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Often times on this very board amongst some folks who should know better "cough""cough" Mike...Ahem!! about the percived shyness of Africans to persue dominance out-side the continent never mind that a lot of these empires were so large they were already stretching the limit of their manpower/resources never the least,some did infact run rough shod over their non African neighbours in Eurasisa.
When his majesty took action against the Asiatic Sand-dwellers, his majesty made an army of many tens of thousands from all of Upper Egypt: from Yebu in the south to Medenyt in the north; from Lower Egypt: from all of the Two-Sides-of-the-House (3) and from Sedjer and Khen-sedjru; and from Irtjet-Nubians, MedjaNubians, Yam- Nubians, Wawat-Nubians, Kaau-Nubians; and from Tiemeh-land [URL=http://wysinger.homestead.com/Weni.pdf ]wysinger.homestead.com/Weni.pdf [/URL] Note this is when Kemetic colonization of the Levant got started in earnest.
Sesostris In Eurasia
Account of Herodotus Herodotus cited a story told by Egyptian priests about a Pharaoh Sesostris, who once led an army northward through Syria and Turkey all the way to Colchis, westward across Southern Russia, and then south again through Romania, until he reached Bulgaria and the Eastern part of Greece. Sesostris then returned home the same way he came, leaving colonists behind at the Colchian river Phasis. Herodotus cautioned the reader that much of this story came second hand via Egyptian priests, but also noted that the Colchians were commonly known to be Egyptian colonists.[1]
According to Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus (who calls him Sesoösis), and Strabo, he conquered the whole world, even Scythia and Ethiopia, divided Egypt into administrative districts or nomes, was a great law-giver, and introduced a caste system into Egypt and the worship of Serapis.
Herodotus claims Sesostris was the father of the blind king Pheron, who was less warlike than his father. wiki source
Well we know Taharka when to the Levant and send the Assyrians packing but did you kow he may have went to Spain?
In 700 B.C during the 25 dynasty in Egypt, when the Ethiopian Warrior-Prince Taharka was a young general, but before he had been ceded the throne by his uncle Shabataka. It is this same Taharka (referred to in early Spanish chronicles as Tarraco) that led a garrison into Spain and invaded it during this period. There is clear and indisputable reference to this in a manuscript by Florian de Ocampo, Cronica General published in Medina del Campo in 1553. The name of the invading general is given as Tarraco. He is not only identified as head of the Ethiopian army. The reference is more specific. It says he was later to become a king of Egypt.
The name, the period, the historical fact of his generalship and his later kingship of Egypt, his Ethiopian origin and the wide-ranging trade and exploration of the Ethiopian in this period, all attest to the validity of this reference.
Also the most persuasive of all is the fact that cartouches of the Upper Egyptian kings of this period have been found in Spain! Evidence of such cartouches may be found in the journal of the Epigraphic Society (Vol. 7, No. 171-April 1971)[Golden Age of the Moor by Ivan Van Sermita]
Taharka was EVEN mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, under the name 'Taharqa'. Taharka,[Taharqa/Tarraco] Also led a Army into Palestine to support the Israelite king Hezekiah against the Assyrians; Defending Israel who was his ally. He is therefore in the Bible in two places, 2 Kings 19:9, and Isaiah 37:9. For this and other feats, Starbo [Greek Scholar] included Taharka in a list of history greatest conquerors. Taharka was also mentioned by Another Roman historian, Diodorus of Sicily. kinghorus.tripod.com/PharaohTaharka.html
Ezana's Axumite Empire
In the 3rd century, Aksum began interfering in South Arabian affairs, controlling at times the western Tihama region among other areas. By the late 3rd century it had begun minting its own currency and was named by Mani as one of the four great powers of his time along with Persia, Rome, and China. It converted to Christianity in 325 or 328 under King Ezana and was the first state ever to use the image of the cross on its coins. At its height, Aksum controlled northern Ethiopia, Eritrea, northern Sudan, southern Egypt, Djibouti, Yemen, and southern Saudi Arabia, totalling 1.25 million km² wiki source
H.T. Norris in his work, "The Berbers in Arabic Literature", recounts that among Yusuf's troops was personal retinue of 4,000 black soldiers carrying hippopotamus skin shields, peculiar bows, Yazani spears, Zabian javelins, and moving to constant sound of drumming. Norris states, "The bizarre aspect of the African army was a valuable psychological weapon".
Brunson and Rashidi also write of black women warriors among the Almoravids. They cite the medieval epic "Romance of the Cid" that also speaks of black Berber Almoravid women. "This group of women consisted of three hundred Almoravid Amazons led by a 'Black Moorish woman' named Nugaymath Turquia".
Rashidi and Brunons cite Norris who states further of this black Berber, "She appears in the Primera Cronica General of Alfonso X (El Sabio), king of Castille and Leon (1252-84). The Primera was completed about 1289 under his successor Sancho IV. The events are associated with the Almoravid siege of Valencia after the death of the Cid. Nugaymath Turquia is the leader of a band of three hundred Amazons. They are negresses, they have their heads shaven, leaving only a topknot, they are on a pilgrimage and they are armed with Turkish bows".
Norris goes further to quote from the actual text stating, "King Bucar ordered that black Moorish woman to encamp nears the town with all her company That Moorish woman was so shrewd a master archer with the Turkish bow that it was a wonder to behold, and for that reason (the History) says the Moors called in her in Arabic nugaymath turquia, which means 'star of the archers of Turkey'".
Keep in mind that the Almoravids started from the Senegal river.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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quote:They were Christians, it should be remembered, for many centuries, and although the flourishing Christian Empire of Nubia, with its seventeen bishoprics and its thirteen viceroyalties, all governed by priests, was not founded, as is commonly supposed, by the renowned Silco, " King of the Noubads and of all the Ethiopians," it was strong enough frequently to invade Egypt in defence of their oppressed Greek and Koptic fellow-Christians. So early as 640 a combined army of Nubas and Bejas, said to have numbered 50,000 men with 1500 elephants, penetrated as far north as Oxyrhynchus (the Arab Bahnosa) where such a surprising store of Greek and other documents was discovered in 1897. Cultured peoples with such glorious records, and traditions going back even to pre-Christian times (Silco and Queen Candace, contemporary of Augustus
quote:at periods the Nubians gained the upper hand, as in 737 when Cyriacus, their then king, marched into Egypt with a large army to redress the grievances of the Copts. There is a record of an embassy sent by a king Zacharias in the 9th century to Bagdad concerning the tribute, while by the close of the l0th century the Nubians seem to have regained almost complete independence....
....Nevertheless, the Nubians were strong enough to invade upper Egypt during the reign of Nawaya Krcstos (1342-1372), because the governor of Cairo had thrown the patriarch of Alexandria into prison. The date usually assigned for the overthrow of the Christian kingdom 1351. Only the northern part of the country (as far as the 3rd cataract) came under the rule of Egypt.
"The Spread of Islam and the Nubian Dam” by David Ayalon
quote: 3. The awe and respect that the Muslims had for their Nubian adversaries are reflected in the fact that even a rather late Umayyad caliph, ‘Umar b ‘Abd al- ‘Aziz (‘Umar II 717-720), is said to have ratified the Nubian-Muslim treaty out of fear for the safety of the Muslims (“he ratified the peace treaty out of consideration for the Muslims and out of [a desire] to spare their lives”)
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The author of "The Nubian Dam" believed that it was Yaqut who was the first one who started downplaying the military supremacy of the Nubians. I am suspicious of this because Yaqut himself seemed to have no problem with pagan African domination. Their would have been people during the time of Yaqut who would have disputed him and the Nubians had the capacity to launch an invasion a century after Yaqut's time. I wonder if the different translations he was using were simply translated by different people. According to the author of "The Nubian Dam" all the early authors seemed to have respect for the Nubian military
"Medieval West Africa: Views From Arab Scholars and Merchants"
The king of Zafun is stronger than the veiled people of the Maghreb and more versed in the art of kingship. The veiled people acknowledge his superiority over them, obey him and resort to him in all important matters of government. One year the king, on his way to the pilgrimage, came to the Maghreb to pay a visit to the commander of the Muslims, the veiled king of the Maghreb, of the tribe of Lamtuna. The Commander of the Muslims met him on foot, wheras the king of Zafun did not dismount for him. He was tall, of deep black complexion and veiled
page 45 From Ibn Sa'id 13th century
In the same latitude is Zafun, which belongs to pagan Sudan and whose ruler enjoys a good reputation among (other) kings of the Sudan
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Some info from S.A. Shaban on the revolt and also some info on Bantu languages to get the idea of the power of the Zanj. Notice the skill that the Zanj had in navigation and naval warfare
quote:All the talk about slaves rising against the wretched conditions of work in the salt marshes of Basra is a figment of the imagination and has no support in the sources.....The vast majority of the rebels were Arabs of the Persian Gulf supported by free East Africans who had made their homes in the region.....
(continued page 102)...If more proof is needed that it was not a slave revolt, it is to be found in the fact that it had a highly organized army and navy which vigorously resisted the whole weight of the central government for almost fifteen years. Moreover, it must have had huge resources that allowed it to build no less than six impregnable towns in which there were arsenals for the manufacture of weapons and battleships. These towns also had in their mammoth markets prodigious wealth which was more than the salt marshes could conceivably produce. Even all the booty from Basra and the whole region could not account for such enormous wealth. Significantly the revolt had the backing of a certain group of merchants who preserved with their support until the very end. Tabari makes it very clear that the strength of the rebels was dependent on the support of these merchants.
quote:With remarkable efficiency and expedition the rebels swiftly established their control over most of the Persian Gulf coast, and extended it inland to secure their food supplies. Special vehemence was reserved for the port of Basra, which they practically destroyed. Their choice of sites for their own new towns and their meticulous knowledge of the intricate waterways of the region in addition to their great skill in naval warfare were all utilized to strangle the Basran economy and drive all the in-coming trade through their own channels. Wasit, the major bottle-neck on the way north to Baghdad, was completely cut off from any road or waterway leading south to the Gulf coast. Furthermore, the rebels occupied Kufa in order to secure the alternative inland route to the north. They expelled government forces from all these areas and easily withstood the onslaught of the successive expeditions that Muwaffaq sent against them. Realizing the grave dangers of this situation, he decided to mobilize all the financial and military forces against this audacious enemy…...
Perry Noble
I recommend reading pages 160-164 on African languages
quote:The beauty, plastic power and richness of Bantu languages delight and amaze all. They possess almost limitless flexibility, pliancy and softness. Their grammatical principles are founded on the most philosophical and systematic basis. Their vocabularies are susceptible of infinite expansion. They can express even delicate shades of thought and feeling. Perhaps no other languages are capable of greater definiteness and precision. Grout doubts whether Zulu — the purest type of a Bantu dialect, the lordly language of the south, the speech of a conquering and superior race — is surpassed in forming derivatives by German or Greek. Livingstone characterized as witnesses to the poverty of their own attainments men who complain of the poverty of Bantu languages. Bentley, after referring to the flexibility, fulness, subtlety of idea and nicety of expression in Kongoan, accredits this wealth of forms and ideas to the Bantu family in bulk. The wide sway of these qualities points out their immense practical importance to civilization. Three languages may be taken as the English tongue of their respective spheres. Zulu stretches from Natal to Nyasa, Swahili from Zanzibar well=nigh across equatorial Africa, and Mbundu (Ngolan) from Portuguese West Africa far eastward. In French Kongo the Fan (Mpangwe) and in Belgian Kongo below Livingstone Falls the Kongoan are strong developing factors. But Zulu, Swahili and Mbundu form representative and standard languages for the south, the east, the west. The unity in variety of Bantu speech, its flexibleness, power of growth and molding give ground for the belief that the best elements of the best languages may be embodied in a language classic, complete and one.*
quote:The Bantu languages, in fact, are rather more closely related one to the other—even in their extremest forms—than are the Aryan languages. This is so much the case that a native of Zanzibar can very soon make himself understood on the Congo, while a man of the Cameroons would not be long before he grasped the vocabulary of the Zulu. This interesting fact must play a certain part in the political development of Africa south of the fifth degree of north latitude. The rapidity with which the Kiswahili tongue of Zanzibar—a very convenient, simple, and expressive form of Bantu speech— has spread far and wide over East Central Africa, and has even gained a footing on the Congo, hints at the possibility of the Bantu Negroes at some future time adopting a universal Bantu language for inter-communication
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The "Sudan" were able to keep the Muslim world as a whole dependent on Trans-Saharan trade. While the Zanj wielded control over the Indian Ocean trade and were considered essential persons in Asia as far as China as navigators and mercenaries to fight off pirates. While there was obviously a decline in Sudanese influence over time it was during the scramble for Africa that Europeans were finally able to strike the last blow to Sudanese influence in the Islamic world. Zanji and Abyssinian soldiers in India were a particular annoyance to Europeans
"Trans-Saharan Trade and the West African Discovery of the Mediterranean World" by Pekka Masonen
quote:The principal reason why the North African traders were willing to accommodate in the local conditions in Western Africa, was the same as in the case of Europeans in China: it was the only way to continue the profitable trade. Before the European discovery of America, West African mines were the most important single source of gold both for Northern Africa and Europe; it is estimated that two-thirds of all the gold circulating in the Mediterranean area in the Middle Ages was imported across the Sahara. This made the uninterrupted continuity of trade more important for North African rulers than their West African counterparts. The demand for salt, for which the Arabs bartered the gold in Western Africa, is usually overemphasized in the historiography. Contrariwise, the Saharan rock salt was an expensive luxury product and available to the wealthy people only. Furthermore, it could be quite easily substituted by locally produced salt from plants and soil, whereas the North African rulers could not obtain gold for their coins elsewhere.
