The Dom (also called Domi; Arabic: دومي / ALA-LC: Dūmī, دومري / Dūmrī, Ḍom / ضوم or دوم, or sometimes also called Doms) are descendants of the Dom caste with origins in the Indian subcontinent which through ancient migrations are found scattered across the Middle East and North Africa, the Eastern Anatolia Region, and parts of the Balkans and Hungary.^[2] The traditional language of the Dom is Domari, an endangered Indo-Aryan language, thereby making the Dom an Indo-Aryan ethnic group.^[2][5]

The Doms were formerly grouped with other traditionally itinerant ethnic groups originating from medieval India: the Rom and Lom peoples.^[2] However, these groups left India at different times and used different routes.^[6] The Domari language has a separate origin in India from Romani,^[2] and Doms are not closer to the Romani people than other Indians, such as Gujaratis.^[7] Dom people do not identify themselves as Romanis.^[8]

Culture

The Dom have an oral tradition and express their culture and history through music, poetry, and dance.^[2] Initially, it was believed that they were a branch of the Romani people, but recent studies of the Domari language suggest that they departed from the Indian subcontinent^[9] at different times and using different routes.^[6]

Among the various Domari subgroups, they were initially part of Ghawazi who were known for their dancing and music business.^[2] Some Muslim Roma may share Dom ancestry too, because in the travel book Seyahatnâme, written by the Ottoman Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi in 1668, he explained that the Romani from Komotini (Gümülcine) believe that their ancestors originated in Ottoman Egypt.^[10] Also the sedentary Romani groups from Serres region in Greece believe their ancestors were once taken from Ottoman Egypt by the Turks after 1517 to Rumelia, to work on the tobacco plantations of Turkish feudals that were based there.^[11]

Muslim Roma settled in Baranya and the city of Pécs in southwestern Hungary. After the Siege of Pécs (1686), when the Habsburgs took it back, Muslim Roma and some other Muslim ethnic minorities abandoned Islam and converted to Christianity, choosing the Roman Catholic faith in the years 1686–1713.^[3] The Ghagar, a subgroup of the Doms in Egypt, say that some of them went to Hungary.^[12]

Distribution

The Dom people, with an estimated population of 2.2 million, predominantly inhabit regions spanning Turkey, Egypt, Greece, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran. The actual population is believed to surpass this estimate, given that some Dom individuals are left out of official national censuses, and others identify themselves using national labels rather than the term "Dom."^[13]

There is a large concentration of Doms in Jordan, where they call themselves Bani Murra.^[14] Researchers have written that "they accommodate Arab racism by hiding their ethnic identity", since they would not be accepted into Arab societies once their true identity is revealed due to the anti-Romani sentiment that is prevalent in the Arab world.^[14]