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Shirazi people

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shirazi people
Regions with significant populations
Swahili coast (mainly Zanzibar, Pemba, Mafia, Comoros)[1]
Languages
Swahili varieties, English, French
Religion
Predominantly Sunni Islam[2]
Related ethnic groups
Swahili people, Afro-Iranians

The Shirazi people, also known as Mbwera, are an ethnic group inhabiting the Swahili coast and the nearby Indian Ocean islands.[3] They are particularly concentrated on the islands of Zanzibar, Pemba, and Comoros.[1][3]

Though the origins of the Shirazi people are controversial, they are heavily associated with the spread of Islam on the Swahili Coast, the establishment of the southern Swahili sultanates like Mozambique and Angoche, and opulent wealth.[4][5][6] They were commercially based in the East African coastal area and adjacent areas,[3][7][8] and were influential in the development of the Swahili language.[citation needed]

History

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Background

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Arab geographers from the twelfth and later centuries historically divided the eastern coast of Africa into several regions based on each region's respective inhabitants.[9] According to the twelfth century geography of Al-Idrisi, completed in 1154 CE, there were four littoral zones: Barbar (Bilad al Barbar; "land of the Berbers") in the Horn of Africa, which was inhabited by Somalis and stretched southward to the Shebelle river; Zanj (Ard al-Zanj; "country of the blacks"), located immediately below that up to around Tanga or the southern part of Pemba island; Sofala (Ard Sufala), extending from Pemba to an unknown terminus, but probably around the Limpopo river; and Waq-Waq, the shadowy land south thereof. However, earlier geographers make no mention of Sofala. The texts written after twelfth century also call the island of Madagascar al-Qumr, and include it as a part of Waq-Waq.[9][10]

Early Islam in East Africa and connections to "Shiraz"

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Islam was introduced to the northern Somalia coast early on from the Arabian peninsula, shortly after the hijra. Zeila's two-mihrab Masjid al-Qiblatayn dates to the 7th century, and is the oldest mosque in the city.[11] In the late 9th century, Al-Yaqubi wrote that Muslims were already living along this northern littoral.[12] He also mentioned that the Adal Sultanate had its capital in the city.[12][13] Ibn al-Mujawir later wrote that, due to various battles in the Arabian peninsula, Banu Majid people from Yemen settled in the central Mogadishu area. Yaqut and Ibn Said described the city as another important center of Islam, which actively traded with the Swahili-speaking African region to the south of it. The thirteenth century texts also mention mosques and individuals with names such as "al-Shirazi" and "al-Sirafi" and a clan called "Sirafi at Merca", suggestive of an early Persian presence in the area.[14]

Another set of records are found in the Book of the Zanj (Kitab al-Zanuj), a likely compilation of mythical oral traditions and memories of settled traders on the Swahili coast. The late 19th-century document claims that Persians and Arabs were sent by governors of the Persian Gulf region to conquer and colonize the trading coast of East Africa. It also mentions the establishment of the Shirazi dynasty by Madagan and Halawani Arab merchants, whose identity and roots are unclear.[15] According to R. F. Morton, a critical assessment of the Book of the Zanj indicates that much of the document consists of deliberate falsifications by its author Fathili bin Omari, which were intended to invalidate the established oral traditions of local Bantu groups. The Kitab's ascription of Arabian origins for the founders of Malindi and other settlements on the Swahili coast is also contradicted by recorded 19th-century clan and town traditions, which instead emphasize that these early Shirazi settlers were of Persian ancestral heritage.[16]

