Southern Arabian and African civilizations have been in contact since the obsidian-exchange networks of the seventh millennium BC. These networks were strengthened by the rise of the Egyptian dynasties of the fourth millennium BC. Researchers have indicated the possible settlement of people from Arabia in the Horn of Africa as early as the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC.[3]
The Afro-Arabian Tihama culture, which may have originated in Africa, began in the second millennium BC. This cultural complex is found in Africa, in countries such as Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan, as well as in neighbouring Yemen and the Saudi coastal plains.[3]
In the first millennium BC, Southern Arabians gained control of the Red Sea trade-routes and established the first kingdom of Yemen, Saba, in around 800 BC. As a result of Saba's influence, Eritrea and the north of Ethiopia were gradually incorporated into an area of Arabian influence. By 600 BC, the formation of the state of Daamat arose in Eritrea and in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Many inscriptions in the Sabaean script have been found.
Although the script is clearly identical to that in southern Arabia, most of the inscriptions reveal few elements, in language and its key features, or in custom, that were known in the origin area. Evidence of a pre-Sabaean Semitic language or a group of languages in Ethiopia during this period is apparent from lexical and morphological peculiarities found in its Sabaic inscriptions. These are not present in ancient inscriptions from southern Arabia. Despite initial interpretations suggesting a colonization of the highlands of Tigray and Eritrea by Sabaeans from the western side of the Red Sea, due to similarities in script, language, pantheon, and monuments with the South Arabian civilization, there is no factual indication of domination. There is no mention of control, dependency, or outposts identified on either side. The idea was dismissed in the 1950s and 1960s by some scholars who proposed that Sabaean presence was limited to the settlement of small groups, particularly stonemasons, as monumental inscriptions primarily mention stonework. The local features revealed in the inscriptions imply either an adaptation to local traditions or some form of influence. It appears that, if the Sabaeans did move to Ethiopia, they were integrated by the local population in the 8th century BC, and likely even earlier,[4].
After several centuries of isolation, the Kingdom of Aksum arose in 100 AD. This kingdom existed for 800 years and occupied southern Arabia for part of this period. Utilitarian Aksumite pottery has been found in large quantities in deposits from the 5th and 6th centuries in the Hadhramaut region of Yemen. This suggests that there may have been substantial immigration during that period.[citation needed]
Southern Arabia was a client state of the Aksumite kingdom throughout the sixth century. Himyarite inscriptions document an invasion of Mecca by an ambitious Aksumite general named Abraha (Tigrinya: አብርሃ) in the year 570 AD.[5] An early incident in Islamic Afro-Arab relations, known as the First Hijrah, (Arabic: الهجرة إلى الحبشة, al-hijra ʾilā al-habaša), was part of the early history of Islam. The first companions of the Prophet Muhammad (the Sahabah) fled from the persecution of the ruling Quraysh tribe of Mecca. They sought refuge in the Christian Kingdom of Aksum, in present-day Eritrea and northern Ethiopia (formerly referred to as Habesha land/Abyssinia, an ancient name whose origin is debated),[6] In 613 or 615 AD, the Aksumite monarch who received them is referred to as Ashama ibn Abjar or the Negus (Arabic: نجاشي, najāšī). Modern historians have alternatively identified him with King Armah and Ella Tsaham.[7]
Some of the companions later returned to Mecca and made the hijra to Medina with Muhammad, while others remained in Habesha land until they came to Medina in 628. The mosque they established is called the "Masjid aṣ-Ṣaḥābah". Located in the Eritrean city of Massawa, and dating to the early 7th century AD, it is believed to be the first mosque on the African continent.[8] Many companions settled there after Islam became established in the Arabian peninsula and the descendants of these companions still reside in the region.[citation needed]
From the 7th century onward Muslim communities were established along the coast of Eritrea and Somalia, subsequently spreading inland. The Arab slave trade, which began in pre-Islamic times but reached its 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 the Red Sea to Arabia. Millions more were taken from sub-Saharan Africa across the Sahara as part of the trans-Saharan slave trade.[9]
By around the first millennium AD, Persian traders established trading towns on what is now called the Swahili Coast,[10][11] which, between the tenth and twelfth centuries, became more Arabized.[12]
The Portuguese conquered these trading centers after the discovery of the Cape Road. From the 1700s to the early 1800s, Muslim forces of the Omani empire re-seized these market towns, mainly on the islands of Pemba and Zanzibar. In these territories, Arabs from Yemen and Oman settled alongside the local "African" populations, thereby spreading Islam and establishing Afro-Arab communities.[13] The Niger-CongoSwahili language and culture largely evolved through these contacts between Arabs and the native Bantu population.[14]
In North Africa, Arabs historically had close connections to native continental Africans.
