Arabs
There are three factors which play varying degrees in determining whether someone is considered Arab or not:
- Political: whether they live in a country which is a member of the Arab League (or, more vaguely, the Arab World); this definition covers more than 300 million people.
- Linguistic: whether their mother tongue is Arabic; this definition covers more than 200 million people.
- Genealogical: whether they can trace their ancestry back to the original inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula.
The relative importance of these factors is estimated differently by different groups. Most people who consider themselves Arabs do so on the basis of the overlap of the political and linguistic definitions, but some members of groups which fulfill both criteria reject the identity on the basis of the genealogical definition. Not many people consider themselves Arab on the basis of the political definition without the linguistic one - thus, Kurds or Berbers usually identify themselves as non-Arab - but some do (for instance, some Berbers do consider themselves Arab.)
The genealogical definition was widely used in medieval times (Ibn Khaldun, for instance, does not use the word "Arab" to refer to "Arabized" peoples, but only to those of originally Arabian descent), but is usually no longer considered to be particularly significant.
Most, but not all, Arabs are Muslims. Most American Arabs (about two-thirds) are Christian Arabs, particularly from Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon.
During the 8th and 9th centuries, the Arabs (specifically the Umayyads, and later Abbasids) forged an empire whose borders touched southern France in the west, China in the east, Asia Minor in the north, and the Sudan in the south. This was one of the largest land empires in history. Throughout much of this area, the Arabs spread the religion of Islam and their language of Arabic (the language of the Qur'an) through conversion and assimilation respectively. Soon many came to be known as "Arabs" not through descent but through Arabisation; thus, over time the term Arab came to carry a broader meaning than the original ethnic term.
Traditional genealogy
In Islamic and Jewish tradition, Arabs are a Semitic people who trace their ancestry from Ismael (Isma3il), a son of the ancient patriarch Abraham and Hagar. Medieval Arab genealogists divided the Arabs into two groups: the "original Arabs" of South Arabia, descending from Qahtan (identified with the biblical Joktan). The Qahtanites are said to have migrated the land of Yemen following the destruction of the Dam of Ma'rib (Sad Ma'rib). The Qahtanite arabs were responsible for the ancient civilizations of Yemen including the biblically renowned Sheba (a descendent of Qahtan). The "Arabized Arabs" (musta`ribah) of North Arabia, descending from Adnan, supposed to be a son of Ishmael. The Arabic language as it is spoken today in its classical Quranic form was the result of a mix between the original Arabic tongue of Qahtan and the northern Arabic which borrowed from other northern semitic languages from the levant. See Qahtanite.
The term "Arab" in history
Arabs are first mentioned in writing in an Assyrian inscription of 853 BC, where Shalmaneser III lists a King Gindibu of matu arbaai (Arab land) as among the people he defeated at the Battle of Karkar.
See also: Semitic, Ababda, Pan-Arabism, Arab League, Palestinian, Bedouin, Arabic language, Arabic alphabet, Arabia, Arab World, Nabataeans, Lakhmids, Ghassanids
The meaning of the term "Arab"
The word "Arab" means clear; clear as in comprehensible rather than as in pure. Bedouin elders still use this term to the same meaning; those whose speech they comprehend they call Arab, and those whose speech is of unkown meaning to them they call Ajam (3ajam or a3jami). In the Gulf region the term Ajam is often used to refer to the Persians. The Quran describes itself as an "Arab" text, and although this is commonly misunderstood to be an ethnographic adjective, it originally means that it is a "clear" text, as in unambiguous in its message and linguistic correctness.
