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Afro-Iraqis

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Afro-Iraqis

Afro-Iraqis are Iraqi people of African Zanj heritage. Historically, their population has been concentrated in the southern port city of Basra, as Basra was the capital of the slave trade in Iraq. Afro-Iraqis speak Arabic and mostly adhere to Islam. Some Afro-Iraqis can still speak Swahili along with Arabic.

Afro-Iraqi leaders claim that there are roughly between 500,000 and 1,500,000 Afro-Iraqis, however this is not verified by official figures. Their origins date back to the time of the Arab slave trade and slavery in Iraq between the 9th century AD to the 19th century AD.

Many are from the district of Zubair, descendants of the people who came to Iraq from East Africa. Some came as sailors, whereas others came as traders, immigrants, religious scholars, or enslaved people over the course of many centuries, beginning in the 9th century CE.

Arab myths[citation needed] agree that the Cushitic king Nimrod crossed from beyond the waters of East Africa in the earliest times with an army, and established a civilization. Many[which?] existing sites in Iraq are still named after Nimrod. The Quran does not mention Nimrod by name, but Arab stories about Nimrod have resulted in him being referenced as a tyrant in Muslim cultures.

Jewish tradition recounts the tale of King Nimrod as well. It is stated in the book of Genesis that Nimrod was a mighty hunter of great renown and the first to build cities over the face of the world. He ruled in Mesopotamia, which includes modern-day Iraq.

Because of the legendary Nimrod's Cushitic origin (often identified with the historical Kingdom of Kush in what is today southern Egypt and northern Sudan), many believe that Afro-Iraqis now living in areas are his literal descendents. This is unlikely to be literally true for all Afro-Iraqi citizens, as their presence in Iraq dates back only to the 9th century CE, whereas the Kingdom of Kush ended in the 6th century CE.

However Black Iraqis are the descendants of East African coastal Bantu peoples, likely the Swahili people, who were enslaved and brought to Iraq in the 9th century during the Arab slave trade to slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate to work on agricultural fields or as laborers. Although some African migrants came to Iraq as sailors and laborers the majority were brought as slaves in the 9th century. Chattel slavery continued for a thousands years, and African slaves were still trafficked to Ottoman Iraq in the 19th-century, being a part of slavery in the Ottoman Empire.

Officially, the import of slaves via the Indian Ocean slave trade of the Persian Gulf was prohibited by the Suppression of the slave trade in the Persian Gulf in January 1847. This was however a nominal prohibition, and the slave trade continued. Slavery in Iraq was formally banned in 1924, by royal decree issued by king Faisal I of Iraq.

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