Bastak

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Bastak is a town in the Hormozgan Province of southern Iran. It has a road connecting it to the Bandar Lengeh area and its inhabitants speak Bastaki, a dialect made up of Persian.

[edit] History of Bastak

The history of Bastak can be traced back to the Safavids era. When the Safavids under Ismail I decided to convert all Iranians from Sunni to Shiite Islam in 1501, they started arranged attacks and massacres against those who refused to convert. As a result, many Sunnis left their hometowns for the Zagros mountains. After the Battle of Chaldiran the Safavids lost to the Ottoman Turks and the Sunnis in the south and on the coasts of the Persian Gulf descended from the mountains to begin a new life in the land they named "Bastak", meaning barrier or backstop.

Eventually they pledged loyalty to the Abbasids, an Arab dynasty that left Baghdad after the Moghol invasion towards Shiraz where they took permission from Atabak to rule Bastak. It was said that a few Hashimites (descendants of Prophet Mohammed) moved to Bastak from Khonj where they had settled after leaving Iraq towards Persia. The Abbasids carried on the expansion of Bastak's rule. Many alliances were formed between the Bastaki rulers and the Arab rulers in UAE, Bahrain, Qatar. The most famous was an alliance with Sheikh Zayed Alnahyan (Zayed Alawal) the ruler of Bani Yas in Abu-Dhbai and Al-Ain, and Al-Qassimi rulers of Sharjah.

Many Bastaki people emigrated to Dubai, Bahrain, and Kuwait after refusing to pay taxes to Nasir al-Din, the last member of the Qajar dynasty and refusing to give up their Sunni faith.

Today, there are many Bastakis in Dubai, Bahrain, Kuwait and other Persian Gulf countries, who have carried their Persian culture, language, and architecture with them. They have named their neighbourhood in Dubai, al-bastakeyah, after their small city of Bastak in southern Persia, and use an old style of Persian architecture that is represented in the Badgir ("wind catchers")

[edit] Culture of the Bastaki's

Bastaki people speak a local Persian dialect. Many Bastaki's today work as merchants and own their own businesses and are highly educated. They tend to work in finance, real estate, education and engineering sectors. Not to mention the many medical practices which they run. They are also known to be a very proud of their heritage and independent yet very loyal to their rulers, to Al-Maktoums in Dubai especially and Al-Qassimi in Al-Sharjah, Al-Khalifa in Bahrain, and to other ruling families of the GCC countries where they reside.