Opposition to, dislike, fear or hatred of Arab people

Not to be confused with Islamophobia.

Anti-Arabism, Anti-Arab sentiment or Arabophobia includes opposition to, dislike, fear or hatred of Arab people.

Historically, anti-Arab prejudice has been an issue in such events as the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the condemnation of Arabs in Spain by the Spanish Inquisition, the Zanzibar Revolution in 1964, and the 2005 Cronulla riots in Australia. In the modern era, anti-Arabism is apparent in many nations in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Various advocacy organizations have been formed to protect the civil rights of individuals of Arab descent in the United States, such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Definition of Arab

Further information: Arab people and Arab culture

Arabs are people whose native language is Arabic. People of Arabic origin, in particular native English and French speakers of Arab ancestry in Europe and the Americas, often identify themselves as Arabs. Due to widespread practice of Islam among Arab populations, Anti-Arabism is commonly confused with Islamophobia.^[1]

There are prominent Arab non-Muslim minorities in the Arab world. These minorities include the Arab Christians in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain, among other Arab countries.^[2] There are also sizable minorities of Arab Jews, Druze, Baháʼí, and nonreligious.^[3][4]

Historical anti-Arabism

Graffiti in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, calling for an expulsion of Arabs and Jews

Anti-Arab prejudice is suggested by many events in history. In the Iberian Peninsula, when the reconquest by the indigenous Christians from the Moorish colonists was completed with the fall of Granada, all non-Catholics were expelled. In 1492, Arab converts to Christianity, called Moriscos, were expelled from Spain to North Africa after being condemned by the Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish word "moro", meaning moor, today carries a negative meaning.^[5] Although ethnically different from the Arabs in Spain at the time, the term Moro was also used pejoratively^{[citation needed]} by the Spanish since the 16th century to refer to Muslim tribal groups in the Philippines; the term indios was used to refer to Christianized tribal groups.^{[citation needed]}

After the annexation of the Muslim-ruled state of Hyderabad by India in 1948, about 7,000 Arabs were interned and deported.^[6]

The Zanzibar Revolution of January 12, 1964, ended the local Arab dynasty. As many as 17,000 Arabs were exterminated by black African revolutionaries, according to reports, and thousands of others fled the country.^[7][8][9]

In The Arabic Language and National Identity: a Study in Ideology, Yasir Suleiman notes of the writing of Tawfiq al-Fikayki that he uses the term shu'ubiyya to refer to movements he perceives to be anti-Arab, such as the Turkification movement in the Ottoman Empire, extreme-nationalist and Pan-Iranist movements in Iran and communism. The economic boom in Iran which lasted until 1979 led to an overall increase of Iranian nationalism sparking thousands of anti-Arab movements. In al-Fikayki's view, the objectives of anti-Arabism are to attack Arab nationalism, pervert history, emphasize Arab regression, deny Arab culture, and generally be hostile to all things Arab. He concludes that, "In all its various roles, anti-Arabism has adopted a policy of intellectual conquest as a means of penetrating Arab society and combatting Arab nationalism."^[10]

In early 20th and late 19th century when Palestinians and Syrians migrated to Latin America Arabophobia was common in these countries.^[11]

Modern anti-Arabism

Algeria

Anti-Arabism is a major element of movements known as Berberism that are widespread mainly amongst Algerians of Kabyle and other Berber origin.^[12] It has historic roots as Arabs are seen as invaders that occupied Algeria and destroyed its late Roman and early medieval civilization that was considered an integral part of the West; this invasion is considered to have been the source of the resettlement of Algeria's Berber population in Kabylie and other mountainous areas. Regardless, the Kabyles and other Berbers have managed to preserve their culture and achieve higher standards of living and education when compared to Algerian Arabs. Furthermore, many Berbers speak their language and French; are non religious, secular, or Evangelical Christian; and openly identify with the Western World. Many Berber Nationalists view Arabs as a hostile people intent on eradicating their own culture and nation. Berber social norms restrict marriage to someone of Arab ethnicity, although it is permitted to marry someone from other ethnic groups.^[13]

According to Lawrence Rosen, ethnic background is not a crucial factor in marriage between members of each group in North Africa, when compared to social and economic backgrounds.^[14] There are regular Hate incidents between Arabs and Berbers and Anti-Arabism has been accentuated by the Algerian government's anti-Berber policies. Contemporary relations between Berbers and Arabs are sometimes tense, particularly in Algeria, where Berbers rebelled (1963–65, 2001) against Arab rule and have demonstrated and rioted against their cultural marginalization in the new founded state.^[15][16]

