Afro-Arabs
Ethnic group in the Arab World with African ancestry

Afro-Arabs, African Arabs, or Black Arabs are Arabs who have substantial or predominant 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. The term may also refer to various Arab groups in certain African regions.[1]

Overview

From the 7th century onward Muslim communities were established along the East African coast, subsequently spreading inland. The Arab slave trades, which began in pre-Islamic times but reached their 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 as part of the Red Sea slave trade. Millions more were taken from West Africa and East Africa across the Sahara as part of the trans-Saharan slave trade.[2]

By around the first millennium AD, Persian traders established trading towns on what is now called the Swahili Coast.[3][4]

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.[5] The Niger-Congo Swahili language and culture largely evolved through these contacts between Arabs and the native Bantu population.[6]

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,[7] and the mizmar is also played by Afro-Arabs in the Tihamah and Hejaz.[citation needed]

In addition, Stambali of Tunisia[8] and Gnawa music of Morocco[9] are both ritual music and dances that in part trace their origins to West African musical styles.

See also

Citations

  1. ^ "The multiple roots of Emiratiness: the cosmopolitan history of Emirati society". openDemocracy. Retrieved 2020-08-18.
  2. ^ 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.
  3. ^ 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.
  4. ^ Rothman, Norman (2002). "Indian Ocean Trading Links: The Swahili Experience".
  5. ^ Hinde 1897, p. 2.
  6. ^ Tarikh, Volumes 1-2. Longman. 1966. p. 68. Retrieved 6 December 2016.
  7. ^ 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.
  8. ^ 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.
  9. ^ "Gnawa Intangible Cultural Heritage". UNESCO. …ceremonies combining ancestral African practices, Arab-Muslim influences and native Berber cultural performances.

Bibliography

  • Hinde, Sidney Langford (1897). The Fall of the Congo Arabs. London: Methuen & Co.
  • Mazrui, Alamin M.; Mutunga, Willy, eds. (2004). Debating the African Condition: Race, gender, and culture conflict (illustrated ed.). Africa World Press. ISBN 9781592211456.
  • Arab Slave Trade Afo-Arab relations and the Arab Slave Trade
  • "Black Africans in (Arab) West Asia" - a cited ColorQ.org essay
  • Prof. Helmi Sharawy, Arab Culture and African Culture: ambiguous relations Archived 2021-07-24 at the Wayback Machine, paper extracted from the book The Dialogue between the Arab culture and other cultures', Arab League, Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation (ALECSO), Tunis, 1999.
  • Resolution on Afro-arab Co-operation of The Council of Ministers of the Organization of African Unity, 23, February 23–28, 1987.
  • African Union/league of Arab States Inter-secretariat Consultative Meeting On Afro-arab Cooperation, Addis Ababa: 10–12 May 2005.
  • Maho M. Sebiane, « Le statut socio-économique de la pratique musicale aux Émirats arabes unis : la tradition du leiwah à Dubai », Chroniques yéménites, 14, 2007.[1] [permanent dead link].
  • Afro-Arabian origins of the Early Yemenites and their Conquest and Settlement of Spain
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