User talk:Onset~enwiki/Arabs

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Origins

Ethnic groups in Iran

The Iranian Arab journalist Yusef Azizi Bani-Torof, in a speech given in 1999, claims that the historical ancestry of Khuzestani Arabs "goes back to 6 main tribes. They consider themselves to have sprung from a common ancestry and we see this in the Aalam al-Insab." Bani-Torof has also said that "the Arab people of Khuzestan are not Arabic-speakers. By that I mean they were not Persians, Kurds or Lurs who changed their language to Arabic and are now referred to as Arab-speakers." [1]

According to the Encyclopedia Iranica, Arab tribes such as the Bakr bin Wael and Bani Tamim began settling in Khuzestan sometime during the Sassanid era. During the Umayyad period, large groups of Arab nomads from the Hanifa, Tamim, and Abd al-Qays tribes crossed the Persian Gulf and occupied some of the richest Basran territories around Ahvaz and in Fars during the second Islamic civil war in 661-665/680-684 A.D.(see Encyclopaedia Iranica, p.215, under Arab Tribes of Iran). In 10th century CE, an Arab tribe named Asad moved into Khuzestan(see Encyclopaedia Iranica, p.216). In the latter part of the 16th century, the Bani Kaab, originating from what is now Kuwait, settled in Khuzestan and during the succeeding centuries many more Arab tribes moved from southern Iraq to the province, and as a result, Khuzestan became "extensively Arabized." (see J.R. Perry, "The Banu Ka'b: An Amphibious Brigand State in Khuzestan", Le Monde Iranien et L'Islam I, 1971, p133) Also see Khuzestan#The Arab Conquest of Khuzestan.

Ahmad Kasravi writes in The Forgotten Kings that the "Arabs immigration to Iran postdates that of to Syria and Iraq, what is certain and there is proof for, is that the date of that immigration is centuries before Islam, and from the early days of the Sassanid. In the Parthian era the gates of Iran were open to the Arabs ... but it is certain and there is proof for it that during the Parthian era Arab tribes were living in provinces of Kerman, Khuzestan, Bahrain and Fars." [2]

Arab rule

Local Arab rule in Khuzestan began during the middle of the 15th century under the Msha'sha'iya, a Shi'a sect founded and first led by Muhammad ibn Falah (1400-1461), an Iraqi theologian who believed himself to be the earthly representative of Imam Ali and the Mahdi. Falah and his followers captured the city of Hoveizeh in 1441, which became his primary base of ideological dissemination. His spiritual teachings were later set down in the text, Kalam al-Mahdi. The Arab population in western Khuzestan thereafter began increasing significantly, and the region thus came to be referred to as Arabistan. By the time of Mozaffareddin Shah, the name Arabistan had come to completely refer to all of Khuzestan (also see Origin of the name Khuzestan#Arabistan), as ibn Falah and his son, Ali ibn Muhammad Msha'sha'iya, increased their influence over the area, including Lorestan, Kohgiluyeh, Kermanshah, Bahrain and southern Iraq.

Beginning in the 16th century, the Bani Kaab, an Arab tribe originating from what is now Kuwait, came to settle in western Khuzestan. By the mid-18th century, they dominated much of the area. After Nader Shah's death in 1747, they refused to pay taxes to the Persian and Ottoman empires alike, blockading the Arvand/Shatt al-Arab and attacking Basra; Karim Khan Zand, the Ottoman army, and the British East India Company all responded by attacking them in the 1760s. However, following the death of their strongest leader, Sheikh Salman, the tribe declined.

In 1837, the city of Mohammarah, the center of a local sheikhdom, was taken and in 1847 the Second Treaty of Erzurum between the Ottomans and Iran, confirmed it and all territory on the east bank of the Arvand/Shatt al-Arab as Iranian. Sheikh Jabir al-Kaabi, the Sheikh of Mohammerah, effectively became a provincial ruler under the command of Nassereddin Shah Qajar, the Shah of Persia. Under orders from the Shah, Sheikh Jabir fought the British to maintain Iranian sovereignty over the region. Upon Sheikh Jabir's death, his son, Sheikh Maz'al, succeeded him as tribal leader and Sheikh of Mohammerah. He strengthened and expanded commercial and political ties with Tehran. In 1897, Maz'al was murdered (some accounts state he was assassinated) by his brother, Sheikh Khaz'al Khan, who then not only assumed the position of Kaabide tribal leadership, but also proclaimed himself the ruler of the entire province. This was soon accepted by the Qajar court of Tehran, and his position as Sheikh was made official.

The rest of the province (the eastern and northern regions) remained dominated by Bakhtiari Khans, Lur tribal leaders, and Persian groups. Several of the Bakhtiari Khans, in particular, had entered into alliances with Khaz'al.

The Pahlavi era

When British cartographers, diplomats, and telegraph workers, traveled along Iran's southern coast in the early 19th century laden with guns and accompanied by powerful ships, some local chieftains quickly calculated that their sworn allegiance to the Shah in Tehran with its accompanying tax burden might be optional. When queried, they proclaimed their own local authority.

By 1925 however, having dissolved the Qajar dynasty and establishing himself as the new Shah of Iran, Reza Shah had the Arab chieftain Sheikh Khaz'al arrested, who had by this time lost the support and protection of the British colonialists. Khaz'al was sent to Tehran and spent the rest of his life there under house arrest until his death in 1936. It is said that he did not die of natural causes, but was murdered by a low-level guard on the orders of Reza Shah. The areas which had comprised his emirate were returned to the province, and the name of Mohammerah was changed to Khorramshahr, while Naseriyeh reverted to Ahvaz.

