Arab-Persians

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This article is about people of mixed Arab and Persian ethnic background. For Arabs from Iran, see Iranian Arabs.
Arab-Persians
Arabic: الفرس العرب
Persian: فارس-عرب‌ها
Choosing Imam Musa Sadr to preside over the Supreme Council of the Shiites of Lebanon (2).jpg
Al-Sadr is a famous Shia family which has Arab, Persian, and Arab-Persian members
Total population
≈12.7 million[1][2][3][4]
Regions with significant populations
Kuwait, Iran, Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria
Languages
Arabic, Persian, Achomi
Religion
Majority Shia Islam, minority Sunni Islam
Related ethnic groups
Arabs, Persians

Arab-Persians (Arabic: الفرس العرب, Persian: فارس-عرب‌ها) are people who are of both mixed Arab and Persian ethnic or cultural background, which is common in Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain, and to a lesser extent, Lebanon and Syria.

History[]

In pre-Islamic times, there were many Arabs who lived in the cultural sphere of Persia and used Persian as their written language. These are referred to as Persian Arabs (Arabic: العرب الفرس; Al-‘Arab Al-Furs).[5]

One of Prophet Muhammed's early followers and disciples, Salman Al-Farsi, was Persian.[6]

After the rise of Islam and the Arab conquest of Persia, Persians, in turn, began to use Arabic as their written language alongside Persian. Many famous Muslim scientists and philosophers during the time of the Abbasid caliphate were ethnic Persians who wrote their scholarly works in Arabic while continuing to write literary works and poetry in Persian - famous examples are Avicenna and Khayyam.[7][8][9][10][11]

Self-identification[]

The term “Arab-Persian” is rarely used as a self-appellation. Most tend to identify more strongly as either Persian or Arab and consider themselves to be members primarily of one ethnic group, but at the same time being aware of their mixed background. For many the most important factor determining their identity is the sovereign state in which they live or from which their recent ancestors came from. For example, most Shia Kuwaitis are of Persian ancestry.[12][13][14][15]

In Iran[]

See also: Iranian Arabs

Ethnic Arabs and Arabic speakers live alongside Persians primarily in the Khuzestan, Bushehr, Hormozgan, and Khorasan regions of Iran. Intermarriages exist between Iranian Arabs and Iranian Persians.[16][17] Over 1 million Iranian Sayyids are of Arab descent but most are Persianized, mixed and consider themsleves Persian and Iranian today.[18] The majority of Sayyids migrated to Iran from Arab lands predominantly in the 15th to 17th centuries during the Safavid era. The Safavids transformed the religious landscape of Iran by imposing Twelver Shiism on the populace. Since most of the population embraced Sunni Islam, and an educated version of Shiism was scarce in Iran at the time, Ismail imported a new group of Shia Ulama who predominantly were Sayyids from traditional Shiite centers of the Arabic-speaking lands, such as Jabal Amel (of southern Lebanon), Syria, Bahrain, and in order to create a state clergy. The Safavids offered them land and money in return for loyalty.[19][20][21][22][23]

In Kuwait[]

See also: Ajam of Kuwait

Most Ajam (both Sunni and Shia) resided in the Sharq historical district in the old Kuwait City, thereby forming a linguistic enclave which preserved the language for generations until the discovery of oil. They communicated in Persian between each other, and did not frequently mingle with Arabic speakers who resided in other districts of Kuwait City until after the industrialisation of Kuwait City which scattered people who lived in the districts of Kuwait City to the suburbs. The linguistic enclave was not present any longer therefore the Ajam had to learn Kuwaiti Arabic to survive in the new environment. The majority of Shia Kuwaiti citizens are of Iranian ancestry.[24][25][26][27][28][29][30] Some Kuwaitis of Iranian origin are Sunni Muslims such as the Al-Kandari and Al-Awadhi families of Larestani Persian ancestry.[31]

In Bahrain[]

See also: Ajam of Bahrain

Persian migration into Bahrain goes back to the days of the Sassanid and Achaemenid Persian empire, though in modern times there has been a constant migration for hundreds of years.[32] There has always been a migration of Persian-speaking Shi'a into Bahrain.[33]

In 1910, the Persian community funded and opened a private school, Al-Ittihad school, that taught Persian, besides other subjects.[34] In the Manama Souq, many Persians were clustered in the neighborhood of Mushbir. However they resettled in other areas with the development of new towns and expansion of villages during the reign of Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa. Today, a significant number is based in Muharraq's Shia enclaves and Bahrain Island's modernized Shia towns.

