For about ten years between 871-881, a revolt in today’s southern Iraq destabilized an entire empire. The death toll resulting from this revolt may have been as “low” as 100,000 and as high as a million and a half; historians are not exactly sure and might never be. Some people today believe that “The Zanj Rebellion” was a revolt of enslaved African people against their Arab masters in a bid for freedom, but the truth behind this brutal period is a bit more complicated.
Like the other great religions of the world, Islam is divided into different sects. Many, but not all, of the differences involve the line of succession following the death of the Prophet Muhammad.
The Abbasid Caliphate took its name from the uncle of the Prophet, Abbas ibn Abdul Muttalib (566-653). The Abbasid Caliphate began in 750. However, over the next 100 years, it went from an empire that stretched from Arabia to modern Iraq to Spain, most of which had been conquered by Muslim armies by the late 700s. By the time of the Zanj Rebellion, the Abbasid Caliphate was still quite large but only a fraction of its former size. The caliphate ended in 1517, though it had taken a very confusing and winding path, both in territories and rulers, to get there.
Revolt and rebellion were nothing new to the Abbasids, for the loss of its territory and its replacement by other dynasties or branches of the family of Muhammad were common. It ended in 1517, but it took various forms and moved from Arabia, to Iraq, to Egypt. Not all, but most of the rebellions that took place with the Abbasid period involved struggles for control, not for freedom. Which kind was the Zanj Rebellion. Depends on who you talk to, what you read or what you watch.
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