However, the position of the powerful states of the West African savanna was not based on the possession of the gold reserves, but on the control over the principal trade routes leading from the desert edge terminals to the gold fields in the south. In this way, the rulers of northern savanna could monopolize the trade, and they strictly prevented the Arabs to establish any direct contacts with the actual producers of gold. Inside Western Africa, the trade was carried on by local brokers, or the Dyula.
quote: The prosperity of the Sudan, and its wealth and commerce, were known far and wide in the sixteenth century. Caravans returning along the coasts proclaimed its splendours in their camel loads of gold, ivory, hides, musk, and the spoils of the ostrich. The Portuguese (always the first traders of Europe), endeavoured at this time to enter into relations with these countries of the Niger, whose magnificence had become a proverb. ' As tar cures the gall of a camel, so poverty finds its unfailing remedy in the Sudan,' was the saying of northern Africa.
So many attractions gathered together under one sky could not fail to rouse the attention, and by-and-by the cupidity, of neighbouring territories. Chief among these was naturally that country nearest to the Sudan, Morocco. From the first their avarice assumed a harshly definite character, for the people of Morocco had not, and never did have, any desire to colonise and develop a commerce, nor even to institute a religious propaganda. They looked upon the Sudan in the light of a gold-mine, and their first aspirations, like their ultimate efforts, were concentrated upon the mere drainage of this precious metal. This covetousness of theirs was also the source of a new danger to the Sudan, as it became the means of jeopardising its salt-supply.
The interior of the Sudan lacks this most necessary of products, and salt represented, and always will represent, their principal article of commerce. It was the true gold of the Sudanese, their most precious commodity, and they obtained it from the mines of Thegazza, which were situated in the heart of the desert. These mines were nearer to Morocco than to the countries of the Niger, but Thegazza, as we have seen, was the property of the Songhois, and possessed its representative Emir.
Hostilities commenced towards the middle of the sixteenth century. In 1545 Mouley Mohammed El Kebir, the sultan of Morocco, sent an embassy to the king of the Songhois, claiming the mines of Thegazza, under the pretext that they were situated on his frontiers. Askia Ishak i. admitted neither the pretext nor the argument, and emphasised his denial of the claim by an army of Touaregs whom he despatched to pillage Draa, a town on the frontiers of Morocco, a plain intimation that he was strong enough to defend his own, and was quite prepared to do so should the sultan be inclined to dispute his rights.
quote:Originally posted by Brada-Anansi: about the percived shyness of Africans to persue dominance out-side the continent
On racial stereotypes. We know that Africans are meek and do not need to prove it. The bellow quote perfectly fits this phenomenon concerning the perceived shyness of Africans as Brada-Anansi pointed out
"The stereotype becomes an element of unproven prior knowledge that needs no proof of its veracity for its employment as explanation for racialized difference."
"Unnatural and ever prejudicial Constructions of Race and Colonial Hierarchies by British observers" in 19th century Zanzibar Electronic pages 13
quote: In a discussion of race and colonial discourse, Homi Bhabha has described the stereotype as "a form of knowledge and identification that facilitates between what is always 'in place', already known, and something that must be anxiously repeated As if the essential duplicity of the Asiatic or the bestial sexual license of the African that needs no proof, can never, in discourse, be proved." In dual character as that which is already known and yet dependent on being anxiously repeated suggests an important aspect of the racial stereotype that is revealed in its use and function in many colonial sources......
page 14
"....We always already know that blacks are licentious, Asiatics duplicitous The stereotype becomes an element of unproven prior knowledge that needs no proof of its veracity for its employment as explanation for racialized difference.
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Thanks for the input Markellion,but the precieved shyness I am talking about is that Africans because of their religions or something else did not take an aggerssive move out-side the Continent..when needed to..some of the longest occupations in history have been done by Africans on out-siders..700centuries..by Moors in Iberia for instance,Kemeites and Kushitites in the Levant and beyond for millenia..Axumites in Arabia and beyond well some may say the Moors and Axumites were acting under the Abrahamic faith and that's why they did what they did, but how do you explain Kemet and Kush..with their non Abrahamic faiths.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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posted
“Zenaga/Sanhaja tribe: Berber tribe of southern Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal who gave their name to modern Senegal, their original homeland. They formed one of the sub-saharan tribes of Berbers which, uniting under the leadership of Yusef bin Tashfin, crossed the Sahara and gave a dynasty to Morocco and Spain, namely, that of the Almoravides. The Zeirid dynasty which supplanted the Fatimites in the Maghrib built the city of Algiers was also of Zenaga origin .
African Moors: The Sanhajalese Empire – by Jide Uwechia
Sanhaja is the name of a group of Africans who live on the Saharan fringes of the present day Senegal. They are one of the so-called black people or the subsaharans or the tropical Africans. Historically, they are one of the Berber tribes who constituted the main thrust of the Moorish conquest and civilization of Europe.
Reference is made to their phenotype so that it is immediately obvious that we are re-visiting the great history of an unambiguously so-black nation in West Africa. It will be shown here that the place known as West Africa today, is indeed the old heartland of the Moorish Empire which spread on from there to Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, Egypt to Spain, Italy, Palestine, even as far east as India and Indonesia where Moorish descendants still identify themselves by the Moorish designation.
Moorish Head Flag of Southern Europe The Sanhaja group has many branches which are spread out between the Senegal and the Niger rivers in West Africa, and north up to the Atlas Mountains of Morocco in south and central regions. Yet without doubt, the Sanhajas were concentrated in the areas where the pseudo-intellectuals of the western media and academia describe as “sub-Saharan region” of Africa.
The Zenega branch of the Sanhajas are among the earliest settlers of Mauritania. In the past the Zenegas used to occupy the entire country of Mauritania as their dialect was the language spoken throughout the country. Historical events, lost wars, and hegemonic practices of usurpers have contrived to push the Zenegas out of a good part of their major haunts. Today, they still live in the Sahara deserts but more southerly positioned. They presently occupy the areas between Senegal and south Mauritania.
History records that in the 9th century AD the kingdom of Masufa and the kingdom of Lamtuna formed an alliance that created Mauritania. Those founder kingdoms of Mauritania were Sanhaja-related groups.
Tilani was the prime mover of this Sanhaja alliance which created Mauritania. Sanhajalese-Mauritania struggled in its early days as it competed against the other existing kingdoms of the West African region of the Moorish Empire sometimes called Bilad-al-Sudan, or Moorish Sudan. Bilad-al-Sudan meant to the Arabic-writing historians who used that term, the various Kingdoms of Sudan which had a ruling political network of the Moorish dynasties. This area covered North and West Africa.
The then Sanhajalese-Mauritania flourished for a brief 100 years before it fell apart in the 11th century. Yet from the remnant of the part of the defunct empire, another group of Sanhajas began organizing what was to become one of the most fascinating Empires that came out of West Africa which history is never told anymore.
Zenega Language
The Zenega language is named after the Mauritanian branch of the Sanhajas. It is a Berber language spoken by more than 200 groups between Senegal and Mauritania. It is said to represent the most divergent branch of the Berber language.
Some argue that the present day name of Senegal derived from the name “Zenega” which itself is a derivative of the word Sanhaja, hence the title of this write-up “the Sanhajalese Empire”. The ancestors of the modern day “Senegalese” are the old “Zenegalese” or the Moorish “Sanhajalese” of famed history.
Zenega language came under its first pressure when the Fatmids dynasty, another Sanhaja group which had set up a caliphate covering Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, had wreaked a revenge on their other Sanhaja brethrens (the Zirid Dynasty who ruled as surrogates in the areas arouund modern Tunisia and Algeria) in the Maghreb.
The Zirids had converted to a different Islamic sect and consequently sought to dissociate from the Fatmid Caliphate. The Fatmid Dynasty ruler of the Caliphate sent in a major wave of Arabic speaking Bedouin refugee-settlers from Arabia and Yemen to disrupt and change the demographic ratio of that region in order to cripple it politically. These newer settlers were from the Beni Hilal Arab tribes of Yemen. They were Muslims as well but they had nothing to do with the conquest of Europe.
In spite of the demographic shift, the original Berber language was so rooted that Zenega was still spoken all over Mauritania and Northern Senegal until after the Zenegas lost a war to the Arabic-Hassaniya dialect speaking Maqil Arab in the 17th century. After the defeat Zenega language was actively discouraged whereas Hassaniya was promoted.
The new ruling elites also forbade the bearing of arms among the Zenegas. Their status was reduced from the original lords of the land to a servant class. They were encouraged to seek careers as Islamic scholars or locked into a never-ending cycle of dependency and servitude.
Presently the Zenega language is gone past its days of glory. The few speakers are either bilingual, with Hassaniya-Arabic being the main language of communication.
Yet there a few who still cling to the Zenega language as a symbol of cultural independence and identity. A Hassaniya proverb goes that “a Moor who speaks Zenega is not a Zenagui (a member of the servant class).”
So true because the Zenegas were not anybody’s whipping boy. They remain one of the most important past prime movers of the history of the modern world.
The present day Zenega-derived Sanhajas are the descendants of great legacy. Their ancestors were among the most important players in the list of founders of the so-called western civilization. In the next section we shall see just why this is so true.
The Almoravids – Holy Warriors of the Moorish Sanhajalese Empire
The word Almoravids is a poor European transliteration of the African word Al-Murabitum. It describes a learned and righteous Moorish warrior.
After the decay of the Sanhajalese empire of Mauritania in the West Africa, a vacuum occurred which had to be filled. The empire had splintered to its various component parts. Tribal groupings again roamed the desert and the most powerful was the Sanhaja-related Lamtuna tribe who were the main force behind the late Sanhajalese-Mauritania Empire.
The Lamtuna tribal grouping founded Ouadagoust, one of the trade terminals of the trans-Saharan trade route and one of the most celebrated cities of the Bilad-al-Sudan, or Moorish Sudan. They converted to Islam in the 9th century.
About the year 1040 A.D it is said that a certain Sanhajalese Lamtuna named Yahaya ibn Ibrahim went on pilgrimage and visited many holies cities of the Moorish-Islamic world, including Mecca, Kairoun – Tunisia, Cairo and Damascus. On this trip, especially the part in Kairoun, he encountered a mystical revelation that he was destined to be used to re-construct the Moorish Empire. He was schooled for this new role by the many mystics and visionaries of the many famous spiritual centers and Universities at Kairoun.
He was then asked to return to West Africa to train and raise a revived body of conscious Moorish religious teacher/warriors who would constitute the striking arm of the revolution which it was prophesied that he would lead. He returned home with a new vision and a new network of socio-religious activists. One of them was called Abdallah ibn Yasin.
Abdallah ibn Yasin was infused full with revolutionary zeal and a historical sense of purpose and place. He was a mystic and socio-religious visionary who formally belonged to the Maliki school of the Sunni branch of Islam. He was known to be an ascetic, strict and structured in his daily habits.
Their somewhat demanding view of life and interpretation of Islam was rejected widely by the Lamtunas who did not hesitate to send the duo of Yahaya ibn Ibrahim and Abdallah ibn Yasin packing to some other area out in the desert with their Maliki-School Koranic interpretations.
Shortly after their expulsion by the Lamtunas, the revolutionary duo of Yasin and Yahaya moved to an Island on the upper section of the River Niger and built a training school or “Rabit” as expressed in Arabic. Yahaya ibn Ibrahim and Abdallah ibn Yasin, carried on their difficult task of reviving the awareness of the Moors of his immediate vicinity, to a recognition of a sense of their origin and potentiality.
They preached a strict view of life, and promoted the knowledge of history, astrology, the sciences, medicine, mysticism, as well as military and martial arts. The graduates of their school were to be known as Murabitum, a nuanced name which possibly meant the learned Moors, or learned and holy Muslim warriors.
Nasaradin
All over Western Sudan one comes across different cities or districts named Nasr or Nasara, i.e. Nasareth the country of Nasarenes. Usually those districts had been at some point in history a settlement of a group of Africans who collectively practiced what has come to be knkown as the Nasarene culture. There is a Nasreth in Ethiopia, and there is a district of Nasr in the Nassarawa (Nasarene) State of modern Nigeria. Similarly there were various Nasar settlements in modern day Mali, Mauretania, Senegal, and Niger. It is only in Africa that one finds towns and districts named Nasr time and again.
