Indian expatriates in the Arab world represent a continuation of the enduring India-Arabia relations that date back centuries and enabled enriching exchanges in literature, science, and spirituality, going much beyond Islam and its propagation
The high point of Islamic civilization coincided with Baghdad’s centrality to global trade, knowledge, science, and scholarship between the eighth and the eleventh centuries. It drew people from around the world to the city. By the ninth century, Baghdad had Greek, Indian, Chinese, and Armenian quarters apart from Jewish and Christian suburbs. The diversity led to an exchange of knowledge that facilitated the development of some pivotal scientific ideas.
A text that an Indian merchant brought to Baghdad in the eighth century introduced nine numerals and zero and changed the face of mathematics by making multiplication and division simpler. The numerals helped develop the decimal system and calculus, which are vital to almost all branches of science and underpin important discoveries in physics. Scholars such as polymath al-Khwarizmi, whom algorithms are named after, built on these ideas to create what has been described as ‘the Arab hegemony’ in mathematics.
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The Arabs helped the new system of numerals, which Europeans called Arab numerals, reach Renaissance Europe. They continue to call them Hindsa (the Indian numeral) correctly. The Arab world’s age-old links with India have enabled such mutually enriching exchanges for centuries. The ties have had Arabs hold Indians in high esteem. Over the recent decades, Arabs have associated India with Gandhian ideals of religious coexistence.
Mutually Enriching Ties
The increasing weaponization of history through its narrow interpretation has blurred the lines between myths and reality. The sweeping tendency to see Muslims as the monolithic other, a historical adversary, and the promotion of black-and-white history to suit this narrative has overshadowed India’s collaborative and mutually enriching ties with the Arab world.
Thanks to the collaborative India-Arab relations, Panchatantra, one of India’s most significant contributions to global literature, found its way to the rest of the world through its Arabic translation. Kalila wa Dimna, an anthology of Indian fables, has been among the most popular books in the Arab world for over a millennium. Ibn Muqaffa compiled the book in the eighth century from the fables sourced from Panchatantra to engage philosophers in the wisdom of its tales.
Alf Laylah wa Laylah (The Arabian Nights/One Thousand and One Nights), which has for centuries influenced storytelling and inspired generations of writers and is known as the Arab world’s biggest contribution to literature, may also have an Indian link. Novelist Salman Rushdie has argued that the iconic book’s probable origin is Indian. In a May 2021 New York Times piece, Rushdie wrote that Indian story compendiums also have a fondness for frame stories, Russian doll-style stories within stories, and animal fables.
He added that these stories first found their way into Persian somewhere around the eighth century. Rushdie cited surviving scraps of information and wrote the collection known as Hazar Afsaneh (A Thousand Stories). Rushdie referred to a 10th-century document from Baghdad and added that it describes the Hazar Afsaneh and mentions its frame story about a king who would kill a concubine every night until one of them manages to delay her execution by telling him stories.
Sanskrit texts were of great Arab interest during the Islamic Golden Age. The Arabs began acquiring them before they sourced nearly all Graeco-Roman philosophical and scientific works. In 771, an Indian delegation visited Baghdad carrying a library. The brilliance of its texts is believed to have prompted the commissioning of their translations into Arabic. Indian mysticism was among the subjects that the Abbasid Empire, which helmed the Golden Age from the eighth century onwards, tapped into.
The Spiritual Realm
A courtyard at the tomb of a Sufi saint in Baghdad signifies Indo-Arab links in the spiritual realm. It commemorates the Sikhism founder Guru Nanak’s stay there during his 16th-century journey through Arabia for inter-religious dialogue. Nanak, who is believed to have gained deep insights into Islam thanks to the journey, founded Sikhism as a monotheistic religion drawing from Islam as a synthesis between two of India’s major faiths.
In Kerala, the Cheraman Juma Masjid, believed to be the oldest mosque in the southern Indian state, also attests to deep India-Arab relations. The mosque is linked to mythical ruler Cheraman Perumal, who, the story goes, saw the moon splitting into two either in his dream or from his palace. Arab traders are believed to have told him how the miracle was associated with the Prophet. This is said to have prompted Perumal to travel to meet the Prophet in Mecca, where he is believed to have died as a Muslim. A friend of Preumal is said to have later built the Cheraman Juma Masjid in the seventh century.
The Expatriate Connect
The 8.9 million-strong Indian expatriate community in the Arab world represents the continuing symbiotic India-Arab relations. The remittances they send have often surpassed India’s other sources of capital inflows. The remittances constituted 2.7% of the country’s GDP in 2017, double the spending (1.15% of GDP) on healthcare. Over $30 billion from the region accounted for nearly half of the remittances of $69 billion to India in 2017.
In 2017, remittances of over $10.5 billion from Saudi Arabia, where almost a quarter of 17 million Indians worldwide lived, were the most significant contribution to the flow of capital from a single country. A bulk of $7.99 billion deposited in the bank accounts of non-resident Indians between April 2022 and March 2023 was from Gulf countries. The amount was over twice that received in the previous fiscal year—$3.23 billion.
Of the $112.5 billion received from overseas in 2022-23, 18% came from the UAE, 5.1% from Saudi Arabia, 2.4% from Kuwait, 1.6% from Oman, and 1.5% from Qatar, the Indian government told Parliament. The remittances hit a record of $125 billion in 2023-24, up from about $100 billion the year before. The remittances from Muslim Gulf nations have improved the life standards in places such as Kerala, boosting spending on better housing and education. The Forbes’ India’s 100 Richest List in 2023 included six UAE-based Indians.
The remittances have a more significant impact. According to Lancaster University economics professor V N Balasubramanyam, the Non-Resident Indians often return, establish a firm, train people, and then leave again. He noted that the to-and-fro diaspora group has contributed significantly to industry, including the Indian IT industry, and especially within pharmaceuticals.
According to Indian luxury real estate company DLF Ltd, Non-Resident Indians purchased 20% of all homes the firm sold between April and September 2023, up from 15% in the previous financial year. The economic power of the diaspora is expected to increase and maintain India’s position as the world’s leading recipient of remittances. According to the Reserve Bank of India, the Gulf has accounted for an average of 28% of total remittances sent to India from 2014 to 2020, with the UAE and Saudi Arabia as its primary sources.
From Strength To Strength
India-Arab relations have gone from strength to strength. India’s business links with the region have diversified from imports of oil and exports of cheap labour. The UAE has emerged as India’s second-biggest export market. India and the UAE in 2023 signed a free-trade deal for doubling non-oil bilateral trade to $100 billion by 2030.
An improvement in India-Arab relations has led to billions of dollars of investment in India. According to the Economist, Emirati investment flows into India were $9.8 billion in the half-decade to 2023, almost triple the figure for the previous five years. The UAE’s largest sovereign wealth fund has committed to investing $75 billion in Indian infrastructure and Saudi Arabia $100 billion.
According to Indian firm Larsen & Toubro, some 30% of its $55 billion order book came from the Gulf, mainly Saudi Arabia. Indian commerce was expected to grow faster with the UAE thanks to pacts, including a deal to link the digital payment systems of the two countries, and establishing an India-Europe trade corridor through the Middle East. Wealthy and middle-class Indians have been moving to the UAE. The process was accelerated when the UAE introduced golden visas granting 10-year residency to professionals, entrepreneurs, and investors.