In Iraq[]

See also: Ajam of Iraq

In the 1970s, Saddam Hussein exiled between 350,000[35][36] to 650,000 Shia Iraqis of Iranian ancestry (Ajam).[37] Iraqi Persians follow Shia Islam and some of them are even Sayyids. Persians have a long history in Iraq and were actually there before the Arab conquest.[38]

In Lebanon[]

Arab-Persian mixes are actually common among Lebanese Shias, many Iranians in Lebanon and Lebanese people in Iran ended up intermarrying and settling. Many notable Shia Muslims from Lebanon are mixed with Persian.[39]

In Syria[]

In Syria, a small community of Arab-Persians exists in the Alawite Shia-majority areas, mostly in Latakia and Tartus, with the rest being in Damascus.[40]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ CIA World Factbook
  2. ^ [1].
  3. ^ "larestani". EveryTongue. 22 March 2014. Retrieved March 22, 2014.
  4. ^ Six million people of Iran's population are Sadaat (Sayyid) / Tehran and Mazandaran (provinces) are the record owner of Sadaats in the country Archived 2 February 2018 at the Wayback Machine farsnews.com 1 February 2018
  5. ^ "Welcome to Encyclopaedia Iranica".
  6. ^ Houtsma & Wensinck (1993). First Encyclopaedia of Islam: 1913-1936. Brill Academic Pub. p. 116. ISBN 978-9004097964.
  7. ^ "ʿARAB ii. Arab conquest of Iran". iranicaonline.org.
  8. ^ Corbin, Henry (19 April 2016). Avicenna and the Visionary Recital. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-63054-0. Retrieved 12 August 2018. In this work a distinguished scholar of Islamic religion examines the mysticism and psychological thought of the great eleventh-century Persian philosopher and physician Avicenna (Ibn Sina), author of over a hundred works on theology, logic, medicine, and mathematics.
  9. ^ Daly, Jonathan (19 December 2013). The Rise of Western Power: A Comparative History of Western Civilization. A&C Black. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-4411-1851-6.
  10. ^ Al-Khalili, Jim (30 September 2010). Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science. Penguin UK. ISBN 978-0-14-196501-7. Later, al-Karkhi, Ibn-Tahir and the great Ibn al-Haytham in the tenth/eleventh century took it further by considering cubic and quartic equations, followed by the Persian mathematician and poet Omar Khayyam in the eleventh century
  11. ^ Rosenfeld, B. A.; Fouchécour, Ch-H. De (24 April 2012). "ʿUmar K̲h̲ayyam". Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition.
  12. ^ Butenschon, Nils A.; Davis, Uri; Hassassian, Manuel (2000). Citizenship and the State in the Middle East: Approaches and Applications. Nils August Butenschøn, Uri Davis, Manuel Sarkis Hassassian. p. 190. ISBN 9780815628293.
  13. ^ Binder, Leonard (1999). Ethnic Conflict and International Politics in the Middle East (PDF). p. 164. ISBN 9780813016870. Archived from the original on 8 December 2013. Unlike the Shi'a of Saudi Arabia or Bahrain, the Kuwaiti Shi'a mostly are of Persian descent.
  14. ^ Hertog, Steffen; Luciani, Giacomo; Valeri, Marc (2013). Business Politics in the Middle East. Rivka Azoulay. p. 71. ISBN 9781849042352.
  15. ^ Ende, Werner; Steinbach, Udo (2002). Islam in the World Today: A Handbook of Politics, Religion, Culture, and Society. Werner Ende, Udo Steinbach. p. 533. ISBN 0801464897.
