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Afro-Arabs,African Arabs, orBlack Arabs areArabs who have substantial or predominantSub-Saharan African ancestry. These include primarily minority groups in theUnited Arab Emirates,Yemen,Saudi Arabia,Oman,Kuwait,Qatar,Bahrain,Lebanon,Syria,Palestine,Jordan,Iraq. The term may also refer to various Arab groups in certain African regions.[1]
From the 7th century onward Muslim communities were established along the East African coast, subsequently spreading inland. TheArab 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 theRed Sea to Arabia as part of theRed Sea slave trade. Millions more were taken fromWest Africa andEast Africa across theSahara as part of thetrans-Saharan slave trade.[2]
By around the first millennium AD,Persian traders established trading towns on what is now called theSwahili Coast.[3][4]
ThePortuguese conquered these trading centers after the discovery of theCape Road. From the 1700s to the early 1800s, Muslim forces of theOmani empire re-seized these market towns, mainly on the islands ofPemba andZanzibar. In these territories, Arabs from Yemen andOman settled alongside the local "African" populations, thereby spreading Islam and establishing Afro-Arab communities.[5] TheNiger-CongoSwahili language and culture largely evolved through these contacts between Arabs and the nativeBantu population.[6]
In theArab states of the Persian Gulf, descendants of people from theSwahili Coast perform traditionalLiwa andFann at-Tanbura music and dance,[7] and themizmar is also played by Afro-Arabs in the Tihamah andHejaz.[citation needed]
In addition, Stambali ofTunisia[8] andGnawa music ofMorocco[9] are both ritual music and dances that in part trace their origins toWest African musical styles.
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.
…ceremonies combining ancestral African practices, Arab-Muslim influences and native Berber cultural performances.
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| Secondary Afro-American diaspora |
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