Hadhrami Arabs: scholars and merchants from Yemen

A merchant in a white robe stands in the doorway of a shop house in Penang in the 1800s. He speaks Arabic with his father and Malay with his customers. His mother, like many mothers of Arab families here, is from a local family.

The story

Hadhramaut (حضرموت) is a valley region in the south of Yemen. For many generations its families travelled overseas to trade and to teach. Some reached the Indian Ocean ports first, and some reached the Malay world by way of Java, Palembang and Aceh.

Researchers describe three phases of arrival in Malaya: perhaps around the 16th century, then the 17th or 18th, then the 19th and early 20th centuries. Many Hadhramis came to Singapore, Penang and other Malay states in the 1700s and 1800s as religious teachers and traders. After the Suez Canal opened in 1869, steamships made the voyage faster and more arrived.

The 1871 census of the Straits Settlements counted 1,122 Arabs: 465 in Singapore, 354 in Penang and 303 in Melaka. Numbers in Johor, Terengganu, Kelantan and Kedah were also recorded in later years.

Many were Sayyids (سيد, men of families that trace their line to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him), who belong to a group called the Alawiyyin. Malays treated all Arabs, and especially the Sayyids, with respect, because they were thought to be inheritors of Islamic teaching. Another group, the shaykhs (شيخ, teachers and scholars), came to trade and to teach.

In business, Hadhrami families built shipping, trade and property companies. The Alkaff family, for example, became the largest property group in Singapore between 1880 and 1908, and also paid for mosques and schools in Java. The Alsagoff family was strong in shipping, including the pilgrim ships to Mecca.

Most Arabs born here had Malay mothers. They spoke Malay, ate local food and followed local dress and customs, and with time many were counted as Malay. So the Hadhrami story is one of travel, trade and teaching, and of a family that became part of Malaysia.

Where you can still see it today

Family names with "Syed" or "Sharifah" (titles linked to the Prophet's family) and surnames such as Alkaff, Aljunied and Alsagoff.
The Acheen Street Mosque (Masjid Lebuh Acheh) in George Town, in the old Arab and Malay quarter of Penang.
Old mosques and religious schools in the port towns, where teachers and traders worked side by side.

What DNA can tell, and what it cannot

A region estimate may show a thread from West Asia or Arabia, and a father line is often the interesting one for families with Arab fathers and Malay mothers. A mother line in such families may be local, and that is a good fit with the history.

But DNA cannot confirm a claim of descent from any person in the past, and it cannot say that a family is Sayyid. Such claims rest on family records and scholars, not on DNA. DNA does not decide race, religion or bumiputera status.