Interracial marriage

Middle East and North Africa

Interracial marriage was common in the Arab world during the Arab slave trade, which lasted throughout the Middle Ages and early modern period.^[193] Most of these enslaved peoples came from places such as sub-Saharan Africa (mainly Zanj) the North Caucasus,^[194] Central Asia (mainly Tatars), and Western, Southern and Southeastern Europe (mainly Slavs from Serbia – Saqaliba, Spain, France, Italy).^[195][196] The Barbary pirates from North Africa captured and enslaved 1.25 million slaves from Western Europe and North America between the 16th and 19th centuries.^[197][198]


From AD 839, Viking Varangian mercenaries who were in the service of the Byzantine Empire, notably Harald Sigurdsson, campaigned in North Africa, Jerusalem and other places in the Middle East during the Byzantine-Arab Wars. They interbred with the local population as spoils of warfare or through eventual settling with many Scandinavian Viking men taking Syrian or Anatolian women as wives. There is archaeological evidence the Vikings had established contact with the city of Baghdad, at the time the center of the Islamic Empire, and connected with the populace there.^[199] Regularly plying the Volga with their trade goods (furs, tusks, seal fat, seal boats and notably female slaves; the one period in the history of the slave-trade when females were priced higher than males), the Vikings were active in the Arab slave trade at the time.^[200] These slaves, most often Europeans who were captured from the coasts of Europe or during war periods,^[201] and sold to Arabic traders in Al-Andalus and the Emirate of Sicily.


Intermarriage was accepted in Arab society, though only if the husband was Muslim. It was a fairly common theme in medieval Arabic literature and Persian literature. For example, the Persian poet Nizami, who married his Central Asian Kipchak slave girl, wrote The Seven Beauties (1196). Its frame story involves a Persian prince marrying seven foreign princesses, who are Byzantine, Chinese, Indian, Khwarezmian, Maghrebian, Slavic and Tartar. Hadith Bayad wa Riyad, a 12th-century Arabic tale from Al-Andalus, was a love story involving an Iberian girl and a Damascene man. The Arabian Nights tale of "The Ebony Horse" involves the Prince of Persia, Qamar al-Aqmar, rescuing his lover, the Princess of Sana'a, from the Byzantine Emperor who also wishes to marry her.^[202]


At times, some marriages would have a major impact on the politics of the region. The most notable example was the marriage of As-Salih Ayyub, the Ayyubid sultan of the Egypt and Syria, to Shajar al-Durr, a slave of Turkic origin from Central Asia. Following her husband's death, she became the Sultana of Egypt and the first Mamluk ruler. Her reign marked the end of the Ayyubid dynasty and the beginning of the Mamluk era, when a series of former Mamluk slaves would rule over Egypt and occasionally other neighbouring regions.^{[203][204][205][206]}


A growing number of Algerian women contracting customary marriages with non-Muslim Chinese men and Thai men which has raised concerns. Some Algerian women have faced trouble getting their marriages recognized by the Algerian government like one Algerian women who bore three children to a Chinese man in a customary marriage because the government doubted her husbands conversion to Islam.^{[207][208][209][210]} Algeria has a large number of spinsters and the Algerian government demands documented declared proof of conversion to Islam before officially recognizing the unregistered customary marriages which are rampant between Chinese men and Algerian women which produced a "generation" of Chinese fathered babies with Algerian mothers.^{[211][212][213][214]}


Many young, single unmarried Chinese men were employed as workers by Chinese companies in Algeria which led to them to start marrying Algerian women. The Algerian law on nationality was changed to allow Algerian women to pass citizenship to their children even if their husband was a foreigner and her husband would be granted Algerian nationality if he converted to Islam and permanently resided in Algeria. One Algerian woman who was an expert at a university specializing in economic management told an Egypt News Gate reporter that she was happy with her marriage to a Chinese man and her children were happy. Another Algerian woman said she wouldn't marry any foreigners in general.^[215]


Algerian women are reportedly attracted to the large financial assets Chinese men in Algeria own and because they are afraid of becoming spinsters while the Chinese men get to circumvent the one child policy since one Algerian woman gave birth to three Chinese fathered children. Questions have been raised by Algerian journalists over the lack of commitment to Islam by the Chinees husbands who converted for the marriages.^[216]


Algerian businessman Ali Haddad invited Chinese businessmen to come to Algeria to marry Algerian women, telling them that there were cases of Chinese men divorcing their Chinese wives to marry Algerian women.^[217][218]