Persian Merchants & Migration

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Swahili elites, many of whom had extensive trade connections with Arabia, Persia, and India fashioned themselves as a quintessential Muslim aristocracy. This demanded fictive or real genealogies that linked them back to early Muslims in Arabia or Persia, something seen in many parts of the Islamic World. It was also common for Arab, Persian, and Indian traders to "winter" on the coast for up to six months as the monsoon winds shifted. They would often marry the daughters of Swahili traders, passing on their genealogy through Islam's patrilineal descent system. The archaeological record firmly refutes any supposition of mass migrations or colonization but evidences extensive trade relations with Persia. Trade links with the Persian Gulf were especially prominent from the 10th to 14th centuries, which prompted the development of local mythologies of Persian or Shirazi origin.[17] According to Abdulaziz Lodhi, the Iranians and Arabs called the Swahili coast Zangistan or Zangibar, which literally means "the Black Coast", and the Muslim immigrants from South Asia (modern Pakistan[18] and India) to southern Arabian lands such as Oman and Yemen identified themselves as a Shirazi.[19][20] The Muslim Shirazi settlements on the Swahili coast maintained a close relationship with those on islands such as Comoros, through marriage and mercantile networks.[21] According to Tor Sellström, the Comorian population profile has a large proportion of Arab and African heritage, particularly on Grande Comore and Anjouan and these were under Shirazi sultanates.[22]

Early modern era

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The contact of Shirazi people with colonial Europeans started with the arrival in Kilwa sultanate of Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese explorer, in 1498. A few years later, the Portuguese and Shirazi people entered into disputes regarding trading routes and rights particularly about gold, a conflict that destroyed both Kilwa and Mombasa port towns of Shirazi rulers. The Portuguese military power and direct trading with India in the beginning, followed by other European powers, led to a rapid decline of the Shirazi towns which thrived and depended primarily on the trade.[23] In parallel to European competition, non-Swahili-speaking Bantu groups began attacking Shirazi towns in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[24] Thus, the Shirazi sultanates faced war from sea and land, leading to a rapid loss of power and trading facilities. The Omani Arabs re-asserted their military in the seventeenth century, and they defeated the Portuguese in 1698, at Mombasa. The Portuguese agreed to cede this part of Africa, and a fresh migration of Arabs from Oman and Yemen into the Shirazi people settlements followed.[23]

Contemporary demography

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Some towns and islands have had a much larger concentration of Shirazi people. For example, in 1948, about 56% of the Zanzibar population reported Shirazi ancestry of Persian origins.[25][26] In local elections, the Shirazi voted for whichever party was politically expedient, whether the ethnic minority-supported Zanzibar Nationalist Party or the mainland Tanzania-associated Afro-Shirazi Party.[27]

Religion

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Today, most people along the Swahili coast follow the Shafi'i madhhab of Sunni Islam.[28]

Language

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Like most of the Swahili people, the Shirazi speak local dialects of the Swahili language as a mother tongue. It belongs to the Bantu branch of the Niger-Congo family.[29] However, the dialects of Swahili language is best described as a syncretic language, that blended Sabaki Bantu, Comoro, Pokomo, Persian, English, Arabic and Indian words and structure reflecting the syncretic fusion of people from diverse backgrounds that form the Shirazi people.[7][30]

Comorian is divided into two language groups, a western group composed of Shingazidja and Shimwali, and an eastern group, composed of Shindzwani and Shimaore. Shingazidja is spoken on Ngazidja, and has around 312,000 total speakers.[29] Shindzwani is spoken on Ndzwani, and has roughly 275,000 total speakers.[31] Shimaore is spoken on Mayotte, and has an estimated 136,500 total speakers.[32] Shimwali is spoken on Mwali, and has about 28,700 total speakers.[33]

Speakers of the Comorian languages use a modified version of the Arabic script as their writing system.[32]

Society and culture

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The Shirazi people have primarily been a mercantile community, thriving on trade. Initially, between the 10th and 12th centuries, it was the gold producing regions of Mozambique that brought them to the coast of Africa. Later the trading in African slaves, ivory, spices, silk, and produce from clove, coconut, and other plantations run with slave labor became the mainstay of the trading activity.[20][34][35] These African slaves were captured during inland raids.[36] Their presence in Swahili towns is mentioned in fourteenth and fifteenth century memoirs of Islamic travelers such as that of the fourteenth century explorer Ibn Battuta.[8][37] The Shirazi were a large supplier of these slaves to the colonial era European plantations and various Sultanates. According to August Nimtz, after international slave trading was banned, the Shirazi community was economically crippled.[34]

