slaves to beat their slave masters and aligned perfectly with their idea of freedom, after receiving 500 blows, he made them which was reaching the status of their slave take a solemn oath promising not to disclose owners. 37 his location or identity. Ali Ibn proclamation
After garnering support in Baghdad, and the blows delivered to the slave masters he and his supporters moved closer to the are what officially started the Zanj
Zanj where he posed as a wealthy rebellion.39 businessman from a princely family.38 The The Zanj rebellion has two distinct revolt was declared on Wednesday, 26 periods. The first (255-66/869-879) was a ramadân 255/ September 7th, 869. Ali’s period of success and expansion. Through followers/rebels intercepted a group of 50 incorporating elements of religion, invoking slaves on their way to work and bound their the supernatural, and claiming different hands and feet. They did this until they lineages, his support grew, leading them to reportedly amassed a following of become a real threat to the Abbasid reportedly 500 slaves. Ali Ibns proclamation Caliphate. The second period (266-270 / is what officially started the Zanj rebellion. 879-883) saw the slow, agonizing decline
Promising the slaves wealth and before their final defeat.40 improvement in their condition, he turned Rebel headquarters were set up on towards the slave owners and reminded Maymûn Canal, Ali Ibn Muhammad
37 Ibid, 40. 39 Tabaråi, 37. 38 Popovic, 40. 40 Ibid, 206.
11 MUNDI Peterson gathered his followers, whose number The Zanj’s first significant victory continued to grow during the first period of was against Al Himyarî and his men. Their the revolts. In an address to them, under the second victory is where we see how flag for prayer, he spoke of their "miserable unprepared the Zanj were. Against troops of conditions and assured them that God had 4000 heavily armed men, the Zanj were ill- chosen him to be an instrument of their equipped with only three sabers in their deliverance."41 He also told them that he arsenal.42 One rebel was seen dashing into wanted to improve their condition so that battle, carrying only his plate as a weapon one day, they could also own beautiful showing how poorly equipped they were, homes and slaves. Before leaving, he asked but against a troop of four thousand armed those who understood Arabic to translate men, the Zanj were able to win their second what he said to those who did. victory.
An important distinction between the Under Ali b. Muhammads orders,
Zanj revolt and a similar one like the Haitian prisoners were beheaded, and their heads rebellion was the Haitian rebellions primary carried on the mules of the Zanj. With a goal was to drive out their colonial masters series of victories, Ali b. Muhammads and liberate themselves from slavery. Due to troops were eager to attack Basra, where slavery being so prevalent in this society and many of the slaves were stationed to liberate more of a norm, the Zanj rebellions primary them, but Ali restrained them by motive was to flip the hierarchy by placing establishing a new capital on the Sabkha themselves at the top, and their slave (salt marsh) of Abu Qurra surrounded by masters at the bottom. date palm trees and prosperous villages.43
41 Popovic, 46. 43 Ibid, 55. 42 Ibid, 46.
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September 871, the rebels were able to about three hundred thousand men died capture Basra successfully. The surrounding under Zanj leadership.45 area, which had already been captured by Disparaging comments and the Zanj, led them to be able to block ideologies is one thing many African supplies from entering Basra, weakening the societies in the diaspora are on the receiving area. This led Mansûr b Ja'far al-Khayyât end of, these beliefs and comments are used and his men to concentrate on finding to justify their enslavement and humiliation. supplies in other areas leaving Basra From the Zanj rebellion to the slave revolts unprotected and vulnerable for Ali and his in Bahia, Brazil, society has always labeled rebels to attack. On the 14th of that same black people as criminals before anything. month, a lunar eclipse took place, and Ali According to a common proverb: "The took advantage of this declaring, that when hungry Zanj steals, the sated Zanj rapes." he had asked God to hasten the destruction 46While these ideologies were prevelant of the city a voice had promised him victory: during this time period and led to the
"Basra will be a loaf of bread that you will subjugation of Africans, their primary eat from all sides; when the load is half- motive of the rebellion was not to destroy eaten, Basra will be destroyed."44 the institution that was slavery. Instead, they
The capturing of Basra is said to be not only wanted autonomy over themselves the official start of their slow decline of the but to also have the power that their former revolt. The rebels, who controlled the area slave masters had.47 for 14 years, mercilessly slaughtered young During the Zanj revolts and its and old, men and women. It is estimated that expansion, Ali Ibn Muhammad took
44 Hunwick and Powell, 9. 46 Ibid, 20. 45 Popovic, 121. 47 Ibid, 20.
13 MUNDI Peterson advantage of the social capital that lineage liberate themselves from slavery and end gave one. While we do not know much of slavery altogether. But in a society such as his background, him placing himself close to the Abbasid empire, slavery had become so the Prophet Muhammad as a spiritual leader woven into the community that envisioning and having conversations with God, he was one without it was something that many able to amass a large following that many were not capable of, including the Zanj. slave owners were unprepared for. The Their idea of liberation was enslaving their politics of lineage is not one that is new to slave masters and making conditions better the Middle east. In Morroco, with the for themselves. In many ways this is
Gnawa peoples claim of Bilal, the first black justified due to the hardship they went person to convert to Islam, and the first through and the harmful ideologies thrown
Azan in the newly Islamized Medina and a at them. companion of the Prophet Muhamad, they Furthermore, the Zanj rebellion were able to legitimize themselves in cannot be analyzed through class alone. The
Islamic society, as Ali Ibn Muhammad had role of religion, in this case Islam, and race done. must also be included in any analysis of the
Comparing the Zanj rebellion Zanj rebellion. Without the process of to other rebellions in the west, it is easy to racialization, which relegated black Africans see why using a Western lense to analyze to the lowest position in the social structure, these revolts does a disservice to the people. the Zanj rebellion never would have taken
Rebellions like the ones in the U.S., Brazil, place. and Haiti happened later on in the late 1700s Ninth century Abbasid society and 1800s; their primary focus was to knowingly promoted false racial ideologies
14 MUNDI Peterson which stereotyped black Africans as racially oppression, African people have always inferior, morally impure, and unbelievers. defied subjugation, and the Zanj rebellion
Race became a vital aspect in the Abbasid remains a glorious page in African history
Caliphate as it determined that blacks would and black resistance movements.”50 In remain in a permanent role of social conclusion, the Zanj rebellion has cemented inferiority. The Zanj were directly against itself in both African and Middle Eastern this label of social and racial inferiority and history and shows us how due to the sought to elevate themselves. racialization that African people face, they
Bonilla Silva defines racial sought to fight against their oppressor, a contestation as “the struggle of racial groups fight that rings true in the diaspora. for systemic changes regarding their position at one or more levels.”48 The Zanj expressing their own racial contestation revealed their objective interest in their desire for freedom. This contestation manifested through their retaliatory mass killings of slave owners and retreat from
Arab society further south of Iraq to start their own community. 49
Anthropologist Runoko Rashidi, suggests that “wherever they met
48 Bonilla Silva Eduardo Bonill, White Supremacy 50 Rashidi, Runoko, African Star Over Asia: The and Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era. (London: Black Presence In the East. (London: Books of Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001), 43. Africa Limited, 2012.), 174. 49 McLeod, 124.
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