The Zanj Rebellion (869-883) is, on the surface, a rich focal point for discussing the intersection of religion, class, and race/ethnicity in the late antique Near East. The rebellion besieged a geographically sensitive area, was undertaken in the name of a slave class, and lasted for over a decade. Few studies have been undertaken about it directly. Even less work has been done on its historiography—how it is conceived and written about by Muslim historians, especially of the pre-modern and medieval period. How do these texts approach the question of race/ethnicity, class, and messianism in the Zanj rebellion? Through examining the historiography of the Zanj rebellion, we can study how Muslim historians—and the Muslim polity—dealt with uncomfortable questions present in their own time. This paper examines Islamic history writing and how it struggles to comprehend the Zanj rebellion. The rebellion changes as it moves from one historian to the next—not in events, but in motivations, makeup, and significance. Issues and elisions then become baked into records and retellings of the rebellion, such that disentangling the stereotypes from the narrative itself has taken up the focus of most modern academics—without them realizing that these issues and elisions are there. For al-Tabari (d. 310/923), the question of race/ethnicity is a struggle, and terminology is used to blockade the role of race in the rebellion. For al-Masudi (d. 345/956), the revolt comes side by side with the hardening of geographic and racial stereotypes. With Ibn Khaldun’s (d. 808/1406) history, racial tension is set aside for the more familiar, and blameworthy, story of sectarianism and a false messiah. These are only some of the ways in which historians dealt with uncomfortable questions of what