Afro-Iranians

File:Oil painting on canvas. ‘An Afro-Iranian Soldier’, Iran, Isfahan; last quarter of the 17th century.jpg of an African soldier in Safavid Iran. Created in Isfahan in the last quarter of the 17th century, the figure was most likely a slave soldier in Safavid Iran's musketeer corps]]

The Indian Ocean slave trade was multi-directional and changed over time. To meet the demand for menial labor, enslaved black people who were captured by Arab slave traders were sold in cumulatively large numbers over centuries to; the Persian Gulf, Egypt, Arabia, India, the Far East, the Indian Ocean islands and Ethiopia.Gwyn Campbell, The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia, 1 edition, (Routledge: 2003), p.ix

Others came as immigrants throughout many millennia or from Portuguese slave traders who occupied most of the contested Ormus's Bandar Abbas, Hormoz and Qeshm island ports in southern Iran by early 16th century.{{Cite web |date=2018-03-27 |title=Recalling Africa's harrowing tale of its first slavers – The Arabs |url=https://newafricanmagazine.com/16616/ |access-date=2022-05-24 |website=New African Magazine}}Tazmini, Ghoncheh. {{Cite journal |date=2017-03-01 |title=The Persian–Portuguese Encounter in Hormuz: Orientalism Reconsidered |url= https://doi.org/10.1080/00210862.2016.1263542 |journal=Association for Iranian Studies|doi=10.1080/00210862.2016.1263542 |last1=Tazmini |first1=Ghoncheh |volume=50 |issue=2 |pages=271–292 |hdl=10071/15719 |hdl-access=free }} (Cambridge University Press: 1 January 2022), vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 284. Retrieved 6 March 2023.

During Qajar rule, many wealthy households imported Black African women and children to perform domestic work alongside Eastern European Circassian slaves. This was largely drawn from the Zanj, who were Bantu-speaking peoples that lived alongside Southeast Africa.F.R.C. Bagley et al., The Last Great Muslim Empires, (Brill: 1997), p.174 In an area roughly comprising modern-day Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawi.Bethwell A. Ogot, Zamani: A Survey of East African History, (East African Publishing House: 1974), p.104 Under British pressure, Mohammad Shah Qajar issued a firman suppressing slave trade in 1848.{{Cite web |url=http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/files/38508/12480962345Disputed_Freedom.pdf/Disputed%2BFreedom.pdf |title=UNESCO: Fugitive Slaves, Asylum and Manumission in Iran (1851 – 1913) |access-date=13 April 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150329120422/http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/files/38508/12480962345Disputed_Freedom.pdf/Disputed%2BFreedom.pdf |archive-date=29 March 2015 |url-status=dead }}

==Notable Afro-Iranians==

• Abdolreza Barzegari, footballer
• Abdul Karim Farhani, Iranian Shia cleric, Assembly of Experts member
• Ali Firouzi, footballer and coach
• Mehrab Shahrokhi, footballer
• Mohammad Ali Mousavi Jazayeri, Iranian Shia cleric, Assembly of Experts member (Afro-Ahwazi Arab)
• Shanbehzadeh Ensemble, Iranian folk band
• Dennis Walker, footballer of Afro-Iranian descent, first black player to play for Manchester United{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/oct/30/dennis-walker-manchester-united-first-and-only-black-busby-babe |title=Dennis Walker: Manchester United's first and only black Busby Babe |last1=Hern |first1=Bill|last2=Gleave |first2=David |date=30 October 2020 |website=theguardian.com|access-date=31 October 2020}}

{{Portal|Iran|Africa}}

• Afro-Asians
• Zanj
• Siddi, people of Zanj descent in Pakistan and India.
• Shirazi people, Bantu inhabiting the Swahili coast.
• Afro-Arabs
• Afro-Turks
• Slavery in Iran
• Haji Firuz, fictional blackface character in Iranian folklore.

