Arabs () are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Before the spread of Arabic language in the wake of the Arab conquests, "Arab" largely referred to the Semitic inhabitants—both settled and nomadic—of the Arabian Peninsula and the Syrian Desert.Britannica In modern usage, it includes people from across the Greater Middle East that share Arabic as a native language.
Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years.*
In the 9th century BCE, the Assyrians made written references to Arabs as inhabitants of the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Arabia.* Throughout the Ancient Near East, Arabs established influential civilizations starting from 3000 BCE onwards, such as Dilmun, Gerrha, and Magan, playing a vital role in trade between Mesopotamia, and the Mediterranean.* Other prominent tribes include Midian, ʿĀd, and Thamud mentioned in the Bible and Quran. Later, in 900 BCE, the Qedarites enjoyed close relations with the nearby Canaanite and Aramaean states, and their territory extended from Lower Egypt to the Southern Levant.* From 1200 BCE to 110 BCE, powerful kingdoms emerged such as Saba, Lihyan, Ma'in, Qataban, Hadhramaut, Awsan, and Himyar. According to the Abrahamic tradition, Arabs are descendants of Abraham through his son Ishmael.
During classical antiquity, the Nabataeans established their kingdom with Petra as the capital in 300 BCE, by 271 CE, the Palmyrene Empire with the capital Palmyra, led by Queen Zenobia, encompassed Syria Palaestina, Arabia Petraea, Egypt, and large parts of Anatolia. The Arab or Aramean Itureans inhabited Lebanon, Syria, and northern Palestine (Galilee) during the Hellenistic and Roman periods.Berndt Schaller, Ituraea, p. 1492. The Osroene and Hatran were Arab-ruled kingdoms in Upper Mesopotamia around 200 CE. In 164 CE, the Sasanians called part of upper Mesopotamia "Arbayistan", meaning "land of the Arabs," having conquered the land from the previously Jewish Adiabene. The probably Arab Emesenes ruled Emesa (Homs), Syria by 46 BCE.; ; ; ; ; During late antiquity, the Tanukhids, Salihids, Lakhmids, Kinda, and Ghassanids were dominant Arab tribes in the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Arabia; they predominantly embraced Christianity.* Bowersock, G. W., Peter Brown and Oleg Grabar, eds. 1999. Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. .
During the Middle Ages, Islam fostered a vast Arab union, leading to significant Arab migrations to the Maghreb, the Levant, and neighbouring territories under the rule of Arab empires such as the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid, ultimately leading to the decline of the Byzantine and Sasanian empires. At its peak, Arab territories stretched from southern France to western China, forming one of history's largest empires.*
The Great Arab Revolt in the early 20th century aided in dismantling the Ottoman Empire, ultimately leading to the formation of the Arab League on 22 March 1945, with its Charter endorsing the principle of a "unified Arab homeland".* "The Arab Revolt, 1916–18 | The Ottoman Empire." New Zealand History. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. 30 July 2014. McMeekin, Sean. 2012. The Berlin–Baghdad Express. Belknap Press. . pp. 288, 297.
Ochsenwald, William L. 1968. "The Vilayet of Syria, 1901–1914: A Re-Examination of Diplomatic Documents As Sources." Middle East Journal 22(1). p. 73.*Arab League formed | This Day in History – 3/22/1945." HISTORY. US: A&E Television Networks. 2010. Retrieved on 28 April 2014.
Arabs from Morocco to Iraq share a common bond based on ethnicity, language, culture, history, identity, ancestry, nationalism, geography, unity, and politics,* which give the region a distinct identity and distinguish it from other parts of the Muslim world. They also have their own customs, literature, music, dance, media, food, clothing, society, sports, architecture, art and, mythology.*
Arabs have significantly influenced and contributed to human progress in many fields, including science, technology, philosophy, ethics, literature, politics, business, art, music, comedy, theatre, cinema, architecture, food, medicine, and religion.* Holt, P. M. 2013. Studies in the History of the Near East. p. 28. 113627331X: "He held the post until his death in 1624 and was succeeded by his former pupil, James Golius (1596–1667). Erpenius and Golius made outstanding contributions to the development of Arabic studies by their teaching, their preparation of texts,..." Before Islam, most Arabs followed polytheistic Semitic religion, while some tribes adopted Judaism or Christianity and a few individuals, known as the hanifs, followed a form of monotheism.* Currently, around 93% of Arabs are Muslims, while the rest are mainly Christians, as well as Arab groups of Druze and Baháʼís.
Etymology
The earliest documented use of the word Arab in reference to a people appears in the Kurkh Monoliths, an Akkadian-language record of the Assyrian conquest of Aram (9th century BCE). The Monoliths used the term to refer to Bedouins of the Arabian Peninsula under King Gindibu, who fought as part of a coalition opposed to Assyria. pp. 105, 119, 125–127.
The related word ʾaʿrāb is used to refer to Bedouins today, in contrast to ʿArab which refers to Arabs in general.Wehr, Hans, and J. M. Cowan. A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (3rd ed.) Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services. p. 601. Both terms are mentioned around 40 times in pre-Islamic Sabaean inscriptions. The term ʿarab ('Arab') occurs also in the titles of the Himyarite kings from the time of 'Abu Karab Asad until MadiKarib Ya'fur. According to Sabaean grammar, the term ʾaʿrāb is derived from the term ʿarab. The term is also mentioned in Quranic verses, referring to people who were living in Madina and it might be a south Arabian loanword into Quranic language.