  16. ^ "Arabic, Mesopotamian Spoken". ethnologue.com.
  17. ^ "Arabic, Gulf Spoken". ethnologue.com.
  18. ^ Six million people of Iran's population are Sadaat (Sayyid) / Tehran and Mazandaran (provinces) are the record owner of Sadaats in the country Archived 2 February 2018 at the Wayback Machine farsnews.com 1 February 2018
  19. ^ Floor, Willem; Herzig, Edmund (2015). Iran and the World in the Safavid Age. I.B.Tauris. p. 20. ISBN 978-1-78076-990-5. Archived from the original on 3 September 2017. In fact, at the start of the Safavid period Twelver Shi'ism was imported into Iran largely from Syria and Mount Lebanon (...)
  20. ^ The failure of political Islam, by Olivier Roy, Carol Volk, pg.170
  21. ^ The Cambridge illustrated history of the Islamic world, by Francis Robinson, pg.72
  22. ^ The Middle East and Islamic world reader, by Marvin E. Gettleman, Stuart Schaar, pg.42
  23. ^ The Encyclopedia of world history: ancient, medieval, and modern ... by Peter N. Stearns, William Leonard Langer, pg.360
  24. ^ Butenschon, Nils A.; Davis, Uri; Hassassian, Manuel (2000). Citizenship and the State in the Middle East: Approaches and Applications. Nils August Butenschøn, Uri Davis, Manuel Sarkis Hassassian. p. 190. ISBN 9780815628293.
  25. ^ Binder, Leonard (1999). Ethnic Conflict and International Politics in the Middle East (PDF). p. 164. ISBN 9780813016870. Archived from the original on 8 December 2013. Unlike the Shi'a of Saudi Arabia or Bahrain, the Kuwaiti Shi'a mostly are of Persian descent.
  26. ^ Hertog, Steffen; Luciani, Giacomo; Valeri, Marc (2013). Business Politics in the Middle East. Rivka Azoulay. p. 71. ISBN 9781849042352.
  27. ^ Ende, Werner; Steinbach, Udo (2002). Islam in the World Today: A Handbook of Politics, Religion, Culture, and Society. Werner Ende, Udo Steinbach. p. 533. ISBN 0801464897.
  28. ^ Potter, Lawrence G. (June 2014). Sectarian Politics in the Persian Gulf. Lawrence G. Potter. p. 135. ISBN 9780190237967.
  29. ^ Louër, Laurence (2011). Transnational Shia Politics: Religious and Political Networks in the Gulf. Laurence Louër. p. 47. ISBN 9781849042147.
  30. ^ Dénes Gazsi. "The Persian Dialects of the Ajam in Kuwait" (PDF). The University of Iowa.
  31. ^ Rivka Azoulay (2020). Kuwait and Al-Sabah: Tribal Politics and Power in an Oil State. p. 40. ISBN 9781838605063.
  32. ^ Holes, Clive (2001). Dialect, Culture, and Society in Eastern Arabia: Glossary. Clive Holes. pp. XXX. ISBN 9004107630.
  33. ^ Holes, Clive (2001). Dialect, Culture, and Society in Eastern Arabia: Glossary. Clive Holes. pp. XXVI. ISBN 9004107630.
  34. ^ Shirawi, May Al-Arrayed (1987). Education in Bahrain - 1919-1986, An Analytical Study of Problems and Progress (PDF). Durham University. p. 60.
  35. ^ Iranica Online
  36. ^ U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI)[permanent dead link]
  37. ^ "Hamshahri Newspaper (In Persian)". hamshahri.org. Retrieved 12 November 2014.[permanent dead link]
  38. ^ Pahlavan, Demographic Movements in the Region, p. 147.
  39. ^ SHIʿITES IN LEBANON retrieved 7 June 2015
  40. ^ Iranian community in Syria cast their ballots to elect Iran's new president
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