approx. 300 to 340 million
An Arab (Arabic: عربي) is a member of a complexly defined ethnic group who identifies as such on the basis of one or all of either geneaological, political, or linguistic grounds.
The Arabic language and culture began to spread in the Middle East in the 2nd century with genealogically Arab Christians such as the Ghassanids, Lakhmids, and Banu Judham, and even earlier Arab Jewish tribes. Widespread proliferation of Arab language, culture and identity in the Middle East and North Africa, however, did not begin until after the advent of Islam in the 7th century and the ensuing Arab Muslim expansion. The early conquests of successive Islamic Arab empires resulted in the Arabization and cultural assimilation of the region's other indigenous Semitic and non-Semitic peoples of non-Arabian origin, often but not always together with their Islamization. With time, the label Arab expanded beyond a pure geneaological definition to come to be associated with Arabized populations of countries in North Africa and the Middle East. This latter expanded definition is contested by many it would encompass, regardless of religious heritage, including Muslims. Islamized, but non-Arabized peoples form part of the Muslim World, and not the traditionally secular Arab World.
Defining who is an Arab
Arabs of Central Asia are fully assimilated with local, and call themselves the same as local (e.g. Kazakhs, Uzbeks).
Arabs of Central Asia
Origins & History
The Arab ancient origin lies in the vast Desert region between modern Syria and Yemen.[3] Based on the (Abrahamic tradition) Torah, Bible, and Qur'an, Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula are descendants of Ismail, son of Abraham. Keeping the surname is an important part of Arabic culture as some lineages can be traced far back to ancient times. Some Arabs claim they can trace their lineage back to Noah and Adam. In addition to Adam, Noah, and Shem, some of the first known Arabs are those who came from Petra, the Nabataean capital.
Pre-Sabaean Semitic Arabia
Early Semites built civilizations in Mesopotamia and Syria, but slowly lost their political domination of the Near East due to internal turmoil and constant attacks by new nomadic Semitic and non-Semitic groups. The Arameans, Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, Amorites, Sabaeans amd Minaeans spoke closely related Semitic languages. These groups often overlapped and mixed racial lines, as did Indo-European groups.
The Hebrew Bible occasionally refers to `Arvi peoples (or variants thereof), translated as "Arab" or "Arabian". The scope of the term at that early stage is unclear, but it seems to have referred to various desert-dwelling Semitic tribes in the Syrian Desert and Arabia. Its earliest attested use referring to the southern "Qahtanite" Arabs is much later.
Proto-Arabic, or ancient north Arabian, texts give a clearer picture of the Arabs' emergence. The earliest are written in variants of epigraphic south Arabian musnad script, including the 8th century BC Hasaean inscriptions of eastern Saudi Arabia, the 6th century BC Lihyanite texts of southeastern Saudi Arabia and the Thamudic texts found throughout Arabia and the Sinai (not in reality connected with Thamud).
Pre-Arabic Near East
The Nabateans moved into territory vacated by the Edomites -- Semites who settled the region centuries before them. The Nabateans were nomadic newcomers who wrote in a vernacular Aramiac that evolved into modern Arabic and modern Arabic script around the 4th century. This process included Safaitic inscriptions (beginning in the 1st century BC) and the many Arabic personal names in Nabataean inscriptions in Aramaic. From about the 2nd century BC, a few inscriptions from Qaryat al-Faw (near Sulayyil) reveal a dialect which is no longer considered "proto-Arabic", but pre-classical Arabic.
Nabateans, 330BC
The Ghassanids were the last major migration of non-Islamic Semites out of Yemen to the north. They revived the Semitic presence in the then Hellenized Syria. They mainly settled the Hauran region and spread to modern Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan.
Greeks and Romans referred to all the nomadic population of the desert in the Near East as Arabi. The Greeks called Yemen "Arabia Felix".[6], The Romans called the vassal nomadic states within the Roman Empire "Arabia Petraea" after the city of Petra, and called unconquered deserts bordering the empire to the south and east Arabia Magna[7]
By the fourth century AD, the Arab kingdoms of the Lakhmids in southern Iraq and Ghassanids in southern Syria had emerged just south of the Fertile Crescent and ended up allying respectively with the Sassanid and Byzantine Empires. The Kindite Kingdom emerged in Central Arabia and allied with the Himyarite Empire of South Arabia. Thus they were constantly at war with each other on behalf of their imperial patrons. Their courts were responsible for some notable examples of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, and for some of the few surviving pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions in the Arabic alphabet. The Sassanids dissolved the Lakhmid kingdom in 602, while the Ghassanids held out until engulfed by the expansion of Islam (Pre-Islamic Arabia).