The Nasarene culture is thus an age old Saharan African order which precepts premeated some cultures of the North East Africa including ancient Israel and Arabia. This group and its rites are well known in the books of the Bible and Koran from such famous tales as the life and death of Samson.
The Nasarenes were persons dedicated either from birth or by personal commitment to the pursuit of universal principles of truths and justice. They usually end up as wise men, master of natural and scientific laws, and very knowledgeable scholars of history and spirituality. They were often the last line of defence for the principles of balance and righteousness. Often many Nasarenes wore the dreadlocks natural hair coiffure, as it was a symbol that fit their emphasis on natural spirituality as opposed to some human contrivance.
These special breed of holy people were widespread in traditional Africa before the spread of Islam. Some have claimed it is an order as old as life itself with Melchizadek the famous ever-living Priest of the book of Genesis as its founder.
Nasarene culture as such is a relic of ancient Africa which due to the vibrancy and strenght of its philosophical principles has been adopted by all shades and colors of religion and nationalities. It is an order of spiritual masters not particularly affiliated with any religion or organization.
Nasarenes are a rough equivalent of a Levite-like priestly order dedicated to guarding and promoting truth and righteousness and keeping the balance of justice. In today’s world, the Nasarenes would be similar to many aspects of the Rastasfari philosophy and reasoning framework.
Nasarene culture was a part of the Lamtuna culture of Western Sudan. It was not surprising that many practising Nazarenes were counted as stauch supporters of Ibrahim and Yasin.
Among the prominent corps and ranks of the students, teachers and martial artists who rallied round and accompanied Ibrahim and Yasin on their world changing mission, one found Murabitums or the Marabouts, and the Nasarenes. Yasin was the ideologue of the group whereas Yahaya ibn Ibrahim became the military organizer.
Expansion
From the year 1053, the Almoravid movement of the Sanhajas began to expand from its territory in the border areas between present day Mauritania and Senegal. Their first base was the Northern Senegalese town of Tekrur.
The movement mainly used teachers and healers to spread their socio-political philosophy. However whenever their brethrens were threatened by local authorities, the marabouts or the Almoravids were more than willing to confront and often more than a match for the local authorities who had been weakened throughout the Moorish Empire by venality and corruption.
The Sanhajalese Trinity – Yahaya ibn Ibrahim, Abdallah ibn Yasin and Abubakar ibn Umar:
In 1054 the Almoravid movement had taken Sijilmasa at the northern terminus of the Trans-Saharan trade route, and in 1055 they took Aoudaghost at the southern end.
Yahaya ibn Ibrahim was killed in a battle in 1056 and Abdallah ibn Yasin appointed his brother Abubakar ibn Umar as the successor. Abubakar continued the aggrandisement of the medieval empire of the Sanhajas of Senegal spear-headed by the Almoravid movement.
Under Abubakar the Almoravids of Sanhaja swept through the Atlas Mountain regions of Morocco, and soon came into contact with the Berghouata branch of the Zenatas of central Morocco.
After a fierce fight with the local authorities, the Berghouatas ruling class was subjugated but not before they had succeeded in killing Abdallah ibn Yasin the major ideological force of the rapidly expanding West African based Sanhaja Empire of the so called Black-a- Moors.
Following the death of Yasin, Abubakar ibn Umar became both the ideological as well as the military leader of the Sanhaja Empire, destined to become one of the greatest African Empires ever established and often dubiously described as just “the Almoravid dynasty” by contemporary historians. The Sanhaja movement of the Almoravids built up a new political network where the previous ones had decayed, they built up a new society, a new polity, and a new state. They created a great empire, surely one of the largest geographical political hegemony established by a so-called “sub-Saharan” African based state.
As the Sanhajas expanded their reach, the capital of the empire remained in Tekrur, a city which served as the spiritual-cultural focal point of all true Sanhajas. In 1061, Abubakar, a natural mystic and intellectual decided to return to the Tekrur and focussed the rest of his life on a study of nature and mystics. Formally, he continued to rule and direct the movement and the emerging empire from inside Moorish Sudan or today’s so-called West Africa but most of his active powers he transferred to others.
Abubakar ibn Tashfin
Further spread of the philosophy of the Marabout movement and resulting military expeditions of were left in the hands of Abubakar’s cousin, one of the leading lights of the Almoravid named Yusuf ibn Tashfin.
Tashfin, who was then based in Morocco then assumed the role of Vice-Roy, became the de-facto leader of the movement. He continued to pay a royal tribute of allegiance to his cousin Abubakar until the death of the latter.
Yusuf ibn Tashfin was described by Ali ibn Abd allah in Roudh el-Kartas as “Brown in color, middle height, thin, little beard, soft voice, black eyes, straight nose, lock of Muhammad falling on top of his ear, eye brow joined, wooly hair”
In 1062, Yusuf ibn Tashfin founded the city of Marrakeshi (meaning the city of Keshi/Kushi, in honour of the black Moorish African builders and owners of the city). Due to the growing sway of his military prowess and material wealth, he acted with increasing independence from the empire capital in Tekrur. Although he still pledged nominal allegiance to his home capital, he quickly consolidated the base of this increasing power in his newly built capital city of Marrakeshi.
Black African Moors of The Great Senegal Empire Pt 2 – by Jide Uwechia Sanhajal and Ghana – Two Great African Empires of Western Sudan:
In 1075, the Almoravids army of the Sanhaja Empire conquered and absorbed parts of the old Ghana Empire. Ghana declined and degraded into a collection of motley tribal units shortly thereafter. One must note that old Ghana Empire was in the areas of modern day southern Mauritania.
The Ghana Empire was a so-called black African Empire. Sanhajal (Senegal) Empire was equally a so-called black African Empire. One defeated and absorbed the other in the never ending struggle for power and primacy among powerful people. Yet, both were so-called Black African Empires.
Some ideologically motivated scholars have often lamented the destruction of Ghana Empire (which is tagged a “Black” Sudanese Empire) by the mythical “white” Moors/Arabs/Semites or anything but “Black” group called the Almoravids. This brief historical sketch should leave all in no doubt about the ethnicity of the Almoravids. They are same as the modern day Senegalese who are named after their late Sanhajalese Empire.
The one reason for this attempted obfuscation of cultural ethnicity of the Almoravid Sanhajas is due to the fact that they were the ones who founded the geopolitical entities which later morphed into the present day Senegal, Mauritania, and Morocco as this was the extent of the spread of this African Empire.
The other reason for the attempted hijack of the identity of the Black Moors of Senegal is that they conquered, ruled and civilized a huge swat of southern European countries including Portugal, Spain, Corsica, Malta, and Sicily, who were beyond the pale in terms of backwardness and savagery in those days.
The Europeans are loath to admit that it was the Moors, the present day so called sub-Saharan Africans living in the present day Senegal, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Libya, Morocco, and Sudan who brought them this modern phase of civilization.
By introducing books, culture, travel, modern sciences, alchemy, mathematics, geology, agronomy, architecture, and medicine in Europe, those Africans brought the Europeans out of the caves, from what is described as the “dark” ages to the light of culture and enlightenment.
Those Africans of the Sanhaja Empire built libraries, great cities, and great universities which remain in tact as part of the material legacy of modern day Europe and America. Yet, rather than acknowledge the true dynamics of history, Europeans at home and abroad have sought to denigrate, and discount the contributions of Africans in the modern world with defamatory lies and calumnies.
The Sanhaja Conquest of Iberia
In 1086 the Muslim princes of the increasingly dysfunctional Cordoba Caliphate were under pressure from the gothic Christian migrant warriors who menaced their very existence and had focussed their strength around a marauding crusader war-lord named Alfonso the VI of the region of Castille and Leon. The Muslims appealed to the Almoravids for help.
Yusuf and his Almoravid army of Sanhajas crossed the straits of Gibraltar landed on Algerciras. There he dealt a sever defeat on the hordes of crusader marauders of Castille region. He did not follow up on this success as he had to return to his defacto capital Marakeshi to deal with internal political problem.
When Yusuf returned to Iberia with his Black African Moorish Army in 1090, it was to depose the decadent Muslim princes of the then dysfunctional Cordoba caliphate, who were vilely resented by their subjects, and widely indicted by religious scholars.
In 1094, the Sanhajalese/Senegalese conquest of the Iberian Peninsula was complete. Spain, and some parts of Portugal fell under the political hegemony of the West African Empire of Sanhajal or Senegal. Southern Europe was political subjugated and ruled from the African cities Tekrur in modern day Senegal, and Marakesh, in the present day Morocco.
Yusuf later went on to become one of the greatest, military, spiritual and political role model birthed by the African continent. He was illuminated of the mind, and keen of intelligence. He laid the foundation of one of the greatest political Empires of Africa ever built; stretching from the rustic landscapes of Tekrur Senegal to the furthest reaches of Mediterranean Iberica.
At this point, Yusuf was the pre-eminent light of the Islamic world. Unparallelled in power and wealth, he was undisputedly acknowledged as Amir al Muslimi al Nazaradin, translated as the leader of the learned Moors and of the Nazarenes.
Yusuf died in 1106 at the age of 100 years.
Decline of Sanhaja Empire
The Sanhaja Empire lasted approximately 100 years from its foundation to its fall. The conquest of the city of Marakesh by another rival African revivalist movement, the Almohades in 1146 signified its lowest point.
The Sanhaja Empire broke up into different segments thereafter. A measure of continuity was maintained in the southern reaches which paid allegiance to Tekrur in Senegal. Other segments continued to exist in the Baleric Islands, and in Tunisia.
The segmented and broken parts of this great empire fell under the influence of individual free-lancing marabouts and nasaradins who subscribed to the philosophy of the original marabouts but were not formally connected to them. The influence of marabouts and their philosophy persists due to its internal vigour, and effective healing arts. For a long time the Marabouts ruled in different parts of Morocco as well as Sudan.
Morocco was eventually united under an Arab dynasty different than the Marabouts. Moorish Sudan also came under the influence of other potentates and rulers but the charm, allure and influence of the Marabouts still lives on even today in modern Africa. The entire population of Muslim Africa from Senegal, Mauritania Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Libya, Morocco, is directed, advised, and pastured by marabouts (so called Islamic holymen) but actually followers of the philosophy of the Almoravids, Almurabitum al Nasarene of Sanhaja.
In Italy, Sicily and Spain, Calabria, the Aeolian Islands, family names like Morabito, Murabito and Mirabito have been common since the time of the Almurabitum or the Almoravids. Mourabit is a common family name among huge swats of the population of Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritania.
One must also bear in mind that the Sanhajas were also the main movers of the Fatmid caliphate, another African Empire composed primarily of modern day Senegalese, Malians, and Mauritanians, that dazzled the globe in the middle ages.
In 11th century AD political problems within the different Sanhaja families that formed the elites of the Fatmid Empire eventually precipitated the invasion and settling of large portions of the territories of the Sanhajas by the Arab Banu Hilal tribe from Saudi Arabia.
Later in the 17th century Sanhajas lost the Char Bouba war against the Maqil Arabs who comprised mainly of Banu Hassan tribe of Yemen another group of Black Arabs. A fallout of this war was the supression of the Sanhaja culture and language by the conquering immigrant group, and it replacement with the Arabic language.
This is how come Mauritania of today is no longer a Senega speaking country. The language and culture of the Sanhajas were supplanted by the Hassaniya-Arab dialect and culture of the latter immigrants.
As seen earlier, the Sanhajas mostly concentrate today in the areas of Senegal and the border areas of Senegal and Mauritania. Groups of Sanhajas such as the Peul or the Fulanis of Senegal, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria are still highly influence in the political and cultural life of West Africa.
This history, our history, our legacy should be reclaimed by all people of the modern Africa particularly the Western coasts of Africa.
The two larger coffers were packed with lapis lazuli in both raw and worked states. The smaller with ingots and other items of gold (6.98 kg in total) and intact and crushed silver vessels, silver ingots and other items (weighing 8.87 kg in total). Interestingly, the best pieces - those in a worked state or those which were intact - had in antiquity been placed carefully on the top, so that they would be seen first when the coffers were opened.
The boxes lids and front end-panels have cartouche containing the names and titles of Amenemhat II of the 12th Dynasty identifying, so the archaeologists assumed, the king by whom the treasure had been deposited, perhaps in his father Senusret I's memory. Here before them, evidently, lay a unique deposit of foreign tribute - hailing from as far way as Afghanistan in the east (source of the lapis lazuli) and the Mediterranean world to the west (apparent origin of the silver vessels).
The treasure was divided between Cairo and the Louvre. Because of its early dating and the fact that for several of the pieces contained in the treasure exceptionally close Minoan parallels can be cited. In a study by Barry Kemp and Robert Merrillees, however, it is suggested that the collection is stylistically later than the Middle Kingdom, and that the cache was found not in a sealed, 12th Dynasty context but in a substantially later phase of the temple construction employing antiquated containers.
