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The Zanj Rebellion or Negro Rebellion was a major uprising against the Abbasid Caliphate. It was centered near the city of Basra, located in present-day southern Iraq, and lasted over a period of fourteen years (AD 869–883) before finally being defeated. The insurrection is traditionally believed to have involved enslaved blacks (Zanj) that had originally been captured from the East African coast and transported to the Middle East. It grew to involve many slaves and free men from several regions of the Muslim empire and claimed tens of thousands of lives in lower Iraq. The precise composition of the rebels is debated among historians, both as regards their identity and as to the proportion of slaves and free among them – available historical sources being open to various interpretations. The revolt was said to have been led by Ali ibn Muhammad, who claimed to be a descendant of Caliph Ali ibn Abu Talib. Several historians, such as al-Tabari and al-Mas'udi, consider this revolt one of the "most vicious and brutal uprisings" of the many disturbances that plagued the Abbasid central government. Modern historians have characterized the revolt as being "one of the bloodiest and most destructive rebellions which the history of Western Asia records," while at the same time praising its coverage as being among the "most fully and extensively described campaign() in the whole of early Islamic historical writing." ==Background== The Zanj were black slaves who had been imported from Africa and who were primarily utilized for agricultural labor as part of the plantation economy of southern Iraq. The demand for servile labor during this period was fueled by wealthy residents of the port city of Basra, who had acquired extensive marshlands in the surrounding region. These lands had been abandoned as a result of peasant migration and repeated flooding over time, but they could be converted back into cultivatable status through intensive labor. Local magnates were able to gain ownership of this land on the condition that they would make it arable; as a result, they acquired large numbers of Zanj and other slaves, who were placed into work camps and tasked with clearing away the nitrous topsoil as part of the reclamation process. Other Zanj were used to work in the salt flats of Mesopotamia, especially in the area around Basra.〔; ; ; ; 〕 Both the working and living conditions of the Zanj were considered to be extremely miserable; the menial labor they were engaged in was difficult and the slaves appear to have been poorly treated by their masters.〔; ; ; 〕 Two previous attempts by the Zanj to rebel against these circumstances are known to have occurred in 689-90 and in 694, but both of these revolts had quickly failed and thereafter little is known about their history prior to 869. Beginning in 861, the Abbasid Caliphate was weakened by a period of severe disorder, during which the central government in Samarra was paralyzed by a struggle between the caliphs and the military establishment for control of the state. Throughout the 860s the various factions in the capital were distracted by this conflict, which resulted in the deaths of several caliphs, army commanders and bureaucrats, the outbreak of multiple troop riots, a damaging civil war in 865–866, and the virtual bankruptcy of the government. The anarchy in Samarra allowed a number of provinces to fall into the hands of rebels, while provincial governors were free to act in an independent manner in the territories assigned to them. The effective loss of provinces, in turn, resulted in a decrease in taxation revenues received by the central government, further exacerbating the crisis in the capital and crippling the government's ability to effectively respond to challenges against its authority. This continuing instability greatly facilitated the initial success of the Zanj revolt, as the government proved incapable of committing sufficient troops and resources to subdue the rebels.〔; 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Zanj Rebellion」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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