Customer Reviews

The History of Al-Tabari: The Revolt of the Zanj, A.D. 869-879/A.H. 255-265 (Tabari//History of Al-Tabari/Ta'rikh Al-Rusul Wa'l-Muluk)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Al-Tabari, a Baghdad historian of the ninth century CE, writes a vast number of anecdotes about the early part of a slave revolt against the Muslim empire in its heartland of southern Iraq. The empire generally was fracturing at this time, although a caliph who restored some stability assumes his post during the period covered by this book.

The cast of characters is huge, and the welter of names can be confusing. Who is working for whom? At one point Muhammad b. Ali (fighting for the state) goes off to war on Ali b. Muhammad (the revolt's leader, and no relation), highlighting the plethora of similarities in names.

The 40-odd volumes of al-Tabari in translation are in the form of annals, and the Zanj revolt is only one theme, incomplete at that, in Volume 36. It is unusual in that it gives a view, however fragmentary, of African slaves in Iraq. The work is almost entirely political and military in orientation, with little in the way of authorial voice or judgment aside from al-Tabari's insistence on referring to Ali b. Muhammad as "the abominable one."

The translation is adequate. The scholarly apparatus would have been much improved for the general reader by many more maps and other aids to understanding the context.

For me, the most striking thing about the work is its combination of factual density and remoteness. Al-Tabari witnessed some of the events he describes, and his work here seems generally akin to contemporary reporting.