The arrival of Islam affected the Shirazi identity and social structures in many ways. According to Helena Jerman, the word "Sawahil" among the Shirazi people referred to "free but landless" strata of the society who had adopted Islam, then a new social category on the Swahili coast.[38] Among the Muslims, this was the lowest social strata of free people, just above the slave strata. Along with the Wa-shirazi strata, there were other strata, such as the Wa-arabu, Wa-manga, Wa-shihiri, Wa-shemali, and the noble pure Muslim ruler category called Wa-ungwana.[38][39][40] The social strata of the Shirazi people came with its own strata taboos and privileges. For example, the upper strata Waungwana (also called Swahili-Arabs[41][42]) had the exclusive right to build prestigious stone houses, and Waungwana men practiced polygynous hypergamy, that is father children with low status and slave women. The ritual and sexual purity of the Waungwana women were maintained by confining them to certain premises within these houses, called Ndani.[43]

According to Michel Ben Arrous and Lazare Ki-Zerbo, the Shirazi society has been "fractured by the caste implications of race and class".[44] As the Arabs who arrived from the Arabian lands became slave owners and traders, they considered their slaves as inferior and unfit for Islam. The slave girls were concubines, who bore them children. The male offspring were considered Muslims, but the female offspring inherited their slavery and their non-Muslim heritage. Even in post-colonial society, the residual dynamics and distinctions of a racial caste system have remained among some Shirazi people.[44] According to the sociologist Jonas Ewald and other scholars, the social stratification is not limited in the Shirazi society to racial lines, but extends to economic status and the region of origin.[45][46]

The Afro-Shirazi culture is Islamic in nature.[47] There are also Bantu influences, such as the Swahili language.[48]

According to G. Thomas Burgess, Ali Sultan Issa, and Seif Sharif Hamad, many Africans "claimed Shirazi identity to obscure their slave ancestry, to mark their status as landowners, or to gain access to World War II rations distributed by the colonial state along ethnic lines." Shirazi consider themselves as of Persian ancestry primarily, and regard themselves as not related to Arabs or recent labor migrants from mainland Africa.[49]

Genetics

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Genetic analysis by Msadie et al. (2010) indicates that the most common paternal lineages among the contemporary Comorian population, which includes Shirazi people, are clades that are frequent in sub-Saharan Africa (E1b1a1-M2 (41%) and E2-M90 (14%)).[50] The samples also contain some northern Y chromosomes, indicating possible paternal ancestry from South Iran (E1b1b-V22, E1b1b-M123, F*(xF2, GHIJK), G2a, I, J1, J2, L1, Q1a3, R1*, R1a*, R1a1, and R2 (29.7%)),[51] and Southeast Asia (O1 (6%)).[52] The Comorians also predominantly bear mitochondrial haplogroups linked with sub-Saharan East African populations in East and South East Africa (L0, L1, L2 and L3′4(xMN) (84.7%)), with the remaining maternal clades associated with Southeast Asia (B4a1a1-PM, F3b, and M7c1c (10.6%), and M(xD, E, M1, M2, M7) (4%)) but no Middle Eastern lineages.[53] According to Msadie et al., given that there are no common Middle Eastern maternal haplogroups on the Comoros, there is "striking evidence for male-biased gene flow from the Middle East to the Comoros", which is "entirely consistent with male-dominated trade and religious proselytisation being the forces that drove the Middle Eastern gene flow to the Comoros".[54]

