Afro-Arabs

File:Majed Abdullah.jpg

Majed Abdullah

Afro-Arab refers to a people identified as having mixed African and Arab origins, and whose native language is Arabic. There are large communities of Afro-Arabs in Middle Eastern Arab countries as well as North Africa and western Europe (through recent migrations). Their first language/native tongue is Arabic, and this is a big factor in determining their selves as "Arab" (see definition of Arab), as the Arabic language is pretty much the unifying factor among Arabs who vary from light skinned (even blonde ones, ie. in Lebanon) to olive complexions (ie. Iraq, Arabia, North Africa, Yemen etc.) and dark-skinned (North Africa, Egypt, Sudan, Arabia, Yemen, and more). Although the locations given are vague guides, as you may find significant Afro-Arab populations in Iraq, and quite light skinned individuals in Sudan, Egypt etc.

History

The Arabian lands, and North Africa are often considered as an extension of Africa, and indeed more than half the Arab world exist in Africa (in terms of area, and possibly population too), ie. from Egypt/Sudan in the east to Mauritania in the west, although many of the North African populations are Berbers (a seperate, native ethnic group linked with arabs, in terms of linguistics, ie. both speak Afro Asiatic languages) or Berber-Arab mixes, and the Islamic world covers even more area, from Somalia, Ethiopia in the east through to Nigeria in the west and many West-African nations too. So this intermingling of peoples from the African continent, along with the spread of Islam, has resulted in large populations of Afro-Arab peoples covering a vast area of Africa. Present-day Sudan is home to millions of Arabs, with 40% of the population identifying themselves under the ethnic group. Eritrea, though not an Arab or Arabized country (and therefore not containing Afro-Arabs by strict definition) is home to a sizable population of about 20,000 Rashaida Arabs who migrated to Eritrea and Northern Sudan in the latter half of the 19th century after being expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1846. Other North African nations, with sizable Afro-Arab populations, include Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Mauritania. Many think that all blacks in the middle east arrived during periods of slavery, or after through migration, however, they had always been in the region, and that is historical fact.

Slavery

Dates of African slavery in the Arab world can be traced some 1,500 years ago. Captured, bound, and marched from their homes into ships (evidence?), where they were either sent to, the former Arabian Peninsula (especially coastal Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Oman), southern Iraq, the Maghreb and the rest of North Africa. In general, slaves in the middle east and north africa were primarily taken as servants, rather than laborers. Women were taken as servants or as concubines, both of these practices were common in these times and not restricted to Arabs or Muslim culture, but prevalent all across Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Asia. However, the supply of non-Muslim slaves began to diminish as more inhabitants of the aforementioned lands began to convert to Islam, conflicting with Islamic views concerning the enslaving of fellow brethren, deemed harām by the holy Quran, as well as the Quran encouraging emancipation of slaves - see Islam and Slavery.