Editing Black people (section)

====Arab world====
{{Main|Afro-Arab}}
{{See also|Slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate|Trans-Saharan slave trade|Red Sea slave trade}}
[[File:Bilal.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Bilal ibn Ribah]] (''pictured'' atop the [[Kaaba]], Mecca) was a former Ethiopian slave and the first [[muezzin]], {{Circa|630}}.]]
In the medieval Arab world, the ethnic designation of "Black" encompassed not only [[Zanj]], or Africans, but also communities like [[Zutt]], Sindis and Indians from the [[Indian subcontinent]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JQqtEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA222 |title=Islam on the Margins: Studies in Memory of Michael Bonner |date=2023-02-06 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-52783-6 |pages=222 |language=en}}</ref> Historians estimate that between the advent of [[Islam]] in 650 CE and the abolition of slavery in the [[Arabian Peninsula]] in the mid-20th century, 10 to 18 million black Africans (known as the Zanj) were enslaved by [[east African slave trade]]rs and transported to the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring countries.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/blackhistory/article-24156|title=Welcome to Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to Black History|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica}}</ref> This number far exceeded the number of slaves who were taken to the Americas.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1523100.stm "Focus on the slave trade"], BBC.</ref>  [[Slavery in Saudi Arabia]] and [[slavery in Yemen]] was abolished in 1962, [[slavery in Dubai]] in 1963, and [[slavery in Oman]] in 1970.<ref>A. Klein (2002), ''Historical Dictionary of Slavery and Abolition'', Page xxii, {{ISBN|0-8108-4102-9}}</ref>

Several factors affected the visibility of descendants of this diaspora in 21st-century Arab societies: The traders shipped more female slaves than males, as there was a demand for them to serve as [[concubinage in Islam|concubines]] in harems in the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring countries. Male slaves were castrated in order to serve as [[harem]] guards. The death toll of black African slaves from forced labor was high. The mixed-race children of female slaves and Arab owners were assimilated into the Arab owners' families under the [[patrilineal]] [[kinship system]]. As a result, few distinctive Afro-Arab communities have survived in the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring countries.<ref name="hidden">{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A6645-2004Jan10|newspaper=The Washington Post|title=A Legacy Hidden in Plain Sight|author=Labb, Theola|date=11 January 2004|access-date=6 May 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://members.tripod.com/~yajaffar/african.html|title=Dr Susan|access-date=6 May 2018}}</ref>

Distinctive and self-identified black communities have been reported in countries such as Iraq, with a reported 1.2 million black people ([[Afro-Iraqis]]), and they attest to a history of discrimination. These descendants of the Zanj have sought minority status from the government, which would reserve some seats in Parliament for representatives of their population.<ref>Timothy Williams, [https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/world/middleeast/03basra.html "In Iraq's African Enclave, Color is Plainly Seen"], ''The New York Times'', 2 December 2009: "But on the packed dirt streets of Zubayr, Iraq's scaled-down version of Harlem, African-Iraqis talk of discrimination so steeped in Iraqi culture that they are commonly referred to as "abd" – slave in Arabic – prohibited from interracial marriage and denied even menial jobs...Historians say that most African-Iraqis arrived as slaves from East Africa as part of the Arab slave trade starting about 1,400 years ago. They worked in southern Iraq's salt marshes and sugarcane fields. Though slavery – which in Iraq included Arabs as well as Africans – was banned in the 1920s, it continued until the 1950s, African-Iraqis say. Recently, they have begun to campaign for recognition as a minority population, which would grant them the same benefits as Christians, including reserved seats in Parliament..."Black people here are living in fear," said Jalal Dhiyab Thijeel, an advocate for the country's estimated 1.2 million African-Iraqis. "We want to end that.""</ref> According to Alamin M. Mazrui et al., generally in the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring countries, most of these communities identify as both black and Arab.<ref>Alamin M. Mazrui et al., ''Debating the African Condition'' (2004), {{ISBN|1-59221-145-3}}, p. 324: "But many Arabs were themselves Black. To the present day there are Arab princes in Saudi Arabia who, in the Western world, would be regarded as 'black'. One of the main reasons why the African Diaspora in the Arab world is so small is that people with African blood are much more readily accepted as Arabs than they would be accepted as 'whites' in the Americas."</ref>