Arab people

Arab
العرب al-ʿarab

Philip the Arab • John of Damascus • Al-Kindi • Al-Khansa Faisal I of Iraq • Gamal Abdel Nasser • Asmahan • May Ziade
Total population
approx. 350 to 422 million[1]
Regions with significant populations
Arab League 339,510,535  France 6,000,000[2]  Argentina 3,500,000[3]  United States 1,466,874[4]  Iran 700,000 - 2,000,000[5]  Israel  Mexico 1,100,000[6]  Turkey 500,000 [7]  Brazil 164,000[8]
Languages
Arabic, Modern South Arabian,[9][10] varieties of Arabic
Religion
Predominantly Islam; largest minority: Christianity; other religions

Arab people (Arabic: عربي‎, ʿarabi) or Arabs (العرب al-ʿarab) are an ethnic group whose members identify as such on one or more of linguistic, cultural, political, or genealogical grounds.^[11] Those self-identifying as Arab, however, rarely do so with it as their sole identity. Most hold multiple identities, with a more localized prioritized national identity — such as Egyptian, Lebanese, or Palestinian — in addition to further tribal, village and clan identities.

Arabic, the main unifying feature among Arabs, is a Semitic language originating in Arabia. From there it spread to a variety of distinct peoples across most of West Asia and North Africa,^[12] resulting in their acculturation and eventual denomination as Arabs. Arabization, a culturo-linguistic shift, was often, though not always, in conjunction with Islamization, a religious shift.

With the rise of Islam in the 7th century CE, and as the language of the Qur'an, Arabic became the lingua franca of the wider Mediterranean region. It was in this period that Arabic language and culture was widely disseminated with the early Islamic expansion, both through conquest and cultural contact.^[13]

Arabic culture and language, however, began a more limited diffusion before the Islamic age, first spreading in West Asia beginning in the 2nd century, as Arab Christians such as the Ghassanids, Lakhmids and Banu Judham began migrating north from Arabia into the Syrian Desert and the Levant.^[14][15] Currently, as many as 7.1% up to 10% of Arabs are Arab Christians,^[16] with other smaller religious communities.

Etymology

The earliest documented use of the word "Arab" as defining a group of people dates from the 9th century BCE.^[17]

The root of the word has many meanings in Semitic languages including "west/sunset," "desert," "mingle," "merchant," "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 ʿ-B-R "moving around" (Arabic ʿ-B-R "traverse"), and hence, it is alleged, "nomadic."

Arab identity

Arab identity is defined independently of religious identity, and pre-dates the rise of Islam, with historically attested Arab Christian kingdoms and Arab Jewish tribes. Today, however, most Arabs are Muslim, with a minority adhereing to other faiths, largely Christianity.

Islamized but non-Arabized peoples, and therefore the majority, or 80% of the world's Muslim population, do not form part of the Arab World, but instead comprise what is the geographically larger, and more diverse, Muslim World.

In the modern era, defining who is an Arab is done on the grounds of one or more of the following three criteria:

Distribution of Arabic as sole official language (green) and one of several official or national languages (blue).

• Genealogical: someone who can trace his or her ancestry to the tribes of Arabia – the original inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula – and the Syrian Desert. This definition was the definition used in medieval times, for example by Ibn Khaldun, but has decreased in importance as more people have come to identify as Arabs.

• Linguistic: someone whose first language, and by extension cultural expression, is Arabic, including any of its varieties. This definition covers more than 300 million people. Certain groups that fulfill this criterion reject this definition on the basis of non-Arab ancestry, such an example may be seen in the way that Egyptians identify themselves.^[18][19]

• Political: in the modern nationalist era, any person who is a citizen of a country where Arabic is either the national language or one of the official languages, and/or a citizen of a country which may simply be a member of the Arab League (thereby having Arabic as an official government language, even if not used by the majority of the population). This definition would cover over 300 million people. It may be the most contested definition, as it is the most simplistic one. It would exclude the entire Arab diaspora outside of the Arab world, but include not only people with Arab ancestry (Persian Gulf Arabs and others, such as Bedouins, where they may exist) or who identify themselves as Arabs, but would also include Arabized groups who do not identify themselves as Arabs (including many Lebanese and many Egyptians, both Christians and Muslims) and even non-Arabized ethnic minorities who have remained non-Arabic-speaking (such as the Berbers in Morocco, Kurds in Iraq, or the Somali majority of Arab League member Somalia).