The Anti-Arab sentiments among Algerian Berbers (mainly from Kabylie) were always related to the reassertion of Kabyle identity. It began as an intellectual militant movement in schools, universities, and popular culture (mainly nationalistic songs).^[17] In addition to that, the authorities' efforts to promote development in Kabylie contributed to a boom of sorts in Tizi Ouzou, whose population almost doubled between 1966 and 1977, and to a greater degree of economic and social integration within the region had the contrary effect of strengthening a collective Amazigh consciousness and Anti-Arab sentiments.^[18]

Arabophobia can be seen at different levels of intellectual, social, and cultural life of some Berbers. After the Berberist crisis in 1949, a new radical intellectual movement emerged under the name L'Académie Berbère. This movement was known by its adoption and promotion of Anti-Arab and Anti-Islam ideologies especially amongst immigrant Kabyles in France and achieved a relative success at the time.^[19]

In 1977, the final game of the national soccer championship pitting a team from Kabylie against one from Algiers turned into an Arab-Berber conflict. The Arab national anthem of Algeria was overwhelmed by the shouting of Anti-Arab slogans such as "A bas les arabes" (down with the Arabs).^[20]

The roots of modern day Arabophobia in Algeria can be traced back to multiple factors. For some, Anti-Arabism movement among Berbers is part of the legacy of French Colonization or manipulation of North Africa. As from the beginning, the French understood that to attenuate Muslim resistance to their presence, mainly in Algeria, they had to resort to the divide and rule doctrine. The most obvious divide that could be instrumentalized in this perspective was the ethnic one. Therefore, France employed some official colonial practices to tighten its control over Algeria by creating racial tensions between Arabs and Berbers and between Jews and Muslims.^[21]

Others argue that the Berber language and traditions are deeply rooted in the North African cultural mosaic; for centuries, Berber culture has survived conquests, repression, and exclusion from different invaders: Romans, Arabs, and French. Hence, believing that its identity and specificity were threatened, the Berbers took note of the political and ideological implications of Arabism as defended by successive governments.^[22] Gradual radicalization and Anti-Arab sentiments began to emerge in Algeria and among the hundreds of thousands of Berbers in France who had been in the forefront of the Berber cultural movement.^[20]

Australia

See also: Racism in Australia

The Cronulla riots in Sydney, Australia in December 2005 have been described as "anti-Arab racism" by community leaders.^[23] NSW Premier Morris Iemma said the violence revealed the "ugly face of racism in this country".^[24]

A 2004 report by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission said that more than two-thirds of Muslim and Arab Australians say they have experienced racism or racial vilification since the September 11 attacks and that 90% of female respondents experienced racial abuse or violence.^[25]

Adam Houda, a LebaneseMuslimlawyer, has been repeatedly harassed by the New South Wales police force.^{[26][27][28][29][30]} Houda has been arrested or detained six times in 11 years and has sued the police force for malicious prosecution and harassment three times. Houda claims that the police's motivation is racism which he says is "alive and well" in Bankstown. He has been stopped going to prayers, with relatives and friends and has been subjected to a humiliating body search. He has been the object of several groundless accusations of robbery or holding a knife. A senior lawyer told the Sydney Morning Herald that the police harassment was due to the police enmity against Houda's clients and the Australian Arab community.^[31] He was first falsely arrested in 2000 for which he was awarded $145,000 damages by a judge who described his persecution as "shocking". Constable Lance Stebbing was found to have maliciously arrested Houda, as well as using profanities against him and approaching him in a "menacing manner". Stebbing was supported by other police, against the testimony of many eyewitnesses.^[32] In 2005, Houda accused the police of disabling his mobile phone making it difficult to perform his work as a criminal defense lawyer.^[33]

In 2010, Houda, his lawyer Chris Murphy, and Channel Seven journalist Adam Walters claimed that Frank Menilli, a senior New South Wales police officer, behaved in a corrupt fashion by trying to alter Channel Seven's coverage of the Houda Case by promising Walters inside information in exchange for presenting the case in the police's favour. Walters regarded the offer as an "attempted bribe".^[34][35] The latest incident occurred in 2011, when Houda was arrested for refusing a frisk search and resisting arrest after having been approached by police suspecting him of involvement in a recent robbery. These charges were thrown out of court by Judge John Connell who stated "At the end of the day, here were three men of Middle Eastern appearance walking along a suburban street, for all the police knew, minding their own business at an unexceptional time of day, in unexceptional clothing, except two of the men had hooded jumpers. The place they were in could not have raised a reasonable suspicion they were involved in the robberies"^[31] Houda is currently suing the six police officers involved for false imprisonment, unlawful arrest, assault and battery and defamation. One of the six is an assistant commissioner. He is seeking $5 million in damages.^[36][37]

