There’s is a sizeable number of Black Iranians.
Many are descendants of 718,000 East African slaves who were captured in the area now covering Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Somalia, and sold to the Persians. Others were also captured from Mozambique and sold to the Persians by the Portuguese.
Many of these African slaves worked as household servants.Black men were likely to be employed as eunuchs (castrated male) working inside the king’s harem and houses, while black women were servants to Iranian women. Other men worked as bodyguards, militiamen and sailors in the Persian Gulf.
After their emancipation many former African slaves stayed in Iran’s southern regions on the Persian Gulf. They are mainly scattered from Southwest Iran through the coastal areas of Persian Gulf to the Southern region of the country.
However not all Afro-Iranians were slaves. There were many others who arrived to work in ports along the Persian Gulf.
Although Afro-Iranians were not able to trace their origins due to the formation of new identities in their host society, they subconsciously carried out some practices that had some cultural connections to Africa.
For example playing African-like drums. In his book Zar Va Bad Va Baluch (1977) the late Iranian scholar Ali Riyahi recorded the existence of East African bantu descendants in Sistan and Baluchistan Province in Iran.
He said these people carried out many cultural practices that are similar to those carried out in East Africa. They circumcised their daughters on a rock near the tomb of Khazar in the Chahbahar region. Another Iranian scholar called Kababi found some Swahili descendants in Bandar Abbas.
Although marginalised Afro-Iranians consider themselves to be full Iranians and at times they get upset whenever they are asked about their African origins.