12th dynasty folks weren't playing their influence stretches aall the way to Afganistand if not their actual rule.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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Ahmose 1 (1552-1526) called Haunebu his servants in a stela erected inthe temple of Amun at Karnak.In the same stele he also gave to his mother,Queen Ahhotep,the title of mistress of the shores of Haunebu.More then fifty years later the great Conquerer ThotmoseIII also claimed to have brought the Haunebu to heel. In an inscription found at Jebel Barkel in Nubia, he boasted that he had "trussed the Nine Bows,the Isle in the Midst of the Great green Sea.Hearing your war cry ,I made them see your majesty like a millstone pressing the backs of their victems.
For those who don't know!! Haunebu was...The Greek-main-land Ahmose I and Thotmose III Black Sparks White Fire
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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Never mind -- just spotted it buried in your post. Was going to point out Aksumite control of southern Arabia.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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@ the Explorer please expand on any of the above at anytime, that goes for anybody I am just kinda makng an introduction... Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Brada-Anansi: Thanks for the input Markellion,but the precieved shyness I am talking about is that Africans because of their religions or something else did not take an aggerssive move out-side the Continent..
With your comment it seems like you ignored what I was writing about African imperialism. This is what I meant when I quoted that the thing about stereotypes because the most prevailing stereotype is that Africans are passive. You didn't mention the Zanj for example but the Zanj are a great example of an imperialist people. And how the Sudan in general were able to control global trade
quote:as if the essential duplicity of the Asiatic or the docility of the African that needs no proof, can never really, in discourse, be proved....
The stereotype becomes an element of unproven prior knowledge that needs no proof of its veracity for its employment as explanation for racialized difference.
The bellow is within Africa but I thought it was interesting
"Medieval West Africa: Views From Arab Scholars and Merchants"
He confirmed that during periods of strength Kanim expanded northward into the Sahara, rather than southward
page 44
From Ibn Sa'id 13th century
This sultan has authority there over kingdoms such as those of the Tajuwa, Kawar, and Fazzan. God has assisted him and he has many descendants and armies. His clothes are brought to him from the capital of Tunish. He has scholars around him...
page 98 by Ibn Khaldun visits Biskara
In the year 1353, in the days of sultan Abul 'Inan [of Morocco], I went to Biskara on royal business and there encountered the ambassador of the ruler of Takedda at the residence of Yusof al-Muzani, emir of Biskara. He told me about the prosperous state of this city and the continual passage of wayfares and said: "This year there passed through out city on the way to Mali a caravan of merchants from the east containing 12,000 camels." Another [informant] has told me that this is a yearly even. his country is subject to the sultan of Mali of the Sudan as is the case at present with the rest of the desert regions known as [the land of] the veiled people
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I don't blame you because I can't find much useful information on the Zanj. The western Indian Ocean was also called the sea of Zanj and were great sailors.
quote:The Siddis were a tightly knit group, highly aggressive, and even ferocious in battle. They were employed largely as security forces for Muslim fleets in the Indian Ocean, a position they maintained for centuries. The Siddi commanders were titled Admirals of the Mughal Empire, and received an annual salary of 300,000 rupees. According to Ibn Battuta (1304-1377), the noted Muslim writer who journeyed through both Africa and Asia, the Siddis "are the guarantors of safety on the Indian Ocean; let there be but one of them on a ship and it will be avoided by the Indian pirates and idolaters."
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This is fascinating page 39 is no longer part of the book review. He talks about the spice trade and a "massive conspiracy" revolving around it. I'll type out more of this later. He also talks about debates over different translations of the "Periplus of the Erythrean Sea". It is important to remember that allot of ancient literature has been mistranslated in a very racist way
This is a very interesting quote:
"refererred to Alexander the Great’s views on the unparalleled stature of ancient Oman, which she says was “inferior to no country” and “a harbor of the ancient commerce.” While she did not question south western Arabia as the production point of the coveted incenses, she did amass some evidence to argue that this area was under Black African control and culture, something which fits well with the fact that African lands were responsible for much of the wealth in this trade."
The anchors of the economic connections between Nabatea and East Africa were the trades in spices and incense. “Cinnamon” and “Cassia.” In particular, were perhaps the most valued commodities during this period, and frankincense and myrrh were two of the most precious of the incenses, and, therefore, also among the most lucrative and significant trade commodities of the time. All of these have been shown or persuasively suggested to have passed through the East African region, either originating within its territories, or being transshipped along the coast or through various overland routes, themselves the subject of debate and mystery even today. However, when they are discussed at all, it is almost exclusively in the contexts of their destinations: the Roman Empire and/or Western Asia. http://books.google.com/books?id=sd4gnqTZ8IUC&pg=PA39&dq=#v=onepage&q=&f=false
…The possibility that these spices reached Southern Arabia for transshipment north via India and/or neighboring regions of the subcontinent, seems intuitive but is in fact cast in doubt by its near total absence in contemporaneous literature, ships-logs, travel descriptions, navigation guides, ect. Miller marshals considerable evidence that cinnamon was instead transported directly across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar and the South Eastern African coastline, eventually reaching the fabled entrepot Rhapta, before being further transshipped to the “Cinnamon Coast” just below where the Red Sea meets the Indian Ocean. The trade was carried on in sewn, double outrigger boats known as mtepe, which were found throughout the coast in ancient times can still be seen in a modern variant, the wooden single or double outrigger maingalawa (ingalawa is the singular of this Swahili word). Miller (1969), and Allen (1993) even further, discuss the nature of secrecy and obfuscation used in trade during these times, in order to protect the sources of commodities, and to keep others at bay in their quests for circumvention. This helps to explain, as Allen (1993) put it, the “massive conspiracy by which all the Mediterranean consumers of cinnamon and cassia were for centuries deceived as to the real source of these products”…
....Historically, the bodies of water in this region, the contemporary “Red Sea” and “Indian Ocean,” were subject (often by outsiders) to a large number of designations, often rather indiscriminately, such as the Tethys Ocean, the Erythrean Sea, the “sea of the end of the world”, and so on. I have often questioned why the Indian Ocean should be termed exclusively “Indian,” instead of African, for example, or Indo-African, or Afro-Timorese. Like others, I also noticed the unmistakable imprint and legacy of British colonialism in the name we currently inherit. Chandra Richard De Silva (1999) recently published a short essay on this subject and the related problems of other East African historical erasures. His focus on neglected commerce and alternative sources of information complements the work of this essay and further shows the potentially turning tide of anti-colonial historiography.
In a recent review of Casson’s (1989) new translation of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, Horton (1990) takes the opportunity to comment again on several of the translation-based debates surrounding the various versions of the Periplus, originally written in Greek. One such debate concerns the dating of the document itself, and is resolved in part by recourse to the geopolitics of the time. Among his proofs that the Periplus was written in the middle of the first century A.D, Horton
has shown that the Nabatean King Malichus II, who ruled from A.D. 40 to 70, was indeed the Malichus mentioned in the Periplus as ruling then in Petra. Many had previously argued that the Periplus was penned in the middle of the last century B.C. On Nabatean chronology in general, one might consult Negev’s (1982( charts of silver content in coins during monarchical reigns across the early, middle, and late Nabatean periods, as well as his later work (1986). Of course, the Periplus, like many ancient documents, likely represents an amalgamation of testimonies and accounts that may well span back further than its moment of final documentation, but we see clearly here that this Greek trading guide reflected a well defined set of trading and cultural relationships between extremely distant regions of the ancient world, and certainly between huge stretches of Eastern Africa, Nabatea, and the Mediterranean world.....
....Miller points out that frankincense and myrrh which were so central to Nabatean commerce during the first two of its three major periods (Negev 1986), did not, as Herodotus and Starbo stated, derive from “no other country than Arabia.” In fact, “frankincense came also from Africa, and Africa was the main source of myrrh” (Miller 1969:103). Further, we see that Egypt under successive pharaohs and Dynasties, from 3000 to 1000 B.C., continuously maintained direct and/or indierect ties with the land of Punt, a term amorphously descriptive of much of the land to the south of various Egyptian writers, but perhaps most specifically referring to the modern Somali coast (Miller 1969)...
....Drusilla Houston (1926, especially pp.128-132) had seen frankincense and Myrrh as African-Arabian products of world significance in trade. Houston has also offered a still unchallenged explication of the Himyarite’s origins and importance, in the region of present day Yemen, and refererred to Alexander the Great’s views on the unparalleled stature of ancient Oman, which she says was “inferior to no country” and “a harbor of the ancient commerce.” While she did not question south western Arabia as the production point of the coveted incenses, she did amass some evidence to argue that this area was under Black African control and culture, something which fits well with the fact that African lands were responsible for much of the wealth in this trade.
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Ok!! Markellion, there is such a thing as Information overload. we all do it sometimes but it tends to turn people off or just plain creep people out,I said Imperialism and I meant out side Africa...the view of the Zanji revolt being financed by Zanji businessmen is interesting but that is a unique perspective.
Also of interest is the Siddi sailors,but weren't they just hired guns? as bad azz as they were?
quote:The Siddis were a tightly knit group, highly aggressive, and even ferocious in battle. They were employed largely as security forces for Muslim fleets in the Indian Ocean, a position they maintained for centuries. The Siddi commanders were titled Admirals of the Mughal Empire, and received an annual salary of 300,000 rupees. According to Ibn Battuta (1304-1377), the noted Muslim writer who journeyed through both Africa and Asia, the Siddis "are the guarantors of safety on the Indian Ocean; let there be but one of them on a ship and it will be avoided by the Indian pirates and idolaters."
I have often questioned why the Indian Ocean should be termed exclusively “Indian,” instead of African, for example, or Indo-African, or Afro-Timorese. Like others,
I forgot where I came across it but I remember seeing an old map where the I.O or was it the Atlantic that was called the Ethiopian Sea.
Also I saw on E/S waay back in my lurker days the Red Sea was termed Kmwr or the Sea of the Blacks,in Kemetian times if memory did not fail me.
If one has notes on Axumite fleets,trading or military operating in the Indian ocean that would be great, also ancient Kolchis how wide were their influence in the Black Sea area and beyond.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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Markellion nice links btw..Magan Keita relation to the physicial anthropologist?
Just found some thing while reading mention is made of Cinnamon and Cassia trees..this reminds me of AlTakruri's levantine Ethiopians and the myth of Cassiopia..fame.. remembering that Kushities and Kemites were long stationed in that area as an out post to facilite and protect Nile Valley trade.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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Your right, very few scholars even question whither the Zanj revolt was a slave revolt. However, never in the entire history of mankind has a slave revolt ever resulted in anything on the scale of the Zanj revolt.
When Spartacus created an army out of slaves and peasants most Romans were too embarrassed to fight them because there was no honor in fighting slaves in the Roman thinking. With the Zanj revolt all the recourses of the government were used in fighting the Zanj and the Zanj and their allies still managed to build impregnable towns and control over trade routes plus have their own navy and possessed an incredible amount of wealth that surpassed simply looting.
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I don't want to belittle Spartacus's remarkable achievements but just wanted to put things in context. Spartacus's army was eventually put down because the wealthiest man in Rome, Crassus, offered to lead an army against Spartacus. Crassus was simply a very rich man and not a military hero and he offered to do this so he could get some fame.
quote:The Senate voted Pompey a triumph because of his victory in Spain, but they decreed an ovation (a far less splendid and prestigious parade) for Crassus because his victory had been merely over slaves. There were no political purges or proscriptions after the rebellion was crushed....
The Roman reaction was tardy and ineffective. . . . Error of judgment induced the Senate to treat the uprising too lightly at the outset. By the time Rome took firm steps, Spartacus' ranks had considerably swelled and the state's finest soldiers were serving abroad. But Crassus' efforts obtained full support, and the revolt was wiped out in 71.
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Well Markellion,we can add the above to the Slave/Maroon revolt thread I got started sometime ago,What is of interest to me is the spice trade network alluded to in one of your links and the assiociation of Punt Petra,Axum,Saba and the pre-Swahili traders,they seemed to have that part of the trade network locked up right untill Roman times,I am still going over your links btw,...if you have more info on the extensive Axumite trade links please post.
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Brada-Anansi: What is of interest to me is the spice trade network alluded to in one of your links and the assiociation of Punt Petra,Axum,Saba and the pre-Swahili traders,they seemed to have that part of the trade network locked up right untill Roman times,I am still going over your links btw,...if you have more info on the extensive Axumite trade links please post.
This would also tie in with the Zanj revolt as it deals with the history of trade
quote:Their choice of sites for their own new towns and their meticulous knowledge of the intricate waterways of the region in addition to their great skill in naval warfare were all utilized to strangle the Basran economy and drive all the in-coming trade through their own channels
quote:Originally posted by markellion: Your right, very few scholars even question whither the Zanj revolt was a slave revolt. However, never in the entire history of mankind has a slave revolt ever resulted in anything on the scale of the Zanj revolt.
When Spartacus created an army out of slaves and peasants most Romans were too embarrassed to fight them because there was no honor in fighting slaves in the Roman thinking. With the Zanj revolt all the recourses of the government were used in fighting the Zanj and the Zanj and their allies still managed to build impregnable towns and control over trade routes plus have their own navy and possessed an incredible amount of wealth that surpassed simply looting.
