When people think of Indians in the Gulf, they often picture the modern wave of migrant workers that began after the oil boom of the 1970s. But the Indian community’s presence in the Gulf region is far older – rooted in ancient sea routes, shared commerce, and centuries of cultural exchange that shaped both civilisations in profound ways.
Table of Contents
A relationship older than recorded history
The first historically recorded maritime trade route in the world connected the Indus Valley Civilisation with Dilmun – a civilisation centred on modern-day Bahrain and the adjacent Saudi Arabian coast. By around 2000 BCE, Dilmun had established itself as a critical intermediary in trade between the Indian subcontinent and the civilisations of Mesopotamia. Archaeological evidence – Harappan-style weights, carnelian beads, and cylinder seals – has been found across the Oman peninsula, Bahrain, and southern Mesopotamia, strongly suggesting that maritime stages linked the Indus Valley and the Gulf long before any formal trade records were kept.
This was not a one-sided relationship. Merchants from Dilmun stayed for extended periods in South Asia, and Indian traders did the same in the Gulf. Goods that the Arabian Peninsula could not produce locally – cotton, spices, precious stones – flowed steadily from India into the region. The Gulf, in turn, exported pearls, which remained its most prized commodity until the discovery of oil centuries later.
The merchants who built the routes
The communities most responsible for cementing these early trade ties came from the coastal regions of the Indian subcontinent. Northwestern India, and particularly Gujarat, played a crucial role in building connections with the Persian Gulf, southern Arabia, and the Red Sea. The port cities of Surat, Cambay, and Bharuch were thriving commercial hubs, linking Gujarat to the Arabian Peninsula, East Africa, and Southeast Asia. Merchants from Gujarat carried spices, textiles, and precious stones across the Arabian Sea, while Kerala’s port of Muziris – one of the great commercial centres of the ancient world – drew Arab traders who had been visiting its shores for centuries before Islam emerged.
These weren’t just fleeting commercial contacts. During the height of the island of Hormuz’s prosperity in the early 14th to early 16th centuries, some 2,000 Gujarati households – both Hindu and Muslim – gave the island the feel of an Indian city. The oldest Hindu community in the Gulf today, located in Muscat, dates to at least the 15th century, while Manama’s Indian Hindu community was first mentioned in Dutch records as far back as 1667.
The Sindhis, Bhatias, and the pearl trade
Gujarati merchants were not alone. Sindhi merchants, primarily from the Bhatia and Khoja communities, built a robust commercial presence in the Gulf, particularly in Muscat, Bahrain, and Dubai. They managed the financial machinery behind the Gulf’s pearl trade – handling collection, storage, sales, and purchases while Arab dhow operators managed the shipping. Some Bhatia merchants even received the right to own land in their own names, a measure of the commercial standing they had earned. The Sindhi footprint in the Gulf was so well established that by 1800, Muscat functioned as a direct and profitable trading emporium connected to Kachchh, Baluchistan, and Sindh.
The golden age of Indo-Arab trade
Between the 7th and 13th centuries, the relationship between India and the Gulf entered what can genuinely be called its golden age. The Arabian Peninsula sat at the crossroads of the world’s most important trade routes, and Indian merchants were central to its economic activity. By the end of the first millennium CE, trade between India and Arabia had become the economic backbone of the Arabian Peninsula. Most goods flowed from India toward Arabia – spices, cloth, and other commodities – while the Gulf primarily exported the money used to pay for them, plus pearls.
The rise of Islam did not disrupt this relationship. If anything, it deepened it. Commerce was considered an honourable profession in Islam, since the Prophet Muhammad himself had been a merchant. Islam provided a shared commercial language in Arabic, a body of trade law, and a common currency in the Muslim dinar – all of which made cross-cultural trade smoother. Indian merchants adapted readily to this new commercial environment and continued to thrive.
