>
> FROM THE SUMERIANS TO THE ZANJ--THE AFRICAN PRESENCE IN EARLY IRAQ: A
> BRIEF
> SUMMARY AND OVERVIEW
>
> BY RUNOKO RASHIDI*
>
> DEDICATED TO DR. CHANCELLOR JAMES WILLIAMS (1898-1992)
>
> THE BLACKHEADS OF ANCIENT SUMER
>
> "What became of the Black people of Sumer?' the traveler asked the old
> man,
> for
> ancient records show that the people of Sumer were Black.  `What happened
> to
> them?' `Ah,' the old man sighed. `They lost their history, so they died."
> --A Sumerian Proverb
>
> Evidence of the presence of African people in ancient Southwest Asia,
> particularly in the country now known as Iraq, stretches far back into
> antiquity.  The Greek writer Homer, for example, describes African people
> referred to as "Ethiopians" as "dwelling at the ends of the earth, towards
> the
> rising and setting sun."  The Greek historian Ephorus wrote that "the
> Ethiopians
> were considered as occupying all the south coasts of both Asia and Africa,
> divided by the Red Sea into Eastern and Western Asiatic and African."
>
> A very important part of Southwest Asia is the country that we now call
> Iraq.
> In truth, Iraq has had an African presence for thousands and thousands of
> years.
> Indeed, the first civilization of Southwest Asia, known as Sumer and
> located
> in
> Southern Iraq (formerly Mesopotamia "the land between the two rivers") was
> dominated by Black people.
>
> Flourishing during the third millennium B.C.E. between the mighty Tigris
> and
> Euphrates Rivers, Sumer set the guidelines and established the standards
> for
> the
> kingdoms and empires that followed her including Babylon and Assyria.
> Sumer, as
> is well known, has been acknowledged as an early center for advanced
> mathematics, astronomy and calendars, writing and literature, art and
> architecture, religion and highly organized urban centers, some of the
> more
> notable of which include Kish, Uruk, Ur, Nippur, Lagash and Eridu.
>
> While Sumer's many achievements are much celebrated, the important
> question
> of
> the ethnic composition of her population is frequently either glossed over
> or
> left out of the discussion altogether.  As topical as Iraq is today and
> since
> the civilization of ancient Sumer has been claimed by other peoples, it is
> important to set the record straight and we believe that we can state
> without
> equivocation that Sumerian civilization was but an extension of Nile
> Valley
> civilizations "of which Egypt was the noblest-born but not the only
> child."
>
> To buttress our claims about Sumer's African origins we first point out
> that
> the
> ancient Sumerians referred to themselves as the "Black headed people."
> And
> there is no doubt that the oldest and most exalted deity of the Sumerians
> was
> Anu, a name that loudly recalls thriving Black populations at the dawn of
> history including Africa itself, the Arabian Peninsula, India and even
> Europe.
> Equally important is the skeletal evidence exhumed from ancient Sumerian
> cemeteries, Biblical references in which Nimrod (the Old Testament founder
> of
> Sumer) is described as a son of Kush (Ethiopia), architectural
> similarities,
> eye
> witness accounts and oral traditions.  All of this data points to and
> supports
> an early African origin for the Sumerians of ancient Iraq.
>
> AL-JAHIZ AND THE BOOK OF THE GLORY OF THE BLACKS OVER THE WHITES
>
> Well after the fall of Sumer African people continued to play an imporant
> role
> in the region. One of the great men and intellectuals of early Iraq was
> Al-Jahiz.  According to Al-Jahiz, in his Book of the Glory of the Blacks
> Over
> the Whites, "The Ethiopians, the Berbers, the Copts, the Nubians, the
> Zaghawa,
> the Moors, the people of Sind, the Hindus, the Qamar, the Dabila, the
> Chinese,
> and those beyond them...the islands in the seas...are full of Blacks...up
> to
> Hindustan and China."
>
> Abu `Uthman' Amr Ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri, an outstanding
> African
> scholar known to posterity as Al-Jahiz (ca. 776-869), has been described
> by
> Bernard Lewis as "one of the greatest prose writers in classical Arabic
> literature."  On this issue all of the major authorities agree.  According
> to
> Christopher Dawson, "Al-Jahiz was the greatest scholar and stylist of the
> ninth
> century."  Philip K. Hitti wrote that al-Jahiz "was one of the most
> productive
> and frequently quoted scholars in Arabic literature.  His originality,
> wit,
> satire, and learning, made him widely known."