Czech Republic

In September 2008, Muslims complained about anti-Arabism and Islamophobia in the Czech Republic. Czech Republic was well known for being the most anti-Arabism country in the whole of Europe in 2008.^[38]

France

See also: Racism in France

France used to be a colonial empire, with still great post-colonial power over its former colonies, using Africa as a reservoir for labor, especially in moments of dire need. During World War I, reconstruction and shortages made France bring thousands of North African workers. Out of a total of 116,000 workers from 1914–1918, 78,000 Algerians, 54,000 Moroccans, and Tunisians were requisitioned.^{[dubious – discuss]} Two hundred and forty thousand Algerians were mobilized or drafted, and two thirds of these were soldiers who served mostly in France. This constituted more than one-third of the men of those nations from ages 20–40.^[39] According to historian Abdallah Laroui, Algeria sent 173,000 soldiers, 25,000 of whom were killed. Tunisia sent 56,000, of whom 12,000 were killed. Moroccan soldiers helped defend Paris and landed at Bordeaux in 1916.^[40]

After the war, reconstruction and labor shortages necessitated even larger number of Algerian laborers. Migration (or the need for labor) was reestablished at a high level by 1936. This was partly the result of collective recruitments in the villages conducted by French officers and representatives of companies. Labor recruitment continued throughout the 1940s. North Africans were mostly recruited for dangerous and low-wage jobs, unwanted by ordinary French workers.^[41]

This large number of immigrants was of great help for France's rapid post–World War II economic growth. The 1970s were marked by recession followed by the cessation of labor migration programs and crackdowns on illegal immigration. During the 1980s, political disfavor with President Mitterrand's social programs led to the rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen and other far right French nationalists. The public increasingly blamed immigrants for French economic problems. In March 1990, according to a poll reported in Le Monde, 76% of those polled said that there were too many Arabs in France while 39% said they had an "aversion" to Arabs.^[42] In the following years, Interior Minister Charles Pasqua was noted for dramatically toughening immigration laws.^[43]

In May 2005, riots broke out between North Africans and Romani people in Perpignan, after a young Arab man was shot dead and another Arab man was lynched by a group of Roma.^[44][45]

Chirac's controversial "Hijab ban" law, presented as secularization of schools, was interpreted by its critics as an "indirect legitimization of anti-Arab stereotypes, fostering rather than preventing racism."^[43]

A higher rate of racial profiling is conducted on Blacks and Arabs by the French police.^[46]

Iran

See also: Iranian Arabs and Anti-Iranian sentiment

Human rights group Amnesty International says that in practice, Arabs are among a number of ethnic minorities that are disadvantaged and suffer discrimination by the authorities.^[47]Separatist tendencies in Khuzestan exacerbate this. How far the situation facing Arabs in Iran is related to racism or simply a result of policies suffered by all Iranians is a matter of debate (see: Politics of Khuzestan). Iran is a multi-ethnic society with its Arab minority mainly located in the south.^[48]

It is claimed by some that anti-Arabism in Iran may be related to the notion that Arabs forced some Persians to convert to Islam in 7th century AD (See: Muslim conquest of Persia).^{[weasel words]} Author Richard Foltz in his article "Internationalization of Islam" states "Even today, many Iranians perceive the Arab destruction of the Sassanid Empire as the single greatest tragedy in Iran's long history.^[49] Following the Muslim conquest of Persia, many Iranians (also known as "mawali") came to despise the Umayyads due to discrimination against them by their Arab rulers. The Shu'ubiyah movement was intended to reassert Iranian identity and resist attempts to impose Arab culture while reaffirming their commitment to Islam.

