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, and Iraq. The term may also refer to various Arab groups in certain African regions.
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.
By around the first millennium AD, Persian traders established trading towns on what is now called the Swahili Coast.
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.
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, and the mizmar is also played by Afro-Arabs in the Tihamah and Hejaz.
In addition, Stambali of Tunisia and Gnawa music of Morocco are both ritual music and dances that in part trace their origins to West African musical styles.
See also
Al-Akhdam Afro-Asians Afro-Emiratis Afro-Iranians Afro–Middle Easterners Afro-Turks trans-Saharan slave trade Indian Ocean slave trade Red Sea slave trade Black Guard Gnawa Haratin Shirazi people Swahili people Zanj
Citations
Bibliography
External links 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 , 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. . Afro-Arabian origins of the Early Yemenites and their Conquest and Settlement of Spain