Arab, Uzbeki

Central Asian Arabs descend from Arab tribes who settled in Khorasan and Transoxiana after the 7th-8th-century Islamic conquests. Their Arabic, isolated from the Arab world for over a thousand years, forms a distinct Central Asian Arabic branch with two sub-groups: the Uzbeki Arabic (auz) of the Qashqadaryo and Bukhara villages of Uzbekistan and of northern Afghanistan, and the Khorasan Arabic of eastern Iran (Glottolog khor1274), spoken in the Arabkhaneh villages south of Birjand and once around Sarakhs and Zir Kuh. Most people of Central Asian Arab descent now speak Uzbek, Tajik, Dari or Persian and keep 'Arab' mainly as a lineage identity. In Iran they are known as Khorasani Arabs, of tribal origins such as Sheybani, Khozaima (Khuza'a), Azdi, Zangooyi and Mishmast; c. 50,000 claim this descent, but only a few thousand villagers still speak Arabic.

Central Asian Arab villages are farming and herding communities shaped by their Uzbek, Tajik or Persian neighbours in dress, food and housing. In Iran's Arabkhaneh villages households keep goats and sheep and farm qanat-irrigated fields on the desert margin, while many young people move to Birjand, Mashhad and Tehran. Community media teach the dialect word by word, collect old family photographs and circulate dialect poetry.

Islam is universal, with folk practices such as amulets and shrine visits. Uzbek and Afghan Arabs are Hanafi Sunnis. Iran's Khorasani Arabs are mostly Twelver Shia, centred on local imamzadeh shrines (Sayyedna al-Husayn in Arabkhaneh), Muharram mourning and pilgrimage to the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad, with a Sunni minority.

There is no Scripture, audio or film in Central Asian Arabic. Speakers are bilingual, so Uzbek, Tajik, Dari and Persian Bibles and the JESUS film in those languages are accessible. No known believers.

Joshua Project lists 'Arab, Uzbeki' (Uzbeki Arabic, auz) in Iran with 5,000 people, plotted at Birjand in South Khorasan. No Uzbekistan Arabs live in Iran. The entry corresponds to the Khorasani Arabs, whose surviving Arabic in the Arabkhaneh villages of Nehbandan County belongs with Uzbeki and Afghan Arabic to the Central Asian Arabic branch but is a separate dialect group (Glottolog khor1274, without its own ISO code). JP's 5,000 fits the number of remaining speakers; c. 50,000 Iranians claim Khorasani Arab descent, almost all of them Persian-speaking.