See also

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References

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  1. 1 2 Tanzania Ethnic Groups, East Africa Living Encyclopedia, accessed 28 June 2010
  2. ↑ Shirazi and Arabs of Zanzibar. "Shirazi and Arabs of Zanzibar - Minority Rights Group". Minorityrights.org. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 Ari Nave (2010). Anthony Appiah; Henry Louis Gates (eds.). Encyclopedia of Africa. Oxford University Press. p. 379. ISBN 978-0-19-533770-9. Most scholars, however, believe that the Shirazi actually began their settlement of the East African coast in the twelfth century and that they originated in Somalia. Shirazi established themselves on the following islands: Lamu Kenya, Pemba Zanzibar, Mafia and Kilqa Kiswani all in Tanzania and Comoros. (...) Known for their mercantile skills, the Shirazi asserted themselves as ruling elites as early as the twelfth century on the islands that were their base. Trade in gold, ivory and slaves brought prosperity to the Shirazi
  4. ↑ Horton, Mark and Middleton, John. "The Swahili: The Social Landscape of a Mercantile Society." Wiley-Blackwell. 2001.
  5. ↑ Glassman, Jonathan. "Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion, & Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856-1888." Heinemann. 1996.
  6. ↑ Stephanie Wynne-Jones and Adria LaViolette. "The Swahili World." Routledge. 2018
  7. 1 2 Nimtz, August H. (1980). Islam and Politics in East Africa. University of Minnesota Press. pp. 3–11, 30–33, 39–47. ISBN 978-0-8166-0963-5., Quote: "The Shirazi were classified as native, that is, Africans, and thits they were of low status. Prior to the colonial era, the Shirazi and Arabs saw themselves, for the most part, as one community. (...) Unlike the previous periods in which African captives were usually taken to Persian Gulf areas to work primarily as domestic laborers, by the nineteenth century, most slaves were being utilized on the vast clove and plantations on the East African coast and offshore islands. (...) Arab rule, from this period until its demise at the hands of the European powers, became virtually synonymous with slavery and slave ownership." (...) "Though Shirazi ownership of slaves was never as extensive as the Arabs, slaves were a major source of their wealth"
  8. 1 2 Per O. Hernæs; Tore Iversen, eds. (2002). Slavery Across Time and Space: Studies in Slavery in Medieval Europe and Africa. University of Virginia. p. 23. ISBN 8277650418. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  9. 1 2 Fage, J. D.; Roland Oliver (1975). The Cambridge History of Africa. Cambridge University Press. pp. 190–192. ISBN 978-0-521-20981-6.
  10. ↑ Raunig, Walter (2005). Afrikas Horn: Akten der Ersten Internationalen Littmann-Konferenz 2. bis 5. Mai 2002 in München. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 130. ISBN 3-447-05175-2. ancient Arabic geography had quite a fixed pattern in listing the countries from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean: These are al-Misr (Egypt) -- al-Muqurra (or other designations for Nubian kingdoms) -- al-Habasha (Abyssinia) -- Barbara (Berber, i.e. the Somali coast) -- Zanj (Azania, i.e. the country of the "blacks"). Correspondingly almost all these terms (or as I believe: all of them!) also appear in ancient and medieval Chinese geography
  11. ↑ Briggs, Phillip (2012). Somaliland. Bradt Travel Guides. p. 7. ISBN 978-1841623719.
  12. 1 2 Encyclopedia Americana, Volume 25. Americana Corporation. 1965. p. 255.
  13. ↑ Lewis, I. M. (1955). Peoples of the Horn of Africa: Somali, Afar and Saho. International African Institute. p. 140.
  14. ↑ Fage, J. D.; Roland Oliver (1975). The Cambridge History of Africa. Cambridge University Press. pp. 195–198. ISBN 978-0-521-20981-6.
