Zanj Rebellion - Historical Revisionism

Historical Revisionism

Ghada Hashem Talhami, a scholar of the Zanj revolt, argues that the Zanj rebellion is inaccurately named. In fact, most of the military were not Zanj to begin with. It was only after a time, after most of the other slaves were freed, that the actual Zanj-imported slaves took hold.

Talhami cites from various historians and works to make her point that the rebellion was more of a religious/social uprising made by the lowly classed and suppressed citizens of the Basra area, which included a wide variety of people, including white and Indian slaves. She even says that the most significant element of the rebellion was not the Zanj slaves, but Bedouin from around Basra, who provided regular support throughout the conflict.

"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….

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."