thumb|upright=1.1|right|The Swahili coast

thumb|The [[Bantu people|Bantu inhabited areas]]

Zanj (; , adj. ; , Zanjī; from ; ) is a term used by medieval Muslim geographers to refer to both a certain portion of Southeast Africa (primarily the Swahili Coast) and to its Bantu inhabitants. This word is also the origin of the place-names Zanzibar ("coast of the Zanji") and the Sea of Zanj.

The latinization Zingium serves as an archaic name for the coastal area in modern Kenya and Tanzania in southern East Africa. The architecture of these commercial urban settlements is now a subject of study for urban planning. For centuries the coastal settlements were a source of ivory, gold, and slaves, from sections of the conquered hinterland, to the Indian Ocean world. Anthony Christie argued that the word zanj or zang may not be Arabic in origin: a Chinese form (僧祇 sēngqí) is recorded as early as 607 AD. Christie argued that the word is South East Asian in origin.

Division of East Africa's coast

Geographers historically divided the eastern coast of Africa at large into several regions based on each region's respective inhabitants. Arab and Chinese sources referred to the general area that was located to the south of the three regions of Misr (Egypt), Al-Habasha (Abyssinia) and Barbara (Somalia), as Zanj. The core area of Zanj occupation stretched from the territory south of present-day Ras Kamboni to Pemba Island in Tanzania. South of Pemba lay Sofala in modern Mozambique, the northern boundary of which may have been Pangani. Beyond Sofala was the obscure realm of Waq-Waq, also in Mozambique. The 10th-century Arab historian and geographer Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī describes Sofala as the furthest limit of Zanj settlement, and mentions its king's title as Mfalme, a Bantu word.

The main source of Zanj slaves was likely the frontier between Eastern Cushitic language speakers and Bantu language speakers, where warlike Somali pastoralists were expanding southwards and subjecting the scattered colonies of Bantu agriculturalists.

Since Arab and Persian identity is patrilineal, elite Swahili claimed, often correctly, prestigious Persian genealogy.

The richest and most powerful slave trader in all of recorded history is Tippu Tip, a man born in Zanzibar with mixed Bantu and Omani ancestry.

thumb|Tippu Tip 1889

thumb|[[Stone Town in Zanzibar]]

The Zanj were for centuries shipped as slaves by slave and ivory traders to all the countries bordering the Indian Ocean in the Indian Ocean slave trade.

After AD 1500, the sources of male Asian DNA became increasingly Arabian, consistent with increased interactions with southern Arabia. From medieval times until the modern day, subsequent interactions with different Asian and African people have changed the ancestry of the present-day people living on the Swahili coast compared to the medieval individuals whose DNA was sequenced. A description of the Zanj is found in the following passage from Kitab al-Bad' wah-tarikh, by the medieval Arab writer al-Muqaddasī:

<blockquote>As for the Zanj, they are people of black color, flat noses, kinky hair, and little understanding or intelligence.</blockquote>

In 1331, the Arabic-speaking Berber scholar and explorer Ibn Battuta visited the Kilwa Sultanate in the Zanj.

Ibn Battuta characterized the enslaved Zanj people as "jet-black in color, and with scarification on their faces."</blockquote>

Zanj Rebellion

The Zanj Rebellion was a series of uprisings that took place between 869 and 883 AD near the city of Basra in present-day Iraq during slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate. Many Zanj were taken as slave soldiers, but many had earned their freedom and chose to stay in Iraq as free persons and make Iraq their home living amongst the Marsh Arabs. The term Zanj here is thought to refer to Africans in general due to the lack of a prolific slave trade on the Swahili coast during this period, as indicated by genetic studies.

See also

  • Saqaliba

References

  • African Revolts
  • Map of Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1886 showing Zanj