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 everyone residing in current day Iran from Sunni to Shiite Islam in 1501, they started arranged attacks and massacres against those who refused to convert. As a result, many Sunnis (Iranians and Arabs who resided in the south and on the coasts of the Gulf) left their hometowns for the Zagros mountains. After the Battle of Chaldiran where the Safavids lost to the Ottoman Turks, the Sunni Arabs 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 signifying barrier from Shiite Safavids' attacks and influences. With time they established their own shiekdom (rule). Legend says that a group of Arabs from Oman who had migrated to the opposite shore of the gulf coast started uniting different villages and communities in an effort to establish a state that can protect them from the Shiites and other attacks.
Eventually they pledged loyalty to the Abbasids, an Arab dynasty that left Baghdad after the Moghol invasion towards the southern moutains of Persia. The rulers of Shiraz at the time, the Atabak, gave them protection to pass through their lands as they fled from the Moghols. Later on the Abbasids they took permission from Atabak to establish a state of their own and rule Bastak and the sorrounding villages and islands. 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. Soon after, many Arabs from within southern Persia and from the neighboring shiekdoms started gathering to the Abbasids. The Abbasids carried on the expansion of Bastak's rule until it included more than 60 villages and many islands in the Gulf. 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. They also allied with the Arabs tribes that resided on the southern coasts of Persia and in the islands off the coast of Persia and current day UAE. These tribes included Almarazeeq (from whom one of the Abbasi rulers married), Alhammady, Al-Ali, Alabadelah, Alnosoori, Al-harami, and others. Together these tribes fought against the sultan of Oman. In one battle the bastaki Abbasids lead, Alqawasem (Alqassimi of Lingah, Sharjah, and Ras Alkhaimah), Alali, Alhammadi, and almarazeeq on an attack against the sultan of Oman until they conquered Masqat imposed duties on the sultan of Masqat.
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. The major wave of immigration occurred when the Shah imposed the lift of the scarf on the women, forcefully imposed the Persian culture on the Arabs in the south and on the coasts, Imposed Persian language and dress on the Arabs in the south. This ignited the major wave of immigration for the Bastakies and other Arabs in the south to the neighboring Arab countries.
Today, there are many Bastakis in Dubai, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman, who have carried their unique 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 cooling architecture that is represented in the Badgir ("wind catchers") that direct the wind into the houses and cool the interior of the houses.
[edit] Culture of the Bastaki's
Bastaki people speak a local "spoken only" dialect that is made up of Arabic mainly with some Persian influence. 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.
