Zanj Rebellion

The Zanj Rebellion was a large revolt against the Abbasid Caliphate that lasted from 869 until 883. It began near Basra in what is now southern Iraq under a leader named Ali ibn Muhammad. The insurgents included enslaved and freed Africans, called the Zanj, who had been brought through the Indian Ocean slave trade and put to work mainly draining the region's salt marshes. Over time the movement drew in other slaves and free people, including Arabs and East Africans from several parts of the caliphate. The rebellion is said to have claimed tens of thousands of lives before it was fully defeated. Medieval Muslim historians such as al-Tabari and al-Masudi treated it as one of the most brutal uprisings the Abbasid government faced, and modern scholars still debate who exactly the rebels were and how many of them were slaves rather than free men. Its campaigns are unusually well described in early Islamic historical writing.