The oldest surviving indication of an Arab national identity is an inscription made in an archaic form of Arabic in 328 CE using the Nabataean alphabet, which refers to Imru' al-Qays ibn 'Amr as 'King of all the Arabs'. Herodotus refers to the Arabs in the Sinai, southern Palestine, and the frankincense region (Southern Arabia). Other Ancient-Greek historians like Agatharchides, Diodorus Siculus and Strabo mention Arabs living in Mesopotamia (along the Euphrates), in Egypt (the Sinai and the Red Sea), southern Jordan (the Nabataeans), the Syrian steppe and in eastern Arabia (the people of Gerrha). Inscriptions dating to the 6th century BCE in Yemen include the term 'Arab'.
The most popular Arab account holds that the word Arab came from an eponymous father named Ya'rub, who was supposedly the first to speak Arabic. Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdani had another view; he states that Arabs were called gharab ('westerners') by Mesopotamians because Bedouins originally resided to the west of Mesopotamia; the term was then corrupted into Arab.
Yet another view is held by al-Masudi that the word Arab was initially applied to the Ishmaelites of the Arabah valley. In the Hebrew Bible's etymology, Arab () comes from the desert origin of the Bedouins whom it originally described as arava (), meaning 'desert' or 'wilderness.'
The root ʿ-r-b has several additional meanings in Semitic languages—including 'west, sunset', 'desert', 'mingle', 'mixed', 'merchant' and 'raven'—and are "comprehensible" with all of these having varying degrees of relevance to the emergence of the name. It is also possible that some forms were metathetical from , 'moving around' (Arabic: , 'traverse') and hence, it is alleged, 'nomadic'.
Origins
Arabic is a Semitic language that belongs to the Afroasiatic language family. The majority of scholars accept the "Arabian Peninsula" has long been accepted as the original Urheimat (linguistic homeland) of the Semitic languages.Gray, Louis Herbert (2006) Introduction to Semitic Comparative LinguisticsCourtenay, James John (2009) The Language of Palestine and Adjacent RegionsKienast, Burkhart. (2001). Historische semitische SprachwissenschaftBromiley, Geoffrey W. (1995) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia with some scholars investigating if its origins are in the Levant. The ancient Semitic-speaking peoples lived in the ancient Near East, including the Levant, Mesopotamia, and the Arabian Peninsula from the 3rd millennium BCE to the end of antiquity. Proto-Semitic likely reached the Arabian Peninsula by the 4th millennium BCE, and its daughter languages spread outward from there, while Old Arabic began to differentiate from Central Semitic by the start of the 1st millennium BCE. Central Semitic is a branch of the Semitic language includes Arabic, Aramaic, the Canaanite languages (Ammonite, Hebrew, Moabite, Philistine, Phoenician, etc.) and others. The origins of Proto-Semitic may lie in the Arabian Peninsula, with the language spreading from there to other regions. This theory proposes that Semitic peoples reached Mesopotamia and other areas from the deserts to the west, such as the Akkadians who entered Mesopotamia around the late 4th millennium BCE. The origins of Semitic peoples are thought to include various regions Mesopotamia, the Levant, the Arabian Peninsula, and North Africa. Some view that Semitic may have originated in the Levant around 3800 BCE and subsequently spread to the Horn of Africa around 800 BCE from Arabia, as well as to North Africa.Sabatino Moscati (2001). The Phoenicians. I.B. Tauris. p. 654. .
According to Arab–Islamic–Jewish traditions, Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar was "father of the Arabs". A–Z of Prophets in Islam and Judaism, Wheeler, Ishmael Ishmael was considered the ancestor of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam. The tribes of Central West Arabia called themselves the "people of Abraham and the offspring of Ishmael."Stacey, Aisha. 2020. "Signs of Prophethood in the Noble Life of Prophet Muhammad (part 1 of 2): Prophet Muhammad's Early Life." The Religion of Islam. Retrieved 18 December 2017. § 18, p. 215. Gibb, Hamilton A. R., and J. H. Kramers. 1965. Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. pp. 191–98
Ibn Khaldun, an Arab scholar in the 8th century, described the Arabs as having Ishmaelite origins.
The Quran mentions that Ibrahim (Abraham) and his wife Hajar (Hagar) bore a prophetic child named Ishmael, who was gifted by God a favor above other people. Ibrahim and Ishmael built the Kaaba in Mecca, which was originally constructed by Adam. According to the Samaritan book Asaṭīr: "And after the death of Abraham, Ishmael reigned twenty-seven years; And all the children of Nebaot ruled for one year in the lifetime of Ishmael; And for thirty years after his death from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates; and they built Mecca." The Targum Onkelos annotates (Genesis 25:16), describing the extent of their settlements: The Ishmaelites lived from Hindekaia (India) to Chalutsa (possibly in Arabia), by the side of Mizraim (Egypt), and from the area around Arthur (Assyria) up towards the north. This description suggests that the Ishmaelites were a widely dispersed group with a presence across a significant portion of the ancient Near East.
History