Traditional Bedouin in Southern Jordan

The relative importance of these three factors is estimated differently by different groups and frequently disputed. Some combine aspects of each definition, as done by Habib Hassan Touma,^[20] who defines an Arab "in the modern sense of the word", as "one who is a national of an Arab state, has command of the Arabic language, and possesses a fundamental knowledge of Arab tradition, that is, of the manners, customs, and political and social systems of the culture." Most people who consider themselves Arab do so based on the overlap of the political and linguistic definitions. Few people consider themselves Arab based on the political definition without also having Arabic as a language. Thus few Kurds and Berbers identify as Arab, although for instance some Berbers also consider themselves Arab (see for example: Gellner, Ernest and Micaud, Charles, Eds. Arabs and Berbers: from tribe to nation in North Africa. Lexington: Lexington Books, 1972). Some religious minorities within Western Asia and North Africa who speak Arabic or any of its varieties as their primary community language, such as Egyptian Copts and Lebanese and Syrian Christians, may not identify as Arabs.

The Arab League at its formation in 1946 defined Arab as "a person whose language is Arabic, who lives in an Arabic speaking country, who is in sympathy with the aspirations of the Arabic speaking peoples".

The relation of ʿarab and ʾaʿrāb is complicated further by the notion of "lost Arabs" al-ʿArab al-ba'ida mentioned in the Qur'an as punished for their disbelief. All contemporary Arabs were considered as descended from two ancestors, Qahtan and Adnan.

Versteegh (1997) is uncertain whether to ascribe this distinction to the memory of a real difference of origin of the two groups, but it is certain that the difference was strongly felt in early Islamic times. Even in Islamic Spain there was enmity between the Qays of the northern and the Kalb of the southern group. The so-called Himyarite language described by Al-Hamdani (died 946) appears to be a special case of language contact between the two groups, an originally north Arabic dialect spoken in the south, and influenced by Old South Arabian.

During the Muslim conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries, the Arabs forged an Arab Empire (under the Rashidun and Umayyads, and later the Abbasids) 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. In much of this area, the Arabs spread Islam and the Arabic language (the language of the Qur'an) through conversion and cultural assimilation. Many groups became known as "Arabs" through this process of Arabization rather than through descent. Thus, over time, the term Arab came to carry a broader meaning than the original ethnic term: cultural Arab vs. ethnic Arab. Arab nationalism declares that Arabs are united in a shared history, culture and language. A related ideology, Pan-Arabism, calls for all Arab lands to be united as one state. Arab nationalism has often competed for existence with regional nationalism in the Middle East, such as Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi and Egyptian nationalism.

Population of Arabic speakers

The Arab World is the third largest geocultural unit in the world after Russia and Anglo-America, with a population exceeding 300 million and spanning more than 14,000,000 square kilometres (5,400,000 sq mi), from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east. The table below is based on the number of Arabic-speakers (Arabophones), some of whom do not identify as Arabs, note that Gulf countries speak Arabic exclusively and the rate below also includes foreign guest workers there.

Flag	Country	Number of Arabic speakers	Total Population	% Arabic speakers	Notes
	Egypt	82,667,004	82,999,000	99.6%	[21] For more information, see Egyptians: Identity.
	Algeria	34,546,050	34,895,000	99%
	Morocco	31,705,063	31,993,000	99.1%
	Saudi Arabia	28,000,000	28,686,633	99.7%	[21]
	Iraq	24,206,350	31,234,000	77.5%	[21]
	Yemen	23,580,000	23,580,000	100%	[21]
	Syria	19,781,118	21,906,000	90.3%	[21]
	Sudan	16,486,080	42,272,000	39%	[21]
	Somalia	20,456,080	27,342,000	80%	[21]
	Tunisia	10,121,244	10,327,800	98%	[21]
	Libya	6,227,400	6,420,000	97%	[21]
	Jordan	6,189,680	6,316,000	98%	[21]
	Lebanon	4,012,800	4,224,000	95%	[21] Many Lebanese reject Arab identity and do not self identify as Arabs (see Lebanese people: Identity, Lebanese nationalism, Phoenicianism)
	Kuwait	2,388,000	2,985,000	80%	[21]
	UAE	1,839,600	4,599,000	40%	[21]
	Oman	1,650,100	2,845,000	58%	[22]
	Mauritania	1,645,500	3,291,000	50%	[21]
	Qatar	563,600	1,409,000	40%	[21]
	Bahrain	493,584	791,000	62.4%	[21]
–	Total	~298,150,751	~345,434,433	~86.32%

The Arab diaspora is a global diaspora estimated at between 30 and 50 million people distributed across every continent and almost every country in the world. More than half of the Arabic diaspora is concentrated in Latin America. Other regions with high concentrations are Western Europe, Western Asia and North America.