>
> Born in Basra, in Southern Iraq, Al-Jahiz "studied philology, philosophy,
> and
> science there," and became a brilliant scholar, prolific writer and
> chronicler
> of the deeds of African people.  During the lifetime of Al-Jahiz, Basra
> was
> a
> major trading city on the Shatt al Arab waterway, which empties into the
> Persian
> Gulf.  According to William Jelani Cobb: "There has been a Black presence
> in
> Basra--present day Southern Iraq--as early as the seventh century, when
> Abu
> Bakra, an Ethiopian soldier who had been manumitted by the prophet
> Muhammad
> himself, settled in the city.  His descendants became prominent members of
> Basran society."
>
> Al-Jahiz lived during an era marked by a visible increase in overt racial
> hostility directed by Arabs against Africans in the Islamic world.  One of
> the
> most extreme reactions to this racial bias was the massive slave
> insurrection in
> 868 (around the time of Al-Jahiz's death), known in Arab histories as the
> "Revolt of the Blacks."
>
> Al-Jahiz was the author of the Book of the Glory of the Blacks Over the
> Whites--a special essay in which the global history of African people and
> the
> subject of Blackness itself was discussed.  During the 1980s, through the
> efforts of Mr. William Preston, the work was finally translated and
> published in
> English.  It was long overdue.
>
> The Book of the Glory of the Blacks Over the Whites is a remarkable
> document.
> It includes penetrating commentaries on great African heroes such as
> Antarah
> the
> Lion--a dashing knight and poet who is considered by some to be the father
> of
> the codes of "European" chivalry, Lokman--the "celebrated sage of the
> East",
> and
> the African ancestry of the prophet Muhammad himself.  According to
> Al-Jahiz,
> Abd al-Muttalib (the guardian of the sacred Kaaba in Mecca) "fathered ten
> Lords,
> Black as the night and magnificent."  One of these men was Abdallah, the
> father
> of the prophet Muhammad.
>
> THE REVOLT OF THE BLACKS
>
> The subject of African bondage anywhere is one of the most sensitive
> historical
> issues to be discussed, and all to often it is asserted that most, if not
> all,
> of the great international movements of African people in history occurred
> only
> the guise of slavery and servitude.  Obviously, as we have seen, this has
> not at
> all been the case.  The period of bondage is in fact dwarfed by the ages
> of
> magnificent African civilizations, glory and splendor, not just in Africa
> itself
> but throughout the whole of the global African community including early
> Iraq.
>
> It was in early Iraq where the largest African slave rebellions occurred.
> Here,
> well over a millennium ago, were gathered tens of thousands of East
> African
> slave laborers called Zanj.  These Africans, from Kenya, Tanzania,
> Ethiopia,
> Malawi and Zanzibar (an island off the coast of mainland Tanzania that
> gave
> the
> Zanj their name) and other parts of East Africa, worked in the humid salt
> marshes of Southern Iraq in conditions of extreme misery.  Laboring in
> terrible,
> humid conditions, "the Zanj workers dug up layers of topsoil and dragged
> away
> tons of earth to plant labor-intensive crops like sugarcane on the less
> saline
> soil below.  Fed scant portions of flour, semolina and dates, they were
> constantly in conflict with the Iraqi slave system.
>
> Conscious of their large numbers and oppressive working conditions the
> Zanj
> rebelled on at least three occasions between the seventh and ninth
> centuries.
> The largest of these rebellions lasted for fifteen years, from 868 to 883,
> during which time the Africans inflicted defeat after defeat upon the Arab
> armies sent to suppress their revolt.  This rebellion is known
> historically
> as
> the "Revolt of the Zanj" or the "Revolt of the Blacks."
>
> It is significant to point out that the Zanj forces were rapidly augmented
> by
> large-scale defections of Black soldiers under the employ of the Abbassid
> Caliphate at Baghdad.  The rebels themselves, hardened by many years of
> brutal
> treatment, repaid their former masters in kind, and are said to have been
> responsible for great massacres in the areas that came under their sway.
>
> At its height the Zanj revolt spread as far as Iran and advanced to within
> seventy miles of Baghdad itself.  The Zanj even built their own capital,
> called
> Moktara (the Elect City), which covered a large area and flourished for
> several
> years.  They even minted their own currency and actually dominated
> Southern
> Iraq.  The Zanj rebellion was ultimately only suppressed with the
> intervention
> of large Arab armies and the lucrative offer of amnesty and rewards to any
> rebels who might choose to surrender.
>
> African people have always defied subjugation, and the Revolt of the
> Blacks
> is
> in and of itself a glorious page in African history and Black resistance
> movements.  Through the Revolt of the Blacks, a now relatively little
> known
> episode in a part of the world that until very recently some of us
> regarded
> as
> foreign and strange we see African people doing what they have always
> done--asserting their basic and essential dignity and standing up for and
> demanding their inalienable human rights.
>
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