@
al-Hasani What your opinion the Somali minority the Gulf nations? Why are they treat more with respect then the Ethiopian/habasha groups in SA, UAE etc?
Hence why I mentioned the 1857 revolt. The British saw how united India became and wanted to fragment the nation via religious and racial division.
What is the Gulf? Do you mean countries on the Arabian Peninsula or Eastern Arabia? There is nothing called "Gulf Arab". It's a new inaccurate description that has arisen in the last few decades. The only thing that resembles that is an Arabic dialect which is called Khaliji. That dialect is only spoken by about 200.000 people in KSA out of close to 35 million nowadays. Exclusively in the Eastern Region bordering the Gulf. Similarly when it comes to the music genre of the same name. Basically what you mean with "Gulf" and "Gulf Arabs" is the historical and ancient region of Eastern Arabia. It stretches from Southern Iraq in the North all the way down to Oman in the South. It covers Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Eastern Region of KSA (only coastal!) and UAE. Once again mainly coastal. The cultures of those countries/regions all differ from each other although they have many similarities. For instance the cultures of Bahrain and Oman are traditionally vastly different from those in Kuwait and Qatar for instance. Just to make one example.
Eastern Arabia was home to many ancient civilizations (Semitic in origin mostly) such as the Dilmun which was a trading partner of the neighboring Sumerians in the North and the Indus Valley Civilization across the Arabian Sea in what is now Pakistan. Likewise the Sumerians considered Eastern Arabia their homeland and even wrote so in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Here you can get a short overview.
Eastern Arabia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I am for instance from Hijaz which is across the Arabian Peninsula next to the Red Sea. It's a LONG way from the Gulf or Eastern Arabia as it is more accurately called. Our culture is very similar to the nearby Shami (Levantine), nearby Egyptian and in the South to the nearby Yemeni one. All 3 are again distinctive depending on the region.
To answer your question.
First of all I am not sure what you mean with "respect". In the Arab world there are quite a few million Afro-Arabs. I think that they make up 2-3% of the entire 500 million big Arab population. That's 10-15 million people. Probably a bit more even if you include those that are mixed with Afro-Arabs. In KSA alone they make up 10% of the population.
Somalians are mostly Cushitic people unlike half of the Ethiopians and Eritreans who are Southern Semites or at least they speak Southern Semitic languages. What is special with Somalia is that there is a sizable Arab community and many Somalians have Arab ancestry (especially from nearby Yemen) and many of the tribes if not most trace their ancestry to ancient Arabian families, clans, dynasties, tribes etc. Whether this is correct or not we cannot know with certainty. Moreover Somalians are exclusively Muslims almost while Habesha people (despite having closer ties in terms of ancestry and history) are not necessarily Muslims but Christians too. Also they speak Arabic as a second language and have done so for over 1 millennium. Somali itself has many Arabic loanwords like most languages in the Muslim world.
You should really ask such questions on the Arab Section of the forum (where you will get a reply from more people) or the ME/Africa section of the forum although it is full of trolls.
This thread is good for such questions:
Arabic Coffee shop | Page 270
You are Ethiopian right? There are two Ethiopian users here who have very good ties with us Arabs. @
ebray @
Belew_Kelew
Sorry Belew Kelew is Eritrean.
Secondly outside of a few Ethiopian troublemakers in KSA (mainly one neighborhood in Riyadh) there are no problems with Arabs and Habesha people whatsoever. In fact most of our Afro-Arabs come from the Horn of Africa or at least many do. You can even see that by their facial characteristics as Horners are distinct from other Africans.
Anyway funny that you mention me in a thread about Indonesians/Malaysians just while I had a discussion with my Indonesian brother @
Indos in the "Arabic Coffee Shop" thread.
We don't bite.
Arab and especially Arabian hospitality is world-known for a reason, you know?!
I might as well use this thread as an opportunity to extend my greetings to the millions of Arab-Indonesians and Arab-Malaysians out there and you can do the same vice versa in terms of your communities in the Arab world, especially, Hijaz. Also greetings to the Arab community in Brunei and Singapore and all the best of successes to South East Asia as a whole!
@
Indos @
Wahhab2701