| Group: | Doms in Egypt |
| Population: | 100,000 (estimated) |
| Langs: | Domari, Egyptian Arabic |
| Rels: | Islam (main religion), Christianity (1%)[1] |
| Related: | Romani people, Nawar people, Kawliya |
| Popplace: | Upper Egypt, Cairo and Alexandria |
The Dom (دوم) people migrated to the territory of the present day Egypt from South Asia, particularly from Indian Subcontinent, and heavily intermixed with Egyptians. Scholars suggest that their Egyptian admixture later made them known around the world by the vernacular term Gypsies, deriving from the word Egyptian.[2] [3]
Though some of the Dom people self-segregated themselves for centuries from the dominant culture of Egypt,[4] historically; Domari in Egypt have intermixed with Egyptians and participated at local musical entertainment at weddings, circumcisions and other celebrations, singing Egyptian traditional songs and dancing in return for money. The Dom people in Egypt or Roma Egyptians include subgroups like Nawar, and Ghagar or Ghaggar (غجر).[5] [6]
The Dom in Egypt are Sunni Muslims, and apart from Egyptian Arabic, they also speak their own Domari language.[7]
In Evliya Çelebi's Seyahatnâme of 1668, he explained that the Gypsies from Komotini (Gümülcine) "swear by their heads" their ancestors came from Egypt.[8] Moreover, the sedentary Gypsy groups from the Serres region in Greece believe their ancestors were once taken from Egypt Eyalet by the Ottomans to Rumelia after 1517 to work on the tobacco plantations of Turkish feudals there.[9] Muslim Roma settled in Baranya and the City Pécs at the Ottoman Hungary. After the Siege of Pécs, Muslim Roma and some other Muslims converted to the Catholic faith in the years 1686–1713.[10] The Ghagar a subgroup of the Doms in Egypt, tell that some of them went to Hungary.[11]