Dubai

This essay and others like it on Khojawiki are written to provide context for the life and migration stories of individual Khoja families. We would like to add more such family histories of those who lived here, so our collective history is more complete. Please Click Here To Add Your Family And More Information To Our History

KHOJAS IN EARLY DUBAI

Since the sixteenth century, if not before, it appears that most Muslim Indian merchants in the Gulf were Khojas (sing. Khoja / Khojah, pl. Khawaja) from Gujarat and later Bombay.

The Banian community in Dubai— today the largest in the UAE—was established in the 1890s, when Sindhi Bhatia merchants, as well as Khoja merchants, from elsewhere in the Gulf moved there.

Around 1900, the largest towns on the Gulf littoral were on the Arab side, with the population of Kuwait about 35,000, Manama 25,000, Muharraq 20,000, and Dubai 10,000.

By the early 1900s, there were 67 Banians (all likely Sindhi Bhatia) and twenty-three Khojas, with an additional 20 Banians visiting the port during the pearling season.36