India’s contribution to Islamic science
The intellectual exchange that accompanied trade left a mark on the Islamic Golden Age that is still visible today. The Abbasid leaders in Baghdad recognised the limited understanding their scholars had in astronomy, mathematics, and medicine, and actively turned to India and Persia for advanced knowledge. Indian astronomers were invited to the Abbasid court in the late 8th century, where they explained trigonometric techniques from Indian astronomical traditions. The mathematical texts of Brahmagupta were translated into Arabic, and it was through this translation that the Hindu numeral system – including the concept of zero – was transmitted into the Arabic tradition, eventually becoming the numeral system used across the globe today. Indian physicians, too, contributed: classical Sanskrit medical texts were translated into Arabic under Abbasid patronage, feeding directly into the advances of Islamic medicine.
Assimilation into Gulf societies
Indian migrants did not remain on the periphery of Gulf societies. Over generations, many assimilated deeply into the social fabric of the region. Indian Muslims from Gujarat, Kerala, and Hyderabad migrated to the Gulf – some initially for pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina – and settled permanently, rising to positions of influence in trade and administration. Before the oil era, the region’s economic dependence on India was so significant that locals regarded India and Indians as highly as they now regard the West. For generations, the shaikhdoms of eastern Arabia formed part of Britain’s Indian Empire, and India represented power and prestige in the Gulf.
The maritime communities of Kerala were particularly valued for their seafaring expertise. Indian sailors not only transported goods but became part of the local population through intermarriage and settlement. The maritime trade of the western Indian Ocean was far more cosmopolitan than often assumed – Hindu and Jain Banias, Kachhi Bhatias, Armenians, Arabs, Turks, and Persians all shared the same trading domain, pointing to a culture of pragmatic co-existence and cross-cultural exchange that defined the pre-oil Gulf.
Cultural imprints that outlasted the merchants
Indian traders brought far more than goods with them. Their religious practices, culinary traditions, and artistic sensibilities left lasting impressions on Gulf societies. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism had a visible presence in the Gulf, particularly in Oman and the UAE. Temples dedicated to Hindu deities – such as those still standing in Oman – are physical reminders of how deeply Indian communities were embedded in local life. Even today, Bollywood is enormously popular among both expatriates and native Arabs across the Gulf, a cultural thread that stretches back centuries of sustained Indian presence.
Why this history matters
The modern Indian diaspora in the Gulf – numbering over seven million people – is often discussed in terms of 20th-century labour migration. But understanding the full depth of this relationship requires going back millennia. The Indo-Gulf connection was never simply economic. It was a sustained, evolving exchange of people, knowledge, religious ideas, and cultural practices that helped shape the intellectual achievements of the Islamic Golden Age, built the commercial infrastructure of the Arabian Peninsula, and left cultural imprints that persist to the present day. Scholars argue that the peoples of India and the Gulf share more than history – they are, in a meaningful sense, cultural cousins.
What do you think? Given that Indian merchants were integral to the Gulf’s economy and intellectual life long before the oil era, how does this ancient history change the way we understand modern Indian migration to the Gulf? And why do you think this deep historical connection remains so little known in both countries today?
References
- https://thediplomat.com/2016/06/india-and-the-gulf-states-share-a-long-history/
- https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/maritime-trade-i-pre-islamic-period/
- https://academic.oup.com/book/32336
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21534764.2025.2488152?mi=j1dht5
- http://www.sahapedia.org/sindhi-entrepreneurs-and-their-pearling-enterprise-the-persian-gulf
- https://worldhistorycommons.org/long-teaching-module-trade-and-religion-indian-ocean-network-1100-1500
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_influence_on_Islamic_science
- https://www.aramcoworld.com/articles/2017/islamic-sciences-india-connection
- https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137485779_10
- https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/gulf-in-world-history/merchant-communities-and-crosscultural-trade-between-gujarat-and-the-gulf-in-the-late-seventeenth-and-eighteenth-centuries/C38AA854C77223A643D49E2435513E2B
Leave a Reply