More recently, anti-Arabism has arisen as a consequence of aggression against Iran by the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. During a visit to Khuzestan, which has most of Iran's Arab population, a British journalist, John R. Bradley, wrote that despite the fact that the majority of Arabs supported Iran in the war, "ethnic Arabs complain that, as a result of their divided loyalties during the Iran–Iraq War, they are viewed more than ever by the clerical regime in Tehran as a potential fifth column, and suffer from a policy of discrimination."^[50] However, Iran's Arab population played an important role in defending Iran during the Iran-Iraq War and most refused to heed Saddam Hussein's call for an uprising and instead fought against their fellow Arabs.^[51] Furthermore, Iran's former defense minister Ali Shamkhani, a Khuzestani Arab, was chief commander of the ground force during the Iran-Iraq War as well as serving as first deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Arab minority of southern Iran has been subject to discriminations, persecution in Iran.^[52] In a report published in February 2006, Amnesty International stated that the "Arab population of Iran is one of the most economically and socially deprived in Iran" and that Arabs have "reportedly been denied state employment under the gozinesh [job placement] criteria."

Furthermore, land expropriation by the Iranian authorities is reportedly so widespread that it appears to amount to a policy aimed at dispossessing Arabs of their traditional lands. This is apparently part of a strategy aimed at the forcible relocation of Arabs to other areas while facilitating the transfer of non-Arabs into Khuzestan and is linked to economic policies such as zero-interest loans which are not available to local Arabs.

— Amnesty International, ^[47]

Critics of such reports have pointed out that they are often based on sketchy sources and are not always to be trusted at face value (see: Criticism of human rights reports on Khuzestan). Furthermore, critics point out that Arabs have social mobility in Iran, with a number of famous Iranians from the worlds of arts, sport, literature, and politics having Arab origins (see: Iranian Arabs) illustrating Arab-Iranian participation in Iranian economics, society, and politics. They contend that Khuzestan province, where most of Iran's Arabs live, is actually one of the more economically advanced provinces of Iran, more so than many of the Persian-populated provinces.

Some critics of the Iranian government contend that it is carrying out a policy of anti-Arab ethnic cleansing.^[53][54] While there has been large amounts of investment in industrial projects such as the Razi Petrochemical Complex,^[55] local universities,^[56][57][58] and other national projects such as hydroelectric dams (such as the Karkheh Dam, which cost $700 million to construct) and nuclear power plants,^[59] many critics of Iran's economic development policies have pointed to the poverty suffered by Arabs in Khuzestan as proof of an anti-Arab policy agenda. Following his visit to Khuzestan in July 2005, UN Special Rapporteur for Adequate Housing Miloon Kothari spoke of how up to 250,000 Arabs had been displaced by such industrial projects and noted the favorable treatment given to settlers from Yazd compared to the treatment of local Arabs.^[60]

However, it is also true that non-Arab provinces such as Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province, Sistan and Baluchestan Province, and neighboring Īlām Province also suffer high levels of poverty, indicating that government policy is not disadvantaging Arabs alone but other regions, including some with large ethnically Persian populations. Furthermore, most commentators agree that Iran's state-controlled and highly subsidized economy^[61][62] is the main reason behind the inability of the Iranian government to generate economic growth and welfare at ground levels in all cities across the nation, rather than a state ethnic policy targeted specifically at Arabs; Iran is ranked 156th on The Heritage Foundation's 2006 Index of Economic Freedom.

In the Iranian education system, after primary education cycle (grades 1-5 for children 6 to 11 years old), passing some Arabic courses is mandatory until the end of secondary education cycle (grade 6 to Grade 12, from age 11 to 17). In higher education systems (universities), passing Arabic language courses is selective.^[63][64]

Persians use slurs like "Tazi Kaseef" (lit. Dirty Taazi), "Arabe malakh-khor" (عرب ملخ‌خور) (lit. Locust-eater Arab),^{[65][66][67][68][69]} "soosmar-khor" (سوسمارخور) (lizard eater^[69]) and call Arabs "پابرهنه" (lit. barefoot), "بی‌تمدن" (lit. uncivilized), "وحشی" (lit. barbarians) and "زیرصحرایی" (lit sub-saharan). Anti-Islamist government Persians refer to Persian Islamic Republic supporters from Hezbollahi families as Arab-parast (عرب‌پرست) (lit. Arab Worshippper). Arabs use slurs against Persians by calling them Fire-worshipers and majoos, "Majus" (مجوس) (Zoroastrians, Magi).

