Arabs

|pop20 = |region21 = Saudi Arabia |pop21 = |region22 = Somalia |pop22 = |region23 = Sudan |pop23 =

|region24 = Syria

|pop24 = |region25 = Tunisia |pop25 = |region26 = United Arab Emirates |pop26 = |region27 = Yemen |pop27 = |region28 = |pop28 = |languages = Arabic and other minority languages |religions = Sunni Islam, Shia Islam, Christianity, Druzism and Judaism |footnotes = }} An Arab (Arabic: عربي) is a member of a complexly defined ethnic group who identifies as such on the basis of one or more of either genealogical, political, or linguistic grounds.

The Arabic language and culture began to spread in the Middle East in the 2nd century with genealogically Arab Christians such as the Ghassanids, Lakhmids, and Banu Judham, and even earlier Arab Jewish tribes. Widespread proliferation of Arab language, culture and identity in the Middle East and North Africa, however, did not begin until after the advent of Islam in the 7th century and the ensuing Arab Muslim expansion. The early conquests of successive Islamic Arab empires resulted in the Arabization and cultural assimilation of the region's other Non Arab Semitic and non Semitic peoples, often but not always with their Islamization. Islamized but non-Arabized peoples form part of the Muslim World not the traditionally secular Arab World. With the rise of Arab nationalism, the label Arab expanded beyond a pure geneaological definition to come to be associated with Arabized populations of countries in North Africa and the Middle East. Definitions of Arab based on this latter theory are contested by many.

Defining who is an Arab

Further information: [[:Etymology of the word Arab]]

The definition of an Arab is heavily disputed. It is usually defined independent of religious identity. It pre-dates the rise of Islam, with historically attested Arab Christian kingdoms and Arab Jewish tribes. The earliest documented use of the word "Arab" as defining a group of people dates from the 9th century BC.[1] Islamized but non-Arabized peoples, and therefore the majority of world Muslims, do not form part of the traditionally secular Arab World, but comprise what is the geographically larger and 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:

• 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 covers fewer self-identified Arabs than not, and was the definition used in medieval times, for example by Ibn Khaldun.
• Linguistic: someone whose first language, and by extension cultural expression, is Arabic, including any of its varieties. This definition covers more than 250 million people. Certain groups that fulfill this criteria, such as many or most Egyptians, reject this definition on the basis of genealogy.
• 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, or a citizen of a country which may simply be a member of the Arab League and thus 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, but include not only those genealogically Arabs (Gulf Arabs and others, such as Bedouins, where they may exist) and those Arabized-Arab-identified (such as most Palestinians), but also include Arabized non-Arab-identified groups (such as many Lebanese) and even non-Arabized indigenous ethnicities which may be non-Arabic-speaking, monolignually or otherwise (such as the Berbers in Morocco, Kurds in Iraq, or the Somali majority of Arab League member Somalia).

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Syrian Bedouin with family, 1893.

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, 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.

Some groups who meet some of these criteria, however, still do not identify as Arab due to genealogy or traditional pre-Arab ethnic identity, or more recently, nationality. In particular, the native people of North Africa, the Berbers and the Egyptians, in addition to being genealogically non-Arab, were also not traditionally Semitic-speaking peoples until the introduction and generalised shift to monolignual Arabic usuage. The Berber and Egyptian languages (not to be confused with Egyptian Arabic), however, are two language branches that along with Semitic languages (such as Arabic, Aramaic and Hebrew), Chadic languages and Cushitic languages come together to form the Afro-Asiatic language family. Thus, North Africans, especially those who still use their indigenous non-Semtic languages, such as the Berber language, more strongly identify as non-Arab. In the case of Berber speakers, they would identify as Berbers, and many Egyptians, whether Muslim or Coptic, identify only as Egyptians, that is, descendants of the ancient Egyptians. (See Egypt#Identity for more information).

Costumes of Arab women, fourth to sixth century.

Costumes of Arab men, fourth to sixth century.

Few people consider themselves Arab based on the political definition without the linguistic one; thus few Kurds and Berbers identify as Arab. But some do, for instance some Berbers also consider themselves Arab (v. e.g. Gellner, Ernest and Micaud, Charles, Eds. Arabs and Berbers: from tribe to nation in North Africa. Lexington: Lexington Books, 1972). Some religious minorities within the Middle East and North Africa who have Arabic or any of its varieties as their primary community language, such as Egyptian Copts are not likely to self-identify as Arabs, even when the majority of their respective compatriots share the same ancestral origin but at some stage in history adopted Islam.