Arab
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The word Arab is most commonly used to refer to any person of the Middle East or North Africa whose mother tongue is the Arabic language; it is used in this sense for such terms as Arab World, Arab League. In this sense, there are nearly 300 million Arabs. The term is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to anyone originating in this area; however, many non-Arabic-speaking groups, such as the Berber peoples of North Africa or the Assyrians of Iraq, are also found there. This term is subject to a certain amount of ideological jockeying: many members of certain groups, such as the Maronite Christian Arabic-speakers of Lebanon, or the Arabic-speaking Copts of Egypt, or Arabic-speaking Jews, reject this definition, wishing to identify not with a group defined by language but with a narrower one defined by religion or shared communal history.
In its older racial sense, an Arab is a person of Arabic descent, whose original ancestry comes from the Arabian Peninsula; by this definition, there are considerably fewer Arabs than by the previous (and more common) definition, and most of them are or were until very recently Bedouins. This definition was often used among Arabic speakers in medieval times; Ibn Khaldun, for instance, uses it as a near synonym for Bedouin. Arabs are a Semitic people who, in Islamic and Jewish tradition, trace their ancestry from Ishmael, a son of the ancient patriarch Abraham and Hagar. The medieval Arab genealogists divided the Arabs into two groups: the "original Arabs" of South Arabia, descending from Qahtan (identified with the biblical Joktan) and the "Arabized Arabs" (musta`ribah) of North Arabia, descending from Adnan, supposed to be a son of Ishmael.See Qahtanite.
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.
Most, but not all, Arabs have embraced the religion of Islam. Most American Arabs (about two-thirds) are Christian Arabs, particularly from Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon.
See also: Semitic, Ababda, Pan-Arabism, Arab League, Palestinian, Bedouin, Arabic language, Arabic alphabet, Arabia, Arab World
External link
- Maps of the Arab World (http://www.aaiusa.org/arab_world.htm)
- News from Arabic countries (http://www.albawaba.com)
- Business news from Arab countries (http://www.ameinfo.com)
- Arabia in ancient history (http://nabataea.net/arabia.html) - with a discussion of the ancient usage of the word "Arab"