Negative views Persians have of Arabs include eating habits such as Arabs eating lizards.^{[70][71][72][73][74][75][76]}

In Iran, there is a saying, The Arab of the desert eats locusts, while the dogs of Isfahan drink ice-cold water. (عرب در بیابان ملخ میخورد سگ اصفهان آب یخ میخورد).^[68] In Iran "to be outright Arab (از بیخ عرب بودن) means "to be a complete idiot".^[77]

Relations are uneasy between specifically Iran and the Persian Gulf Arab countries in particular.^[78] Persians and Arabs dispute the name of the Persian Gulf.^[79] The Greater and Lesser Tunbs are disputed between the two countries.^[66] A National Geographic reporter who interviewed Iranians reported that many of them frequently said We are not Arabs!" "We are not terrorists!".^[80]

The Iranian rap artist Behzad Pax released a song in 2015 called "Arab-Kosh" (عرب‌كش) (Arab-killer) which was widely reported on the Arab media who claimed that it was released with the approval of the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. The Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance denied that it gave approval to the song and condemned it as a product of a "sick mind".^[81]

Israel

See also: Arab citizens of Israel and Racism in Israel

Baruch Goldstein's tomb. The plaque reads "To the holy Baruch Goldstein, who gave his life for the Jewish people, the Torah and the nation of Israel."

As a consequence of the Arab–Israeli conflict, there is a certain level of hostility between sections of the Jewish and Arab societies in Israel. Many Israeli Jews oppose mixed relationships, particularly between Jewish women and Arab men. A group of men in Pisgat Ze'ev started patrolling the neighborhood to stop Jewish women from dating Arab men. The municipality of Petah Tikva has a telephone hotline to inform on Jewish girls who date Arab men, as well as a psychological counseling service. Kiryat Gat launched a school programme to warn Jewish girls against dating local Bedouin men.^[82][83]

Geography textbooks used in Israeli schools were found to portray Arabs as primitive and backwards, with the Nakba, the destruction of Palestinian society in the 1948 Palestine war, disregarded entirely. History textbooks likewise portrayed the Palestinian population negatively, showing them as primitive and collectively to be an enemy. Contrasted with the portrayal of Jews, who were shown to be heroic and progressive, Israeli textbooks delegitimized Arabs and used negative stereotyping of Arabs nearly uniformly.^[84]

The Bedouin representatives submitted a report to the United Nations claiming that they are not treated as equal citizens and Bedouin towns are not provided the same level of services, land and water as Jewish towns of the same size are. The city of Beersheba refused to recognize a Bedouin holy site despite a High Court recommendation.^[85]

In 1994, a Jewish settler in the West Bank and follower of the Kach party, Baruch Goldstein, massacred 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. It was known that, prior to the massacre, Goldstein, a physician, refused to treat Arabs, including Arab soldiers with the Israeli army.^[86][87] During his funeral, a rabbi declared that even one million Arabs are "not worth a Jewish fingernail".^[88][89][90] Goldstein was immediately "denounced with shocked horror even by the mainstream Orthodox",^[91] and many in Israel classified Goldstein as insane.^[92] The Israeli government condemned the massacre and made Kach illegal.^[93] The Israeli army killed a further nine Palestinians during riots following the massacre,^[94] and the Israeli government severely restricted Palestinian freedom of movement in Hebron,^[95] while letting settlers and foreign tourists roam free,^[96] although Israel also forbade a small group of Israeli settlers from entering Palestinian towns and demanded that those settlers turn in their army-issued rifles.^[97] Goldstone's grave has become a pilgrimage site for Jewish extremists.^[98]

In a number of occasions, Israeli Jewish demonstrators and rioters used racist anti-Arab slogans. For example, during the Arab riots in October 2000 events, Israelis counter-rioted in Nazareth and Tel Aviv, throwing stones at Arabs, destroying Arab property, with some chanting "death to Arabs".^[99] Some Israeli-Arab soccer players face chants from the crowd when they play such as "no Arabs, no terrorism".^[100] In the most radical event, Abbas Zakour, an Arab member of the Knesset, was stabbed and wounded by unidentified men, who shouted anti-Arab chants.^[101] The attack was described as a "hate crime".^[101] Among the Israeli teams, Beitar Jerusalem is considered emblematic of Jewish racism; the fans are infamous for their 'Death to Arabs' chant^[102] and the team has a ban on Arab players,^[103] a policy that is in violation of FIFA's guidelines, though the team has never faced suspension from the football organization. In March 2012, supporters of the team were filmed raiding a Jerusalem mall and beating up Arab employees.^[104]

The Israeli political party Yisrael Beiteinu, whose platform includes the redrawing of Israel's borders so that 500,000 Israeli Arabs would be part of a future Palestinian State, won 15 seats in the 2009 Israeli elections, increasing its seats by 4 compared to the 2006 Israeli elections. This policy, also known as the Lieberman Plan, was described as "anti-Arab" by The Guardian.^[105] In 2004, Yehiel Hazan, a member of the Knesset, described the Arabs as worms: "You find them everywhere like worms, underground as well as above."^[106][107]

Vandalized grave. The graffiti says "death to the Arabs" by an unknown.

