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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Grand Marronage in the Middle East, August 24, 2002
We are often informed that slaves who arrived in the Middle East were generally treated better than slaves in the West; however, Popovic's work sheds light on how harsh treatment in a situation similar to that in which slaves were often placed in the west led to a grand revolt not matched since Spartacus!Popovic, relying on al-Tabiri and other writers, informs us that the Zanj were a people of eastern Africa. They were often taken in razzias from Muslim states such as Zanzibar (see Ibn Battuta in Black Africa). Many of these Zanj were taken to the Mesopotamian region of Iraq and put to work on giant agricultural "plantations" and in mines. The Zanj were involved in a number of insurrections, all of which were failures - until they joined the uprising formed by Ali b. Muhammad, a non-Zanj, non-black Muslim. Although the Zanj made up a large part of the revolutionary forces, few Zanj (unlike the black leaders of Maroon colonies in Jamaica, Brazil, Mexico, Cuba and etc.) had any real power in the new revolutionary state. Still, their continuing adherence to the state (which, as Popovic tells us, included black soldiers who defected from the Caliph's and local leaders' forces) tells us that they preferred society under the non-black Ali's dictatorship to slavery in the fields and mines. On the other hand, as with many western maroon colonies, the Zanj and others had no problem taking goods and slaves from (and making slaves of
the local population). The nascent civilization continued to grow for many years, until the Caliph decided he had the time and resources to make a concerted effort to destroy Ali b. Muhammad's young kingdom. Using a combination of force and amnesty, the official government quickly began driving Ali's forces back into the swampy areas south of Basra and eventually drove the remnants of the rebellion to the rebel capitol. Within a few years, the "Zanj" Revolt was over and Ali bin Muhammad was dead. This historical, social and anthropological study of the Zanj Revolt stands with Price's MAROON SOCIETIES as an important study of the development of government, customs, and social status in societies generally - as well as a study of a rather interesting aspect of the black diaspora caused by slavery.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Dull and Uninteresting, May 31, 2004
The Zanj revolt is a fascinating moment during the nadir of the Abbasid caliphate. The slave-revolt resulted in a state that eventually minted its own money and enslaved their former Arab master, but the extended revolt was also one that was the result of large number of extremely bloody massacres--mostly able to do so because the caliphate was too busy with the Saffarids to the East at the time. It's not a nice moment either in the history of central caliphate or in world history generally.The preface to the English translation states that comments deemed too scholarly were deleted, glosses for the non-specialist added, transliteration simplified, and references ammended. However, the end result is an indecipherable, insipid transliteration system which the translator was often too lazy to at least anglicize (French differs greatly often from English transliteration of Arabic), useless bibliography and notes, and a stilted wooden translation.
Honestly though, this is a mere frustrating technicality. The sole virtue of the book must be that it is the only one dedicated exclusively to the revolt of the Zanj in Southern Iraq. However, its analysis-free, anallistic, stream of consciousness narrative makes an extremely interesting topic vapid and bland. Insofar as it adds little to nothing to the Arabic sources, such as al-Tabari and al-Mas'udi, there is little reason to read this account rather than going strait to the sources. Both Tabari's Annales (in print) and Mas'udi's Prairies of Gold (not in print) are in English. I would only recommend this book if someone was possessed of an ambition to understand the revolt of the Zanj, not for example a general reader interested in the history of slavery generally or only with reservation for a person interested in the history of Islam and the slave-trade/revolts.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
reviews for The Revolt of African Slaves in Iraq, June 16, 2006
". . . an extremely important book."
-David Brion Davis, Yale University, author of Slavery and Human Progress
BOOK REVIEW
Revolt of African Slaves in Iraq
The revolt of African slaves in Iraq, led by a certain 'Ali b. Muhammad, created turmoil in the heartland of the 'Abbasid caliphate for almost two decades (255-70/869-83). It was one of those rare events in medieval Islam in which genuine social and economic issues are detectable, with elements of class and race thrown in for good measure. This should make it of almost irresistible interest to modern historians; indeed, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in his introduction to this volume compares the Zanj revolt, rather generously, to the insurrections of Spartacus and Toussaint L'Quverture (p. xi).
This book was first published in French as Révolte des Esclaves en Iraq (Paris, 1976). In it, Alexandre Popovic collected and judiciously evaluated all the extant source material on the revolt and surveyed its treatment in modern accounts. His account showed that the available evidence is far too meager and fragile to support grandiose world-historical theories about the Zanj revolt but, ironically, is extensive enough to bring out its many paradoxes, ambiguities, and shortcomings. It was a revolt by oppressed slaves who, once free, had few scruples about owning slaves themselves. The revolt initially had, but quickly transcended, an ethnic character (attracting peasants, Bedouin, and others). It was a vehicle of social struggle, but also of simple banditry and terrorism. It is uncertain whether the leader of the revolt, 'Ali b. Muhammad, was an Arab or a Persian and whether he infused the revolt with a Shi'ite or a Kharijite ideology or ideas of any other character. Furthermore, it is difficult to say whether the revolt was responsible for weakening the 'Abbasid caliphate, or was, itself, the outgrowth of the weakness of the caliphs and the unique circumstances of the 3rd/9th century. Although the revolt was radical and revolutionary, it seems to have lacked clear objectives and vision. As Popovic notes, it cannot be said to have affected the course of Islamic history or its social structure in any significant way (p. 154).
Popovic's original study in French has been widely accepted as a standard study of the Zanj.
The following review appeared in the July/August '99 issue of CHOICE:
The Zanj revolt, centering around an uprising of East African slaves in the Tigris-Euphrates delta, lasted from 869 to 883 in and around Basra, and was one of the events that contributed to the late-9th-century crisis of the Abbasid caliphate. Its leader. Ali b. Muhammad, known as Sahib-I zanj ("Master of the Zanj"), claimed to be an Arab Alid from Rayy, but it is surmised that he was probably a Persian mawla (i.e., client) with a spurious genealogy reminiscent of that most celebrated clandestine agent, Abu Muslim. But why did the revolt drag on for so long? The government in Baghdad was caught unaware, at a time when the Tulunids in Egypt and the Saffarids in the east were virtually independent, the Shiite Carmathians were threatening Iraq itself, and al-Mutamid, the caliph when the revolt broke out, was a poltroon. Fortunately for Baghdad, his brother al-Muwaffaq and the latter's son, al-Mutadid, worked tirelessly and successfully to crush the uprising. Alt b. Muhammad was killed in the final battle; his head preceded al-Muwaffaq's triumphal entry into Baghdad. Basra, however, never recovered its former prosperity. First published in Paris in 1976, this is a monograph in the best tradition of French Islamic scholarship. Graduate, faculty. - G. R. G. Hambly, University of Texas at Dallas
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