Agree that the Zanj revolt was primarily an anti-slavery revolt, but according to some scholars the Haitian Revolution was the largest slave revolt of all time. ( See CLR James 'The Black jacobins, 1963 or Lauren Dubois 'Avengers of the New WOrld.' 2004). Given that over 500,000 black slaves were in place in Haiti by 1789 when the Revo began, over a time span of about 15 years, the Haitan rising for freedom was bigger than that of the Zanj or the numbers put in the field by Spartacus. The Haitian rebels also conquered what is now the Dominican Republic twice.
Youa re right about the destructiveness of the Zanj revolt. According to Ronald Segal in "Islam's Black Slaves" it destroyed most of the shipping in the affected region and credibly threatened Bagdhad, one of the leading cities of Islam at the time, and made future Arab slave masters reluctant to continue with the large-scale gang/corvee slavery (draining the malarial salt marshes of southern Iraq) that was in place when the black freedom fighters struck back at their oppressors.
Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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quote:They were Christians, it should be remembered, for many centuries, and although the flourishing Christian Empire of Nubia, with its seventeen bishoprics and its thirteen viceroyalties, all governed by priests, was not founded, as is commonly supposed, by the renowned Silco, " King of the Noubads and of all the Ethiopians," it was strong enough frequently to invade Egypt in defence of their oppressed Greek and Koptic fellow-Christians. So early as 640 a combined army of Nubas and Bejas, said to have numbered 50,000 men with 1500 elephants, penetrated as far north as Oxyrhynchus (the Arab Bahnosa) where such a surprising store of Greek and other documents was discovered in 1897. Cultured peoples with such glorious records, and traditions going back even to pre-Christian times (Silco and Queen Candace, contemporary of Augustus
quote:at periods the Nubians gained the upper hand, as in 737 when Cyriacus, their then king, marched into Egypt with a large army to redress the grievances of the Copts. There is a record of an embassy sent by a king Zacharias in the 9th century to Bagdad concerning the tribute, while by the close of the l0th century the Nubians seem to have regained almost complete independence....
....Nevertheless, the Nubians were strong enough to invade upper Egypt during the reign of Nawaya Krcstos (1342-1372), because the governor of Cairo had thrown the patriarch of Alexandria into prison. The date usually assigned for the overthrow of the Christian kingdom 1351. Only the northern part of the country (as far as the 3rd cataract) came under the rule of Egypt.
"The Spread of Islam and the Nubian Dam” by David Ayalon
quote: 3. The awe and respect that the Muslims had for their Nubian adversaries are reflected in the fact that even a rather late Umayyad caliph, ‘Umar b ‘Abd al- ‘Aziz (‘Umar II 717-720), is said to have ratified the Nubian-Muslim treaty out of fear for the safety of the Muslims (“he ratified the peace treaty out of consideration for the Muslims and out of [a desire] to spare their lives”)
Great refs.
Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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We are expected to believe that there were hundreds of thousands of Zanj slaves in Iraq but this is difficult since slavery wasn't inherited and slaves could gain their freedom
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Although there are many things wrong with this article he does note that at the time period there couldn't have been a large enough slave trade for hundreds of thousands of specifically Zanj slaves
quote: But the British Government can easily make the Bombay authorities execute the laws against the slave-traders, whose headquarters are in their dominions. If the Banians, who are subjects of the queen, find that they will be punished for felony for direct or indirect participation in this traffic, they will use their capital in some less dangerous business. As the Arabs have not the wealth to carry on the slave trade to any extent, the British cruisers will be able to put a stop to it, even if they are not aided by the native rulers whose subjects are concerned in it. The Shah of Persia, however, has already expressed his intention to cooperate with Great Britain in this matter, and has issued two firmans peremptorily forbidding the importation of negroes by sea into his dominions
quote: Every British subject taking any part, direct or indirect, in the trade, is guilty of felony ; and if this is distinctly known, and it is known also that every effort will be made by our Bombay Government to trace home to the offender any such act, and if need be, to punish it with the utmost rigour of the law, we shall have at once done much to destroy the infamous traffic. For Dr. Livingstone is no doubt perfectly right in saying that, whilst the Arabs are ready enough to find the men who will conduct the actual risks of the trade, they have not the wealth necessary to advance the capital required
Can you stop the spamming? This thread is about Imperial Africans not slave Africans. You already have a thread for slaves so go post there and stop breaking the theme of this conversation...
Lion!
-------------------- Lionz Posts: 7419 | From: North America | Registered: Mar 2009
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quote: ....Drusilla Houston (1926, especially pp.128-132) had seen frankincense and Myrrh as African-Arabian products of world significance in trade..... and refererred to Alexander the Great’s views on the unparalleled stature of ancient Oman, which she says was “inferior to no country” and “a harbor of the ancient commerce.” While she did not question south western Arabia as the production point of the coveted incenses, she did amass some evidence to argue that this area was under Black African control and culture, something which fits well with the fact that African lands were responsible for much of the wealth in this trade.
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What is to be emphasized here is the ignorance of the Non-Sudan when it came to geography and the vast knowledge the Sudan had when it came to world events. This is important when it comes to the economic history and speaks of a massive conspiracy
"Trans-Saharan Trade and the West African Discovery of the Mediterranean World" by Pekka Masonen
quote: The situation was perhaps similar to that in the early 19th century, when European explorers, who had penetrated the African interior in order to unveil her secrets, were amazed at how well the West Africans knew what was going on in the outside world. When Mungo Park arrived in Segu on the Niger in July 1796, being the first European in this city, he was told that the British and French were fighting in the Mediterranean. The news probably concerned the battles that took place after the treaty of Basle which was made in April 1795, when Park was in his way to Gambia. In 1824, Hugh Clapperton visited Kano, being again the first European in this city, and he was surprised by Muhammad Bello, the ruler of Sokoto caliphate, who asked him detailed questions concerning the British policy in India and the religious situation in Europe. In early 1871, Gustav Nachtigal, the famous German traveller who had left Tripoli in 1869 in order to explore Central Africa, was told in Bornu that a war had broke out between franse and nimse, meaning Frenchmen and Germans. Considering that the Franco-Prussian war began in July 1870, the news had reached Bornu very quickly.
Perhaps news of the great events in the medieval Mediterranean, like the fall of Acre in 1291 or the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453, were heard in the capital of Mali as quickly. However, there are only few mentions in the contemporary Arabic sources concerning the transmission of news across the Sahara. We know, for example, that Mansa Musa of Mali sent a delagation to congratulate the Marinid Sultan Abu 'l-Hasan for the conquest of Tlemcen. Since Tlemcen had fallen to Marinids in April 1337, the news most probably arrived in Mali with the traders who had left Morocco in autumn, which was the usual season of departure for the caravans to the south. The Malian delegation was sent to Fez probably in the following summer, when the caravans returned to the north. Similarly, another Malian delegation was sent to congratulate Sultan Abu 'l-Hasan for the conquest of Constantine in 1349. The prompt action on part of the Malian rulers proves that they knew well the political geography of Northern Africa, being fully aware of the consequenses of the Marinid expansion to central Maghrib....
Similarly, it was another channel for West Africans to the outside world: in 1594 a Portuguese navigator reported that he had in Senegal met many blacks who were not only capable of speaking French but have even visited France. In was only during the age of imperialism that the encounter of West Africans with other civilisations turned definitely from controlled relationship to collision.
"The Negroland of the Arabs examined and explained" 1841
Not that the book has flaws and mistranslations just like everything else
quote: From Muli (says Ibn Batutah) the river descends to Yufi (Nufi), one of the greatest kingdoms of Negroland, but to which white men cannot penetrate; and thence it flows to Nubia." It would appear, from this, that the superiority now enjoyed by the people of Nufi in arts and industry, was already acknowledged in the fourteenth century.... In speaking of Kulwa (Kilwa, or Quiloa), on the eastern coast of Africa, he uses these words:—"A merchant there told me, that the town of Sofalah is half a month's journey from Kulwa, and one month from Yufi in the country of the Limiyin, and that gold is brought from Yufi to Sofalah."" The boldness here evinced in bringing together and joining in commerce countries far asunder, is constantly exhibited in the geographical speculations of an early or ill-informed age. Distances are then enlarged as expediency requires; hypothesis leaps over the vacant spaces, and forcibly stretches the known portions in the opposite sides of a continent till they meet in the centre. Illustrations of this truth may be found in all ages. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Abyssinia, Congo, and Monomotapa were all supposed to meet together. One of the Jesuits resident in Abyssinia asserts, that salt was carried from that country to Tomboktu.
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Do we all understand the difference between imperialism and scattered non-conquest, even if organized, presence of individuals?
I'd want a thread on Imperial Africans to have posts on Africans of a governing, centralized, multi-ethnic polity called empire.
I suppose one could make a point for trading empires though. If so that would include the mercantile Zanj of Iraq as well as the Wangara of West Africa's savanna.
What are the other kinds of empire I missed?
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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With all the knowledge they had about world events and control over trade these Africans could manipulate things to their own advantage. Especially with huge numbers of mercenaries everywhere
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quote:The sudden and conspicuous appearance of the Sudan amongst the armies of Ibn Tulun in Egypt calls for an explanation. Some sources like us to believe that he bought as many as 40,000 Negro slaves and made soldieries out of them to build up an empire of his own. Buying such a number of slaves, let alone training them to be an effective fighting force in a completely unfamiliar territory, would certainly have required more time than the few years that preceded their appearance in Egypt and subsequently in Syria and on the Byzantine borders in the early years of Ibn Tuluns rule 868/884. Other sources more accurately inform us that he enlisted these Sudan in his army
"We are here concerned with the Zaghawa, the name of a tribe and its territory which bordered the south of the Sahara and extended west from what is now the western Sudan across Chad, Niger and Northern Nigeria to Upper Vota. Through these regions passed an important trade route that started from Ghana and continued all the way to the Egyptian Oasis and then either to the Nile Valley or to Tripolitania.. The good relations with the king of Nubia, who had had his Nubia House in Fustat since the days of Mutasim, provided the solution
For the Zaghawa the Nubian route was a much safer one that would save them from the hazards of the desert. Once this was established, their increasing presence in Egypt was almost a logical consequence and a clear indication of their interest is widening the scope of their trade. Ibn Tulun would have no objection to such an expansion which could only enhance the wealth of his domains. This common interest created the opportunity for military as well as economic co-operation which explains the enlistment of the Sudan in the army of Egypt
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Brada-Anansi or anyone else have you found anything.
Edit: These mercenaries were of the highest importance even in pre-Islamic times and shows how influential these Sudanese nations were.
Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
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I'm currently reading a book called 'The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century.' It's an interesting book basically about the Bin Laden family written by Steve Coll and how they came to amass all of their power and wealth. Outside of the political stuff, it goes into a deep history about where the family is from. It talks about his grandfather for a while before moving to his father. The reason I'm posting this is because there have been a few pictures that have sprang up on this website that show Black Arabs around the turn of the century.
Osama's grandfather moved to a location in Arabia known as Hadhramawt because of death threats (the family is oridinally from Yemen). "In truth, the Hadhramawt was not isolated at all, but its deeply religious inhabitants, although capable of gracious hospitality, did not always take kindly to unannounced Christian visitors. For several thousand years, Hadhramis had been migrants, travelers, traders, and entrepreneurs, sailing out in wooden dhows from the port of Mukulla to the East Indies, Zanzibar, Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia), and up the Red Sea to Mecca and Cairo. For a time centuries ago, they and their Sabean Kings enjoyed enormous wealth as caravan monopolists in the global trade in myyrh and frankincense. In Pharoanic Egypt and during the Roman Empire, incense burned from costly frankincense and even more expensive myyrh transformed these oils into two of the most precious commodities on Earth. In Rome, no God could be worshipped properly, no funeral commemorated, no respectable marriage bed entered, without the scent of frankinsense swirling through the room."
The above passage is interesting as it described this Arabian area as being heavily Sabaen. It would lead me to believe that many of its inhabitants may have been dark-skinned. And it seemed the Bin Ladens felt comfortable around these folks, even though they weren't native there and are typically light-skinned. It goes on to say that when trade declined after Christian preachers banned incense for being sold by blasphemers, Hadhramat fell into decline and went into poverty. I don't know how true this statement is, after all they could have traded with East Africans who also sold frankincense. But this was also the pre-Islamic era.
Later it talks about how after Islam arrived, the people of the canyon region moved to other locations as bodyguards, traders, and political notables in foreign lands and would send money back home. He says this practice started in the 7th century and continued all the way into the 20th century, "many prosperous Hadhramis had carried their colonial-era trading wealth back to the canyons to build retirement homes and family compounds. So many returned from Asia and Africa that when a British officer carried out the first formal survery of the gorges during the 1930s, he discovered Swahili and Malay amoung the local languages."