In 2004, then Deputy Defense Minister Ze'ev Boim asked "What is it about Islam as a whole and the Palestinians in particular? Is it some form of cultural deprivation? Is it some genetic defect? There is something that defies explanation in this continued murderousness."^[108]

In August 2005, Israeli soldier Eden Natan-Zada traveled to an Israeli Arab town and massacred four civilians. Israeli Arabs said they would draw up a list of grievances after the terrorist attack of Eden Natan-Zada. "This was a planned terror attack and we find it extremely difficult to treat it as an individual action," Abed Inbitawi, an Israeli-Arab spokesman, told The Jerusalem Post. "It marks a certain trend that reflects a growing tendency of fascism and racism in Israeli society generally as well as the establishment towards the minority Arab community," he said.^[109]

According to a 2006 poll conducted by Geocartographia for the Centre for the Struggle Against Racism, 41% of Israelis support Arab-Israeli segregation at entertainment venues, 40% believed "the state needs to support the emigration of Arab citizens", and 63% believed Arabs to be a "security and demographic threat" to Israel. The poll found that more than two thirds would not want to live in the same building as an Arab, 36% believed Arab culture to be inferior, and 18% felt hatred when they heard Arabic spoken.^[105]

In 2007, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel reported that anti-Arab views had doubled, and anti-Arab racist incidents had increased by 26%.^[110] The report quoted polls that suggested 50% of Jewish Israelis do not believe Arab citizens of Israel should have equal rights, 50% said they wanted the government to encourage Arab emigration from Israel, and 75% of Jewish youths said Arabs were less intelligent and less clean than Jews. The Mossawa Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel reported a tenfold increase in racist incidents against Arabs in 2008. Jerusalem reported the highest number of incidents. The report blamed Israeli leaders for the violence, saying "These attacks are not the hand of fate, but a direct result of incitement against the Arab citizens of this country by religious, public, and elected officials."^[111]

In March 2009, following the Gaza War, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) drew criticism when several young soldiers had T-shirts printed up privately with slogans and caricatures portraying dead babies, weeping mothers, and crumbled mosques.^{[112][113][114]}

In June 2009, Haaretz reported that Israel's Public Security Minister, Yitzhak Aharonovich, called an undercover police officer a "dirty Arab" whilst touring Tel Aviv.^[115]

Since the 2000s, groups such as Lehava have been formed in Israel to prevent that Israeli Arab men form relationships with Jewish women. Some of the material promoted to discourage Jewish women to be with Arab men, are sanctioned by local governments and police departments.^[116] Lehava has received permission from Israeli courts to picket the weddings uniting a Palestinian and a Jewish partner.^[117]

In 2010, dozens of Israel's top rabbis went on to sign a document forbidding that Jews rent apartments to Arabs, saying that "racism originated in the Torah".^[118]

In January 2012, the Israeli High Court upheld a decision, deemed racist, preventing the Palestinian espouses of Israeli Arabs from obtaining Israeli citizenship or resident status.^[119]

A poll in 2012 revealed that racist attitudes are embraced by a large majority of Israelis. 59% of Jews said they wanted Jews to be given preference in admission to public employment, 50% wanted the state to generally treat Jews better than Arabs, and over 40% wanted separate housing for Jews and Arabs. According to the poll, 58% supported the use of the term apartheid to represent Israeli policies against Arabs. The poll also showed that the majority of Israeli Jews would not want voting rights extended to Palestinians if the West Bank were annexed by Israel.^[120]

In 2013, Nazareth Illit mayor Shimon Gafsou declared that he would never allow that an Arab school, a mosque, or a church be built in his city, despite the fact that Arabs account for 18 percent of its population.^[121]

On July 2, 2014, 16-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khdeir was kidnapped, beaten and burned alive, after three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed in the West Bank. Khdeir's family members have blamed Israeli Government anti-Arab hate speech for inciting the murder and rejected the PM's condolence message, as well as a visit by then President Shimon Peres.^[122] Two Israeli minors were found guilty of Khdeirs' murder and sentenced to life and 21 years imprisonment respectively.^[123]