  15. ↑ Fage, J. D.; Roland Oliver (1975). The Cambridge History of Africa. Cambridge University Press. pp. 199–201. ISBN 978-0-521-20981-6.
  16. ↑ Morton, R. F. (1977). "New Evidence regarding the Shungwaya Myth of Miji Kenda Origins". International Journal of African Historical Studies. 10 (4): 628–643. doi:10.2307/216932. JSTOR 216932.
  17. ↑ Campbell, Gwynn. "Africa and the Indian Ocean World from Early Times to Circa 1900." Cambridge University Press. 2019
  18. ↑ Eastern Africa: Azania Encyclopædia Britannica
  19. ↑ Lodhi, Abdulaziz Y (2005). Éva Ágnes Csató, Bo Isaksson and Carina Jahani (ed.). Linguistic Convergence and Areal Diffusion: Case Studies from Iranian, Semitic and Turkic. Routledge. pp. 352–355. ISBN 978-0-415-30804-5.
  20. 1 2 Piga, Adriana (2014). Anna Irene Del Monaco (ed.). Rivista L'architettura delle città: The Journal of the Scientific Society Ludovico Quaroni no. 3-4-5/2014. Edizioni Nuova Cultura, Sapienza Universita di Roma. pp. 123–126. ISBN 978-88-6812-355-0.
  21. ↑ Appiah, Anthony; Henry Louis Gates Jr. (2005). Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. Oxford University Press. p. 187. ISBN 978-0-19-517055-9.
  22. ↑ Sellström, Tor (2015). Africa in the Indian Ocean: Islands in Ebb and Flow. BRILL. p. 143. ISBN 978-90-04-29249-9., Quote: "Whereas the Malagasy influence is still present in Mayotte – (...) – it is, however, Arab immigrants and African slaves who more than others have contributed to the Comorian population profile, in particular on the main islands of Frande Comore and Anjouan. (...) Shirazi organized themselves into local sultanates but did not seek to bring the archipelago under a common sovereignty. As a result, the Comorian islands housed several sultanates, often within close vicinity."
  23. 1 2 Nimtz, August H. (1980). Islam and Politics in East Africa. University of Minnesota Press. pp. 4–6. ISBN 978-0-8166-0963-5.
  24. ↑ Hashim, Nadra O. (2009). Language and Collective Mobilization: The Story of Zanzibar. Lexington Books. p. xiv. ISBN 978-0739137086. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  25. ↑ Piga, Adriana (2014). Anna Irene Del Monaco (ed.). Rivista L'architettura delle città: The Journal of the Scientific Society Ludovico Quaroni no. 3-4-5/2014. Edizioni Nuova Cultura, Sapienza Universita di Roma. pp. 132–134. ISBN 978-88-6812-355-0.
  26. ↑ Skinner, Annabel (2005). Tanzania & Zanzibar. New Holland Publishers. pp. 15–17. ISBN 978-1-86011-216-4.
  27. ↑ G. Thomas Burgess; Ali Sultan Issa; Seif Sharif Hamad (2009). Race, Revolution, and the Struggle for Human Rights in Zanzibar. Ohio University Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-8214-1851-2. Shirazi did not vote as a bloc; they split over which community -- Arabs or mainlanders -- presented a more natural ally.
  28. ↑ Piga, Adriana (2014). Anna Irene Del Monaco (ed.). Rivista L'architettura delle città: The Journal of the Scientific Society Ludovico Quaroni no. 3-4-5/2014. Edizioni Nuova Cultura, Sapienza Universita di Roma. p. 122. ISBN 978-88-6812-355-0. In the traditional centers of Swahili culture most Muslims adhere to the Shafi madhab, within Sunni Islam.
  29. 1 2 "Comorian, Ngazidja". Ethnologue. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  30. ↑ Piga, Adriana (2014). Anna Irene Del Monaco (ed.). Rivista L'architettura delle città: The Journal of the Scientific Society Ludovico Quaroni no. 3-4-5/2014. Edizioni Nuova Cultura, Sapienza Universita di Roma. pp. 122–123. ISBN 978-88-6812-355-0.
