Arab people

The Arabs (Arabic: العرب) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in the Middle East and North Africa. They speak Arabic which is one of the Semitic languages, and which is also the name of the ethnic family which they belong to. Genealogically, Arabs are those who can trace their ancestry back to the people who first lived on the Arabian Peninsula. During the Middle Ages, Islam and Christianity fostered a vast Arab union, leading to significant Arab migrations around the world under the rule of Arab empires such as the Rashidun, Umayyad, Abbasid, and Fatimid.

Arabs

Arabic: عَرَب (ʿarab)
Total population
c. 450 million[1][2] to 420+ million[3][4] Arab League: 353,500,000[5][6] Arab diaspora: c. 50 million
Regions with significant populations
Arab League
353,500,000[5][6]
Brazil	11,600,000–20,000,000[7][8][9]
France	5,500,000–7,000,000[10][11]
Turkey	5,000,000[12][a]
United States	3,700,000[14]
Argentina	3,500,000[15]
Colombia	3,200,000[16][17][18][19][20]
Israel	2,080,000[21]
Chad	1,800,000[22]
Iran	1,600,000[23]–4,000,000[24]
Venezuela	1,600,000[25]
Germany	1,401,950[26]
Spain	1,350,000[27][28]
Mexico	1,100,000[29]
Chile	800,000[30][31][32]
Canada	750,925(2010)[33]
Italy	705,968[34]
Sweden	543,350[35]
United Kingdom	500,000[36]
Australia	500,000[37]
Netherlands	480,000–613,800[38]
Ivory Coast	300,000[39]
Honduras	280,000[40]
Ecuador	170,000 [41]
Niger	150,000 (2006)[42]
Denmark	121,000[43]
Indonesia	118,866 (2010)[44]
El Salvador	100,000[45][46][47][48][49]
Eritrea	80,000(2010)[50]
Uruguay	75,000[51]
Tanzania	70,000[52]
Kenya	59,021 (2019)[53]
Somalia	30,000(2001)[54]
Languages
Arabic
Religion
Predominantly: Islam (mostly Sunni, large Shia minority, smaller Ibadi, Alawite minorities) Significant minority: Christianity (Greek Orthodox, Melkite Catholic, Maronite Catholic Church, Roman Catholic, Protestant) Smaller minority: Other monotheistic religions (Druze, Judaism, Baháʼí Faith) Historically: Pre-Islamic Arabian polytheism
Related ethnic groups
Other peoples of the Middle East and North Africa[55]

Who is an Arab

There are three points which decide whether someone is considered Arab or not:

• Political: whether they live in a country which is a member of the Arab League (or the Arab world); this definition covers more than 450 million people.
• Linguistic: whether their main language is Arabic; this definition covers more than 423 million people.^[56]
• Genealogical: whether they can trace their ancestry back to the people who first lived on the Arabian Peninsula.^[57]

Minorities are the Iraqi Turkmens in some Arab countries. The same goes for Berbers (Amazigh) and Bedouins.^[58]

There are many people who can be called Arabs by these points, but who do not think of themselves as Arab. Examples include modern Egyptians (Coptics) and the Syriacs (Aramaics/Assyrians). Although they live in countries like Syria or Egypt which is part of the Arab League and speak the official language-Arabic, they are different cultural groups. They have their own languages,^[59] culture, identity and churches, such as the Coptic Church and the Syriac Catholic and Orthodox churches. Even though many have assimilated to Arab society, they have their own heritage that spans 3,000 years.

Traditional genealogy

In Islamic and Jewish tradition, Arabs are a Semitic people from the Ishmaelites, who trace their ancestry from Ishmael, a son of the ancient patriarch Abraham and Hagar and of the sons from Abhraham and his wife Keturah. Medieval Arab genealogists separate the Arabs into two groups: the "original Arabs" (Bedouin) of South Arabia, descending from Qahtan (identified with the biblical Joktan) and the "Arabized Arabs" (musta`ribah) of North Arabia (The Levant), descending from Adnan who is descended from Ishmael.

Religion

Most Arabs today follow the religion of Islam, whose central prophet is Muhammad. Christianity makes up the largest religious minority - most of the Christians that do consider themselves Arabs belong to the Greek Orthodox Church with smaller numbers of Roman Catholics.

While Coptic and Maronite Catholic Christians are native Arabic-speakers, many reject the Arab pan-ethnicity, but are still considered Arab by outsider sources.

There are some small communities practicing Judaism and polytheism (the worship of many gods).

