German-Iranian photographer Mahdi Ehsaei has spent the last three years documenting a lesser known community in his home country: Iranians of African heritage. His portraits, taken in Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan, document the country’s participation in the Indian Ocean slave trade until the practice was abolished in 1928. The photos appear in his recently published book, Afro-Iran, the Unknown Minority.
Few Iranians are aware of this part of their history or even the presence...