Zanj (Arabic and Persian زنج, "Land of the Blacks") was a name used by medieval Arab geographers to refer to both a certain portion of the East African coast and its inhabitants, F.R.C. Bagley et al., The Last Great Muslim Empires, (Brill: 1997), p.174 and is the origin of the place name Zanzibar. Location and inhabitants The geographers divided the coast of East Africa at large into several regions based on each region's respective inhabitants: in northern Somalia was Barbara… (More on Zanj)