Huwala

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
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.

 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, Portugeese, 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 billingual in both Persian and Arabic.

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

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Wikipedia