Reza Shah then embarked upon an overall campaign to forcibly settle all the nomads of Iran among others the Arab, Bakhtiari, and Luri nomadic tribes of southwestern Iran. This created great resentment amongst tribal leaders who viewed such actions as an attempt to suppress and destroy their cultures and way of life. Reza Shah countered their arguments by claiming that some of these nomadic tribes were dangerous and had engaged in criminal activities such as highway robbery and banditry. The Lurs, in particular, were considered to be one of the fiercest Iranian tribes. Similar claims were used to justify actions taken against the Baluch tribes of eastern Iran. These initial attempts by the central government to settle the nomadic peoples were ultimately unsuccessful, as when the era of Reza Shah ended, many of the tribes returned to their nomadic ways. Under the reign of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, attempts were again made to settle these tribes using less forceful methods and which met with greater success.

In addition to the nomadic issue, Reza Shah had also promoted an aggressive campaign to bring the whole of Iran into the modern age, and to accomplish this it was felt that the entire nation would have to be brought under a single cultural and linguistic banner. Persian language and modern dialect were stressed over minority languages such as Azeri, Baluchi, Khuzestani Arabic and Kurdish, and over distinct Persian dialects such as Bakhtiari, Behbahani, Dezfuli, Luri, and Shushtari. The Arabs of southern Iran were, in particular, singled out by the Pahlavi governments for increased scrutiny in these efforts, which they widely considered as constituting evidence of state-sponsored racism and cultural suppression. As with other Iranian ethnic groups, the Arabs of Iran wished to retain not only their Iranian identity, but also the identity of their own distinct languages, cultures and heritage, though in recent decades increased migration to the urban centres and assimilation into Persian culture has tended to reduce these sentiments.

Iran-Iraq War

In 1980, Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator, tried to take advantage of the revolution in Iran. Gambling that the new government would be too weak to resist him, and that the Arabic-speaking minority of Khuzestan would support Iraq, his armies invaded Khuzestan, initiating the Iran-Iraq war. He was proved wrong when the Iranians successfully defended the province, and the Arab minority remained firmly with Iran. Around 16,000 Khuzestanis died fighting in the war, 12,000 of them Arabs. The brutal eight-year-long war devastated Khuzestan, most especially the important port city of Khorramshahr, and the province is still recovering.

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Khuzestani Arab refugees in Iraq

A report on Iraq published by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in November 2005 drew attention to the plight of Khuzestani Arab refugees in Iraq. [3] The report says that there are around 2,500 Arab refugees in Iraq, most of whom fled the Iran-Iraq War. According to the UNHCR, "... they are predominantly of rural background, and live in local settlements in southern Iraq near the Dujailah area 45 kilometres west of al-Kut."

The refugees had been given land and housing by the regime of Saddam Hussein, but after his downfall in 2003 they were made homeless after being attacked by extremist Arab militias allied to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), an Iraqi Shi'a party supported by the Iranian government. According to the UNHCR, around 80 Khuzestani Arab families were forced out of their homes by opponents of Saddam Hussein and have been relocated to the UNHCR transit centre near Basra. The UNHCR report states that "they were later evacuated by the Iraqi authorities and ever since have been scattered throughout the southern governorates. Many attempted to return to Iran, but came back to Iraq due to alleged harassment by the Iranian authorities and difficulties reintegrating following years in exile."

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Demographics of Khuzestan

The Khuzestani population is predominantly divided between Arabic and Persian speaking groups. How much of the population is ethnically Arab and Arabic-speaking no one knows for certain, and definitions and estimates are often disputed, as the Iranian central government does not release any ethnic-related census figures. According to the 2004 CIA World Factbook, Iranian Arabs comprise 3% of the overall population, while Arabic-speakers comprise 1%.

The Minorities At Risk (MAR) project states that there are approximately 690,000 Bakhtiaris in Iran, most of them centered in the provinces of Khuzestan and Isfahan.

According to Human Rights Watch,

Precise figures on the ethnic composition of Iran's population are impossible to obtain. The last census in which such data was compiled was carried out in 1956. [4]

Amir Taheri reports that less than 40% of the province's population are ethnic Arab. [5]

Iranian Arab journalist and writer Yusef Azizi Bani-Torof, in a lecture at the Industrial University of Isfahan in 1999, claims that

the population of Arabs in southwestern Iran is 4,548,240. And the ratio to Iran's total population is: 4,548,240/65,000,000 = 6.997%. [6]

The Arab population of Khuzestan is concentrated in the west and south of the province, with Arabs as the largest ethnic group in Abadan, Ahwaz, Khorramshahr, Omidiyeh, Bandar-e-Mahshahr, Dasht-e-Azadagan, Shadegan and Shush.[7] These concentrations are in areas where fishing, settled agriculture, date orchards and trade have traditionally provided a living. Other districts in the province also have significant Arab populations, although the proportion of Arabs to non-Arabs diminishes towards the north and east of the province, where the once nomadic Bakhtiari and Lur tribes are more populous.

Since the discovery of oil in 1909, the structure of the economy has shifted to oil-related industries, attracting other ethnic groups from outside the province as well as foreigners. The Iran-Iraq War also had an impact on the province's ethnic composition, with thousands of Arabs leaving the country as refugees and non-Arab indigenous groups fleeing the fighting for sanctuary in other parts of Iran. Khorramshahr, where the fighting was at its fiercest after the Iraqi invasion, was emptied and the city was almost completely destroyed by invading forces. Since the end of the war, many former Khuzestan residents and their families have return to the province, although many of the province's Arabs have settled in Iraq, Kuwait and the UAE. The province has also seen a number of controversial government migration programmes, including land confiscations, which local ethnic groups claim have disadvantaged them and forced them to relocate to other parts of the province or other Iranian provinces.

New townships have been constructed, but many new homes are being populated by people from non-Khuzestani ethnic groups, particularly Persians and Azeris, who are employed by local industries.

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