Migration from Arabian Peninsula

The topic of Arab migration is one that very few have written about despite its historical and cultural importance.
For years, I have closely studied the migration of the people of the Arabian Peninsula around the world, whether to Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Turkey and Asia in the north, the Indian subcontinent and the Malay Archipelago in the east or Africa, Europe and America in the West.
I have also closely followed the cultural and social contacts they fostered with the natives of their host countries.
Their connections and interrelationships with the people of Southeast Asia were exceptional and can be found in the ancient and modern writings of Hadhrami and Indonesian folklore.
These connections were represented in the old Hadhrami migrations to the Malay Archipelago and in Hadhrami missions sent to the region for religious and political purposes. After achieving political independence, the then Malay Archipelago became the region that now contains Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and other islands.
This article will not focus on religious and cultural interconnections between the Hijaz and the Malay lands, since Makkah and Madinah have been visited by Muslims from around the globe without exception since the dawn of Islam.
The Hadhrami migration to what was then the Malay islands is considered the strongest, most dated and most widespread connection linking Arabs to the Far East.
In fact, most credit is attributed to Arabs for the spread of Islam in Southeast Asia and India.
Many Hadhrami and Java writers wrote about these migrations and their social, heritage, economic and cultural aspects.
The dozens of books and documentaries produced on Hadhramis who migrated to the eastern, northern and western corners of the globe exposed the fact that these migrants outnumbered their nationals in their home countries and also highlighted the ability of the “Java” land (an island of Indonesia and the most populous island in the world) to accommodate such vast migration and uniquely coexist with various cultures and ethnic groups.
The Hadhramaut region, one of the southern governorates of Yemen, today has around 1.5 million inhabitants. Its major cities and ports include its capital Al-Mukalla, Shahar and Socotra island, which used to be more prominent and span a larger area in the past.
Many of its people migrated to Saudi Arabia in the north, settling in Jeddah and Riyadh, and many crossed the Red Sea and settled in Zanzibar, Ethiopia, Somalia and Madagascar.
Reliable information on the beginnings of the Hadhrami migration to the islands of the Malay Archipelago is not available.
Migration likely began during the 3rd Hijri century (eighth century in the Gregorian calendar).
Some written accounts mention that Hadhramis began migrating to India in the east, then to Java, prior to the advent of Islam.
Sources also say that members of the “Alawiyyin” (Alawi) class were the first migrants during Islamic times and that others migrated after them.
They settled in various parts of Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Southern Philippines, Thailand and Burma. Today, the majority of people of Hadhrami origin live in Jakarta (Batavia) and other Indonesian cities.
Two aspects come to mind when discussing Hadhrami migration to Southeast Asia.
One is the spread of Islam by example and behavior, namely through sound conduct in business dealings. However, some of these migrants engaged in party politics and formed proselytizing blocs. To promote their strand of thought, they issued about 29 papers and magazines in the first third of the 20th century in the Java dialect and in Arabic.
Their engagement in the political sphere, which also included members of other Arab nationalities and can be described as somewhat chaotic, seems to have tarnished the stellar reputation of the Hadhrami people through the ages through the emergence of two rival groups, the Alawiyyin and the “Ershadiyyin” (people of guidance).
Their rivalry peaked by the middle of the second decade of the last century (the mid-1910s) since they had opposing political, ethnic and ideological objectives.
Nevertheless, this animosity began to subside as the democratic political systems in these countries began to take shape.
In fact, local leaders and individuals of Arab origin were able to attain high posts in these countries.
Some of the Arabic papers that emerged at the time included Al-Maarif (Indonesia, 1927), Hadhramaut, (the East Indies, 1924) and Al-Jaza (Singapore, 1934).
Throughout the centuries, many intellectuals, especially Hadhrami, have written about the Arab existence in that part of the world, including Hadhrami settlers and other Arabs who followed and discussed in detail their political and proselytizing (preaching) activities.
Among the books written by non-Hadhramis are Yaqub Yusif Al-Hijji’s biography of Kuwaiti historian Abdulaziz Al-Rasheed (1993,) Nuriyyah Al-Rumi’s biography of Kuwaiti poet Mahmood Shawqi Al-Ayyoubi (2nd edition, 1993), and Ahmad Abu Shoak’s biography of Sudanese preacher Ahmad Muhammad Al-Surakitti (2000).
When the Kingdom of Hijaz came under Saudi rule in 1924, there was a surge in anti-Saudi rule propaganda in the Malay Archipelago, India and Egypt, which lasted for some 20 years.
Such propaganda, together with the state of the global economy, which was vastly affected by the Second World War, made many Java and Indian pilgrims refrain from going to Saudi Arabia to perform Haj. Pilgrims were influenced by claims of lack of security in the land of the Two Holy Mosques.
