Are there Black people from Iraq?

Question

Are there Black people from Iraq?

Answer 1

There are Black people all over the Middle East. They have been used as slaves for thousands of years. They view themselves are Middle Eastern usually and not as African. Many light-skinned Arabs have black genetics.

Answer 2

It was in early Iraq where the largest African slave rebellions occurred. Here, well over a millennium ago, were gathered tens of thousands of East African slave laborers called Zanj. These Africans, from Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Malawi and Zanzibar (an island off the coast of mainland Tanzania that gave the Zanj their name) and other parts of East Africa, worked in the humid salt marshes of Southern Iraq in conditions of extreme misery. Laboring in terrible, humid conditions, "the Zanj workers dug up layers of topsoil and dragged away tons of earth to plant labor-intensive crops like sugarcane on the less saline soil below. Fed scant portions of flour, semolina and dates, they were constantly in conflict with the Iraqi slave system."

Conscious of their large numbers and oppressive working conditions the Zanj rebelled on at least three occasions between the seventh and ninth centuries. The largest of these rebellions lasted for fifteen years, from 868 to 883, during which time the Africans inflicted defeat after defeat upon the Arab armies sent to suppress their revolt. This rebellion is known historically as the "Revolt of the Zanj" or the "Revolt of the Blacks."

It is significant to point out that the Zanj forces were rapidly augmented by large-scale defections of Black soldiers under the employ of the Abbassid Caliphate at Baghdad. The rebels themselves, hardened by many years of brutal treatment, repaid their former masters in kind, and are said to have been responsible for great massacres in the areas that came under their sway.

At its height the Zanj revolt spread as far as Iran and advanced to within seventy miles of Baghdad itself. The Zanj even built their own capital, called Moktara (the Elect City), which covered a large area and flourished for several years. They even minted their own currency and actually dominated Southern Iraq. The Zanj rebellion was ultimately only suppressed with the intervention of large Arab armies and the lucrative offer of amnesty and rewards to any rebels who might choose to surrender.

http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/iraq.html

In Iraq, Bantu-speaking Africans were called Zanj. The large number of Zanj slaves working in harsh conditions in Iraq lead to the famous Zanj Rebellion over a period of fifteen years (869-883 AD). African rebels occupied many of Iraq's cities forcing Arabs to flee to African nations such as Kenya, Somalia, and Tanzania. Today someone of African and Arab descent is considered Afro-Arab.

http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Blasian

Enter the words "black," "city" and "fuel" into the search engine of the American psyche and you'll conjure up the image of a Chevron station in Detroit. But add a historical element into the equation and you come up with Basra, Iraq.

Recently, Iraq's delegation to OPEC gleefully reported that 2.1 million barrels of crude oil were flowing from the Basra wells daily. The city's contemporary significance centers around its oil production; historically, though, the city was a commercial and governmental center that rivaled Baghdad for wealth and influence. It is also home to the little-discussed populations of black Iraqis.

Thirty years of black and Diaspora studies have shed light on the scale, intensity and impact of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade -- the 400-year traffic of Africans between the continent, Europe and the colonies of the alleged new world. Less attention has been paid, though, to the millennium-long slave trade that scattered African slaves throughout present-day Iraq, Turkey, Kuwait, Iran, Pakistan and India. Emerging European capitalism and the labor requirements of cash crops like sugar, cotton and tobacco drove the Trans-Atlantic trade; the Trans-Saharan trade, which flourished from the eighth century AD through the 1840s, brought African labor to the hazardous enterprises of pearl diving, date farming and the raw, brutal work of clearing Iraqi salt marshes. African boys were commonly castrated to serve as eunuch guards of royal harems. Unlike those who were enslaved in the West, however, blacks enslaved in the Arabic-speaking world also served as guards, sailors and high-ranking soldiers. In the 19th century, Basra was one of the most profitable slave ports in the region, commonly offering slave traders as much as 50% returns upon their "investments."

There has been a black presence in Basra -- present-day Southern Iraq -- as early as the 7th century, when Abu Bakra, an Ethiopian soldier who had been manumitted by the prophet Muhammad himself, settled in the city. His descendants became prominent members of Basran society. A century later, the writer Jahiz of Basra wrote an impassioned defense of black Africans -- referred to in Arabic as the Zanj -- against accusations of inferiority which had begun to take root even then.

http://www.alternet.org/story/17339/

Answer 3

yes there is but with very small percentage

like less than 1%

Answer 4

hi

all Arabs are black  and it's not limited to Iraq

but in spite of "Alea S "belief, all middle east people are not black

we(Persians)are white.but not all the people live in Iran are white like the people live in khozestan and Kurdistan(two city near Iraq).

Answer 5

.......of course and they are the natives of Iraq