Afro-Arabs

Afro-Arabs
عرب أفارقة
	A group of folk singers and dancers outside a barasti house in Al Satwa, Dubai.
Regions with significant populations
	Gulf States · Levant · Yemen · East Africa · Mauritania · Sahel · North Africa
Saudi Arabia	3,600,000
Yemen	3,500,000
Iraq	1,500,000–2,000,000
Mauritania	1,500,000
Jordan	60,000
Languages
	Majority: Arabic; Minority: Hausa · Fula · Swahili · Comorian · Wolof
Religion
	Majority: Islam; Minority: Traditional
Related ethnic groups
	Ethnic groups of Africa; Afro-Saudis · Afro-Palestinians · Afro-Jordanians · Al-Muhamashīn · Afro-Iraqis · Afro-Syrians · Afro-Omanis · Afro-Emiratis

Afro-Arabs, African Arabs, or Black Arabs are Arabs who have predominantly or total Sub-Saharan African ancestry. These include primarily minority groups in the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. The term may also refer to various Arab groups in certain African regions.^[6]

Overview

From the 7th century onward Muslim communities were established along the coast of Eritrea and Somalia, subsequently spreading inland. The Arab slave trade, which began in pre-Islamic times but reached its height between 650 AD and 1900 AD, transported millions of African people from the Nile Valley, the Horn of Africa, and the eastern African coast across the Red Sea to Arabia. Millions more were taken from sub-Saharan Africa across the Sahara as part of the trans-Saharan slave trade.^[7]

By around the first millennium AD, Persian traders established trading towns on what is now called the Swahili Coast,^[8]^[9]

The Portuguese conquered these trading centers after the discovery of the Cape Road. From the 1700s to the early 1800s, Muslim forces of the Omani empire re-seized these market towns, mainly on the islands of Pemba and Zanzibar. In these territories, Arabs from Yemen and Oman settled alongside the local "African" populations, thereby spreading Islam and establishing Afro-Arab communities.^[10] The Niger-Congo Swahili language and culture largely evolved through these contacts between Arabs and the native Bantu population.^[11]

In the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, descendants of people from the Swahili Coast perform traditional Liwa and Fann at-Tanbura music and dance,^[12] and the mizmar is also played by Afro-Arabs in the Tihamah and Hejaz.^{[citation needed]}

In addition, Stambali of Tunisia^[13] and Gnawa music of Morocco^[14] are both ritual music and dances that in part trace their origins to West African musical styles.

Notable Afro-Arabs

Bilal ibn Rabah, early Muslim and Companion of Muhammad
Umm Ayman, early Muslim and Companion of Muhammad
Ayman ibn Ubayd, early Muslim and Companion of Muhammad
Usama ibn Zayd, early Muslim and Companion of Muhammad
Sumayyah bint Khabbat, early Muslim and Companion of Muhammad
Wahshi ibn Harb, early Muslim and Companion of Muhammad
Rasad, concubine of al-Zahir li-I'zaz Din Allah
al-Mustansir Billah, Fatimid caliph
Turki bin Said, Sultan of Oman
Faisal bin Turki, Sultan of Muscat and Oman, Sultan of Oman
Taimur bin Feisal, Sultan of Oman
Barghash bin Said of Zanzibar, Sultan of Zanzibar
Ali bin Said of Zanzibar, Sultan of Zanzibar
Ali bin Hamud of Zanzibar, Sultan of Zanzibar
Jamshid bin Abdullah of Zanzibar, last Sultan of Zanzibar
Colette Dalal Tchantcho, Kuwaiti-Cameroonian actor
Tippu Tip, Afro-Omani trader and explorer
Sefu bin Hamid, Zanzibari slave trader
Saad Al-Salim Al-Sabah, Emir of Kuwait
Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Prince
Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, Saudi Princess
Faisal bin Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud, Saudi Prince
Khalid bin Bandar Al Saud (born 1977), Saudi Prince
Baraka Al Yamaniyah, concubine of King Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia
Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, Saudi Prince
Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi, Saudi Businessman
Etab, Saudi singer
Majed Abdullah, Saudi footballer
Salem Al-Dawsari, Saudi footballer
Mohamed Al-Deayea, Saudi footballer
Ali Al-Habsi, Omani footballer
Shikabala, Egyptian footballer
Khalid Eisa, Emirati footballer
Chahine van Bohemen, Dutch-Moroccan footballer
Almoez Ali, Qatari footballer
Fahad Al-Abdulrahman, Qatari footballer

Citations

^ "Saudi-Arabia". The World Factbook (2024 ed.). Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 25 March 2017. (Archived 2017 edition.)
^ "Yemen's Al-Akhdam face brutal oppression". Archived from the original on 2014-11-29. Retrieved 2013-11-29.
^ "Refworld | World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Iraq : Black Iraqis".
^ "Mauritania". Retrieved 2024-11-05.
^ http://www.africanviews.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=105 Jordan
^ "The multiple roots of Emiratiness: the cosmopolitan history of Emirati society". openDemocracy. Retrieved 2020-08-18.
^ Richards, Martin; Rengo, Chiara; Cruciani, Fulvio; Gratrix, Fiona; Wilson, James F.; Scozzari, Rosaria; Macaulay, Vincent; Torroni, Antonio (April 2003). "Extensive Female-Mediated Gene Flow from Sub-Saharan Africa into Near Eastern Arab Populations". The American Journal of Human Genetics. 72 (4): 1058–1064. doi:10.1086/374384. PMC 1180338. PMID 12629598.
^ Brielle, Esther; et al. (2023). "Entwined African and Asian genetic roots of medieval peoples of the Swahili coast". Nature. 615 (7954): 866–873. Bibcode:2023Natur.615..866B. doi:10.1038/s41586-023-05754-w. PMC 10060156. PMID 36991187. A key finding of this study is genetic evidence of admixture at roughly 1000 CE between people of African and people of Persian ancestry. This admixture is consistent with one strand of the history recorded by the Swahili themselves, the Kilwa Chronicle, which describes the arrival of seven Shirazi (Persian) princes on the Swahili coast. At Kilwa, coin evidence has dated a ruler linked to that Shirazi dynasty, Ali bin al-Hasan, to the mid-11th century. Whether or not this history has a basis in an actual voyage, ancient DNA provides direct evidence for Persian-associated ancestry deriving overwhelmingly from males and arriving on the eastern African coast by about 1000 CE. This timing corresponds with archaeological evidence for a substantial cultural transformation along the coast, including the widespread adoption of Islam.
^ Rothman, Norman (2002). "Indian Ocean Trading Links: The Swahili Experience".
^ Hinde 1897, p. 2.
^ Tarikh, Volumes 1-2. Longman. 1966. p. 68. Retrieved 6 December 2016.
^ Olsen, Poul Rovsing (1967). "La Musique Africaine dans le Golfe Persique" [African Music in the Persian Gulf]. Journal of the International Folk Music Council (in French). 19: 28–36. doi:10.2307/942182. JSTOR 942182.
^ Jankowsky, Richard C. (Fall 2006). "Black Spirits, White Saints: Music, Spirit Possession, and Sub-Saharans in Tunisia". Ethnomusicology. 50 (3). The University of Illinois Press/Ethnomusicology: 373–410. doi:10.2307/20174467. JSTOR 20174467. S2CID 191924116.
^ "Gnawa Intangible Cultural Heritage". UNESCO. …ceremonies combining ancestral African practices, Arab-Muslim influences and native Berber cultural performances.