For about ten years between 871-881, a revolt in today’s southern Iraq destabilized an entire empire. The death toll resulting from this revolt may have been as “low” as 100,000 and as high as a million and a half; historians are not exactly sure and might never be. Some people today believe that “The Zanj Rebellion” was a revolt of enslaved African people against their Arab masters in a bid for freedom, but the truth behind this brutal period is a bit more complicated.