Zanj (Arabic and Persian زنج, "Land of the Blacks") was a name used by medieval Arab geographers to refer to a portion of the East African coast. The geographers divided the coast into several regions and Zanj (also transliterated as Zenj or Zinj) covered the coast from roughly Mogadishu in the north to Pemba Island in the south. (To the north of Zanj lay the Somali coast, termed the Land of Berber, extending as far south as Webi Sebeli; to the south lay the Land of Sofala… (More on Zanj)