Ghassanids, 250AD
Further information: Muslim conquests
Muslims of Medina referred to the nomadic tribes of the deserts as the A'raab, and considered themselves sedentary, but were aware of their close racial bonds. The term "A'raab' mirrors the term Assyrians used to describe the closely related nomads they defeated in Syria.
The Qur'an does not use the word ʿarab, only the nisba adjective ʿarabiyyun. The Qur'an calls itself ʿarabiyyun, "Arabic", and mubinun, "clear". The two qualities are connected for example in ayat 43.2-3, "By the clear Book: We have made it an Arabic recitation in order that you may understand". The Qur'an became regarded as the prime example of the al-ʿarabiyya, the language of the Arabs. The term ʾiʿrāb has the same root and refers to a particularly clear and correct mode of speech. The plural noun ʾaʿrāb refers to the Bedouin tribes of the desert who resisted Muhammad, for example in ayat 9.97, ʾaʿrābu ʾašaddu kufrān wa nifāqān "the Bedouin are the worst in disbelief and hypocrisy".
Based on this, in early Islamic terminology, ʿarab referred to the language, and ʾaʿrāb to the Arab Bedouins, carrying a negative connotation due to the Qur'anic verdict just cited. But after the Islamic conquest of the 8th century, the language of the nomadic Arabs became regarded as the most pure by the grammarians following Abi Ishaq, and the term kalam al-ʿArab, "language of the Arabs", denoted the uncontaminated language of the Bedouins.
Early Islamic Arabization
The arrival of Islam united the Arab tribes, who flooded into the strongly Semitic Greater Syria and Iraq. Within years, the major garrison towns developed into the major cities of Syria and Iraq. The local population, which shared a close linguistic and genetic ancestry with Qahtani and Adnani Muslims were quickly Arabized.
Syria/Iraq, 7th century
The Phoenicians and later the Carthaginians dominated North African shores for more than 8 centuries until they were suppressed by the Romans and the later Vandal invasion. Inland, the nomadic Berbers allied with Arab Muslims in invading Spain. The Arab tribes mainly settled the old Phoenician and Carthagenian towns, while the Berbers remained dominant inland. Inland north Africa remained partly Arabized until the 11th century.
North Africa, 7th century
Further information: Islamic Golden Age
Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddima distinguishes between sedentary Muslims who used be nomadic Arabs and the Bedouin nomadic Arabs of the desert. He used the term "formerly-nomadic" Arabs and refers to sedentary Muslims by the region or city they lived in, as in Egyptians, Spaniards and Yemenis.[8] The Christians of Italy and the Crusaders preferred the term Saraceans for all the Arabs and Muslims of that time.[9] The Christians of Iberia used the term Moor to describe all the Arabs and Muslims of that time.[10]
Medieval times
The Banu Hilal was a Yemeni tribal confederation, organized by the Fatimids. They struck in Libya, reducing the Zenata Berbers (a clan that claimed Yemeni ancestry from pre-Islamic periods) and small coastal towns, and Arabizing the Sanhaja berber confederation. The Banu Hilal eventually Settled modern (Morocco and Algeria) and subdued Arabized the Sanhaja by the time of Ibn Khaldun.
Banu Hilal in North Africa, 1046AD
The Banu Sulyam is another Bedouin tribal confederation from Nejd which followed through the trials of Banu Hilal and helped them defeat the Zirids in the battle of Gabis in 1052AD, and finally took Kairuan in 1057Ad. The Banu Sulaym mainly settled and completely Arabized Libya.
Banu Sulaym in North Africa, 1049AD
A branch of the Rabia' tribe settled in north Sudan and slowly Arabized the Makurian kingdom in modern Sudan until 1315 AD when the Banu Kanz inherited the kingdom of Makuria and paved the way for the Arabization of the Sudan, that was completed by the arrival of the Jaali and Juhayna Arab tribes.
