Organising Resistance: Women of African origin in the SWANA and South Asia

An orginal version of this article was published in Women in Islam Journal.

When Tanzeela Qambrani was elected to local government in 2018, her success was a crucial win for African origin people across SWANA and South Asia. Qambrani is a Sheedi: a person of African descent whose ancestors were brought to the SWANA and South Asia. Her very name denotes her origin. Qambrani, a linguistic descendant of Qambar (an enslaved man freed by Ali the fourth Caliph), is a common moniker in Sheedi communities .

Tunisian Parliamentarian Jamia Ksiksi of the Ennahda party.

Not only is she the first person of African descent to be elected to this position in South Asia, but she joins a small number of people across SWANA and South Asia elevated to political office. Her counterpart in Tunisia, Jamila Ksiksi, was voted into the Assembly in the post-revolution election of 2014. Despite being part of an underrepresented minority, these women have joined a long legacy of women in leadership positions.

Ethnic groups of African descent are often marginalised. Racism towards Africans has historical roots that stem from centuries of localised stereotypes. In countries where racism and class discrimination are still barriers to success, they are often barred from educational opportunities, relying instead on agricultural work and other low-income occupations.

Today, these groups are described as Siya (‘black’), abeed (‘slave’), Afro-Turks, Bandaris, Siddis, Sheedis and other names, depending on the location.  But everywhere they retain a clear narrative of African origin, and many take pride in oral histories passed down through families for centuries. Tanzeela Qambrani, for example, traces her lineage to Tanzania. For families like hers, they still retain cultural practices from East Africa.

This prejudice is further compounded by a new wave of free African migration. New immigrants from Africa have migrated to the SWANA and India to pursue education and economic opportunities in recent decades.  Unfairly associated with criminality and job theft, this has created a layer of xenophobic antagonism towards all people of African origin. 

Qambrani also represents the intersectional dimensions of discrimination - women like her experience gender inequality in addition to this racial prejudice. Furthermore, in countries that often prefer lighter skin tones, women are disbarred from favourable marriage and job prospects as they become victims of colourism. 

Across the region, men usually fill the roles reserved for people of ethnic or religious minorities. In Iraq, for example, there is little support for African-Iraqis to be recognised as a group deserving legal status - such as Armenians and Turkmens - so they are left without any political representation. The Iraq Freedom Party (which represented Black Iraqis) was even disbanded after the assassination of their leader.  In Palestine, African-Palestinians are doubly disenfranchised both by the Israeli Occupation and by their skin colour. 

Yet women like Qambrani – and their African legacy - continue to shape the SWANA and the wider world beyond. Their communities preserve a precious heritage and also influence broader culture, even as their origins are denied. Their influence plays an important role in spirituality and music; they are transmitters of knowledge and storytellers of lives lived hundreds of years ago.

Origins: Two Thousand Years of History

Merchants, sailors, and royalty from Africa have travelled throughout the SWANA and South Asia for at least two thousand years. Whether for pilgrimage or for business, they settled in new lands, built families, forged transnational networks of commerce, and curated houses of intellectual production. 

Slavery, however, was a prominent feature in the pre-modern period. Driven by the need for cheap labour and by the cultural clout of owning an African slave, enslaved peoples were transported for months, sometimes years, across deserts and seas where they suffered physical and sexual abuse during and after this transport. When they arrived, they were stripped of their language and culture and forcibly assimilated into new religions and cultures.

In the SWANA and parts of South Asia, it was considered permissible to enslave East Africans due to their non-Muslim background, and even those who were Muslims (such as Somalis, some Sudanese, and people from the Swahili coast) were viewed as idolaters and exempt from protection.  

The racist stereotype of Africans as savages and in need of education was a prevalent attitude: one not dissimilar to how Europeans rationalised the slavery of Africans in the Americas. In the eyes of the masters, by enslaving Africans and transporting them to the empires of the SWANA and South Asia, they were brought to enlightenment.

Resistance to Empires

In the Ottoman, Qajar, and Mughal Empires, men were forced to perform a range of tasks - from the manual labour of date-picking to the translation of commercial documents. Some used their talents to reach positions of power; one Habeshi (Ethiopian) slave named Malik Ambar even became Regent of the Deccan Empire in Southern India in the late 16th century.  

Other young boys were less lucky. Some were forcibly castrated before the age of 12 and re-designated to a third gender, permitting them to work in both male and female private spaces. These eunuchs were also instructed in a variety of subjects and carried out clerical work for their masters; in the Ottoman, South Asian and Qajar Empires they were the architects of state and had direct access to the ruler. The more powerful eunuch's could command private armies and it was often muttered by jealous rivals that these men would have the last word with the Sultan over important decisions.

Enslaved women were sold into private households of various class backgrounds. Here, Ethiopian and Somali women were the most coveted; this hierarchy was reflected in their purchase price, which was higher than other African ethnic groups. In the household, their duties included cleaning, attending to the women and children as nannies and maids, and sexual exploitation. There is evidence that they were prized for their storytelling and musical abilities; Baroness Haleh Afshah (an Iranian-born member of the British House of Lords), confirms in her memoirs that a previously enslaved woman in her household would recite a version of the Iliad from memory. 

