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What does 'arab' mean exactly?

T

TeeJay

New Member
People talk about 'arabs' but I have never really understood who is and who isn't 'an arab' or why.

Would anyone like to have a go at saying what the criteria are?

Is it a question of religion, language, nationality, family ties, culture or so-called "race" (not that separate and distinct races even exist - although the term is often used as a proxy for physical appearance or skin colour)?

Is it all of these things or none of them? Is it simply a term that people give to themselves but doesn't actually have any consistent or unifying basis in reality? Is it an artificial political construct or is there any real and measurable underlying factor involved?

There seem to be various non-Islamic peoples throughout the middle eastern world (middle east being another vague term) - eg Berbers, Christians (eg Copts) etc. as well as many Muslim people who don't call themselves 'arab'. Some people speak arabic but others don't.

Can anyone clear this issue up? The term is used so often but I have never seen a satisfactory explanation for what it actually means.
 
It's a geographic description, originally based on a group of semite tribes in the Arabian peninsula. From the Latin Arabus and the Greek Araps if my memory is functioning properly.
 
Dhimmi said:
It's a geographic description, originally based on a group of semite tribes in the Arabian peninsula. From the Latin Arabus and the Greek Araps if my memory is functioning properly.
Click to expand...
So an "arab" is a member of one of these tribes then? Then presumably most of the middle east and north africa are not 'arabs' in that case surely? Egypt had a vast population before it was invaded and became Muslim for example didn't it? They didn't all descend from the 'arab' tribes did they, just like most of the population of europe didn't actually descended from the romans, despite owing a lot of ther languages, religion and culture to roman influences.

Sorry Dhimmi, your explanation doesn't really explain anything much to me about what makes someone 'an arab' in 2006.
 
I thought you were an Arab when you spoke Arabic but I'm not exactly the most clued up about the Middle East I'll admit! :):)
 
am bored but not that bored to google too much on this good question but this is what the online Oxford Dictionary says


Arab

• noun 1 a member of a Semitic people inhabiting much of the Middle East and North Africa. 2 a breed of horse originating in Arabia.

people have probably written books about it but i think language is probably quite a big factor
 
twisted said:
am bored but not that bored to google too much on this good question but this is what the online Oxford Dictionary says


Arab

• noun 1 a member of a Semitic people inhabiting much of the Middle East and North Africa. 2 a breed of horse originating in Arabia.

people have probably written books about it but i think language is probably quite a big factor
Click to expand...
Thanks for providing the dictionary quote, but unfortunately that doesn't really tell us anything substantive either - someone is 'an arab' if they are a member of 'the arab group'... that just takes us around in a circle. :confused:
 
TeeJay said:
Thanks for providing the dictionary quote, but unfortunately that doesn't really tell us anything substantive either - someone is 'an arab' if they are a member of 'the arab group'... that just takes us around in a circle. :confused:
Click to expand...


sorry...but at least we've cleared up the horses;)
 
TeeJay said:
Sorry Dhimmi, your explanation doesn't really explain anything much to me about what makes someone 'an arab' in 2006.
Click to expand...

It's a definiton to simply explain the ethnic root. You should have asked that question. :p
 
twisted said:
I think language is probably quite a big factor
Click to expand...

Not really. Every Muslim is supposed to learn enough Arabic to read the Koran.

Seems to me that outside geographical Arabia (wherever you draw the boundaries of that) it's a bit like the Normans in Britain: descendants of, or people identified with, those who conquered the land in question.

So in Morocco and Algeria you have minority Berber people still speaking Berber and maintaining a cultural identity distinct from the Arabs, ~1300 years after these parts were absorbed into the Empire. I'll bet that if you did DNA testing, most Moroccans and Algerians would have many Berber marker genes, though they wouldn't identify as Berber.

In Sudan, reports speak of people being identified as "arabs" despite looking to the untutored eye very much like many other paler-skinned Sudanese.
 
Lappy,
I know, but it's late and I'm beyond being genuinely helpful.
Did think of typing about Berbers, Kurds, Toureg, Bedouin (and their brief rebellion against Islam), rapid Arab expansion and conquest, but only for a brief moment. Now I'm wondering how many cats the Assyrians herded in front of their armies against the Egyptians, now that's a thread...
 
laptop said:
In Sudan, reports speak of people being identified as "arabs" despite looking to the untutored eye very much like many other paler-skinned Sudanese.
Click to expand...
As is the case is in my family. I'd say language doesn't have much to do with it - my Arabic is dire, but I'm still part arab.

I've never really thought more beyond family ties and culture. It's definitely not a question of religion though.
 
I don't think it is just people from the ME that are arabs - as pointed out by a few people up there ^^. The Egyptians I know consider themselves arab, and they're in Africa - same with lots of Sudanese people I know.
 
BiddlyBee said:
As is the case is in my family. I'd say language doesn't have much to do with it - my Arabic is dire, but I'm still part arab.

I've never really thought more beyond family ties and culture. It's definitely not a question of religion though.
Click to expand...
Is it a question of identifying with an 'arab culture' - ie all sorts of people with different languages, religions and appearances/skin colours - but all of them identifying with some kind of shared 'arab culture'?

If this is the case then where exactly is this 'bounded' ... for example where does it become non-arab in the north, in africa or to the east? Does arab culture encompass everything up to Turkey in the north, Sub-Saharan christianity or animism in africa (or based on dark skin?) and does it run all the way up to Kurdish and Persian/Iranian culture in the east and north?

