THE ZANDJ REBELLION-AFRICAN SLAVES REVOLT AGAINST MUSLIM ELITES

http://bknebel.blogspot.com/2007/10/zanj-revolt-arabic-took-place-in.html

Full Wikipedia Article
From Wikipedia:

"The Zanj Rebellion was the culmination of series of small revolts. It took place near the city of Basra, located in present-day southern Iraq, over a period of fifteen years (869−883 AD). The insurrection is believed to have involved enslaved Black Africans (Zanj) that had originally been captured from the African Great Lakes region and areas further south in East Africa. It grew to involve over 500,000 slaves who were imported from across the Muslim empire and claimed over "tens of thousands of lives in lower Iraq".^[1] 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 bin Muhammad, who claimed to be a descendent of Caliph Ali ibn Abu Talib. Several historians, such as Al-Tabari and Al-Masudi, consider this revolt one of the "most vicious and brutal uprisings" of the many disturbances that plagued the Abbasid central government.^[1]The Zanj Revolt helped Ahmad ibn Tulun to create an independent state in Egypt. It is only after defeating the Zanj Revolt that the Abbasids were able to turn their attention to Egypt and end the Tulunid dynasty with great destruction."

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"The Zandj revolt, [between 869 and 883 CE] an authentic social rising, had far-reaching consequences in many fields--political, social, economic. The uprising shattered the unity of the Muslim empire as great provinces broke away from the Caliphate, and it paved the way for the downfall of the old Abbasid regime. The political crisis ushered in by the Zandj revolt had depended the cleavage between the social classes, and the well-to-do classes, being afraid for their privileges, began to put their confidence in the professional armies of Turkish and other mercenaries as the only force capable of keeping order; this heralded the new history of the Muslim Middle East. The revolt also taught a lesson to the Muslim ruling classes; never again do we find in the Muslim East any large scale enterprise based on concentration  of slave labor and it seems the the exploitation of slaves in agriculture and irrigation was abandoned. This in turn led to the next century to the rise of feudalism as the prevailing mode of production in eastern Muslim countries, the slave exploitation giving way to the feudal one.... Another consequence of the Zandj revolt seems to have been the hardening of racial feelings in those times; the black Africans came to be held with contempt, in spite of the teachings of Islam, and there emerged in Muslim literature many previously unknown themes expressing a negative attitude towards blacks." 

BACKGROUND

Dr. John Henrik Clarke: The Rise of Islam & The Fall of Africa (Full Lecture)

The Rise of Islam & The Fall of Africa (Lecture) 

Arab Slave Trade
Wikipedia full article "Arab slave trade

"The Arab slave trade was the practice of slavery in the Arab world, mainly in Western Asia, North Africa, East Africa, and certain parts ofEurope (such as Iberia and southern Italy) during their period of domination by Arab leaders. The trade was focused on the slave markets of theMiddle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa. People traded were not limited to a certain race, ethnicity, or religion, and included Arabs andBerbers, especially during the trade's early days. 

During the 8th and 9th centuries of the Fatimid Caliphate, most of the slaves were Slavic Eastern Europeans (called Saqaliba). However, slaves were drawn from a wide variety of regions and included Mediterranean peoples, Persians, Turkic peoples, peoples from the Caucasus mountain regions (such as Georgia, Armenia and Circassia) and parts of Central Asia and Scandinavia, English, Dutch and Irish, Berbers from North Africa, and various other peoples of varied origins as well as those of African origins. Toward the 18th and 19th centuries, the flow of slaves from East Africa increased with the rise of the Oman sultanate which was based in Zanzibar. They came into direct trade conflict and competition with Portuguese and other Europeans along the Swahili coast."