↑ Iwona Gajda: Le royaume de Ḥimyar à l’époque monothéiste. L’histoire de l’Arabie ancienne de la fin du ive siècle de l’ère chrétienne jusqu’à l’avènement de l’Islam. Paris 2009, pp. 142–146.
↑ E. A. Wallis Budge (Aug 1, 2014). A History of Ethiopia: Volume I: Nubia and Abyssinia. Routledge. pp. vii.
↑ M. Elfasi, Ivan Hrbek (1988). Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century. UNESCO. p. 560.
↑ "Liste des premières mosquées au monde prophètique, rashidun et omeyyade selon les écris historique et les traces archéologiques". Histoire Islamique (in French). 2014-06-15. Retrieved 2017-09-24.
↑ Brielle, Esther; etal. (2023). "Entwined African and Asian genetic roots of medieval peoples of the Swahili coast". Nature. 615 (7954): 866–873. doi:10.1038/s41586-023-05754-w. PMC10060156. 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.
↑ Spear, Thomas (2000). "Early Swahili History Reconsidered". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 33 (2): 257–290. doi:10.2307/220649. JSTOR220649.
↑ Olsen, Poul Rovsing (1967). "La Musique Africaine dans le Golfe Persique" [African Music in the Persian Gulf]. Journal of the International Folk Music Council (in French). 19: 28–36. doi:10.2307/942182. JSTOR942182.
↑ "Gnawa Intangible Cultural Heritage". UNESCO. …ceremonies combining ancestral African practices, Arab-Muslim influences and native Berber cultural performances.
Maho M. Sebiane, «Le statut socio-économique de la pratique musicale aux Émirats arabes unis: la tradition du leiwah à Dubai», Chroniques yéménites, 14, 2007.[permanent dead link].
Oman is the site of pre-historic human habitation, stretching back over 100,000 years. The region was impacted by powerful invaders, including other Arab tribes, Portugal and Britain. Oman once possessed the island of Zanzibar on the east coast of Africa as a colony. Oman also held Gwadar as a colony for many years.
The history of Yemen describes the cultures, events, and peoples of what is one of the oldest centers of civilization in the Near East. Its relatively fertile land and adequate rainfall in a moister climate helped sustain a stable population, a feature recognized by the ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy, who described Yemen as Eudaimon Arabia meaning "fortunate Arabia" or "Happy Arabia". Yemenis had developed the South Arabian alphabet by the 12th to 8th centuries BC, which explains why most historians date all of the ancient Yemeni kingdoms to that era.
The Sabaeans or Sabeans were an ancient group of South Arabians. They spoke Sabaic, one of the Old South Arabian languages. They founded the kingdom of Sabaʾ in modern-day Yemen, which is considered to be the biblical land of Sheba and "the oldest and most important of the South Arabian kingdoms".
Dʿmt was a kingdom located in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia which existed between the 10th and 5th centuries BC. Few inscriptions by or about this kingdom survive and very little archaeological work has taken place. As a result, it is not known whether Dʿmt ended as a civilization before the Kingdom of Aksum's early stages, evolved into the Aksumite state, or was one of the smaller states united in the Kingdom of Aksum possibly around 150 BC.
Tippu Tip, or Tippu Tib, real name Ḥamad ibn Muḥammad ibn Jumʿah ibn Rajab ibn Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al Murjabī, was an Afro-Omani ivory and slave owner and trader, explorer, governor and plantation owner. He worked for a succession of the sultans of Zanzibar and was the Sultan of Uterera, a short-lived state in Kasongo, Maniema ruled by himself and his son Sefu who was an Emir with local WaManyema.
The Azd, or Al-Azd, are a tribe of ancient Arabs.