During the 2015 Israeli legislative election, Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu complained, in a video statement to supporters, that his left-wing opponents were supposedly sending Israeli Arabs to vote in droves, in a statement that was widely condemned as racist,^[124] including by the US government.^[125] Netanyahu went on to win the elections against poll predictions,^[126] and several commentators and pollster imputed his victory to his last-minute attack on Israeli Arab voters.^[127][128] During election campaign, then Foreign Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman proposed beheading Israeli Arabs that are "disloyal" to the state.^[129]

Niger

In October 2006, the government of Niger announced that it would deport the MahamidBaggaraArab living in the Diffa region of eastern Niger to Chad.^[130] This population numbered about 150,000.^[131] While the government was rounding Arabs in preparation for the deportation, two girls died, reportedly after fleeing government forces, and three women suffered miscarriages. Niger's government had eventually suspended the controversial decision to deport Arabs.^[132][133]

Pakistan

Wealthy Gulf Arabs hunting the endangered Houbara bustard in Pakistan for consumption as an aphrodisiac has led to negative sentiment against wealthy Arab shaykhs in Pakistan.^[134]

Turkey

Main article: Anti-Arabism in Turkey

Turkey has a history of strong anti-Arabism. During the Ottoman Empire, the Arabs were treated as just second-class subjects and suffered from immense discrimination by the Ottoman Turkish rulers, in addition, most of government's main positions were either held by Turks or non-Arab people, except for the Emirate of Hejaz under Ottoman rule. Future policy of anti-Arab sentiment, including the process of Turkification, led to the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans.^[135]

Because of the Syrian refugee crisis, anti-Arabism has intensified.^[136][137]Haaretz reported that anti-Arabian racism in Turkey mainly affects two groups; tourists from the Gulf who are characterized as "rich and condescending" and the Syrian refugees in Turkey.^[136] Haaretz also reported that anti-Syrian sentiment in Turkey is metastasizing into a general hostility toward all Arabs including the Palestinians.^[136] Deputy Chairman of the İyi Party warned that Turkey risked becoming "a Middle Eastern country" because of the influx of refugees.^[138]

Outside historical enmity, anti-Arabism is also widespread in Turkish media, as Turkish media and education curriculum associating Arabs with backwardness.^[139] This has continued influencing modern Turkish historiography and the crusade of Turkish soft power, with Arabs being frequently stereotyped as evil, uncivilized, terrorists, incompetent, stupid, etc. This depiction is frequently used in contrast to the alleged depiction of Turkic people as "noble, generous, fearsome, loyal, brave and spirited warriors".^[140]

Anti-Arab sentiment is also further fueled by ultranationalist groups, including the Grey Wolves and pan-Turkist nationalist parties,^[141] who called for invasions on the Arab World's Syria and Iraq, to prevent the ongoing Arab persecution of its Turkic populations in many Arab countries of the Middle East.^[142][143] Subsequently, Turkey has begun a series of persecuting its Arab population, as well as desire to recreate the new Turkish border.^[144]

In recent years, anti-Arabism has been linked with various attempts by Arab leaders to meddle into Turkish affairs, Turkey's alliance with Israel, which led to the discrimination against Arabs in Turkey grow.^[145]

Iraq

Main article: Anti-Arabism in Iraqi Kurdistan

Kurds have a long history of Anti-Arabism which bolstered after Saddam Hussein, ISIS attacks, the rise of Kurdish nationalism, and an increasing number of Arab refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan.

United Kingdom

See also: Racism in the United Kingdom

In 2008, a Qatari 16-year-old was killed in a racially motivated attack in Hastings, East Sussex.^[146]

United States

See also: Racism in the United States

William A. Dorman, writing in the compendium The United States and the Middle East: A Search for New Perspectives (1992), notes that whereas "anti-Semitism is no longer socially acceptable, at least among the educated classes[, n]o such social sanctions exist for anti-Arabism."^[147] Public opinion polls demonstrate that anti-Arabism in the United States is increasing significantly.^[148]

Prominent Russian-AmericanObjectivist author, scholar and philosopher Ayn Rand, in her 1974 Ford Hall Forum lecture, explained her support for Israel, following the Yom Kippur War of 1973 against a coalition of Arab nations, expressing strong anti-Arab sentiment with a words: "The Arabs are one of the least developed cultures. They are typically nomads. Their culture is primitive, and they resent Israel because it's the sole beachhead of modern science and civilization on their continent. When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are."^{[149][150][151]}

