Khuzestani Arabs

Khuzestani Arabs are the largest Arab community in Iran which primarily reside in the southern half of the Khuzestan Province. This area is known as Ahwaz by the Arab community, and the capital of Khuzestan is Ahvaz.

Language

Main article: Khuzestani Arabic

Most Khuzestani Arabs are bilingual, speaking Arabic as their mother tongue and Persian as a second language.

Geography

Arabs are estimated to be scattered through 65% of the area of Khuzestan Province, which they share with Lurs, Bakhtiaris, Kowlis and Persian-speakers. Cities that have significant Arab population include Ahvaz, Khorramshahr, Abadan, Shadegan, Hoveyzeh and Susangerd.

Demographics

A 2010 survey found that Arabs constitute 33.6% of the population in Khuzestan Province, the largest nationwide

The Arab population in Khuzestan is "a hybrid race with a considerable infusion of Persian blood". P. J. C. Robertson, the British consul in Basra during the 1880s, observed that Khuzestani Arabs looked more like fellow Persian countrymen than Arabs on the other side of border in the Ottoman Empire. He wrote that Arabs in Khuzestan had adopted Iranian costumes, manners, ceremonious occasions, and even dress (with the exception of headgear).

Religion

While the majority of Arabs in Khuzestan follow Shia branch of Islam, there are also a few Sunni Muslims, Christians, Jews and Mandaeans.

Tribes

Tribalism is an significant characteristic of Arab population in Khuzestan. Although tribal bonds have been weakened during the 20th century, it is still regarded important. Societal units among Khuzestani Arabs include beyt (household or group of families), hamule (clan), ‘ashire (tribe), as well as tayefe and qabile (tribal confederacies).

According to John Gordon Lorimer, the most important Arab tribes at the turn of the 20th century were:

Transliterated name	Name in Arabic	Territory	Estimated population (1908)
Āl-e Kaṯīr	آل کثیر	Between Karkheh and Karun	8,000
Banū Lām	بنی لام	Between Karkheh and Iraq border	45,000
ʿAbd-al-Ḵān	عبدالخان	Near Kheyrabad on Karkheh	Unknown
Salāmāt	سلامة	East of Gargar between Ab Gonji and Haddam	1,600
Bayt-e Saʿd	بیت سعد	Both banks of Dez	14,100
ʿAnāfeǰa	عنافجة	Both banks of Dez, right bank of Karun	5,000
Ḥamayd	حمید	south of the territory of the ʿAnāfeǰa	6,000
Āl-e Bū Rawāya	آل بو رواية	around Ḡoreyba on Karkheh	700
Banū Ṭorof	بنی طرف	southern loop of Karkheh and Western marshes of Kūt Nahr Hāšem	20,000
ʿEkreš	عکرش	North of Ahvaz and between the city and Hoveyzeh	5,000
Ḥardān	حردان	West and north of Ahvaz and between the city and Hoveyzeh, right bank of Karun	2,500
Zarqān	زرقان	Northeast of Ahvaz	1,500
Banū Sāla	بنی سالة	Southwest of Ahvaz, Karkheh marshlands	15,000
Bāvīya	باویة	Bavi	20,000
Banū Tamīm	بنی تمیم	Between Hoveyzeh and Ahvaz toward the south	10,000
Āl Ḵamīs	آل خمیس	Southwest of Ramhormoz	2,500
Moḥaysen	محیسن	Between Karun and Iraq border	12,000
Banū Kaʿb	بنی کعب	Southeastern half of Abadan to Mahshahr	55,000
Šarīfāt	شریفات	Left bank of Jarahi	1,000
Qanawātī	قنواتی	Around Mahshahr	5,250

Genetic studies

See also: Genetic studies on Arabs

According to Farjadian and Ghaderi who had studied HLA class II allele and haplotype frequencies, Khuzestani Arabs might be genetically different from other Arabs and that their genetic affinity with other Iranian people "might be the result of their common ancestry". Hajjej et al. found that Khuzestani Arabs have close relatedness with Gabesians.

