Afro-Arab

Afro-Arab

Encyclopedia

Tutorials

Encyclopedia

Dictionary

Directory

Email this to a friend Afro-Arab

Afro-Arab

Afro-Arab (sometimes referred to as African Arab) refers to people who possess both black African and Arab ancestry.^[1] There are large communities of Afro-Arabs in North Africa, East Africa and some Middle Eastern countries as well as, through recent migrations, Western Europe.

The phrase "Afro-Arab" also refers to African Union efforts to improve co-operation between Africa and countries of the Arab world.^[2]

History
Culture
References
See also
External links

History

A mounted Janjaweed miltiaman from Sudan.

The Arabs of the Middle East have very old connections to the African continent, and in addition more than half the Arab world now exists in Africa (in terms of area, and possibly population too), i.e. from Egypt and Sudan in the east to Mauritania in the west, although much of the North African population are Berbers (a separate, native ethnic group speaking an Afro-Asiatic language) or Arabized Berbers. The Islamic world covers even more area, ie. Nigeria in the west and many other 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 African 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 of 'Arabs' even though the option of 'Afro-Arabs' is also available. Afro-Arabs within the Middle East itself are for the most part descendants of African slaves who were brought there during the arab slave trade.^[3]^[4]

East Africa hosts a significant Afro-Arab population, especially along the Swahili coast, such as in Zanzibar, Mombasa, Lamu, Malindi, the Comoros, Bagamoyo, and Ujiji.^[5]^[6]

The Darfur conflict is among Arabic and non-Arabic speaking black Africans of many ethnicities in Sudan.^[7]^[8]^[9]