How far is everything within this 'region' actually consistently 'arab' culturally speaking?
 
TeeJay said:
People talk about 'arabs' but I have never really understood who is and who isn't 'an arab' or why.
Click to expand...

From general historical perspective, with exception of the still ongoing discussions about the real origin of the semetic peoples (caused by the simple fact that not much archeological research has been done about it ):
It is generally said that Arabs are (a section of) the semetic peoples who since ancient times inhabited the Arabian peninsula. Or said otherwise: the Arabian peninsula is considered by most historians as the craddle of the semetic peoples.
There is not much known about how long the semetic peoples are there and for how long some groups are referred to with the name "Arabs". On a Babylonian inscription dated at 2190 BC the Akkadian ruler Nâram-Sin (grandson of Sargon) refers to South-Arabian Arab empire Ma'an. He describes he conquered the kingdom of Ma'an taking its prince, Manium, as his prisoner. (Ref: V. Scheil, "Mémoires de la Délegation de Perse" vol. VI, p.2).

To my knowledge the oldest document referring the "the land of the Arabs" dates from 833 BC, telling about the revolt of the king of Damascus, Ben Hadad, against the Assyrian conquerer Salmanazar III. Ben Hadad gathered a coalition of - among others - Achab, king of Israel, The Phenician towns with exception of Tyr and Sidon, and a certain king Gindibu "of the land of the Arabs" and who mobilised 1000 camels :) (the battle took place near Qarqar in 853 BC.)

From Islamic perspective the origin of the Arab tribes on the Arabian peninsula goes back to pre-Islamic ancestors, a theorie that has its origin in pre-Islamic orally transmitted traditions. Following that interepretation all Arabs are descendants of Sem, the son of Noe. Southern Arabs through Qahtan (in the Bible Jokhtan, son of Heber who was the grandson of Sem) the others through Adnan, descendant of Ismail, son of Abraham.

As for the present situation:
"Arabs" are those semetic peoples who belong to one of the Arab tribes on the Arabian peninsula and beyond.
Best be careful to call a Berber or Kurd "Arab". Usually that isn't taken all too well ;) They managed to preserve their own cultures, traditions and languages - and in case of the Kurds: their very specific religions - remarkably well.

salaam.
 
Aldebaran, thanks for the historical references.
Aldebaran said:
...As for the present situation:
"Arabs" are those semetic peoples who belong to one of the Arab tribes on the Arabian peninsula and beyond...
Click to expand...
I am thinking mainly of the present day situation.

You say that arabs are 'semetic' and belong to 'tribes', but aren't the majority of Egyptians (for example) neither descended from people from the arabian peninsula or members of any such tribes?

What makes someone semetic and what makes someone a member of one of these arab 'tribes'?
 
Egypt is in fact named"The Arabic Republic of Egypt".

Historically speaking, the Arabisation (and Islamisation) of conquered land was a long process, by which often political and/or economical motives play a role. Nevertheless mixing with existing local populations and ethnicies in the region is since long an established fact. Hence most people who don't clearly define as Persian, Jewish, Turkish, Kurdish, Berber, African can refer to themselves as "Arab".

The word "tribe" covers the sum of all sections of a tribe on their turn each covering the sum of individual families. A tribe isn't confined to modern-nation's borders.
Arab genealogy isn't that easy and clear cut as it is these days in most (if not all) of the European countries. I have shelves with bookworks to make me able to find "who is who" in context of historical research. Also today someone can be called by tribal name, family name, a nickname refering to a particular characteristic, place of birth or residence, can be called "son of" followed by father's name (or one of them, eventually with adding an other) can be called "father of" followed by the name of a son (and these possibilities can be used with eachother). That is one of the causes why Westeners get easily confused by Arab names. It isn't only a matter of translitteration.

salaam.
 
rennie said:
Arab is someone who speaks Arabic.
Click to expand...

That is complete utterly nonsense.
I know Europeans who speak perfectly Arabic, among them a European professor of Arabic who was in fact my teacher for more then four years and who's knowledge of Classical Arabic still exceeds mine, and I started the study of Classical Arabic when I was 5.

salaam.
 
it's like calling someone white, it's a catch all. the arab world used to include spain and south italy before the roman empire

it's very broad and when you try to examine it closely pretty meaningless imo. like calling someone white...

asian is the worst, it covers the whole east of asia which is probly more than half the world....
 
#27 don't be so bleedin' pedantic (altho' of course this is a thread made for pedants.)

Let's say (for starters): someone whose mother tongue is Arabic.
(This rules out most Berbers, Kurds and Iranians at a stroke.)

It's definitely NOT to do with religion (there are Christian Arabs in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine).

In the Middle East most neighbours of Arab countries are pretty clear about who is an Arab and who isn't (call the average Turkish or Iranian or Afghan citizen an Arab and they will be very very quick to call you out.) The really tricky 'blurry line' is in north/central sahelian africa (viz: Darfur), where the divide between people who call themselves 'arabs' and their neighbours who claim another identity is often not at all obvious to the eye or ear. (For instance - in Mauretania, Libya and Chad.)

I'm not at all sure myself about the Copts in Egypt ... as I understood it they speak Arabic in everyday life ('cos Coptic is for church/religious use only these days) and are proud & vocal Egyptian citizens, not sure how far if at all they'd consider themselves Arabs tho.
 
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