The above passage is very telling and shows the African side of settling and not just the Arabic side. Meaning, we're always told how much East Africa has been influenced by Arabia...here you see Swahili being spoken by enough people during the early early years of the 20th century that it was counted by a British counter.
"As was true elsewhere in the Hadhramawt, Doan's economy relied upon the persistent willingness of local boys and young men to sail away to foreign jobs...and remit money home. It was also common for local men to marry in their teens, emigrate to Ethiopia, or Somalia or Egypt, and stay away for as long as two decades, taking other wives while abroad."
It's interesting how it's described as cultural tradition to essentially emigrate to East Africa and mix with the local population there. Assuming this had gone on for a number of centuries...it would answer a lot of questions. Mostly, who were the Arabs that came over? Why did they come? But an answer that has yet to be answered is...What is this history of finding success in East Africa? Why was it cultural policy to move there and make money? Instead of making money in your own land? You see this today in America for instance when Chinese immigrants move here and work in sweatshops or Chinese resturants and send the money back home to family. They come to America because America has the wealth and resources available to make money. That Arabs relied so heavily on East Africa as a source of wealth and money-making speaks volumes. The Swahili States and their Black rulers for centuries were filthy rich and dominated business in the region.
quote:Originally posted by Brada-Anansi: Well Markellion,we can add the above to the Slave/Maroon revolt thread
In case people didn't understand I was showing that the Zanj revolt could not be a slave revolt. Haiti has always been at the mercy of European nations.
I am showing that these African empires had tremendous influence in the Islamic world and could even manipulate things to their own advantage
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Mark name the Zanj country that manipulated the revolt..didn't we agree that the statement above was unique and if East African business men were behind the revolt were they guided by a king or queen for that matter? In other words Queen Elizabeth and other Euro-monarchs guided their privateers to push their agenda do you have additional information regarding Zanj rulers doing something similar? this the kind of imperial power I am taking about..
When his majesty took action against the Asiatic Sand-dwellers, his majesty made an army of many tens of thousands from all of Upper Egypt: from Yebu in the south to Medenyt in the north; from Lower Egypt: from all of the Two-Sides-of-the-House (3) and from Sedjer and Khen-sedjru; and from Irtjet-Nubians, MedjaNubians, Yam- Nubians, Wawat-Nubians, Kaau-Nubians; and from Tiemeh-land
The above was set in place by a king who from that time had his trading and military out post in that area for centuries to come, with his officials sending back taxes(loot) back to his coffers, did Zanj business men did any such thing per Zanj revolt?
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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I only said most scholars don't understand it but this doesn't matter it was very clearly a case of African imperialism. I want people to do more research in this. The article on "Trans-Saharan Trade and the West African Discovery of the Mediterranean World" also gives very clear evidence on this kind of imperialism and it is absurd to believe otherwise. What needs to be done is more research.
Even if the author of "Trans-Saharan Trade and the West African Discovery of the Mediterranean World" didn't realize it he was giving information supporting this influence throughout the world because he noted how well informed they were
"Similarly, another Malian delegation was sent to congratulate Sultan Abu 'l-Hasan for the conquest of Constantine in 1349. The prompt action on part of the Malian rulers proves that they knew well the political geography of Northern Africa, being fully aware of the consequenses of the Marinid expansion to central Maghrib...."Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
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The Zanj had a powerful influence since before Islam and this was shown in "Boasts of the Blacks over the Whites" and I've read accounts of a Zanj monarch but its hard to find information
It is well known that African soldiers were of the highest importance but also I can't find much information. The Makurian monarchs were able to intimidate Egypt. The author of "The Nubian Dam" didn't realize it but he gave good information showing this influence (Perhaps manipulation?) "3. The awe and respect that the Muslims had for their Nubian adversaries are reflected in the fact that even a rather late Umayyad caliph, ‘Umar b ‘Abd al- ‘Aziz (‘Umar II 717-720), is said to have ratified the Nubian-Muslim treaty out of fear for the safety of the Muslims (“he ratified the peace treaty out of consideration for the Muslims and out of [a desire] to spare their lives”)
Zafun was later subject to the Mali empire which would have been even more powerful than Zafun. I am so ignorant I thought "veiled people" meant Tuareg but the word used was associated with Almoravids whose capital was in Marrakesh where he meant the king of Zafun as shown in a previous post. What might be significant is Zafun is one of the "Sudan"
" The king of Zafun is stronger than the veiled people of the Maghreb and more versed in the art of kingship. The veiled people acknowledge his superiority over them, obey him and resort to him in all important matters of government. One year the king, on his way to the pilgrimage, came to the Maghreb to pay a visit to the commander of the Muslims, the veiled king of the Maghreb, of the tribe of Lamtuna. The Commander of the Muslims met him on foot, wheras the king of Zafun did not dismount for him. He was tall, of deep black complexion and veiled"Posts: 2642 | Registered: Sep 2007
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quote:Quoting Ibn Batutta: It goes thence to Yufi (Nufi), one of the greatest states in Negroland, and the Sultan of which is among the most powerful princes of that quarter of the earth. No white man can reach that country, for sure death awaits him from the natives before he penetrates so far. From Yufi the Nile descends to Nubia, the inhabitants of which are Christians, and to Dongolah
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Bellow is Ibn Al-Khatab who is recording what a hand written letter from Abu Bakr al-Maqqari said. Tlemcen is near the Mediterranean and the Maqqari brothers had a sophisticated commercial enterprise. Walata is on the southern part of the Sahara
"Medieval West Africa: Views From Arab Scholars and Merchants"
Author Notes: "Therefor the conquest of Walata by Takrur refers here to the northward expansion of Mali and its annexation of Walata at the middle of the thirteenth century. The victorious king of Mali encouraged the Maqqari brothers to continue their trade, and cultivated relations with the rulers of the Maghrib"
Bellow is the letter page 49:
quote:When Takrur [Mali] conquered the region of Iwalatan [Walata] and its dependencies their wealth, along with the wealth of the region, was affected, although he [the Maqqari brother who was there] had gathered men together in defense of [the town and] his property. Then he entered into relations with their king, who made him welcome and enabled him to trade in all his country, addressing him as a dear and sincere friend. Then the king began to correspond with those [members of the Maqquri family] in Tlemcen, seeking from them the accomplishment of his desires and addressing him [them] in similar terms. I have letters from him and from the kings of the Maghrib that tell of this. When they had obtained the confidence of the kings the earth became submissive to their traveling upon it. Their wealth knew no bounds and became more than could be counted, for before the people of Egypt penetrated the desert land there used to be imported to them from the Maghrib goods of inconsiderable value which were exchanged [in Mali] for a considerable price
Their wealth knew no bounds and became more than could be counted, for before the people of Egypt penetrated the desert land there used to be imported to them from the Maghrib goods of inconsiderable value which were exchanged [in Mali] for a considerable price I don't know if you have seen this before as I posted it couple of times before but the above might just be talking about these pre-Islamic folks from Mali they are altleast the same era as the Greeks and their cities was four times the size as London and rivial any mesopotamian cities in population. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjicpntVI4APosts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
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It was talking about the 13th century the Maqquri brothers had a business enterprise in which they traded goods across the Sahara and the statement says the brothers were making great wealth but later Egyptians penetrated the desert. I don't know what to believe because the meaning of these writings can be changed with translation from one language to another. I was interested in that quote because it had to do with long distance trade the king of Mali seemed to have been manipulating these people lol
quote: About 1100 Yusuf of Marocco influenced the Negroes, but Timbuktu (refounded 1213) is said to have received Islam from Egypt. It entered Gao, down the Niger, in 1009; Melli about 1025; and Silla fifteen years later. Between 1085 and 1100 Hume, the first king of Bornu, extended Islam almost to Egypt.
quote:The strength of the connection, in spite of the enormous distance which separates the valley of the Nile from that of the Niger, plainly indicates a direct relation. The current that flowed so persistently and strongly between Egypt and the Sudan up to the sixteenth century represents something more than a merely commercial interest; it reveals the route of an exodus. The influence and commerce of Morocco and Algeria in the Sudan (countries comparatively near) were for a long time overpowered by distant Egypt. We find undeniable proofs of this among the ancient geographers. Ibn Batouta, a Moor, who visited the countries of the Niger in 1352, relates that at Oualata ' the greater part of the inhabitants wore the beautiful costumes of Egypt.' Now Oualata is only two months' journey distant from Morocco, while the valley of the Nile is at a distance of at least eight months. Again, to destroy the powerful and traditional bias of Egypt towards the Niger and establish the preponderance of the northern countries of Africa would require no less than a Moorish occupation in 1592.
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Could someone please provide information on this economic history of different African nations especially the Zanj revolt?
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I'm becoming absolutely desperate please someone post some information especially on the Zanj revolt. An Arabic speaker once told me that that it was a minority "blacks" leading a majority "Asian". I'm going crazy trying to find anything on it
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The Zanj Revolt was a primarily black revolt, not an "Asian" one. To be sure others collaborated with the Zanj, but that is Revolts 101- a common occurrence in history. Some white French and Spanish for example collaborated in the great Haitan slave revolution, but no one seriously argues that Haiti was not a "black" revolt. Likewise the French collaborated with some americans in1776 in revolt against the British but no one calls the 1776 action a "French led" revolution. The fact is that it was the black slaves laboring in the brutal salt marshes of Iraq that struck for freedom, and provided the overwhelming majority of those who fought in defense of that freedom. The fact that they were joined by other black defectors from opposing caliphal armies does not diminish that bottom line.
from an old ES thread -------------------------------------
In 'Islamic History: A New Interpretation A.D. 750-1055', Muhammad A. Shabin advances a number of arguments seeking to water down the black charactero f the Zanj revolt. Shabin raises some interesting points but his arguments are rightly questioned by others as noted in the reference. For example he argues that slave labor was not a factor in the economy. This is contradicted by books such as Ronald Segal's "Islam's Black Slaves" which maintains that indeed, the Zanj were employed in a variety of capacities that added significantly to economic output. It is also contradicted by Bernard Lewis' well documented "Race and Slavery in the Middle East."
The salt trade is just one example of how slaves were employed. Indeed in some of the Saharan areas of Africa, black slaves were used by Arab masters to mine salt in brutal conditions. On Zanzibar, Arab masters deployed large numbers of black slaves in the clove plantations. Brutal Arab exploitation of black labor in forced conditions is a long-standing historical fact. See http://www.nathanielturner.com/blackenslavementarabeuropean.htm for a detailed comparison between Arab and European slavery which discusses these issues.
Shabin's argument that since Islam had black slaves as well as white slaves then race was not a factor minimizes the fact that it was the black slaves that bore the brunt of the miserable working conditions, and it was they that supplied the muscle, bone and sinew for the revolt, not white slaves. Also the Zanj rebellion was only the biggest and most successful of a SERIES of rebellions by black slaves in the area. These black revolts were nothing new for the time. Just because there were other revolts for various reasons among other groups does not change the fact that it was black slaves who staged their own revolt.
We can always say "race was not a factor" by drawing a narrow definition and comparing it to the 18th and 19th century black-white clashes. But if there is no documented Zanj Toussaint L'overture, the bottom line is that it was still rebellion by oppresssed people who happened to be be black. No about of definition or redefinition or revisionism will change that fact.
Some point to the presence of Ali b. Muhamad as an important mobilizer of the black slaves as if this somehow dilutes the black character of the revolt. But again, the role of Ali does not change the basic bottom line a single iota. Indeed, Ali was careful how he delat with the black troops, refusing to sell them out when he was bribed with payoffs, because as he noted in speaking to the black fighters: ""Some of your number should watch me closely, and, if they sense any treachery on my part, they could kill me."
Shabin's notion that the revolt participants were mostly Arabs and "free" East Africans who lived in Iraq is contradicted by solid documentary evidence to the contrary. His attempt to minimize the black component with the notion that slaves were not important due to the economic importance of trade, agains seems to ignore the fact that the very same "trade" involved black bodies. If "trade" was important, black bodies made up a significant slice of it, not only in Iraq but in the Arab world as well. The prophet Muhammed himself traded in slaves, and in his city, holy Mecca, it was black bodies that did the dirtiest work: QUOTE: “shining pitch black Negro slaves” were used in Mecca for “the hardest work of building, quarrying, etc.” —[Lewis Race and Slavery in the Middle East]
Shabin argues that more than the Zanj were involved. Of course. This is History 101 with many revolts. A number of revolts in Haiti for example sometimes involved more privleged creole or "colored" groups as opposed to the darker blacks. When the main black revolt broke out, it too got support from sources other than strictly blacks, like the Spanish authorities in Santo Domingo at times for example. Toussaint himself fought for a time on the French side, and was in turn opposed by mulatto leaders who collaborated with the French. Yes, revolts and rebellions can be complex things. Haiti is of course better docunmented and fits the modern black vs white mold, but to say that because of these other complexities that the Haitian Revolution was not a black thing would be a travesty of history. It is a similar travesty of history to attempt to "whitewash" or "Arabize" the Zanj Rebellion. It was called the Zanj Rebellion for a reason, and the bottom line again, is that oppressed slaves who were mostly black, rose for their freedom. Whether they were joined by a variety of allies with other agendas does not change this basic bottom line.