  31. ↑ "Comorian, Ndzwani". Ethnologue. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  32. 1 2 "Comorian, Maore". Ethnologue. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  33. ↑ "Comorian, Mwali". Ethnologue. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  34. 1 2 Nimtz, August H. (1980). Islam and Politics in East Africa. University of Minnesota Press. pp. 39–41, 45–47. ISBN 978-0-8166-0963-5.
  35. ↑ Piga, Adriana (2014). Anna Irene Del Monaco (ed.). Rivista L'architettura delle città: The Journal of the Scientific Society Ludovico Quaroni no. 3-4-5/2014. Edizioni Nuova Cultura, Sapienza Universita di Roma. pp. 124–126, 132–133. ISBN 978-88-6812-355-0.
  36. ↑ Vérin, Pierre (1986). The History of Civilisation in North Madagascar. A.A. Balkema. p. 61. ISBN 9061910218. Although we have some evidence concerning raids made against the African populations of the interior, some symbiosis seems to have taken place between the Africans and the coastal people.
  37. ↑ Fage, J. D.; Roland Oliver (1975). The Cambridge History of Africa. Cambridge University Press. pp. 209–210, 224–225. ISBN 978-0-521-20981-6.
  38. 1 2 Jerman, Helena (1997). Between Five Lines: The Development of Ethnicity in Tanzania with Special Reference to the Western Bagamoyo District. Nordic Africa Institute. pp. 101–102. ISBN 978-91-7106-408-0.
  39. ↑ Westermann, Diedrich; Edwin William Smith; Cyril Daryll Forde (1989). Africa. Oxford University Press. pp. 147–149.
  40. ↑ Uchunguzi, Chuo (1977). Kiswahili, Volumes 47-49 (East African Swahili Committee ed.). Chuo Kikuu cha Dar es Salaam. pp. 78–79. OCLC 241337134.
  41. ↑ Kasfir, Sidney L. (2004). "Tourist aesthetics in the global flow: Orientalism and "warrior theatre" on the Swahili Coast". Visual Anthropology. 17 (3–4): 319–343. doi:10.1080/089460490468171. S2CID 143710769.
  42. ↑ Harries, Lyndon (1964). "The Arabs and Swahili Culture". Africa. 34 (3). Cambridge University Press: 224–229. doi:10.2307/1158023. JSTOR 1158023. S2CID 146183143.
  43. ↑ Lyons, Diane (2007). Sarah M. Nelson (ed.). Worlds of Gender: The Archaeology of Women's Lives Around the Globe. Rowman Altamira. p. 24. ISBN 978-0-7591-1084-7.
  44. 1 2 Arrous, Michel Ben; Lazare Ki-Zerbo (2009). African Studies in Geography from Below. African Books Collective. pp. 110–111. ISBN 978-2-86978-231-0.
  45. ↑ Ewald, Jonas (2013). Challenges for the Democratisation Process in Tanzania: Moving Towards Consolidation 50 Years After Independence?. African Books Collective. pp. 115–116. ISBN 978-9987-08-250-6.
  46. ↑ Calas, Bernard (2010). From Dar Es Salaam to Bongoland: Urban Mutations in Tanzania. African Books Collective. pp. 173–174. ISBN 978-9987-08-094-6.
  47. ↑ Asante, Molefi Kete (2014). The History of Africa: The Quest for Eternal Harmony. Routledge. pp. 159–160. ISBN 978-1-135-01349-3.
  48. ↑ Spear, Thomas (1984). "The Shirazi in Swahili Traditions, Culture, and History". History in Africa. 11. Cambridge University Press: 291–305. doi:10.2307/3171638. JSTOR 3171638. S2CID 162212370.
  49. ↑ Burgess, G. Thomas; Ali Sultan Issa; Seif Sharif Hamad (2009). Race, Revolution, and the Struggle for Human Rights in Zanzibar. Ohio University Press. pp. 19–20. ISBN 978-0-8214-1851-2. Many Africans claimed Shirazi identity to obscure their slave ancestry, to mark their status as landowners, or to gain access to World War II rations distributed by the colonial state along ethnic lines. To complicate matters further, the Shirazi usually regard themselves as primarily of Persian ancestry. If it is not always clear what the label represents in a positive sense, its negative claims are more consistent: Shirazi are neither Arabs nor "mainlanders", recent labor migrants from the African mainland.
