
BLACK IRAN: The Forgotten Legacy of Enslaved Africans in Persia Is Being Resurrected By: David Love , January 16, 2016 Although Iran receives attention these days for a number of things, including the nuclear deal it reached with the U.S. and other nations, there are other aspects to the nation and its history that have remained elusive. Take, for instance, the history of Africans in Iran. Slavery had existed in the country for hundreds of years, and yet Iranians have not come to terms with their past, if they understand it at all. Fig. 1 - Slaves who were not eunuchs were sometimes assigned to the armies of the Qajar elites. The 14 pictured here belonged to Qajar prince Zell-e-Soltan, Ghameshlou, Isfahan, 1904. Photograph: Zell-e-Soltan/Modern Conflict Archive, London, UK One scholar has amassed a collection of photographs and texts that provide a narrative of the story of Black people in Persia, as the Guardian reports. Anthropologist Pedram Kh...