Notes

1. Including 1–2 million native Arabs^[12] and 3,763,565 registered Syrian refugees.^[13]

References

1. Lorenzo Kamel (31 March 2017). The Frailty of Authority: Borders, Non-State Actors and Power Vacuums in a Changing Middle East. Edizioni Nuova Cultura. p. 25. ISBN 978-88-6812-828-9.
2. Kail C. Ellis (12 January 2018). Secular Nationalism and Citizenship in Muslim Countries: Arab Christians in the Levant. Springer. p. 159. ISBN 978-3-319-71204-8.
3. Margaret K. Nydell (26 July 2018). Understanding Arabs: A Guide for Modern Times. John Murray Press. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-4736-9091-2.
4. Neil Caplan (4 September 2019). The Israel-Palestine Conflict: Contested Histories. John Wiley & Sons. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-119-52387-1.
5. total population 450 million; CIA Factbook2030 estimates an Arab population of 450 million, see article text.
6. "World Arabic Language Day | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization". Unesco.org. 15 December 2016. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
7. IBGE. IBGE | Biblioteca | Detalhes | Características étnico-raciais da população : classificações e identidades IBGE: Características Étnico-Raciais da População.
8. Silvia Ferabolli (25 September 2014). Arab Regionalism: A Post-Structural Perspective. Routledge. p. 151. ISBN 978-1-317-65803-0. According to estimates by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), countersigned by the League of Arab States, Brazil has the largest Arab colony outside their countries of origin. There are estimated 15 million Arabs living in Brazil today, with some researchers suggesting numbers around 20 million.
9. Paul Amar (15 July 2014). The Middle East and Brazil: Perspectives on the New Global South. Indiana University Press. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-253-01496-2. there are, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, more than sixteen million Arabs and descendants of Arabs in Brazil, constituting the largest community of Arabs descent outside the Middle East.
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18. Tiempo, Casa Editorial El (7 March 2019). "Los palestinos que encontraron un segundo hogar en el centro de Bogotá". El Tiempo (in Spanish). Retrieved 18 June 2022.
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21. "Demographic characteristics – definitions and explanations (translation from Hebrerw into English)". Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
22. "Chad". The World Factbook (2025 ed.). Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 3 April 2019. (Archived 2019 edition)
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27. "Los musulmanes en España superan los 1,8 millones". europapress.es (in Spanish). 30 March 2015. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
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29. Sierra, Mauricio (16 June 2021). "Arab Ancestry in Latin America". Berkeley High Jacket. Archived from the original on 15 February 2022. Retrieved 15 February 2022. Arab Mexicans are an important group within Mexican society. There are around 1,100,000 Mexican citizens of Arab descent, primarily of Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi and Palestinian heritage.
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31. "Chile: Palestinian refugees arrive to warm welcome". Adnkronos.com. 7 April 2003. Archived from the original on 19 September 2011. Retrieved 17 September 2011.
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34. "Cittadini stranieri in Italia – 2021". tuttitalia.it.
35. "Population by country of birth, age and sex. Year 2000 – 2020". Retrieved 19 September 2019.
36. Anthony McRoy. "The British Arab". National Association of British Arabs. Archived from the original on 3 January 2015. Retrieved 17 April 2012.
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39. "Côte d'Ivoire". Minority Rights Group. 30 January 2018.
40. J. Espín-Ocampo (2020). Origen y evolución de la comunidad palestina en Chile. Vol. 1. pp. 113–132. doi:10.15359/ri.93-1.5. ISSN 1018-0583. S2CID 241082525. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
41. de 2020, 16 de Octubre (16 October 2020). "El Guayaquil que acogió a los migrantes extranjeros". El Telégrafo. Retrieved 16 April 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
42. "Africa | Niger's Arabs to fight expulsion". BBC News. 25 October 2006. Retrieved 1 June 2020.
43. "Demographics and Ethnic Groups of Denmark". WorldAtlas. 8 July 2019. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
44. Hartono, Sunaryati (2015). Analisis dan Evaluasi Peraturan Perundang-undangan Tentang Peninggalan Kolonial (Belanda dan Jepang) (PDF). Jakarta: Badan Pembinaan Hukum Nasional, Kementerian Hukum dan Hak Asasi Manusia RI. pp. 25–26. IOS1-INLIS000000000683886.
45. "Why So Many Palestinians Live In El Salvador | AJ+". newsvideo.su. Archived from the original on 13 November 2019. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
46. "Lebanese Diaspora Worldwide Geographical Distribution". Archived from the original on 14 February 2021. Retrieved 16 October 2018.
47. Zielger, Matthew. "El Salvador: Central American Palestine of the West?". The Daily Star. Retrieved 27 May 2015.
48. "AJ Plus: The Palestinians of El Salvador". Archived from the original on 13 November 2019. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
49. Dellios, Hugh. "El Salvador vote divides 2 Arab clans". Chicago Tribune.
50. "Languages of Eritrea". Ethnologue. Retrieved 21 October 2023.
51. de 2014, 25 de Junio (24 November 2017). "Más de 10 millones de libaneses empujan el crecimiento social y económico de América Latina". infobae (in European Spanish). Retrieved 15 February 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
52. "Tanzania History and Information – Safari Info for Tanzania". eyesonafrica.net. Archived from the original on 10 January 2020. Retrieved 28 May 2020.
53. "2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census Volume IV: Distribution of Population by Socio-Economic Characteristics" (PDF). Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022. Retrieved 2 May 2021.
54. "Somalia", The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency, 17 October 2023, retrieved 22 October 2023
55. Mbarek, Hamdi; Ismail, Said I. (7 December 2022). "Mapping the Arab genome". Nature Genetics. 54 (12): 1761–1763. doi:10.1038/s41588-022-01239-0. ISSN 1061-4036. PMID 36446885.
56. "Most Spoken Languages In the World". Archived from the original on 26 March 2016.
57. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RFiCDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT23&dq=Arabs+are+those+who+can+trace+their+ancestry+back+to+the+people+who+first+lived+on+the+Arabian+Peninsula.&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwikyqLr0oOEAxWHYEEAHdAQB0UQ6AF6BAgJEAM#v=onepage&q&f=false
58. Belge, Ceren; Karakoç, Ekrem (2015). "Minorities in the Middle East: Ethnicity, Religion, and Support for Authoritarianism". Political Research Quarterly. 68 (2): 280–292. doi:10.1177/1065912915580627. ISSN 1065-9129. JSTOR 24371832. S2CID 154397743.
59. The Coptic language survives only in certain religious rituals; it is not now spoken by Coptic Christians.

Other websites

• A is for Arabs: What the world owes Arabs and Muslims Archived 2005-06-09 at the Wayback Machine
• Maps of the Arab World Archived 2005-08-28 at the Wayback Machine
• News from Arabic countries
• Business news from Arab countries
• Arabia in ancient history - with a discussion of the ancient usage of the word Arab
• Araboo.com - Arab Guide
• Arabic Search Archived 2006-12-23 at the Wayback Machine - Arabic ThroughSearch