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History of Indians in the Arab world—port builders, Jat governor, translators, and slaves

From the buffalo herders who built one of the world’s greatest medieval ports to academics translating Sanskrit works, here is one part of the history of Indians in the Arab world.

Since February, over 12 lakh Indians have streamed home from the Gulf as instability continues in New Delhi’s neighbourhood. This has been a recurring feature of the past century. In 1990, 2011, 2014, and 2015, among other occasions, tens of thousands of Indians have been evacuated and brought home when at risk during the Gulf War, the Arab Spring, and the rise of ISIS, among other regional upheavals.

India’s largest diaspora — over nine million people — lives in the Gulf and has always lived a paradox. Indians were indispensable to the economies that hosted them, yet were periodically reminded that their presence is conditional.

From the buffalo herders who built one of the world’s greatest medieval ports, to the Jat governor of Egypt, to academics translating Sanskrit works, and enslaved women trafficked for profit, here is one part of the history of Indians in the Arab world.

Jats in the Caliphate

The history of the Indian diaspora extends much further back than one might expect. From as early as the 3rd millennium BCE, we know of traders from “Meluhha”, the Harappan Civilisation, who lived and traded in present-day Iraq and Oman. In an earlier edition of Thinking Medieval, we discussed a 17th-century Bania diaspora that lived in major Gulf cities such as Bandar Abbas. Of course, what we think of as “Indian” was not necessarily what medieval people thought of as “Indian”. A group known as the Zutt—the Arabic rendition of Jat—offers insight.

Many tales are told of the Zutt and how they arrived in the Gulf. According to historian Kristina Richardson (Roma in the Medieval Islamic World), an apocryphal tradition claims that Bahram Gur (r. 420–438 CE), the Sassanian king of Iran, wrote to “the king of India” asking for musicians. What he received, according to Arabic chroniclers, was a tribe of between 10,000 and 12,000 “Zutt”, relocated with their camels and buffalo herds from the Indus delta and Makran drylands to the marshlands of southern Iraq. A canal, known even today as the Nahr al-Zutt, may have been established for them. Historian Andre Wink, in Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World (Volume 1), adds context to this legend. Bahram Gur established several settlements across the Gulf, crewed with mercenaries to contain piracy. As a nomadic, pastoral people, the Zutt may have been ideal caravan guards.

Over the next centuries, Zutt tribes from the Indus area gradually spread along the Gulf. In Sassanid Soldiers in Early Muslim Society,........

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