The arrival of Islam united the Arab tribes, who flooded into the Semitic Levant and Iraq. In 661, and throughout the Caliphate's rule by the Ummayad dynasty, Damascus was established as the Muslim capital. In these newly acquired territories, Arabs comprised the ruling military elite and as such, enjoyed special privileges. They were proud of their Arab ancestry and sponsored the poetry and culture of pre-Islamic Arabia whilst diffusing with Levantine and Iraqi culture. They established garrison towns, including Ramla, ar-Raqqah, Basra, Kufa, Mosul and Samarra — all of which developed into major cities.[19]
Caliph Abd al-Malik established Arabic as the Caliphate's official language in 686. This reform greatly influenced the conquered non-Arab peoples and fueled the Arabization of the region. However, the Arabs' higher status among non-Arab Muslim converts and the latter's obligation to pay heavy taxes caused resentment. Caliph Umar II strove to resolve the conflict when he came to power in 717. He rectified the situation, demanding that all Muslims be treated as equals but, his intended reforms did not take effect as he died after only three years of rule. By now, dis******* swept the region and a bloody uprising occurred in which the Abbasids came to power and moved the capital to Baghdad. The Abbasids were also Arabs (descendants of Muhammad's uncle Abbas) and unlike the Ummayads, they had the support of non-Arab Islamic groups.[19] Through Islam and Arabic as the language of administration the Levantine and Iraqi populations were eventually Arabized.
[edit] North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula
The Phoenicians and later the Carthaginians dominated North African and Iberian 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, whereas the Iberian Peninsula, particularly its southern part, remained heavily Arabized, until the expulsion of the Moriscos in the 17th century.
[edit] Medieval times
Further information: Islamic Golden Age
Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddima distinguishes between sedentary Muslims who used to 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. [20] The Christians of Italy and the Crusaders preferred the term Saracens for all the Arabs and Muslims of that time. [21] The Christians of Iberia used the term Moor to describe all the Arabs and Muslims of that time.[22]
[edit] Arabs of Central Asia
Further information: History of Arabs in Afghanistan
Most Arabs of Central Asia are fully assimilated with local populations, and call themselves the same as locals (e.g. Kazakhs, Tajiks, Uzbeks).[23] In order to notice their Arab origin they have a special term: Sayyid, Khoja or Siddiqui.[24]
[edit] Banu Hilal in North Africa, 1046AD
The Banu Hilal was an Arabian 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.
[edit] Banu Sulaym in North Africa, 1049AD
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 1052 AD, and finally took Kairuan in 1057 Ad. The Banu Sulaym mainly settled and completely Arabized Libya.
[edit] Banu Kanz Nubia/Sudan, 11th-14th century
A branch of the Rabi'ah 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 Jaalin and Juhayna Arab tribes.
[edit] Banu Hassan Mauritania 1644-1674AD
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.
[edit] Tribal genealogy
Syrian Bedouin with family, 1893Medieval Arab genealogists divided Arabs into three groups:
"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. The Book of Jubilees claims that the The sons of Ishmael intermingled with the 6 sons of Keturah from Abraham And was called Arabs and Ishmaelites:
Book of Jubilees 20:13 And Ishmael and his sons, and the sons of Keturah and their sons, went together and dwelt from Paran to the entering in of Babylon in all the land which is towards the East facing the desert. And these mingled with each other, and their name was called Arabs, and Ishmaelites.
[edit] Religions
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See also: Arabic-speaking Christians
Christian martyr Saint Abo, the patron saint of Tbilisi.Arab Muslims are Sunni, Shia or Ibadhite. The Druze faith is generally considered divergent enough to constitute a separate religion. The self-identified Arab Christians generally follow Eastern Churches such as the Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic churches and the Maronite church. Coptic Christians, though Arabic speaking, do generally not identify as ethnic Arabs .[citation needed]
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 monotheism unaffiliated with any particular religion. 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, polytheistic Arabs were rapidly Islamized, and polytheistic traditions disappeared.
Today, Sunni Islam dominates in most areas, overwhelmingly so in North Africa. Shia Islam is dominant in southern Iraq and southern Lebanon. Shia Muslims are also believed to be in the majority in Bahrain, and substantial Shi'a populations exist in Kuwait, eastern Saudi Arabia, northern Syria, the al-Batinah region in Oman, and in northern Yemen. The Druze community, concentrated in the Levant, follow a faith that was originally an offshoot of Ismaili Shia 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.[25] In Lebanon they number about 39% of the population,[26] in Syria 10%.[27] In Palestine before the creation of Israel estimates ranged as high as 20%, but is now 3.8% due to mass emigration[citation needed]. In Israel Arab Christians constitute 2.1% (roughly 10% of the Palestinian Arab population). In Egypt they are about 15% of the population and in Jordan they around 5%. Many Christians do not consider themselves Arabs. Most North and South American Arabs are Christian, as are about half of Arabs in Australia who come particularly from Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinian territories.
Jews from Arab countries – mainly Mizrahi Jews and Yemenite Jews – are today usually not categorised as Arab. Sociologist Philip Mendes asserts that before the anti-Jewish actions of the 1930s and 1940s, overall Iraqi Jews "viewed themselves as Arabs of the Jewish faith, rather than as a separate race or nationality".[28] 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.
arab
العرض العادي