Flag	Country	Number of Arabic speakers	Total Population	% Arabic speakers	Notes
	Brazil	12,000,000	191,241,714	6.28%	[23]
	France	6,000,000	65,073,482	9.22%
	Argentina	3,500,000	40,482,000	8.65%	[24]
	United States	3,500,000	307,473,000	1.14%	[25]
	Iran	2,225,880	74,196,000	3%	[21]
	Italy	1,950,210	60,234,000	3.1%	[26]
	Israel	1,500,000	7,411,000	20.24%	[27]
	Turkey	1,200,000	74,816,000	1.60%
	Mexico	1,100,000	111,211,789	1%
	Chile	700,000	16,928,873	4.2%	[28]
	Colombia	700,000	44,928,970	1.56%	[29]
	United Kingdom	500,000	61,113,205	0.82%
	Australia	500,000	21,885,016	2.29%
	Canada	500,000	33,790,000	1.48%
	Venezuela	400,000	26,814,843	1.5%	[30]
	Germany	400,000	82,060,000	0.49%
	Pakistan	300,000	180,808,000	0.17%
	Ecuador	200,000	13,625,000	1.47%
	Russia	200,000	142,008,838	0.14%
–	Total	~36,025,880	–	–

History

Ancient Near East

Al Khazneh, "The Treasury" at Petra in Jordan, built in the early 1st century BCE by the Nabataeans

Many scholars derive the entire population of Mesopotamia from population movements out of Jazirat al-Arab ("island of the Arabs") – an area between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, with Hadramawt its southern perimeter, extending northward up to the area just east of the Dead Sea (Jordan).^[31] Early Semitic peoples from the Ancient Near East, such as the Arameans, Akkadians and Canaanites, built civilizations in Mesopotamia and the Levant; genetically, they often interlapped and mixed.^[32] Slowly, however, they lost their political domination of the Near East due to internal turmoil and attacks by non-Semitic peoples. Although the Semites eventually lost political control of Western Asia to the Persian Empire, the Aramaic language remained the lingua franca of Mesopotamia and the Levant. Aramaic itself was replaced by Greek as Western Asia's prestige language following the conquest of Alexander III of Macedon.

The first written attestation of the ethnonym "Arab" occurs in an Assyrian inscription of 853 BCE, where Shalmaneser III lists a King Gindibu of mâtu arbâi (Arab land) as among the people he defeated at the Battle of Karkar. Some of the names given in these texts are Aramaic, while others are the first attestations of Proto-Arabic dialects. In fact several different ethnonyms are found in Assyrian texts that are conventionally translated "Arab": Arabi, Arubu, Aribi and Urbi. Many of the Qedarite queens were also described as queens of the aribi. The Hebrew Bible occasionally refers to Arvi peoples (or variants thereof), translated as "Arab" or "Arabian." The scope of the term at that early stage is unclear, but it seems to have referred to various desert-dwelling Semitic tribes in the Syrian Desert and Arabia.

Proto-Arabic, or Ancient North Arabian, texts give a clearer picture of the Arabs' emergence. The earliest are written in variants of epigraphic south Arabian musnad script, including the 8th century BCE Hasaean inscriptions of eastern Saudi Arabia, the 6th century BCE Lihyanite texts of southeastern Saudi Arabia and the Thamudic texts found throughout Arabia and the Sinai (not in reality connected with Thamud).

The Nabataeans were nomadic newcomers^[33] who moved into territory vacated by the Edomites – Semites who settled the region centuries before them. Their early inscriptions were in Aramaic, but gradually switched to Arabic, and since they had writing, it was they who made the first inscriptions in Arabic. The Nabataean Alphabet was adopted by Arabs to the south, and evolved into modern Arabic script around the 4th century. This is attested by Safaitic inscriptions (beginning in the 1st century BCE) and the many Arabic personal names in Nabataean inscriptions. From about the 2nd century BCE, a few inscriptions from Qaryat al-Faw (near Sulayyil) reveal a dialect which is no longer considered "proto-Arabic", but pre-classical Arabic. Five Syriac inscriptions mentioning Arabs have been found at Sumatar Harabesi, one of which has been dated to the 2nd century CE.

Early migrations

In Sassanid times, Arabia Petraea was a border province between the Roman and Persian empires, and from the early centuries AD was increasingly affected by Arab influence, notably with the Ghassanids migrating north from the 3rd century.

