In the year 869 CE, thousands of East African slaves of the Abbassid Empire revolted against their wealthy landowners in what is today the city of Basra in Iraq, sparking a rebellion that raged on for fourteen years. Despite the centuries and distance that separates it, the Zanj Rebellion continues to be included in a transnational history of African slavery, along with the Haitian Revolution and Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad. Today’s Afro-Iraqis, descendants of the Zanj rebels, still feel a strong sense of solidarity with the descendants of other enslaved populations. In fact, this Ir…