Afro-Iranians
Afro-Iranians are people of Black African descent residing in Iran. Most Afro-Iranians are concentrated in the coastal provinces of Persian Gulf such as Hormozagan, Sistan and Baluchestan and Khuzestan.History
The Indian Ocean slave trade begun in the 6th century BC and was multi-directional and changed over time. To meet the demand for menial labor, black slaves captured by Arab slave traders were sold in cumulatively large numbers over the centuries to the Persian Gulf, Egypt, Arabia, India, the Far East, the Indian Ocean islands and Ethiopia.
Others came as immigrants throughout the centuries or from Portuguese slave traders who had conquered southern Iran.
During the Qajar dynasty, many wealthy households imported Black African women and children as slaves to perform domestic work along side Eastern European Circassian slaves. This slave labor was drawn largely from the Zanj, who were Bantu-speaking peoples that lived along the coast of the Southeast Africa, in an area roughly comprising modern-day Tanzania, Mozambique and Malawi. However, Mohammad Shah Qajar, under British pressure, issued a firman suppressing the slave trade in 1848.Notable Afro-Iranians