The Ghassanids, Lakhmids and Kindites were the last major migration of non-Muslims out of Yemen to the north.

• The Ghassanids revived the Semitic presence in the then Hellenized Syria. They mainly settled in the Hauran region and spread to modern Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan. The Ghassanids held Syria until the expansion of Islam.

Coin showing the Roman Emperor, Philip the Arab

Greeks and Romans referred to all the nomadic population of the desert in the Near East as Arabi. The Romans called Yemen "Arabia Felix".^[34] The Romans called the vassal nomadic states within the Roman Empire "Arabia Petraea" after the city of Petra, and called unconquered deserts bordering the empire to the south and east Arabia Magna.

• The Lakhmids settled the mid Tigris region around their capital Al-hira they ended up allying with the Sassanid against the Ghassanids and the Byzantine Empire. The Lakhmids contested control of the Central Arabian tribes with the Kindites with the Lakhmids eventually destroying Kinda in 540 after the fall of their main ally Himyar. The Sassanids dissolved the Lakhmid kingdom in 602.

• The Kindites migrated from Yemen along with the Ghassanids and Lakhmids, but were turned back in Bahrain by the Abdul Qais Rabi'a tribe. They returned to Yemen and allied themselves with the Himyarites who installed them as a vassal kingdom that ruled Central Arbia from Qaryah dhat Kahl (the present-day Qaryat al-Faw) in Central Arabia. They ruled much of the Northern/Central Arabian peninsula until the fall of the Himyarites in 525AD.

Early Islamic period

Age of the Caliphs      Expansion under Muhammad, 622–632/A.H. 1–11      Expansion during the Rashidun Caliphate, 632–661/A.H. 11–40      Expansion during the Umayyad Caliphate, 661–750/A.H. 40–129

Muslims of Medina referred to the nomadic tribes of the deserts as the A'raab, and considered themselves sedentary, but were aware of their close racial bonds. The term "A'raab' mirrors the term Assyrians used to describe the closely related nomads they defeated in Syria.

The Qur'an does not use the word ʿarab, only the nisba adjective ʿarabiy. The Qur'an calls itself ʿarabiy, "Arabic", and Mubin, "clear". The two qualities are connected for example in ayat 43.2–3, "By the clear Book: We have made it an Arabic recitation in order that you may understand". The Qur'an became regarded as the prime example of the al-ʿarabiyya, the language of the Arabs. The term ʾiʿrāb has the same root and refers to a particularly clear and correct mode of speech. The plural noun ʾaʿrāb refers to the Bedouin tribes of the desert who resisted Muhammad, for example in ayat 9.97, alʾaʿrābu ʾašaddu kufrān wa nifāqān "the Bedouin are the worst in disbelief and hypocrisy".

Based on this, in early Islamic terminology, ʿarabiy referred to the language, and ʾaʿrāb to the Arab Bedouins, carrying a negative connotation due to the Qur'anic verdict just cited. But after the Islamic conquest of the 8th century, the language of the nomadic Arabs became regarded as the most pure by the grammarians following Abi Ishaq, and the term kalam al-ʿArab, "language of the Arabs", denoted the uncontaminated language of the Bedouins.

Levant and Iraq

Map detailing Rashidun Caliphates invasion of Levant.

The arrival of Islam united many tribes in Arabia, who then moved northwards to conquer the 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 at Ramla, ar-Raqqah, Basra, Kufa, Mosul and Samarra, all of which developed into major cities.^[35]

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, discontent with the Umayyads swept the region and an 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), but unlike the Ummayads, they had the support of non-Arab Islamic groups.^[35] Through the adoption of the Arabic language and Islam, the Levantine and Iraqi populations became Arabized.

North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula

Inland in North Africa, the nomadic Berbers allied with Arab Muslims in invading Spain. The Arabs mainly settled the old Phoenician and Carthagenian towns, while the Berbers remained dominant inland. Inland north Africa remained partly Arab until the 11th century, whereas the Iberian Peninsula, particularly its southern part, remained heavily Arab, until the expulsion of the Moriscos in the 15th century.

Islamic Golden Age

View of the Alhambra from the Mirador de San Nicolás in the Albaycin of Granada.