Banu Kanz Nubia/Sudan, 11th-14th century
After the defeat of the Crusades, the Ayubids repopulated the reconquered towns with Arabs mainly from their southern provinces of modern Yemen and Asir in modern Saudi Arabia.
Repopulating crusade struck towns, 12th century
The Banu Maqil is a Yemeni nomadic tribe that settled in Tunisia in the 13th century. The Banu Hassan a Maqil branch moved into the Sanhaja region in whats today the Western Sahara and Mauritania, they fought a thirty years war on the side of the Lamtuna Arabized Berbers who claimed Himyarite ancestry (from the early Islamic invasions) defeating the Sanhaja berbers and Arabizing Mauritania.
Banu Hassan Mauritania 1644-1674ADMedieval Arab genealogists divided Arabs into three groups:
The Arabic language spoken today in classical Quranic form evolved as a mix between the original Arabic of Qahtan and northern Arabic which shares a great deal with northern Semitic languages from the Levant. Arabs take great pride in their language and its survival as a usable and comprehensible language over thousands of years.
Jewish and Christian tradition described the Ishmaelites as an "Arabian people" at least by the time of Joseph, which became standard centuries before Islam. The term Hagarenes was commonly used; it is a pun on the Arabic muhajir and the name Hagar. Efforts to reconcile the Biblical and Arab genealogies later led to conflicting attempts to trace Adnan to Ishmael (Ismail), the eldest son of Abraham and Hagar. Joktan was identified with Qahtan, probably due to his biblical identification as the ancestor of Hazarmaveth (Hadramawt) and Sheba, although these links are based on biblical guesses.
"ancient Arabs", tribes that had vanished or been destroyed, such as 'Ad and Thamud, often mentioned in the Qur'an as examples of God's power to destroy wicked peoples.
"Pure Arabs" of South Arabia, descending from Qahtan. The Qahtanites (Qahtanis) are said to have migrated the land of Yemen following the destruction of the Ma'rib Dam (sadd Ma'rib).
The "Arabized Arabs" (musta`ribah) of center and North Arabia, descending from Ishmael son of Abraham. Tribal genealogy
Arab Muslims are Sunni, Shi'a, Ibadhite, Alawite, or Ismaili. The Druze faith is usually considered separate. The self-identified Arab Christians follow generally Eastern Churches such as Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholic. Other Arabic-speaking Christians, such as Copts and Maronites, do not generally consider themselves Arabs.
Before the coming of Islam, most Arabs followed a religion with a number of deities, including Hubal, Wadd, Allāt, Manat, and Uzza. Some tribes had converted to Christianity or Judaism. A few individuals, the hanifs, had apparently rejected polytheism in favor of a vague monotheism. The most prominent Arab Christian kingdoms were the Ghassanid and Lakhmid kingdoms. When Himyarite kings converted to Judaism in the late 4th century, the elites of the other prominent Arab kingdom, the Kindites, being Himyirite vassals, apparently also converted (at least partly). With the expansion of Islam, most Arabs rapidly became Muslim, and polytheistic traditions disappeared.
Today, Sunni Islam dominates in most areas, overwhelmingly so in North Africa. Shia Islam is prevalent in Bahrain, southern Iraq and adjacent parts of Saudi Arabia, southern Lebanon, parts of Syria, al-Batinah region in Oman, northern Yemen, and in Iran. (Most Iranians are not Arabs.) The tiny Druze community follow a secretive faith similar to Islam, and are also Arab.
Estimates of the number of Arab Christians vary, and depend on the definition of "Arab", as with the number of all Arabs, especially Muslim Arabs. Christians make up 9.2% of the population of the Near East. Prior to the emergence of the term Mizrahi, the term "Arab Jews" (Yehudim 'Áravim, יהודים ערבים) was sometimes used to describe Jews of the Arab world. The term is rarely used today. The few remaining Jews in the Arab countries reside mostly in Morocco and Tunisia. From the late 1940s to the early 1960s, following the creation of the state of Israel, most of these Jews left or were expelled from their countries of birth and are now mostly concentrated in Israel. Some immigrated to France, where they form the largest Jewish community, outnumbering European Jews, but relatively few to the United States. See Jewish exodus from Arab lands.
Religions
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