Hola (ethnic group)

Houla
هوله
Regions with significant populations
 Bahrain n/a
 United Arab Emirates n/a
 Kuwait n/a
 Qatar n/a
 Saudi Arabia n/a
Languages
Persian
Religion
Sunni Islam[1]
Related ethnic groups
Iranians

Houla (Arabic: هوله‎‎, sing. Houli هولي) is a blanket term denoting an ethnically Persian Sunni community currently residing in the GCC with origins in cities and villages lying along the eastern coast of the Persian Gulf.[2][3]

History

 Amongst the cities they inhabited—some still do in the modern day—is the Iranian city of Yazd, from which they imported a Persian style of cooling architecture, which is still quite popular in Yazd, that's manifested in the Badgir (“wind catchers”) that conduct wind into the houses and cool the interior of the houses. Although this used to be a characteristic of Hola houses, this form of architecture is very much obsolete in the modern day. Other cities which the Hola inhabited include the cities of Evaz (pronounced in Arabic as Awadh), Khonj, Bastak, Kohig, Kanee, Jeneh, and Karmostag. The Hola are historically identified as Persians which is corroborated by Ottoman, Portuguese, as well as Safavid manuscripts, however, many have opted to claim they are of Arab origin to avoid racism. Similar to how the Jews were discriminated, the Hola were persecuted by Shah Ismail, not for their ethnicity but the fact that they were the only Persians who refused to give up their Sunni faith.

A key feature of the Hola's alteration of their history is how they added the originally non-existent "Al" to their family names in order to make them appear to be Arabic, or of Arab origin. The only Arabic-speaking community in Iran are the Ahvazis, Iraqi immigrants of Babylonian origin who were Arabized following the Arab invasion of Mesopotamia. The Ahvazis, who reside in south-western Iran adjacent to Iraq, are not Hola because they practice the Shiite faith.

The Hola have fully altered their costumes to conceal their Persian heritage and now the majority are bilingual in both Persian and Arabic.

Amongst the major Hola Persian families in the Gulf include: Al Moayed, Kanoo, Al Awadhi, Karmostaji, Al Janahi, Khonji, Al Nassour, Nassouri, Al Ansari, Bastaki, Galadari, Herangi, Gawdai, Go'od, Falamarzi, Al Marzooq, Khameri, Behdahi, Maraghi, Kato, Faqehi, Al Khan, Eshaq, Najibi, Kaiksou, Bucheeri, Saffi, Al Emadi, Al Zarouni, Bo ‘Alai, Bo Zaboon, Faramarzi, Al Naqi, Al Kookherdi, Ahli, Al Mardi, Akbari, Khoory, Sharafi, Al Hasan, Kooheji, Al Neama, Al Shafei, Al Wazzan, and Engineer.

Many confuse the Hola with the native inhabitants of the western coast of the Persian Gulf, the indigenous Arab tribes, many of whom were expelled from their homes by the Hola during the interim period in which a debiliated Safavid empire, exhausted from the Afghan invasion of Iran at the commence of the 18th century, surrendered Bahrain and the Al Hasa to the Omanis in 1717. However, the ensuing fight between the Persians and the Bedouin on one side, and the Omanis on another side, turned Bahrain and the Gulf into ashes. Oman later sold Bahrain to the Safavids, however the weakness of the Safavid empire, now at its apex after the war with Oman, gave way for the rise of the Hola who were fleeing from Safavid rule. Eventually, all of Bahrain came under the rule of the Hola, who expelled the overwhelming majority of the native Arabs to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as a result of their oppositon to Holi rule. Nevertheless, all of Bahrain was later liberated by the Al Khalifa tribe, who later pardoned the Hola in return for high taxation, which the Al Khalifa desperately needed after exhausting all their resources in reclaiming Bahrain to the Arabs. The Bahraini Arab refugees in Qatar and Saudi Arabia refused to return because by that time they'd already been assimilated into the cultures of where they lived.

Although the first Hola (Sunni Persians) arrived in Bahrain in the 18th century, long after the arrival of both the Baharna and the Sunni Arab Bedouin tribesmen, another mass immigration of ethnically Persian settlers occurred during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah. The former Pahlavi king was secular and anti-religious; he forced everyone to accept his liberal ideology in the so-called White Revolution. He despised religious views from both Sunnis and Shiites. However, the mainstream twelver Rafidhite Shiite population of Iran (the demographic majority) discriminated against the Hola, similar to how many of the modern-day Zionists suffered under the hands of the Nazi Germans. The Hola Persians now form a majority amongst the citizens of the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar, as well as a sizable minority in the island kingdom of Bahrain. They now lay hold on the majority of top governmental jobs and positions, businesses, trade, and other human resource assets of the said nations, whereas in Bahrain, for example, the overall unemployment rate, including that of the indigenous Sunni Arabs and Baharna, stands at a staggering 15%. The Hola Persians also flex their muscles through influencing native Bahraini culture. An example of this is the imported delicacy "mahyawa" which originates in Southern Iran. It is a watery earth brick coloured sauce consisting of sardines and is typically eaten with Iranian bread. Another imported delicacy is "pishoo" which consists of agar agar and golab.

The "Hola DNA Project" study revealed strong genetic bonds between the Hola and the Qashqai Iranian people of Southern Iran -due to the fact that the Sunni Persians later emigrated to Southern Iran under the Zagros mountains after the Battle of Chaldiran in which the Safavids were defeated by the Ottomans and so the Hola feared a Safavid purge of all Sunnis in Iran, and later intermarried with the natives of Southern Iran, the Qashqai people- who themselves are related to the Kurds. Genetic links to Arabs only appeared amongst those of a Holi parent and an Arab parent. When tested on pure Howala, no such link was found.