Shabin also argues that the well organized army of the Zanj showed others were involved. Yes of course, but among those "others" were the well trained black slave contingents absorbing the well-trained black contingents that defected from the defeated caliphal armies. No matter how much folks try to "whitewash" or "Arabize" the Zanj, those pesky negroes keep filling the picture. Shabin's "others involved" argument is ultimately unconvincing. It should be noted that a good portion of the evidence for the Zanj as a "black" revolt comes from Arab writers openly contemptuous of the black freedom fighters. QUOTE: "Tabari and Masudi clearly represent the Zanj as vile, heathenous, aggressive, and animal-like. Masudi is especially negative in his depictions of the Zanj."
Nevertheless, despite attempts to dehumanize them by Arab historians, it is a fact that the black fighters and yes, their allies, but primarily the black fighters, kicked ass for 14 years, defeating several caliphal Arab armies sent against them, almost capturing Bagdhad one of the major cities in Islam at the time, and even invading and conquering some areas in Iran. The bottom line is who they were, and what they did.
The Zanj have always made Muslim apologists nervous because their case contradicts the simplistic narrative of a kinder, gentler Islamic handling of black folk. But a sober reading of history shatters this simplistic picture of Arab Muslim goodness. Black nationalist writers such as Chancellor Williams and others have long debunked this myth, pointing to the destruction of black civilization and culture by Arab Muslims on a variety of fronts. We no longer give the white academy and their allies a free pass when it comes to ancient Egypt. Neither should we give Arab Muslims a free pass when it comes to the negative role they have sometimes played in black history.
Posts: 5905 | From: The Hammer | Registered: Aug 2008
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Revisiting the Zanj and Re-Visioning Revolt: Complexities of the Zanj Conflict Negro History Bulletin, Dec, 1999 by Nigel D. Furlonge
During the Zanj Revolt, which lasted nearly 15 years from 868-883 AD, tens of thousands of people met their deaths in lower Iraq. Such an incredible level of bloodshed during this 15-year span led contemporary historians like Al-Tabari and Al-Masudi to view the Zanj revolt as the most vicious and brutal uprising of the many disturbances plaguing the Abbasid central authorities. The Zanj were a group of black slaves from East Africa who were brought to work in the salt pans of the Shatt al-Arab in order to clear away the nitrous topsoil that made the land arable. Modern scholarship documents that the quotidian hardships endured under the oppression of agricultural slavery were worse than those endured under the more common form of domestic slavery or concubinage in the 9th century. Many scholars maintain that Arab Ali b. Muhammad's leadership provided the precipitous force for the Zanj revolt that rallied the strength of thousands of slaves to rise up against their masters. Yet, ninth century historian al-Tabari painted Ali b. Muhammad as a treacherous and heathenous leader who manipulated a savage group of Africans.(1)
This essay examines individual leadership, religious ideologies, and Arab perceptions about the "barbaric" Zanj in order to contextualize the Abbasid crisis. In addition, this essay complicates the black and white model ninth century historians constructed by exploring the economic, political, and social implications that converge during the great Zanj revolt.
By the start of the Zanj revolt in 868 AD, the Abbasid caliphate was mired in a period of financial weakness, both internally and externally. Tabari opens his account of the Zanj revolt by first pointing out that the strife evident in Samarra was characteristic of Abbasid problems. In 869 AD, al-Mutazz abdicated the caliphate, and Tabari notes that, "Events transpired as they did in the wake of Muhtadi's accession to the caliphate with the revolt of troops and the Shakiriyyah ... and the outbreak of general unrest." As is often the case, this conflict was reduced to money. The dispute concerned the payment due to soldiers upon the accession of a new caliph. The instability of the caliphate in general led to an empty central treasury when Muhtadi, the fifth caliph in eight years and sixth from 860 AD to 870 AD, came to power. The financial strain imposed on the accession of each new caliph contributed to the ability of the Zanj revolt, which began in 868 AD, to sustain itself for as long as it did.(2)
Tabari's history is also rife with examples of internal conflict exacerbated by external developments that divided the limited resources of the Abbasid government. Muhtadi's tenure did not last very long--11 months and 25 days. His demise was instigated by Turkish soldiers on one hand and mawlas, the inner circle of non-Arab "clients" who rendered oaths of allegiance to the caliph, on the other. The Turkish soldiers were afraid that Muhtadi conspired against them with Salih b. Wasif, who they believed sought retribution against army involvement in the assassination of caliph Mutazz after he abdicated. The individual mawlas also expressed their discontent in a list of formal complaints to Muhtadi. They were agitated because of delayed payments to their allotments, damages to their estates, and increased land taxes. Yet the treasury could not meet the demands of a corrupt iqta system (the system of military payment of lands), deal with a Kharijite conflict led by Musawir, and hope to keep the individual soldiers content all at the same time. Over his legitimate protests, which highlighted his financial conundrum, Muhtadi was deposed on June 17, 870 AD and died four days later.(3)
The Zanj revolt developed amidst multiple factors -- factionalism, chaos, and uncertainty -- that caused strife for the central authorities. With Kharijite tensions in the government, the rise of the Saffarids, Shiite enemies, and the emerging Qarmatiyyuns, the Abbasid state could not devote the resources necessary to deal with the Zanj revolt until ten years after the Zanj began their military and economic campaign. The timing was perfect for a revolt to take place.
Tabari offers a religious rationale to explain the credibility that Ali b. Muhammad had with the Arabs first and then the Zanj. He notes that Ali b. Muhammad claimed that he descended from Ali b. Abi Talib, the prophet Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law. Some people, like those in Bahrayn, saw him as a prophet and even collected taxes in his name. Further, Ali b. Muhammad asserted that "I received signs of my leadership as imam, which were manifest to the people." Later, he claimed that he "received surahs of the Quran, which I had not learned by heart and I was able to recite them in a flash." According to Tabari's analysis, whether through dime signs, visions, or spiritual voices, Ali b. Muhammad initially gained support amongst the Arab population as an imam. And, at least in their eyes, if not Tabari's, he was a legitimate leader.(4)
Perhaps the best symbol of Ali b. Muhammad's use of religious ideology comes from a banner (liwa) he commissioned early in the revolt. The banner was inscribed with red and green characters and included the phrase, "God has purchased the souls of the believers and their property, for they have attained to paradise fighting in the way of God." Tabari translator David Waines explains that the symbolism of the Zanj revolt was Alid but the phrase used on the banner had a connection to Kharijite rebels. While religious ideology and symbolism were not the most influential factors in the Zanj revolt, they played a role in the rise of Ali b. Muhammad to a position of power in southern Iraq.(5)
How To Conquer Your Fear Of Public Speaking While the religious ideologies Ali b. Muhammad spread were important, the economic promises he made were more significant motivation for the Zanj population. In return for accepting his leadership and military command, he promised the Zanj access to land and property. He promised not betray them to anyone or for anything. Furthermore, Tabari notes that "Ali prayed with them [the Zanj], and in a sermon he recalled the wretched state from which, through him, God had rescued them. Ali said that he wanted to improve their condition, giving them slaves, money, and homes to possess for themselves, and that by them they could achieve the greatest things." To mobilize thousands of Zanj, Ali b. Muhammad offered them more than just a religious doctrine.(6)
While Ali's offer of wealth and property to the Zanj frustrated the Abbasid state and horrified the masters now deprived of their property, Ali unfortunately never really offered true equality to the Zanj. His strategy was short-term. He offered the Zanj greater freedom than they ever had, promised property and wealth, but essentially adopted the same economic principles that already existed. He did not attempt to end slavery and even offered the Zanj slaves of their own. While 20th century sensitivities might criticize former slaves for enslaving others, ninth century values found no such conflict or hypocrisy. Nevertheless, even in Medieval Islamic society, there was a significant difference between the agricultural slave in a "plantation" setting as opposed to the domestic slave in a more "familial" setting.
Economic promises certainly attracted many of the Zanj to Ali b. Muhammad's forces, but the war took a great toll and continuously caused both economic and political problems throughout the Abbasid empire. Prices rose steeply, not just in southern Iraq but in Mecca and Baghdad as well. At the start of the Zanj revolt, al-Muwaffaq made a political decision to impose a new tax, as high as 20%, on products imported into the Islamic world. This undoubtedly contributed to the economic strains in the Abbasid state. In Islamic History: A New Interpretation A.D. 750-1055, Muhammad A. Shabin argues that "Any merchant who is suddenly confronted with such a tax in addition to a drastic decline in his trade, can not be expected to sit back and hope for the best. The Arabs of the region whose interests were certainly involved and who, under similar circumstances earlier, had begun to attack trade caravans would surely rise again in defense of these interests. Without this combination of wealth and manpower, the Zanj revolt would not have been possible." Tabari also mentions tax problems throughout his text. Consequently, a simplified version of the Zanj revolt based on social forces singularly devoted to overturning an oppressive system is more complicated. Religious, political, social, and economic forces conspired to shape the Abbasid state in such a way that gravitated toward conflict in the ninth century.(7)
Ali b. Muhammad was the final piece of the puzzle that led to chaos and upheaval. Information regarding his personality is difficult to come by. Tabari provides the overwhelming majority of information on the Zanj in general and Ali b. Muhammad in particular, but he primarily focuses on the military exploits of the Abbasid state as they quelled the intransigent rebels. Moreover, Tabari reveals many of his biases against Ali and the Zanj. For instance, when describing Ali, Tabari employs four epithets: "the abominable one," "traitor," "enemy of God," and "the cursed one." The most positive depiction of Ali simply refers to him as the leader of the Zanj. In his text The Golden Meadows, Masudi briefly describes Ali b. Muhammad as someone who "massacred children and old people, men and women, and everywhere he sowed fire and destruction. In a single battle in Basra, he killed 300,000 men." The veracity of this number is impossible to ascertain with any accuracy, but it is obvious that both contemporary writers held strong biases against the Zanj leader.(8)
In using these ninth century texts as foundational pieces, modern scholars sometimes take up this same pro-Abbasid banner. In his 1892 text, Sketches from Eastern History, Theodore Noldeke argues that Ali was "a clever and unscrupulous adventurer, leaning for support on the most despised class of the population ... set up rule which for a long time was the terror of the surrounding region." Even Alexandre Popovic, who offers the most comprehensive analysis of the Zanj revolt in The Revolt of African Slaves in Iraq, argues that "it would be difficult to see Ali b. Muhammad as anything more than an ambitious, totally unprincipled man." These sentiments reflect both Abbasid and modern biases against Ali b. Muhammad rather than attempt to portray accurately the Zanj leader. Much of the fault lies in Tabari's work, and given the four epithets alone, the accuracy of Tabari's depiction of Ali must be questioned. Still, Tabari's text reveals other characteristics about Ali. For instance, he was persuasive, eloquent, and educated. Whether Ali truly sought social reform or was a power hungry, "unscrupulous" leader is open to various interpretations. Nevertheless, it is clear that he was resolved to complete his mission.(9)
On at least three separate occasions, Ali b. Muhammad refused to betray his troops. Early in the revolt, he was offered financial compensation for returning the Zanj slaves to their masters. In exchange for returning the Zanj, Ali would have safe passage throughout the empire and receive 5 dinars for each slave returned. With estimates of Zanj troops as high as 15,000, the financial gain would have been considerable. But Ali refused. Later, when the Zanj feared that Abbasid and economic offers would lure him away from their best interests and from voicing their concerns, Ali made a public statement and swore a solemn oath: "Some of your number should watch me closely, and, if they sense any treachery on my part, they could kill me."(10)
While these examples leave room for the analysis that Ali b. Muhammad was merely a cunning and opportunistic leader, Ali's true test as a leader came when defeat was imminent. In 881 AD, surrounded by Abbasid troops led by future Caliph Abu Al-Abbas and his powerful father al-Muwaffaq, Ali b. Mohammad was offered an escape from total defeat by Muwaffaq. Tabari notes that the offer called for Ali "to repent and return to God Almighty and to desist from bloodshed and crimes. He was to stop devastating regions and centers of population, and desist from rape and the violation of property. Moreover, he was to stop boasting that he was a prophet or apostle -- an honor which God had not bestowed upon him. In addition he [Muwaffaq] informed him that he would extend him forgiveness and guarantees of safe conduct if he would desist from those actions which God abhors. If he would but join the community of Muslims, all would be forgotten and he would earn for himself a life of plenty." Yet at no point does Tabari indicate that Ali ever considered betraying the Zanj. As other Arab commanders and Zanj soldiers deserted him by the thousands, Ali kept his promises to his soldiers despite offers of pardon and monetary reward in exchange for his troops.(11)
In considering the reasons for the Zanj revolt, the simple analysis is that the revolt started because enslaved Africans could no longer exist under the oppressive rule of wealthy Arab merchants who were determined to make the land suitable for farming. Certainly, the human desire for freedom played a significant role, but the revolt was more complicated. The term "Zanj" itself adds to the complexity of the revolt since the leader, many officers, and other groups who participated in the uprising were not enslaved. Tabari is not altogether clear on who he is writing about when he uses the term Zanj. He is not as concerned with why or how they revolted as he is with how these "savage" forces affected the Abbasid state. He uses terms such as Zanj, Sudan, abid, ghulam, and khawal to describe black Africans. Thus, translation occurs on two levels. First, what does a specific word mean? The term Zanj denotes a slave from East Africa; Sudan is a free African; abid is a generic term for slave; ghulam is an attendant, guard, servant, or page; and khawal is another term for a slave. Second, what did Tabari mean when he used these terms? Since he was not explicit, modern historians are left to construct their own theories regarding who made up the generic "Zanj" and what this word reveals about ninth century Iraq.
