Afro-Iranians

Afro-Iranians
ایرانیان آفریقایی‌تبار
Huts in the Afro-Iranian village of Lashar
Regions with significant populations
Sistan and Balochestan, Hormozgan, Bushehr, Khuzestan
Languages
Majority Persian, minority Arabic and Balochi
Religion
Islam (predominantly Shia; Sunni)
Related ethnic groups
Zanj

Afro-Iranians (Persian: ایرانیان آفریقایی‌تبار) are Iranian people of African Zanj heritage. Most Afro-Iranians are concentrated in the coastal provinces of Persian Gulf such as Hormozagan, Sistan and Baluchestan, Bushehr and Khuzestan.

History

A Safavid oil painting of an African soldier in Safavid Iran. Created in Isfahan in the last quarter of the 17th century, the figure was most likely a slave soldier in Safavid Iran's musketeer corps

The Indian Ocean slave trade was multi-directional and changed over time. To meet the demand for menial labor, enslaved black people who were captured by Arab slave traders were sold in cumulatively large numbers over centuries to; the Persian Gulf, Egypt, Arabia, India, the Far East, the Indian Ocean islands and Ethiopia. Others came as immigrants throughout many millennia or from Portuguese slave traders who occupied most of the contested Ormus's Bandar Abbas, Hormoz and Qeshm island ports in southern Iran by early 16th century.

During Qajar rule, many wealthy households imported Black African women and children to perform domestic work alongside Eastern European Circassian slaves. This was largely drawn from the Zanj, who were Bantu-speaking peoples that lived alongside Southeast Africa. In an area roughly comprising modern-day Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawi. Under British pressure, Mohammad Shah Qajar issued a firman suppressing slave trade in 1848.

Notable Afro-Iranians

See also

Further reading


This page was last updated at 2023-12-23 04:29 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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