Afro-Arabs

Ethnic group in the Arab World with African ancestry

"African Arabs" and "African Arab people" redirect here. For Arabs living in North Africa, see North African Arabs.

"Afro-Arab" redirects here and is not to be confused with the Africa-Arabian Peninsula relations of the African Union.

Ethnic group

Afro-Arabs

عرب أفارقة

Regions with significant populations
Gulf States · Levant · Yemen · East Africa · Mauritania · Sahel · North Africa
Saudi Arabia| 3,600,000[1]
Yemen| 3,500,000[2]
Iraq| 1,500,000–2,000,000[3]
Mauritania| 1,500,000[4]
Jordan| 60,000[5]
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 • Sudanese Arabs

Afro-Arabs, African Arabs, or Black Arabs are Arabs who have predominant 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, Western Sahara, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. The term may also refer to various Arab groups in certain African regions.[6]

## Overview

[edit]

Afro-Arab man of the Congo (ca. 1942).

From the 7th century onward Muslim communities were established along the coast of Eritrea and Somalia, 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.[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

[edit]

Omar Hawsawi, a Saudi footballer at the 2018 World Cup.

* Rula Jebreal, foreign policy analyst, journalist, novelist and screenwriter of Nigerian and Palestinian descent
* Fatima Bernawi, the first Palestinian female militant, of Afro Palestinian descent born to a Nigerian father and Palestinian mother
* 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
* Imaan Hammam, Dutch fashion model of Moroccan and Egyptian descent
* Zinedine Zidane, French player
* Tippu Tip, Afro-Omani trader and explorer
* Sefu bin Hamid, Zanzibari slave trader
* Saad Al-Salim Al-Sabah, Emir of Kuwait
* Randa Abd Al-Aziz, Iraqi journalist and news anchor
* 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
* Khalid Eisa, Emirati footballer
* Chahine van Bohemen, Dutch-Moroccan footballer
* Almoez Ali, Qatari footballer
* Fahad Al-Abdulrahman, Qatari footballer
* Sanna Abubkheet, First female athlete from Gaza to compete at the Olympics
* Majed Abu Maraheel, First Palestinian to compete at the Olympic Games
* Ghadir Ghrouf, Track and Field sprint athlete who represented Palestine at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing
* Mohammed Abukhousa, Palestinian sprinter who competed at the 2013 and 2015 World Championships and at the 2016 Olympics

## See also

[edit]

* Africa portal

* Al-Akhdam
* Afro-Asians
* Afro-Emiratis
* Afro-Iranians
* Afro-Turks
* trans-Saharan slave trade
* Indian Ocean slave trade
* Red Sea slave trade
* Black Guard
* Gnawa
* Haratin
* Shirazi people
* Swahili people
* Zanj

## Citations

[edit]

1. ^ "Saudi-Arabia". The World Factbook (2025 ed.). Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 25 March 2017. (Archived 2017 edition.)
2. ^ "Yemen's Al-Akhdam face brutal oppression". Archived from the original on 2014-11-29. Retrieved 2013-11-29.
3. ^ "Refworld | World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Iraq : Black Iraqis".
4. ^ "Mauritania". Retrieved 2024-11-05.
5. ^ http://www.africanviews.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=105 Jordan
6. ^ "The multiple roots of Emiratiness: the cosmopolitan history of Emirati society". openDemocracy. Retrieved 2020-08-18.
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\. doi:10.1086/374384. PMC 1180338. PMID 12629598.
8. ^ 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."
9. ^ Rothman, Norman (2002). "Indian Ocean Trading Links: The Swahili Experience".
10. ^ Hinde 1897, p. 2.
11. ^ Tarikh, Volumes 1-2. Longman. 1966. p. 68. Retrieved 6 December 2016.
12. ^ 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.
13. ^ 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.
14. ^ "Gnawa Intangible Cultural Heritage". UNESCO. "…ceremonies combining ancestral African practices, Arab-Muslim influences and native Berber cultural performances."

## Bibliography

[edit]

* 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.

## External links

[edit]

* 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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