Slavery is a horrible human invention that has been around at least since the development of cities. And probably just as ancient were slave rebellions by those discontented with their situation, many of them ultimately failures, but nonetheless important for understanding the history of resistance to oppression. The Zanj Rebellion of 869-883 is a fascinating example, because it struck a severe blow to the powerful central government of the Abbasid Caliphate in which the revolt occurred. And the Zanj Rebellion’s leader, a religious mystic called Ali in Muhammad, makes this story especially interesting.
The captivity of east African slaves in the marshlands of southern Iraq was especially brutal. Landlords were incentivized to work the people they enslaved with great harshness, because they could own any of these lands as long as they reclaimed the swamps by removing the salt that riddled the area in the form of natron. These slaves, called the Zanj, were beaten and malnourished, and ripe for joining a rebellion when offered the opportunity.
Ali ibn Muhammad’s background is obscure, but he was involved in politics before travelling to the region of Basra in the marshlands, where he used his charisma and religious associations to drum up support. He claimed to know certain passages of the Qu’ran by divine revelation, and used the egalitarian message of the Kharijite sect of Islam and promoted himself as a prophet among the Shiites, a “Mahdi” or messianic figure who would bring justice to the downtrodden.
And for a couple of years, the Zanj Rebellion succeeded — they defeated the Abbasid Caliphate’s armies, set up a new capital city, and even minted coins. Tens of thousands of people died in the fighting, and while eventually the rebels lost, they managed to destabilize the Caliphate in the process.
Sources: #medievalista.net, Adam Ali “The Zanj Revolt: a slave war in Medieval Iraq” 2019. Image is a stylized portrait of the warrior-poet ‘Antarah b. Shaddād.