Anti-Saudi propaganda began in the Haj season of 1935. The Saudi government then moved to counter the issue with consecutive measures. It established a directorate under the Ministry of Finance to call for and promote performing Haj.
It sent delegates, especially to Java, the Indian subcontinent and Egypt, which included Saudi and Arab personalities who were loyal to the new reign in Hijaz and believed in the soundness of its ideology.
Some of these delegates, like earlier Hadhrami immigrants, engaged in the ensuing political, sectarian and religious strife and settled in those regions in the first third of the 20th century.
They issued several Arabic papers, including among others, Al-Tawhid, Al-Kuwait, Al-Iraqi, and Al-Huda.
Among those delegates were Abdulaziz Al-Rasheed, Ahmad As Surakitti, Iraqi journalist Yunus Bahri and Mahmood Al-Ayyoubi. These delegations did not get the attention they deserved from Saudi writers. The topic has, however, been approached by lecturers.
Muhammad Al-Rubayyi, for instance, has approached the subject from a cultural aspect in a book entitled “The Eastern Diaspora.”
Hadhrami migration toward the Malay lands is considered the oldest and most known Arab migration and actually set an example for other forms of migration from the Arabian Peninsula, including:
1. The migration of Hijazi and Asiri families from Makkah, Madinah, Jeddah and Abha to Turkey. Such forms of migration were either voluntary given the political subordination to the Ottoman Empire or were a kind of forced displacement, known as “Safar Barlk,” effected by Turks against the people of Madinah following the Hijaz Railway operation in 1908 AD.
The railway was used to displace most of the original inhabitants of the city. There was also a round of forcible displacement that the Turks implemented against the Saudis, in particular the Al-Saud family, following the destruction of Diriyah in the year 1818 AD.
2. Migratory movements that were of a commercial and cultural nature and that were partially documented in writing over the past few decades include the “Al-Oqailat Trading,” which comprised groups of hundreds of “Najdi” natives migrating on camel and horse for the purpose of trade with Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Sudan both prior to and after the opening of the Suez canal.
Such types of trade led to individual traders settling down in those countries and then marrying from among the indigenous population and benefiting from the educational opportunities that were available in those areas but not in the homelands from where they emigrated.
Despite the emergence of literature on this migratory phenomenon, academics did not succeed in providing a decisive reason as to why this form of migration was named Al-Oqailat.
Some writings attributed the name to the horse’s bridle, while others related it to the traditional headdress worn by the natives in the area. The name was also attributed to the Bani Aqeel tribes who had prevailed and controlled the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula and the Mousil region for a period of time and whose members used to be hired to guard trade voyages.
The writings have not determined the time period for when these trips began. It is thought they peaked in the mid 18th century, then faded with the spread of the use of cars in the middle of the 20th century. This phenomenon may have lasted for about two centuries.
The writings also failed to determine their true political objectives.
It was commonly known that the objectives behind such trips were limited to mainly commercial, cultural and social purposes, focusing on the sale of camels and horses and the importation of fabrics, spices and modern cargo.
However, some sources have cited political and military agendas.
The writings also have not confirmed a link between these rounds of migration and Sheikh Muhammad bin Abdulwahab’s call for “dawa” (proselytizing of Islam) from Najd, especially if it was confirmed that they began in the mid 18th century, which is the time when Sheikh Abdulwahab’s mission began.
Despite such questions, the Al-Oqailat trading represented a social phenomenon in northern Najd, especially in Qassim, Hail and Zulfi.
Tales of these times are still told by the people of these areas, which evoke the names and trajectories of hundreds of families. The city of Buraidah in Qassim, to which many of the men of Al-Oqailat belonged, recently renamed some of its commercial landmarks after this historic phenomenon.
Other forms of migration, which were much more stable, included Najdi migration to the towns of southern Iraq (Al-Zubayr specifically), where many families from Sudair, Zulfi and Qassim have settled over the last two centuries.
These families began to return to Saudi Arabia due to unrest in Iraq in the last third of the last century in contrast to the prevalent prosperity enjoyed by the Kingdom.
Despite ample documentation about the history of Al-Zubayr and Basra, questions about the beginnings of such migratory movements went unanswered with the exception of suggestions that attributed migration to these Iraqi cities to the ensuing poverty in Najd at the time.
3. The third model of migration was toward India. Very few have written on this topic, although the scattered information confirms the clear existence of links between the people of Al-Ahsa, Najd, Asir, and other Gulf countries and the Indian sub-continent, as indicated in the history books that mentioned “Arab Kingdoms” that were established therein.