  50. ↑ Msaidie, Said; et al. (2011). "Genetic diversity on the Comoros Islands shows early seafaring as major determinant of human biocultural evolution in the Western Indian Ocean" (PDF). European Journal of Human Genetics. 19 (1): 89–94. doi:10.1038/ejhg.2010.128. PMC 3039498. PMID 20700146. The most common Comorian haplogroups, E1b1-M2 (41%) and E2-M90 (14%), are those that are frequent in sub-Saharan Africa.[...] The Lemba have high frequencies of the Middle Eastern Y chromosome HgJ-12f2a (25%), a potentially SEA Y, Hg-K(xPQR) (32%) and a Bantu Y, E-PN1 (30%) (similar to E-M2), raising the possibility that the Lemba and Comorian populations are consequences of similar demographic processes.
  51. ↑ Msaidie, Said; et al. (2011). "Genetic diversity on the Comoros Islands shows early seafaring as major determinant of human biocultural evolution in the Western Indian Ocean" (PDF). European Journal of Human Genetics. 19 (1): 89–94. doi:10.1038/ejhg.2010.128. PMC 3039498. PMID 20700146. The northern Y chromosomes on the Comoros, E-V22, E-M123, F*(xF2, GHIJK), G2a, I, J1, J2, L1, Q1a3, R1*, R1a*, R1a1, and R2 (29.7%), make up a diverse group.[...] A possible source of the Northern Y chromosomes is therefore the Shirazi traders from Southern Iran who established trading posts on the Comoros by 800 YBP.
  52. ↑ Msaidie, Said; et al. (2011). "Genetic diversity on the Comoros Islands shows early seafaring as major determinant of human biocultural evolution in the Western Indian Ocean" (PDF). European Journal of Human Genetics. 19 (1): 89–94. doi:10.1038/ejhg.2010.128. PMC 3039498. PMID 20700146. We found the O1 lineage (6%) in the Comoros sample, providing genetic evidence for an SEA influence.
  53. ↑ Msaidie, Said; et al. (2011). "Genetic diversity on the Comoros Islands shows early seafaring as major determinant of human biocultural evolution in the Western Indian Ocean" (PDF). European Journal of Human Genetics. 19 (1): 89–94. doi:10.1038/ejhg.2010.128. PMC 3039498. PMID 20700146. the majority of mitochondrial haplogroups on the Comoros, are of African origin. The haplogroups L0, L1, L2 and L3'4(xMN) compose 84.7% of the mitochondria in the Comoros sample, and their relative proportions, are most similar to profiles found in East and South East Africa. 20,54 The higher affinity with sub-Saharan East African populations is also evident in the MDS analysis (Figure 4a and b). The remaining 15.3% of the Comoros sample is composed almost exclusively of haplogroups that can either be unambiguously identified as SEA (B4a1a1-PM, F3b, and M7c1c - 10.6%), 25 or fall into the paragroup M(xD,E,M1,M2,M7) (4%) (Figure 3). The latter haplogroups are probably also originally from Southeast Asia, but of the 12 different M* HVS-I sequences on the Comoros, only two match published sequences: two M(xM7) mitochondria found on Madagascar. 8 We found no haplogroups that could be assigned to the Middle East.
  54. ↑ Msaidie, Said; et al. (2011). "Genetic diversity on the Comoros Islands shows early seafaring as major determinant of human biocultural evolution in the Western Indian Ocean" (PDF). European Journal of Human Genetics. 19 (1): 89–94. doi:10.1038/ejhg.2010.128. PMC 3039498. PMID 20700146. There are no mitochondrial lineages on the Comoros that are frequent in the Middle East (Figure 3). We have tested for, but did not find, the R haplogroups, H, J, T, U and V, or N(xR) that represent 80% of the mitochondria in Iran. There is therefore striking evidence for male-biased gene flow from the Middle East to the Comoros, even if the unassigned mt-Hg M* and R* are designated as western Asian: 103/381 Y vs 27/577 mitochondria – Fisher's exact test, one-sided, Po10 22. This is entirely consistent with male-dominated trade and religious proselytisation being the forces that drove the Middle Eastern gene flow to the Comoros.

Bibliography

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