Najran, is a city in southwestern Saudi Arabia It is the capital of Najran Province. Designated as a new town, Najran is one of the fastest-growing cities in the kingdom; its population has risen from 47,500 in 1974 and 90,983 in 1992 to 246,880 in 2004 and 381,431 in 2021. The population mostly originates from the ancient tribes of Yām,
Habesha peoples is an ethnic or pan-ethnic identifier that has been historically employed to refer to Semitic-speaking and predominantly Oriental Orthodox Christian peoples found in the highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea between Asmara and Addis Ababa and this usage remains common today. The term is also used in varying degrees of inclusion and exclusion of other groups.
Marib is the capital city of Marib Governorate, Yemen. It was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Sabaʾ, which some scholars believe to be the ancient Sheba of biblical fame. It is about 120 kilometres east of Yemen's modern capital, Sanaa, and is in the region of the Sarawat Mountains. In 2005 it had a population of 16,794. However, in 2021, it had absorbed close to a million refugees fleeing the Yemeni Civil War.
Pre-Islamic Arabia, referring to the Arabian Peninsula before Muhammad's first revelation in 610 CE, is referred to in Islam in the context of jahiliyyah, highlighting the prevalence of paganism throughout the region at the time.
Ethiopians are the native inhabitants of Ethiopia, as well as the global diaspora of Ethiopia. Ethiopians constitute several component ethnic groups, many of which are closely related to ethnic groups in neighboring Eritrea and other parts of the Horn of Africa.
The ancient history ofYemen or South Arabia is especially important because it is one of the oldest centers of civilization in the Near East. Its relatively fertile land and adequate rainfall in a moister climate helped sustain a stable population, a feature recognized by the ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy, who described Yemen as Eudaimon Arabia meaning Fortunate Arabia or Happy Arabia. Between the eighth century BCE and the sixth century CE, it was dominated by six main states which rivaled each other, or were allied with each other and controlled the lucrative spice trade: Saba', Ma'īn, Qatabān, Hadhramaut, Kingdom of Awsan, and the Himyarite Kingdom. Islam arrived in 630 CE and Yemen became part of the Muslim realm.
Abyssinia was an ancient region in the Horn of Africa situated in the northern highlands of modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea. The term was widely used as a synonym for Ethiopia until the mid-20th century and primarily designates the Amhara, Tigrayan and Tigrinya inhabited highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea.
The Kingdom of Aksum also known as the Kingdom of Axum, or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom in East Africa and South Arabia from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages. Based in what is now northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, and spanning present-day Djibouti and Sudan, it extended at its height into much of South Arabia during the reign of Kaleb of Axum.
The Swahili coast is a coastal area of East Africa, bordered by the Indian Ocean and inhabited by the Swahili people. It includes Sofala ; Mombasa, Gede, Pate Island, Lamu, and Malindi ; and Dar es Salaam and Kilwa. In addition, several coastal islands are included in the Swahili coast, such as Zanzibar and Comoros.
Omanis are the nationals of Sultanate of Oman, located in the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. Omanis have inhabited the territory that is now Oman. In the eighteenth century, an alliance of traders and rulers transformed Muscat into the leading port of the Persian Gulf. Omani people are ethnically diverse; the Omani citizen population consists of many different ethnic groups. The majority of the population consists of Arabs, with many of these Arabs being Swahili language speakers and returnees from the Swahili Coast, particularly Zanzibar.
The Hadharem or the Hadhrami are an Arab sub-ethnic group indigenous to the Hadhramaut region in South Arabia, which is part of modern-day eastern Yemen. They speak Hadhrami Arabic. Among the two million inhabitants of Hadhramaut, there are about 1,300 distinct tribes.
The Shirazi also known as Mbwera, are a Bantu ethnic group inhabiting the Swahili coast and the nearby Indian ocean islands. They are particularly concentrated on the islands of Zanzibar, Pemba and Comoros.
Slavery existed in the area which was later to become Oman from antiquity until the 1970s. Oman was united with Zanzibar from the 1690s until 1856, and was a significant center of the Indian Ocean slave trade from Zanzibar in East Africa to the Arabian Peninsula and Iran, a central hub of the regional slave trade, which constituted a large part of its economy.
Afro-Saudis, also known as African Saudis and Black Saudis, are Saudi citizens of partial or full black African heritage. They are spread all around the country, but they are mostly found in the major cities of Saudi Arabia. Afro-Saudis speak Arabic and adhere to Islam. While some black Saudis descend from slaves brought through the Arab slave trade, the majority descend from Muslim pilgrims, primarily from West Africa, who settled in the cities of Mecca and Jeddah.
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Saudi Arabia 