Migration to the Arab Peninsula

The most recent influx of the Hola to the now known as GCC countries was during the 1960s. Iran under the Shah was strict regarding different ethnic groups and maintained censuses on them. Most of the Hola families were exiled from various ports and villages of Iran. One inviting country was Bahrain, which had a need for more Sunni Muslims as the country was mainly Shia and was ruled by a Sunni family that came from Saudi Arabia. It was also a country that had a fairly large Hola community that existed on the island beforehand. Though there was a difference between the variety of people that had come during different times, the term “Hola” began to be used generally for all Sunni Muslims that had connections with Iran, especially after the Iranian Revolution, which brought about anti-Shia tensions to the GCC nation states, uniting those that were Sunni. You will mainly hear this term used in Bahrain, though Oman and the UAE have a large number of these families living among them. The Hola had a degree of self-rule with a number of de facto states in the south of Iran until the 20th century. Following the ascent of the Pahlavi Dynasty, there was a diminution or abolition of the local ruling families' privileges as elsewhere in Iran. Even prior to the ascent of the House of Pahlavi, many Sunni Persians emigrated to the Arab peninsula after refusing to pay taxes to the Shiite ruler Nasr al-Din, the final ruler of the Qajar dynasty, and refusing to give up on their Sunni creed.

Why the Hola are not the Arab tribes of 'Bar Faris'

A lot of people believe that Arab Sunnis migrated to Iran for business and teaching Persians the Quran. Now, most of them believed that the migration happened when the Persian Empire was defeated and the Persians became Muslims. So presumably this happened almost 1400 years ago, during Muhammad's times or even during the Khalifa’s rule after the his death. This raises serious issues, if they lived in Iran during that time, there were no Sunnis or Shiites, there were only Muslims. When Persia turned Shiite commencing from 1501, the Huwala were there, so why did they not turn Shiite as well? Are we saying that only the Arabs stayed Sunni? Or maybe just maybe there were Persians who didn't turn Shiite, who then became Huwala. This puts a lot of holes in the theory that they migrated in the early days of Islam to teach the Persians about Islam. Certainly a lot of Arabs went to Persia to teach them about Islam, but it is unsure if these were the Huwala. The second point is, if they were going there for business, why did they get disconnected with their so-called Arab roots? It even makes business sense to keep those roots. Nothing remained from the Arab culture at all? Not even names? Lets for a second believe that they are from Arab origins, the question is doesn’t 1400 years (or even 500 years) of mixing with Persian blood, effectively take away the Arab bloodline ?

So the question is why do some of them claim they are from Arab origins? According to Wikipedia, the Word Hewala means “those that have changed". The following is what Wikipedia says about what happened when our Huwala brothers came to Bahrain: Due to racist movements against them, and not being accepted as citizens especially during the time of the Arab Nationalist Movement, most of the Huwala changed their family names, costumes and accent to fit and get mixed in the Arabian society. This was also a huge step toward getting a passport and citizenship, since there was a time in Bahrain that foreigners and Persians or those who had non Arabic family names weren't granted passports.

In summary, Huwala are not Arab because: -They came from Iran and didn’t speak Arabic or didn’t carry any kind of Arab traditions. -There is no trace of them leaving to Iran and no solid proof they are from Arab origins. -We all agree that their family names are Persian.

The overwhelming majority of the Arab tribes that immigrated to Iran -usually settling in the south-eastern regions- intermarried with non-Arab spouses, including Persians, regularly, thus effectively taking away the Arab bloodline during their prolonged settlement in southern Iran for 1400 years since the advent of Islam, according to the majority of historical sources. Furthermore, the Arab tribes were gradually assimilated into Persian culture, lifestyle, cuisine, traditions, such that they converted to Shiite Islam and adopted a Persian identity. The only Arabs who did not abandon their identity are the Arabs of Khuzestan, themselves Shiites, who are not in fact the descendants of tribes from Arabia but rather from Mesopotamian immigrants, due to the close proximity of Khuzestan to Iraq. Khuzestani Arabs speak in a dialect similar to the Iraqi Arab dialect, known as Khuzestani Arabic. Nonetheless, Khuzestanis do not identify as Hola.

Through this, we can infer that the Arab tribes that the Hola claim to descend from have disappeared nearly a millennium ago. They have been Persianized and turned Shia, unlike the Hola. This is proven by the fact that the first Hola immigrants to the Gulf did not speak Arabic, were Sunni, did not have Arabic names or family names, wore non-Arab clothwear, celebrated Persian culture in events such as the Nowruz, and followed the Shafii branch of the Sunni sect, unlike the Arabs of the peninsula and the so-called 'Arab tribes' which they 'descend' from, which all followed the Maliki branch of Sunni Islam. This becomes ever-the-more curious considering that Iran-prior to the Safavid period- followed the Shafii branch of Sunni Islam as well, leading us to conclude that the Hola are not of Arab origin, rather they are the leftovers of the Persian Sunni community after Shah Ismail forcefully converted all Persia north of the Zagros mountains to Shiism, thus leading the reluctant Sunni Persians to seek refuge under the rugged Zagros mountains which Shah Ismail's army could not traverse, in southern Iran. From there they immigrated to the Gulf Arab states under the false pretext of Arab origin.

References

  1. ↑ The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 7 By William Bayne Fisher, P. Avery, G. R. G. Hambly, C. Melville, P.512
  2. ↑ Studia Iranica - Volumes 1-2 و P. Geuthner, 1972 Page 80
  3. ↑ Waqai-I Manazil-I Rum; Tipu Sultan's Mission to Constantinople – January 1, 2005 by Mohibbul Hasan , p20
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