THE AFRICAN PRESENCE IN EARLY IRAQ: A BRIEF SUMMARY AND OVERVIEW

THE GLOBAL AFRICAN COMMUNITY

H I S T O R Y N O T E S

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)

"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

THE BLACKHEADS OF ANCIENT SUMER

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.

MAJOR SOURCE

Rashidi, Runoko and Ivan Van Sertima, eds. African Presence in Early Asia. Tenth Anniversary Edition. New Brunswick: Transaction Press, 1995.