Zanj Rebellion

Zanj Rebellion
Map of Iraq and Ahwaz at the time of the Zanj revolt.
Date 869–883 Location Lower Mesopotamia and Ahwaz Result Abbasid victory
Belligerents
Abbasid Caliphate	Zanj rebels Slaves Allied Arabs Banu Tamim[1] Banu Asad ibn Khuzaymah[1] Bahila[2]
Commanders and leaders
Abu Ahmad al-Muwaffaq Abu al-'Abbas ibn al-Muwaffaq Musa ibn Bugha Abu al-Saj Masrur al-Balkhi Ahmad ibn Laythawayh Ibrahim ibn Muhammad	Ali ibn Muhammad Yahya ibn Muhammad al-Bahrani Ali ibn Aban al-Muhallabi Sulayman ibn Jami' Sulayman ibn Musa al-Sha'rani Ankalay ibn Ali ibn Muhammad

The Zanj Rebellion (Arabic: ثورة الزنج Thawrat al-Zanj / Zinj) was a major revolt against the Abbasid Caliphate, which took place from 869 until 883. Begun near the city of Basra in present-day southern Iraq and led by one Ali ibn Muhammad, the insurrection involved both enslaved and freed East Africans or Abyssinians (collectively termed "Zanj" in this case) exported in the Indian Ocean slave trade and transported to slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate in the Middle East, principally to drain the region's salt marshes.^[3] It grew to involve slaves and freemen, including both Eastern Africans and Arabs, from several regions of the Caliphate, and claimed tens of thousands of lives before it was fully defeated.^[4]

Several Muslim historians, such as al-Tabari and al-Mas'udi, consider the Zanj revolt to be one of the "most vicious and brutal uprisings" of the many disturbances that plagued the Abbasid central government.^[4] Modern scholars have characterized the conflict as being "one of the bloodiest and most destructive rebellions which the history of Western Asia records,"^[5] while at the same time praising its coverage as being among the "most fully and extensively described campaign[s] in the whole of early Islamic historical writing."^[6] The precise composition of the rebels remains a subject of debate, both as regards their identity and as to the proportion of slaves and free among them – available historical sources being open to various interpretations.