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.^[2]

History

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.^[3] 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.^[4]^[5]

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.^[6] In an area roughly comprising modern-day Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawi.^[7] Under British pressure, Mohammad Shah Qajar issued a firman suppressing slave trade in 1848.^[8]

Notable Afro-Iranians

Abdolreza Barzegari, footballer
Abdul Karim Farhani, Iranian Shia cleric, Assembly of Experts member
Ali Firouzi, footballer and coach
Mehrab Shahrokhi, footballer
Mohammad Ali Mousavi Jazayeri, Iranian Shia cleric, Assembly of Experts member (Afro-Ahwazi Arab)
Shanbehzadeh Ensemble, Iranian folk band
Dennis Walker, footballer of Afro-Iranian descent, first black player to play for Manchester United^[9]

References

^ "Centers of Power in Iran" (PDF). CIA. May 1972. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
^ Mirzai, Behnaz. Afro-Iranian Lives (documentary film). afroiranianlives.com. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
^ Gwyn Campbell, The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia, 1 edition, (Routledge: 2003), p.ix
^ "Recalling Africa's harrowing tale of its first slavers – The Arabs". New African Magazine. 27 March 2018. Retrieved 24 May 2022.
^ Tazmini, Ghoncheh. "The Persian–Portuguese Encounter in Hormuz: Orientalism Reconsidered". Association for Iranian Studies. 1 March 2017. (Cambridge University Press: 1 January 2022), vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 284. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
^ F.R.C. Bagley et al., The Last Great Muslim Empires, (Brill: 1997), p.174
^ Bethwell A. Ogot, Zamani: A Survey of East African History, (East African Publishing House: 1974), p.104
^ "UNESCO: Fugitive Slaves, Asylum and Manumission in Iran (1851 – 1913)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 March 2015. Retrieved 13 April 2010.
^ Hern, Bill; Gleave, David (30 October 2020). "Dennis Walker: Manchester United's first and only black Busby Babe". theguardian.com. Retrieved 31 October 2020.

External links

Afro-Iranian Lives (a documentary film by: Behnaz Mirzai)
Afro-Iran (an ethnographic photography project and book by: Mahdi Ehsaei)
Afro-Iranians through the Lens of Documentarists (Review of Behnaz Mirzais' documentaries by: Pedram Khosronejad)
A History of Slavery and Emancipation in Iran, 1800–1929 (Review of Behnaz Mirzai's Book by: Pedram Khosronejad)