Afro-Arabs Explained

Group:Afro-Arabs
Native Name:Arabic: عرب أفارقة
Popplace:Gulf StatesLevantYemenEast AfricaMauritaniaSahelNorth Africa
Pop1:3,600,000
Ref1:[1]
Pop2:3,500,000
Ref2:[2]
Pop3:1,500,000–2,000,000
Ref3:[3]
Pop4:1,500,000
Ref4:[4]
Pop5:60,000
Ref5:[5]
Langs:Majority: Arabic
Minority: HausaFulaSwahiliComorianWolof
Religions:Majority: Islam
Minority: Traditional
Related:Ethnic groups of Africa
Afro-SaudisAfro-PalestiniansAfro-JordaniansAl-MuhamashīnAfro-IraqisAfro-SyriansAfro-OmanisAfro-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. The Niger-Congo Swahili language and culture largely evolved through these contacts between Arabs and the native Bantu population.[10]

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

In addition, Stambali of Tunisia[12] and Gnawa music of Morocco[13] are both ritual music and dances that in part trace their origins to West African musical styles.

Notable Afro-Arabs

See also

Bibliography

External links

Notes and References

  1. Saudi-Arabia. 25 March 2017 . 2017.
  2. Web site: Yemen's Al-Akhdam face brutal oppression. 2013-11-29. https://web.archive.org/web/20141129084527/http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-999239. 2014-11-29.
  3. Web site: Refworld | World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Iraq : Black Iraqis.
  4. Web site: Mauritania . 2024-11-05.
  5. http://www.africanviews.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=105 Jordan
  6. Web site: The multiple roots of Emiratiness: the cosmopolitan history of Emirati society. 2020-08-18. openDemocracy. en.
  7. 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 . 10.1086/374384 . 1180338 . 12629598.
  8. Brielle . Esther . etal . 2023 . Entwined African and Asian genetic roots of medieval peoples of the Swahili coast . Nature . 615 . 7954 . 866–873 . 10.1038/s41586-023-05754-w . 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.. free . 36991187 . 10060156 . 2023Natur.615..866B.
  9. Web site: Rothman . Norman . 2002 . Indian Ocean Trading Links: The Swahili Experience .
  10. Book: Tarikh, Volumes 1-2. 1966. Longman. 68. 6 December 2016.
  11. Olsen . Poul Rovsing . La Musique Africaine dans le Golfe Persique . African Music in the Persian Gulf . French . Journal of the International Folk Music Council . 1967 . 19 . 28–36 . 10.2307/942182 . 942182.
  12. Black Spirits, White Saints: Music, Spirit Possession, and Sub-Saharans in Tunisia . Jankowsky, Richard C. . Ethnomusicology . 373–410. Fall 2006. 50 . 3 . The University of Illinois Press/Ethnomusicology. 10.2307/20174467 . 20174467 . 191924116.
  13. Web site: Gnawa Intangible Cultural Heritage . UNESCO . …ceremonies combining ancestral African practices, Arab-Muslim influences and native Berber cultural performances..

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