Yet with any story of suffering there is a similar tale of resistance. The Zanj Rebellion of 869-883 in Iraq is the most famous, when East African slaves led a revolt against the Abbasid Caliphate in protest against intolerable conditions on the salt flats of central Iraq. However it is the stories of how women resisted that remain absent. We have some glimpses of their work. In the Ottoman Empire, women would petition judges for their freedom, even writing to local newspapers about their plight. Through police records, there was an incident recorded of a young African girl who set her traffickers house alight in Izmit. Though we do not know of her fate, it was hinted that she worked with other African woman in the neighbourhood to win her freedom. This action was mirrored in Iran, where they would reject their masters’ demands and run away, gathering in homes of free women of African descent for protection. Haji Naneh was one such woman who set up a home to help other women.

“The wind that is present wherever the music is heard” 

The Rabbit Seller, Istanbul circa 1900.

The role of women in spiritual practises can most clearly be seen in the Zar ceremonies of southern Iran. Zar originates in Ethiopia and East Africa, and as it migrated it mixed with Shi’ite and Sufi rituals. Here people gather in praise to sing, clap and play instruments to welcome a celestial wind, the Dingomaro. A critically acclaimed film of the same name by director Kamran Heidari showcases the leader of the group, Zar-Mama. She alone knows when the wind will come, and her followers wait patiently for her signal.

In Ottoman Turkey, women would hold lodges to practice Zar - also known as Bori - where they used traditional medicines that included Sufi elements. They could either heal or curse,  gift fertility or ruin, love or loss. So renowned were their abilities that people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds from across the empire would visit their communes for their services. Leaders of this organisations were called Godiyas or Kolbashi. These women were so notorious in the late 19th century that they were kicked out of Istanbul 3 times!

Furthermore, in Ottoman Crete and Anatolia, African women would lead religious processions. In Polycarp, the local shrine to a Christian saint was also visited by Muslims, and the local Afro-Turkish community incorporated their own traditions of music, drumming, and dancing before ending the day by slaughtering a calf. (Today, the Dana Bayam festival still takes place every year in the first week of May.) These women would also handle their own economic enterprises, as peddlers or working as domestic staff.

Drumbeats across the ocean

Music and dance is an essential part of the heritage of these communities; the unique rhythms of East Africa have travelled across continents. Melodies and beats from the Horn of Africa are still heard in modern Turkey, Iran, India, and Pakistan, and the similarities to modern music are astounding. 

The famous Turkish singer Esmeray, herself an Afro-Turk, released a song called “13.5”. Her lyrics speak with pride of her origins and use pronounced drum beats (though, confusingly, she refers to herself as ‘Arab’). 

In the 1970s, Bandari music (a funk-based genre evolving from African-Iranian folk music) filtered into mainstream and was one of the most popular sounds in Iran. In a country where just a hundred years ago African Iranians had to enter the mosque through a separate door due to racial prejudice, this music raised the profile of the African diaspora. 

Women have been instrumental in preserving these cultural facets, either in private familial settings or as part of larger religious ceremonies.

Organising in the 21st Century: Politics and Creativity

People of African descent still struggle for equality in Middle and South Asian countries. From daily acts of microaggressions to serious physical violence, their safety is often at risk. Their ‘Blackness’/ ‘Africaness’ denotes them as ‘other’, and they are frequently accused of being foreigners in a country where they are indigenous or their ancestors were forcibly relocated. Moreover, their enslaved origins create a class demarcation that is not tangibly transcended, even through increasing economic success. 

Tanzeela Qaambrani, Member of the Provincial Assembly of Sindh. Photo: Daily Messenger.

Women, facing discrimination on the grounds of gender, lineage and ethnicity, have an uphill battle. The spirit of such activism is alive today: not only kept alive by individuals like Tanzeela Qambrani but also living on in grassroots organisations seeking official recognition for their ethnic groups. These groups are most commonly organised by women.

Maha Abdelhamid of Femmes Tunisiennes Noires is a activist in Tunisia combatting Anti-Blackness and and is one of many women at the forefront of anti racist movements in the Arabic speaking world.  Her counterpart in Morocco, Houda of Black Women Bil Arabi, has establish a creative network to celebrate the beauty of Blackness in the Mehgreb and the larger Arabic speaking world.

When Amuna Ali set up Black Arabs Collective, it was initially design to connect Black business’ in the UAE, but has grown into a expansive platform to combat racism. Clubhouses and workshops are being schedule in order to provide a voice for marginalised communities. Connecting the Iranian diaspora and forging conversations in Iran is the Collective for Black Iranians, a women led movement committed to storytelling and centring Black voices.

The creativeness of these groups, using animation, art, film and other modes of expression that have added an exciting layer to this exchange of ideas. We also see this advocacy when news anchors Randa Abd Al Aziz in Iraq and Dalia Ahmed in Lebanon fight for their seat at the table against racist trolls. These are just a few examples of the scores of women across both regions who are organising their local communities and wider political spaces.

It is women of African ancestry who have played vital roles as custodians of culture, yet go unremembered. Displaced African women gathered fragments to create anew, even though their legacies still remain in the shadows. Black women of this generation are carrying on the work by creating digital collectives, transcending borders and cementing cross cultural solidarities.

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