The Indian subcontinent in this context means South Asia, which includes India, Pakistan and Bangladesh before splitting in 1947.
There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of biographies on individuals and families from Al-Ahsa, Najd, Asir, and of course, Hijaz, who studied, settled, and traded in India.
Some members of these families still remain in this region, but this information does not explain the beginnings and early motives behind this bout of migration in spite of the distance and risk of sailing across the coast of the Gulf and Yemen.
Several families espoused diving as a profession and owned ships equipped and ready for trade with Indian coastal cities. As a result, these families became closely culturally linked with Indian societies.
Historical books describe one individual in particular, Ahmed bin Majed bin Mohammed Al-Saadi Al-Najdi (821-906).
According to Wikipedia, he was allegedly “a Muslim navigator and geographer who was named in the Portuguese language as “Almirante” (Prince of the Sea), and nicknamed master of the Indian Ocean.
He belonged to a family of navigators. He wrote many references and was an expert navigator of the Red Sea, the Gulf of Berbera, the Indian Ocean and the China Sea.
He was the most famous figure in maritime history, as he is related to the famous journey around the Cape of Good Hope to India, when he helped Vasco da Gama to discover the new path leading to India. He is also credited with establishing global navigation rules and his views and teachings in the field prevailed until the year 903. He was also the first to write about the subject of modern marine guides.”
In this era, several books have been published in Gulf countries about maritime activity and diving.
A sailor by the name Abdullah bin Isa Al-Thawadi, a member of the Al-Thawawida, a sub-clan of the Bani Khaled tribe, is mentioned in one of these works.
Al-Thawadi lived from 1855 until 1943 AD and ran trade between Bahrain and India via his numerous ships.
Dozens of Najdi families migrated and settled in India during the last century.
These include the Al-Fadl, Al-Qusaibi, Al-Sulaiman, Al-Hamdan, Al-Sudairawi, Al-Qaadhi and Al-Bassam families.
Dozens of members of these families were educated in India and later occupied high administrative positions in the Kingdom during its formative period.
This highlights the Indian cultural influence on the countries of the Arabian Peninsula during the last century and calls for intensive research efforts to further examine this phenomenon.
During a seminar held two years ago on the sidelines of a book fair in Riyadh to celebrate Saudi-Indian cultural relations, Al-Riyadh newspaper (June 10, 2011 edition) published a research study on the role of Indian records in New Delhi, Bombay and other regions, which included thousands of documents about Saudi Arabia and the cultural, political and social links between the Arabian Peninsula and India. Such are topics that await further research and exploration.
There are plenty of Arabic manuscripts preserved in Indian libraries. Indeed, Indian printing houses in Hyderabad and other locations played a significant role in printing books about Arab heritage under the supervision of Arab intellects who had migrated to India, such as Khaled Al-Faraj, a poet, and others.
The deputies of King Abdulaziz in India and Egypt used to print some of these heritage books at their own expense.
In fact, I had recently reviewed a Masters Degree thesis registered at the University of Imam about Arab-Indian cultural relations.
The cultural magazine for the Al-Jazeera newspaper (issue no. 403 dated Apr. 18, 2013) published research by Ibrahim bin Abdullah Al-Mudaihesh, which includes the name of 35 individuals from Najd who received their education in India. These included a group of students which pursued education in Shariah (Islamic jurisprudence).
The magazine also recently published the story of Ibrahim bin Hamad Al-Ali Alqhadhi, an Indian film director of Saudi origin from Onaiza, Qassim, who was born and raised in India. This appears in issue no. 413 dated Sept. 28.
Alqhadhi is said to be one of the most famous and influential playwrights in India in the 20th century and is known as the spiritual father of modern Indian theater.
He is also a prominent painter and photographer who takes a keen interest in heritage and culture, as well as being a prominent drama professor in India who gave lectures to top actors and movie stars. He is also the founder of numerous cultural institutions, which has made him one of the most important cultural and intellectual figures in the history of modern India.
Alqhadhi’s father was a trader in Najd who spent his life trading between Pakistan, India, Turkey, Kuwait, and Lebanon. He settled for some time in India, where he had his son, Ibrahim, in 1925 in the town of Pune near Bombay.
Ibrahim eventually married Roshan, an Indian designer, who assisted in the costume designs of all his plays. Their daughter, Amaal, is currently the head of the National School of Drama, and their son, Faisal, also works in the theatrical field.
With the exception of literature that depicts and describes the Hadhrami situation in the Malay countries, the phenomenon of Arab migration still needs further research and exploration.

The author is a prominent Saudi writer and media person. This is a lecture given by him at the Al-Rahmaniah Annual Seminar held in Al-Ghat on Jan. 9.