About the Zanj

It is necessary to speak first of all about the Zanj who are known because of their habit to eat the flesh of strangers,

with the goal to teach you how to defend you against them. Because they do not live according to healthy principles

and oppress the people. Be informed that the Zanj attack with courage. Employ against them strategies and poison.

Destroy their multitudes. For this kind of people, death is a resting place, and it is liberation for the world. Ask for

support against them from their neighbors, because they know their tactics. Provide food and drink filled with poison

to destroy the Habash and the Zanj. Multiply the acts of piety so that God, Great and Powerful, multiplies towards you

his good deeds and his help. Correct and control their nobles, because the authority of the kings on the people only

becomes less when their faith in the nobles gets less.

Note: We have here a text detailing on how to exterminate and oppress, colonize the people of East Africa. As these kind of actions were not going on at the time; this needs some explanations. This book consists of the (fictious) translated letters of advice given by Aristotle to Alexander the Great who goes to concur the world for Islam. It was written by Salim Abu al ala the secretary of Caliph Hisham (r724-43) as a “Mirror for Princes”. In  this work, ideals of kingship and sovereignty are expressed through the authority of Aristotle, often in the form of letters of advice addressed to  Alexander. This image of the model tutor-pupil or vizier-king diffused into the more popular wisdom (hikma) literature, that is anthologies of maxims and anecdotes ascribed to sages of  the past.

(See: Aristotle's Letters to Alexander in Late Antiquity and Its Translation into Arabic by YAMANAKA Yurik – 1998)