• Ehsaei, Mahdi (2015) [http://www.afro-iran.com/ "Afro-Iran"], Heidelberg: Kehrer Verlag, {{ISBN|978-3-86828-655-7}}
• {{citation|last=Khosronejad|first=Pedram|year=2018|title=Unveiling the Veiled: Royal Consorts, Slaves and Prostitutes in Qajar Photographs.|journal=Exhibition Catalogue|pages=44 pp}} [https://www.amazon.com/Unveiling-Veiled-Consorts-Prostitutes-Photographs/dp/1727627199/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540507219&sr=1-3&refinements=p_27%3APedram+Khosronejad/ "Unveiling the Veiled"]
• {{citation|last=Khosronejad|first=Pedram|year=2018|title=Re-imagining Iranian African Slavery: photography as material Culture.|journal=Exhibition Catalogue|pages=24 pp}} [https://www.amazon.com/Re-imagining-Iranian-African-Slavery-photography/dp/1720395489/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540507219&sr=1-4&refinements=p_27%3APedram+Khosronejad/ "Re-imagining Iranian African Slavery: photography as material Culture"]
• {{citation|last=Khosronejad|first=Pedram|year=2017|title=Qajar African Nannies: African Slaves and Aristocratic Babies.|journal=Visual Studies of Modern Iran|volume=1|pages=70 pp}} [https://www.amazon.com/Qajar-African-Nannies-Aristocratic-Studies/dp/0999480103/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540507219&sr=1-5&refinements=p_27%3APedram+Khosronejad/ "Qajar African Nannies"]
• {{citation|last=Khosronejad|first=Pedram|year=2016|title=Out of Focus, Photography of African Slavery in Qajar Iran.|journal=The Anthropology of the Contemporary Middle East and Central Eurasia |volume=4|pages=1–31}} [https://www.acmejournal.org/index.php/ACME/ "Out of Focus, Photography of African Slavery in Qajar Iran"]
• {{citation|last=Khosronejad|first=Pedram|year=2016|title=Photography of African Slavery in Iran.|journal=The Guardian|pages=Interview of Dr. Louise Siddons, Associate Professor of Art History (Department of Art, Oklahoma State University) with Dr. Pedram Khosronejad}} [https://vimeo.com/166420228/ "Photography of African Slavery in Iran"]
• {{citation|last=Khosronejad|first=Pedram|year=2016|title=The face of African slavery in Qajar Iran – in pictures.|journal=The Guardian}}[https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2016/jan/14/african-slavery-in-qajar-iran-in-photos /"The face of African slavery in Qajar Iran – in pictures"]
• {{cite journal |last1=Korn |first1=Agnes |last2=Nourzaei |first2=Maryam |title=Notes on the speech of the Afro-Baloch of the southern coast of Iran |journal=Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society |date=2019 |volume=29 |issue=4 |pages=623–657 |doi=10.1017/S1356186319000300}}
• {{citation|last=Lee|first=Anthony A.|year=2012|title=Enslaved African Women in Nineteenth-Century Iran: The Life of Fezzeh Khanom of Shiraz.|journal=Iranian Studies|volume=45|issue=3|pages=417–437|doi=10.1080/00210862.2011.637769|s2cid=162036760}}
• {{citation|last=Mirzai|first=B. A.|year=2002|title=African presence in Iran: Identity and its reconstruction in the 19th and 20th centuries|journal=Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer|volume=89|pages=336–337}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Tazmini |first1=Ghoncheh |title=The Persian–Portuguese Encounter in Hormuz: Orientalism Reconsidered |journal=Iranian Studies |date=March 2017 |volume=50 |issue=2 |pages=284 |doi=10.1080/00210862.2016.1263542 |hdl=10071/15719 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/iranian-studies/article/persianportuguese-encounter-in-hormuz-orientalism-reconsidered/6062AE42222140A87E74539C60C86507|hdl-access=free }}

{{Reflist}}

• [http://www.afroiranianlives.com/ Afro-Iranian Lives] (a documentary film by: Behnaz Mirzai)
• [http://www.afro-iran.com/ Afro-Iran] (an ethnographic photography project and book by: Mahdi Ehsaei)
• [https://www.academia.edu/34355545/Afro-Iranians_through_the_Lens_of_Documentarists/ Afro-Iranians through the Lens of Documentarists] (Review of Behnaz Mirzais' documentaries by: Pedram Khosronejad)
• [https://www.academia.edu/35256911/Mirzai_Behnaz_A._A_History_of_Slavery_and_Emancipation_in_Iran_1800_1929_Reviewed_by_Pedram_Khosronejad/ A History of Slavery and Emancipation in Iran, 1800–1929] (Review of Behnaz Mirzai's Book by: Pedram Khosronejad)

{{Ethnic groups in Iran}}

{{Immigration from Africa}}

Category:African diaspora in Asia

Category:Ethnic groups in Iran

Category:Afro-Asians

Category:People of African descent

Category:African diaspora in the Middle East

Category:Arab ethnic groups