Discrimination allegations

According to Amnesty International, Ahwazi Arabs face discrimination by the authorities concerning politics, employment and cultural rights, whereas Iran completely rejects such accusations, and considers such charges exaggerated. There have also been many arrests of Ahwazi Arabs who have converted to Sunni Islam, which is considered a crime in Iran according to the British activist Peter Tatchell. Meanwhile, according to the Islamic Republic of Iran, there is no such crime or penalty in its law for converting to Sunnism.

The rise in conversion to Sunni Islam is partly a result of anti-Arab discrimination, the perceived crackdown on the Arab identity of the region and the view that Sunni Islam is closer to the Arab roots of the Ahwazi Arabs. According to the International Campaign for Sunni Prisoners in Iran (ICSPI), the crackdown is due to the Iranian government's alarm at "the rise of Sunni Islam among the Ahwazi Arabs in the traditionally Shia-majority Khuzestan province." As a result of these conversions, Sunni Arabs across the Middle East have increasingly shown support for the Ahwazi cause.

Politics

See also: Politics of Khuzestan Province and Arab separatism in Khuzestan

Foreign actors such as the United Kingdom and the Ba'athist Iraq tried to exploit and spread ethnic sentiments as a leverage. During Iran–Iraq War, Khuzestani Arabs rejected calls made by Saddam Hussein for siding with Iraq and resisted against his invasion.

According to Yadullah Shahibzadeh, when Mohammad Khatami took power in the late 1990s, "Arab activists in Khuzestan used the reform movement as a ticket to display the mobilizing capacity of the Arab politics of identity". 2003 Iranian local elections marked a victory for advocates of Arab identity politics in the southwest of Khuzestan province.

A few months later, the Islamic Reconciliation Party that championed defending the Arab community in Khuzestan, was split into two factions. The democratic faction that was committed to the reform movement and its democratization platform, and a traditional faction with radical Arab nationalist tendencies. The former faction that coordinated their activities with the Islamic Iran Participation Front, left the party and founded Al-Afaq Party resulting in the Arab nationalist faction dominating the Islamic Reconciliation Party. Arab politics of identity then became more radical and adopted a self-defeating strategy of political subjectivity that instead of "consolidating their status as Iranian citizens with full political and civil rights... challenged other groups who demanded equal rights for all citizens" and resulted in polarization of the local public sphere between Arabs and non-Arabs. By 2005 and the time Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office, Arab politics of identity ceased to exist as a local political force in Khuzestan province.

References

Sources

• Elling, Rasmus Christian (2013), Minorities in Iran: Nationalism and Ethnicity after Khomeini, Palgrave Macmillan US, doi:10.1057/9781137069795, ISBN 978-1-137-06979-5
• Farjadian, Shirin; Ghaderi, Abbas (2007). "HLA class II genetic diversity in Arabs and Jews of Iran". Iran J Immunol. 4 (2): 85–93. PMID 17652848.
• Hajjej, Abdelhafidh; Almawi, Wassim Y.; Arnaiz-Villena, Antonio; Hattab, Lasmar; Hmida, Slama (9 March 2018). "The genetic heterogeneity of Arab populations as inferred from HLA genes". PLOS ONE. 13 (3). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0192269. PMID 29522542.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
• Oberling, Pierre; Hourcade, Bernard (1986), "ʿARAB iv. Arab tribes of Iran", Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. II, pp. 215–220
• Shahnavaz, Shahbaz (2005), Britain and South-West Persia 1880-1914: A Study in Imperialism and Economic Dependence, Routledge, ISBN 9781138869776
• Shahibzadeh, Yadullah (2015), The Iranian Political Language: From the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present, Palgrave Macmillan New York, doi:10.1057/9781137536839, ISBN 978-1-137-53683-9