During the Muslim conquests of the 7th and early 8th centuries, Rashidun armies established the Caliphate, or Islamic Empire, one of the largest empires in history. The Islamic Golden Age was soon inaugurated by the middle of the 8th century by the ascension of the Abbasid Caliphate and the transfer of the capital from Damascus to the newly founded city Baghdad. The Abbassids were influenced by the Qur'anic injunctions and hadith such as "The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of martyrs" stressing the value of knowledge. During this period the Muslim world became an intellectual centre for science, philosophy, medicine and education as the Abbasids championed the cause of knowledge and established the "House of Wisdom" (Arabic:بيت الحكمة) in Baghdad; where both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars sought to translate and gather all the world's knowledge into Arabic. Many classic works of antiquity that would otherwise have been forgotten were translated into Arabic and later in turn translated into Turkish, Persian, Hebrew and Latin. During this period the Muslim world was a cauldron of cultures which collected, synthesized and advanced the knowledge gained from the ancient Mesopotamian, Roman, Chinese, Indian, Persian, Egyptian, North African, Greek and Byzantine civilizations. Rival Muslim dynasties such as the Fatimids of Egypt and the Umayyads of al-Andalus were also major intellectual centres with cities such as Cairo and Córdoba rivaling Baghdad.^[36]

Arabs of the Caucasus and Central Asia

In 1728, a Russian officer described a group of Sunni Arab nomads who populated the Caspian shores of Mughan (in present-day Azerbaijan) and spoke a mixed Turkic-Arabic language.^[37] It is believed that these groups migrated to the Caucasus in the 16th century.^[38] The 1888 edition of Encyclopædia Britannica also mentioned a certain number of Arabs populating the Baku Governorate of the Russian Empire.^[39] They retained an Arabic dialect at least into the mid-19th century,^[40] but since then have fully assimilated with the neighbouring Azeris and Tats. Today in Azerbaijan alone, there are nearly 30 settlements still holding the name Arab (e.g. Arabgadim, Arabojaghy, Arab-Yengija, etc.).

From the time of the Arab conquest of the Caucasus, continuous small-scale Arab migration from various parts of the Arabic-speaking world was observed in Dagestan influencing and shaping the culture of the local peoples. Up until the mid-20th century, there were still individuals in Dagestan who claimed Arabic to be their native language, with the majority of them living in the village of Darvag to the north-west of Derbent. The latest of these accounts dates to the 1930s.^[38] Most Arab communities in southern Dagestan underwent linguistic Turkicisation, thus nowadays Darvag is a majority-Azeri village.^[41][42]

According to the History of Ibn Khaldun, the Arabs that were once in Central Asia have been either killed or have fled the Tatar invasion of the region, leaving only the locals .^[43] However, today many people in Central Asia identify as Arabs. Most Arabs of Central Asia are fully integrated into local populations, and sometimes call themselves the same as locals (e.g. Tajiks, Uzbeks) but they use special titles to show their Arabic origin such as Sayyid, Khoja or Siddiqui.^[44]

Iranian Arab communities are also found in Khorasan Province.

Tribal genealogy

Arab family of Ramallah, early 1900s

Medieval 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 sons of Ishmael intermingled with the 6 sons of Keturah from Abraham and their descendants were 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.

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.^[45] The Christians of Italy and the Crusaders preferred the term Saracens for all the Arabs and Muslims of that time.^[46] The Christians of Iberia used the term Moor to describe all the Arabs and Muslims of that time.

Religion

Arab Muslims are generally Sunni, Shia, Sufi, Salafi, Ismaili and Druze. Arab Christians generally follow Eastern Churches such as the Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic churches and the Maronite church.^[47] The Greek Catholic churches and Maronite church are under the Pope of Rome, and a part of the larger worldwide Catholic Church.

The Kaaba, located in Mecca (Saudi Arabia) is the center of Islam. It is where Muslims from all over the world travel to and gather there to pray in unity

Before the coming of Islam, most Arabs followed a pagan religion with a number of deities, including Hubal,^[48] Wadd, Allāt,^[49] Manat,^[50] and Uzza.^[51] A few individuals, the hanifs, had apparently rejected polytheism in favor of monotheism unaffiliated with any particular religion. Some tribes had converted to Christianity or Judaism. The most prominent Arab Christian kingdoms were the Ghassanid and Lakhmid kingdoms.^[52] When the Himyarite king converted to Judaism in the late 4th century,^[53] 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 gradually disappeared.^[54][55]

Today, Sunni Islam dominates in most areas, overwhelmingly so in North Africa. Shia Islam is dominant in southern Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon. Substantial Shi'a populations exist in Saudi Arabia,^[56] Kuwait, 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,^[57] and are also Arab.