Who the Zanj were is critical because it helps to determine whether the 15-year uprising was merely a revolt or more like a revolution. Was this a class struggle or a racial one? Tabari does not tackle this question directly. Modern scholars have engaged it but only to a point. Theodore Noldeke, for instance, argues that the agricultural type of slavery that the Zanj experienced was rare in the Islamic world. He indicates that "The work in such a case is very hard, and the supervision must be strict. The feeling of affection which in the East binds every slave closely to the family in which he lives and has grown up, is here altogether wanting. On the other hand, among such masses of slaves working together there easily springs up a certain community of feeling, a common sense of embitterment against their masters, and, under favorable circumstances, a consciousness of their own strength; thus are combined the conditions of a powerful insurrection." Consequently, Noldeke maintains that the Zanj revolt was first and foremost a slave revolt that only needed the right leader to harness the power of these oppressed slaves. With Ali b. Muhammad's promises of property, wealth, and individual freedom, it was a short step to organizing the Zanj into a formidable fighting force, one that disrupted the Abbasid state for almost a decade.(12)
M.A. Shabin, however, argues that the Zanj revolt was more than a slave revolt and emphasizes economic and class issues rather than an ethnic Zanj or black revolt to end slavery. The Zanj revolt was just one of many other uprisings including the Saffarid and Kharijite during this period. Southern Iraq was economically important to the Abbasids because of the tax revenues acquired from trade expeditions that entered Iraq from North Africa. Shabin dismisses the notion that the Zanj were motivated by the awful working conditions endemic to slavery and argues that parallels between slavery and the racial categorization of blackness is problematic. In fact, he maintains that such analysis is more "a reflection of nineteenth-century racial theories.... The facts are that in Islamic society there were white slaves as well as black slaves and that slave labor was not a factor in the economy." Instead, Shabin views the participants as primarily Arabs from the Persian Gulf and other free East Africans who lived in southern Iraq because they chose to live there. He contends that the economic importance of African goods that were traded throughout the region made conflict inevitable. African traders and merchants in Iraq attempted to establish and protect an effective monopoly on trade routes. The Abbasid central authority, on the other hand, could not allow this "monopoly" to exist, so they raised taxes.(13)
Shabin points to a range of factors that indicate that this revolt could not have taken place if only Zanj slaves and their Arab leaders were involved. He maintains that the revolt "had a highly organized army and navy which vigorously resisted the whole weight of the government for almost fifteen years. Moreover, it must have had huge resources that allowed it to build no less than six impregnable towns in which there were arsenals for the manufacture of weapons and battleships. These towns also had in their mammoth markets prodigious wealth which was more than the salt marshes could conceivably produce." Shabin's economic and class arguments coupled with Tabari's numerous references to other groups involved in the revolt like the Bedouins or local peasants indicate that the Zanj revolt was something greater than simply a slave revolt.(14)
Both Noldeke's and Shabin's interpretations continue to be questioned. For instance, Popovic suggests that the Zanj revolt could be characterized in several ways from primarily a slave revolt to an ethnic or class conscious struggle. As Popovic explains, there is no reason why all motivating factors did not operate simultaneously. Merchants and traders concerned with preserving their economic interests likely supported Ali. b. Muhammad as he tried to topple an Abbasid government they saw as infringing on their "rights." Enslaved Africans referred to as the Zanj likely rebelled against the degradation and oppression they experienced at the hands of their owners. Free Africans residing in Iraq possibly conceived the conflict in racial terms and took the opportunity to act on behalf of their enslaved brethren and to advance their own interests. In addition, some Arabs and Africans probably believed that once the enslaved converted to Islam, it was their obligation to free the Zanj from slavery. Some if not all of these factors were at work during the revolt. While various interpretations of the Zanj revolt should not be dismissed, scholars must not privilege one version over another based on romantic notions of how Tabari and others viewed the uprising.
What then is left of the Zanj? For one, there is a particular imagery associated with the Zanj. Tabari and Masudi clearly represent the Zanj as vile, heathenous, aggressive, and animal-like. Masudi is especially negative in his depictions of the Zanj. According to Masudi, the Zanj, "appeared only at night and hunted dogs, rats, and cats, which they killed for food." He describes horrible conditions as the Abbasid closed in on the Zanj, including people resorting to cannibalism. He recounts one particular case of a woman who decried that she was not given a share of her own sister. Still, Masudi asserts that the Zanj's worse crime was that they sold elite Arab women into slavery and often kept Arab women from noble families as concubines. Tabari also echoes many of these similar sentiments although not as vividly as Masudi. Both writers indicate that the Zanj were excellent fighters who lacked the moral guidance necessary to harness such physical strength. Unfortunately, contemporary scholars, influenced by their own racial biases or their acceptance of ninth century accounts, often fall into similar essentializing racial traps. For example, Noldeke reflects upon Ali b. Muhammad's cunning and argues that he "appealed to the more vulgar feelings of the rudest masses."(15)
Nevertheless, not all of the Zanj images are so negative. One of the more positive images of the Zanj comes from Jahiz of Basra (776-869 AD), a renowned prose writer in classical Arabic literature. In The Life and Works of Jahiz, the author portrays blacks as generous, eloquent, courageous, and possessors of great bodily strength and noble character. In one instance, Jahiz suggests that the Zanj in particular would say to Arabs that "You are so ignorant that during the jahiliyya you regarded us as your equals [when it came to marrying] Arab women, but with the advent of the justice of Islam you decided this practice was bad. Yet the desert is full of Negroes married to Arab wives, and they have been princes and kings and have safe guarded your rights and sheltered you against your enemies." The title of this section is "The Superiority of the Blacks to the Whites," and Bernard Lewis warns not to point to Jahiz too quickly and use his work as somehow emblematic of racial egalitarian notions in medieval Islamic areas. Lewis argues that since Jahiz was a humorist and satirist, the modern scholar is unsure just where to place him. Are Jahiz's intentions disingenuous and in fact satirical, or does the excerpt above indicate how Jahiz really felt? Regardless, these examples indicate that the ninth century Islamic image of the Zanj was not universal. Some images clearly suggest a growing negative attitude towards blacks, but it is impossible to say precisely how this negative attitude translated into the racialization of blacks in general and the Zanj specifically.(16)
In examining the Zanj revolt more than a thousand years after it took place, it is easy to say that it was unsuccessful. Ali b. Muhammad was decapitated in battle, and the Abbasids summarily killed his subordinates who did not defect. Yet, because the Zanj did not morally or ethically decry slavery as an institution does not mean they did not encompass human rights. The victorious Abbasid general Muwaffaq dismissed all claims of masters who sought the return of their Zanj slaves. Instead, Muwaffaq incorporated thousands of Zanj into his own government forces. Clearly, scholars must not essentialize the Zanj and present them as a monolithic or homogeneous group. Most of the Zanj joined Muwaffaq, but not all. Over one thousand died in the desert of exhaustion and thirst, trying to flee the embattled Iraqi territory. Others remained unsubdued in southern Iraq after their leader was killed; they continued to rob, plunder, and murder throughout Abbasid space until they either joined the Abbasid or died refusing to be anyone's soldier. By the end of the Zanj revolt in 883 AD, the Abbasids had recovered from the 15-year revolt, which occupied their most advanced technology, their best military leaders, and their financial resources for so long.
The Zanj revolt was more than a revolt. Emerging amidst the confluence of political, economic, religious, social, racial, and ideological factors, the Zanj revolt is a conflict that reflects several interpretations, including rebellion, uprising, revolution and collective movement. In revisiting this historical moment, this discussion reveals the complexities of the Zanj revolt and the need for scholars to examine further this complexity. One way to do this is through examining the role of violence in the revolt. The currency of this conflict largely took the form of violent negotiation. It is clear that whether was used as a form of mediation, negotiation, or annihilation, violent exchange was a prominent means of resolving many of the social, political, and economic tensions during this conflict.
(1.) Tabari's work on the Zanj, as translated in two volumes by David Waines and Philip M. Fields, is the best source for any account on the Zanj revolt. All other primary source materials devote just a few lines or pages at most to this historic event. Alexandre Popovic, who is arguably the most accomplished modern historian in terms of his work on the Zanj, would be utterly lost without Tabari. In Popovic's text of over 150 pages, about 130 of those pages serve as an overview of Tabari's description of the Zanj revolt. Popovic also looks at Masudi and acknowledges geographers, poets, archeologists, historical chroniclers, and numismatists. See Popovic, The Revolt of African Slaves in Iraq in the 3rd/9th Century (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1999). But by far, Tabari is where one looks for information regarding the Zanj.
(2.) The History of al-Tabari, Volume 36: The Revolt of the Zanj (Albany: State Univ. of New York, 1992), 16.
(3.) Details of Muhtadi's demise suggest conflicting reasons and circumstances regarding his death. See Tabari, 91-108.
(4.) Tabari, 32-33. Tabari points out that Ali b. Muhammad repeatedly changed his lineage over the course of his life, suggesting that he lied about his family line. In this way, Tabari suggests that Ali b. Muhammad was really a pretender to religious claims based on connections to the prophet Muhammad. Ali was merely an opportunist who said anything to gain power.
(5.) Tabari, 36; Many political, social, or economic movements often begin when a religious ideology asserts itself in opposition to the "established" doctrine. The founding of Islam as revealed to Muhammad is perhaps the best example, but the Ismaelis, Qarmathians, and the Kharijites are all similar to the religious ideology used by Ali b. Muhammad prior to the Zanj revolt proper. The ideology itself is not necessarily identical, but the principles are parallel.
(6.) Tabari, 38.
(7.) M.A. Shabin, Islamic History: A New Interpretation, 750-1055 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ., 1976) 108.
(8.) Masudi, The Golden Meadows: The Abassids (London: Kegan Paul, 1989), 317.
(9.) Theodore Noldeke, Sketches from Eastern History (Beirut: Khayat, 1963), 146; Popovic, Revolt of African Slaves.
(10.) Tabari, 43.
(11.) The History of al-Tabari, Volume 37: The Abbasid Recovery (Albany:
State Univ. of New York, 1987) 42.
(12.) Noldeke, 149.
(13.) Shabin, 10; See quote pertaining to note 9.
(14.) Shabin, 101.
(15.) Masudi, 317; There are many obvious parallels between depictions of the Zanj by Masudi and Tabari and depictions by more modern scholarship on race theory. See Edward Said's Orientalism, Ronald Takaki's Strangers From A Different Shore, and Frantz Fanon's article "The Fact of Blackness" in Anatomy of Racism. These are just a few accounts that analyze how dominant hegemonic discourse construct racialized groups. Most applicable to the Zanj revolt is the evidence produced by Bernard Lewis in Race and Slavery in the Middle East. Finally, Minoo Southgate's essay, "The Negative Images of Blacks In Some Medieval Iranian Writings," explores these racial issues between the 10th and 14th century. Southgate underscores the idea that black people in general and the Zanj in particular are generally depicted as "ugly and distorted, intellectually inferior, remote from civilization, excessively merry, sexually unbridled ... evil cannibals and heathens who defy God and Islam." See article in the Journal of Iranian Studies 17 (Winter 1984): 4; Noldeke, 150.
(16.) Jahiz wrote in a style classified as adab, a literary genre designed to be both entertaining and instructive; Charles Pellat, The Life and Works of Jahiz (Los Angeles: Univ. of Calif., 1969) 196; Bernard Lewis, Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry (Oxford: Oxford Univ., 1990) 31-32; Lewis quotes Jahiz in some of his other works: "We know that the Zanj are the least intelligent and the least discerning of mankind, and the least capable of understanding the consequences of actions," and in another instance, "Like the crow among mankind are the Zanj for they are the worst of men and most vicious of creatures in character and temperament." See Lewis, 32. While the dates of these Jahiz's writings are unknown, if produced during the very end of his life, it is likely that he became increasingly bitter towards the Zanj since their forces were overrunning his home town of Basra.
COPYRIGHT 1999 Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Inc. COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
Nigel D. Furlonge "Revisiting the Zanj and Re-Visioning Revolt: Complexities of the Zanj Conflict". Negro History Bulletin. Negro History Bulletin, Dec, 1999 by Nigel D. Furlonge
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