page_title: Zanj
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Zanj / Zanj territory / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Men walking in an old narrow street — in Stone Town, Zanzibar City, Zanzibar. Credits This photo has been taken by Mr.Chen Hualin.
context_page_description: Zanj was a name used by medieval Muslim geographers to refer to both a certain portion of Southeast Africa and to its Bantu inhabitants. This word is also the origin of the place-names Zanzibar 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 are 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.
context_section_description: The Zanj traded with Arabs, Turks and Indians, but according to some sources, only locally, since they possessed no ocean-going ships. According to other sources, the heavily Bantu Swahili peoples already had seafaring vessels with sailors and merchants trading with Arabia and Persia, and as far east as India and China. However, Zanj refers more to the state of religion than color or origin. The Swahili, a non-contemporary enthnonym, included both Zanj, non-believers, and the Umma, Islamic community. Since Arab and Persian identity is patrilineal, elite Swahili claimed, often fictionalized, prestigious Asian genealogy. Modern misconceptions of cultural fusion or Asian origins developed from the tendency of wealthy Swahili to claim Asian origins and the disproportionate 19th century importation of Omani elements to Zanzibari and Swahili society (standard Swahili is the Zanzibari dialect and thus includes far more Arabic loanwords than the other, older Swahili dialects.
  Prominent settlements of the Zanj coast included Malindi, Gedi, and Mombasa. By the late medieval period, the area included at least 37 substantial Swahili trading towns, many of them quite wealthy. However, these communities never consolidated into a single political entity (the "Zanj Empire" being a late 19th-century fiction).
  While the urban ruling and commercial classes of these Swahili settlements included some Arab and Persian immigrants, the vast majority were African Muslims. Mythic origins from Persia or Arabia should not be taken literally, but rather as a widespread element of Islamic society to legitimate elite status. The Bantu peoples inhabited the coastal regions, and were organized only as family groups. The term shenzi, used on the East African coast and derived from the Swahili word zanji, referred in a derogatory way to anything associated with rural blacks. An example of this would be the colonial term shenzi dog, referring to a native dog. The name of a well-known dog breed, Basenji, means 'of the blacks'.
  The Zanj were for centuries shipped as slaves by Arab traders to all the countries bordering the Indian Ocean. (Citation needed)The Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs recruited many Zanj slaves as soldiers and, as early as 696 AD, we learn of slave revolts of the Zanj against their Arab masters in Iraq (see below). Ancient Chinese texts also mention ambassadors from Java presenting the Chinese emperor with two Seng Chi (Zanji) slaves as gifts, and Seng Chi slaves reaching China from the Hindu kingdom of Sri Vijaya in Java.
  The sea off the south-eastern coast of Africa was known as the Sea of Zanj, and included the Mascarene islands and Madagascar. During the anti-apartheid struggle it was proposed that South Africa should assume the name Azania, to reflect ancient Zanj.
caption: Stone Town in Zanzibar
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