Mosaic depicting Mary holding an Arabic text, Convent of Our Lady, a Greek Orthodox Church in Sednaya, Syria

Christians make up 5.5% of the population of the Near East.^[16] In Lebanon they number about 39% of the population.^[58] In Syria, Christians make up 16% of the population.^[59] In Palestine before the creation of Israel estimates ranged as high as 25%, but is now 3.8% due largely to the 1948 Palestinian exodus. In West Bank and in Gaza, Arab Christians make up 8% and 0.8% of the populations, respectively.^[60][61] In Israel, Arab Christians constitute 1.7% (roughly 9% of the Palestinian Arab population).^[62] Arab Christians make up 6% of the population of Jordan.^[63] Most North and South American Arabs are Christian,^[64] as are about half of Arabs in Australia who come particularly from Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinian territories. One well known member of this religious and ethnic community is Saint Abo, martyr and the patron saint of Tbilisi, Georgia.^[65]

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".^[66] Prior to the emergence of the term Mizrahi, the term "Arab Jews" 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.

Culture

Arab World

This article is part of the series: Arab Culture

Religion Arab Muslims Arab Christians Arab Jews

Art Calligraphy Naskh Diwani Ruq'ah Thuluth Hijazi Muhaqqaq Maghribi Kufic Mashq Jawi Nastaʿlīq Pseudo-Kufic Pegon architecture Moorish Fatimid Ayyubid Mamluk Styles Mashrabiya Muqarnas Arabesque Windcatcher Gardens Features Minerates Maqsurah Mihrab Sahen Dikka Iwan Domes Sabil Mosaic Ribat Textiles Khayameia Arabic Rugs Prayer rug Black Stone

Literature Literature Classical Epic Stories Saj Tafsir Arabian Nights Book of Apple Sindbad Bayad and Riyad Music Book Book of Examples Book of Animals Maqamat Al-Hamadhani Nashiri

Poetry Arūḍ Kharja Zajal Noha Wasf Hamasah Mu'allaqat Mufaddaliyat Basit Ghazal Ghinnawa Modern Arabic Poetry Bohoor Al-Shi'r

Music Arabic Maqam Arab Tone system Andalusi Nubah Qasidah Muwashshah Taqsim Sama'i Dulab Liwa Maqam al-iraqi Bashraf Tahmilah Sawt Malhun Fijiri Beledi Iqa' Dawr Zaffa Taqtuqa Wazn Waslah

Cuisine Arab Khalij Arab Mashriq Arab Mawsit Arab Maghrib

Politics Arab League Arab Union Arab Maghreb Union GCC Arab World Pan-Arabism Israel Jews Arab Unity Human rights Arab socialism Nasserism Ba'athism Jamahiriya Arab nationalism Arab Diaspora Palestinian Diaspora Afro-Arab USA Argentine Australia Brazil UK Bulgaria Hatiti Venezuela Colombia India France Mexico Pakistan Netherlands Singapore Sri Lanka Turkey

Geography Regions Maghrib Mashriq Nile Valley Gulf states Bab-el-Mandeb Deserts Sahara Algerian Desert Libyan Desert Nubian Desert White Desert Bayuda Desert Arabian Rub' al Khali Syrian Desert An Nafud Negev Ad-Dahna Desert

Arabic Language Pre-Islamic Arabic Ancient North Arabian Ancient South Arabian Nabataean language Classical Arabic Modern varieties Maghrebi (Western) Mawsiti (Central) Mashriq (Eastern) Khaliji (Southern)

Dress Cloths Headwear Keffiyeh [[Agal (accessory}|Agal]] Taqiyah Tarboush Turban Bisht (clothing) Dress Thawb Jellabiya Abaya Sirwal Turban Kaftan Tantour Takchita Jilbāb

Arab culture is an inclusive term that draws together the common themes and overtones found in the Arabic-speaking cultures, especially those of the Middle-Eastern countries. This region's distinct religion, art, and food are some of the fundamental features that define Arab culture.

Arabic music is the music of Arabic-speaking people or countries, especially those centered around the Arabian Peninsula. The world of Arab music has long been dominated by Cairo, a cultural center, though musical innovation and regional styles abound from Morocco to Saudi Arabia. Beirut has, in recent years, also become a major center of Arabic music. Classical Arab music is extremely popular across the population, especially a small number of superstars known throughout the Arab world. Regional styles of popular music include Algerian raï, Moroccan gnawa, Kuwaiti sawt, Egyptian el gil and Arabesque-pop music in Turkey.

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

• Arab League (Arabic)