The Gulf’s Ethnic Diversity

Abstract

At present, no part of the Middle East is as ethnically diverse as the basin of the Persian Gulf-Gulf of Oman-northwest Arabian Sea (henceforth, the ``Gulf''). In the past few decades, an inherent diversity has been augmented by the influx of a vast body of expatriate workers, many having lived there for over two generations. But diversity--- old and new---in religion, language, and race has been a hallmark of the Gulf throughout its long history. Much ethnic diversity was imparted to the Gulf population by the introduction of new settlers (primarily artisans, skilled and unskilled laborers, and brides) for millennia via trade and political connections with other oceanic societies around the rim of the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. The genetic imprint of East Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent was already strongly present in the Gulf population long before the twentieth century. The recent oil boom and the flood of expatriate workers into the region has just increased that diversity, not created it. The most fascinating point is that a vast majority of the newly arrived expatriates into the Gulf area are not from the continental Middle East, but from the same oceanic societies around the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea with which the Gulf shares a com- mon history stretching back into antiquity.