During the 1991 Gulf War, hostility toward Arabs increased in the United States.^[152]Arab Americans have experienced a backlash as result of terrorist attacks, including events where Arabs were not involved, like the Oklahoma City bombing, and the explosion of TWA Flight 800.^[153] According to a report prepared by the Arab American Institute, three days after the Oklahoma City bombing "more than 200 serious hate crimes were committed against Arab Americans and American Muslims. The same was true in the days following September 11."^[153]

According to a 2001 poll of Arab Americans conducted by the Arab American Institute, 32% of Arab Americans reported having been subjected to some form of ethnic-based discrimination during their lifetimes, while 20% reported having experienced an instance of ethnic-based discrimination since the September 11 attacks. Of special concern, for example, is the fact that 45% of students and 37% of Arab Americans of the Muslim faith report being targeted by discrimination since September 11.^[153]

According to the FBI and Arab groups, the number of attacks against Arabs and Muslims, as well as others mistaken for them, rose considerably after the 9/11 attacks.^[154]Hate crimes against people of Middle Eastern origin or descent increased from 354 attacks in 2000, to 1,501 attacks in 2001.^[152] Among the victims of the backlash was a Middle Eastern man in Houston, Texas who was shot and wounded after an assailant accused him of "blowing up the country",^[153] and four immigrants shot and killed by a man named Larme Price, who confessed to killing them as revenge for the September 11 attacks.^[155] Although Price described his victims as Arabs, only one was from an Arab country. This appears to be a trend; because of stereotypes of Arabs, several non-Arab, non-Muslim groups were subjected to attacks in the wake of 9/11, including several Sikh men attacked for wearing their religiously-mandated turban.^[156]

Earl Krugel and Irv Rubin, two leaders of the Jewish Defense League (JDL), described by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as a terrorist organization,^[157] planned to bomb Arab-American CongressmanDarrell Issa's office and the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, California. The two were arrested as part of a sting operation when they received a shipment of explosives at Krugel's home in Los Angeles. Krugel was murdered in November 2005 while in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Phoenix. His conviction, which was under appeal at that time, was dismissed in U.S. District Court. Rubin committed suicide in 2002 while in Federal Bureau of Prisons custody in Los Angeles.^[158] Although the JDL was suspected in the 1985 bombing death of ADC leader Alex Odeh, no arrest has been made in that case.^[159]

Stephen E. Herbits, the Secretary-General of the New York–based World Jewish Congress (WJC) made several racist remarks and ethnic slurs in an internal memo against the president of the European Jewish Congress Pierre Besnainou: "He is French. Don't discount this. He cannot be trusted ... He is Tunisian. Do not discount this either. He works like an Arab."^[160] The WJC in Israel has condemned the statements as both hateful and racist. "It appears that the struggle in the World Jewish Congress has now turned racist, said Knesset member Shai Hermesh (Kadima), who heads the Israeli board of the WJC. Instead of creating unity among the Jewish people, this organization is just creating division and hatred."^[161]

In 2004, American radio host Michael Savage described Arabs as "non-humans", said that Americans want the U.S. to "drop a nuclear weapon" on an Arab country, and advocated that people in the Middle East be "forcibly converted to Christianity" to "turn them into human beings". Savage characterized Israel as "a little country surrounded by racist, fascist bigots who don't want anyone but themselves living in that hell hole called the Middle East".^[162] Expressions of anti-Arabism in the United States intensified following the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, which was perpetrated by Nidal Hasan, a Palestinian Arab American. In 2010, the proposed development of an Islamic community center containing a mosque near the World Trade Center site provoked further widespread expressions of virulent anti-Arabism in the United States.^[163]

Western media

Main article: Stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims in the United States

Parts of Hollywood are regarded as using a disproportionate number of Arabs as villains and of depicting Arabs negatively and stereotypically. According to Godfrey Cheshire, a critic on the New York Press, "the only vicious racial stereotype that's not only still permitted but actively endorsed by Hollywood" is that of Arabs as crazed terrorists.^[164]

Like the image projected of Jews in Nazi Germany, the image of Arabs projected by western movies is often that of "money-grubbing caricatures that sought world domination, worshipped a different God, killed innocents, and lusted after blond virgins".^[165]

The 2000 film Rules of Engagement drew criticism from Arab groups and was described as "probably the most racist film ever made against Arabs by Hollywood" by the ADC.^[164] Paul Clinton of The Boston Globe wrote "at its worst, it's blatantly racist, using Arabs as cartoon-cutout bad guys".^[164]

Jack Shaheen, in his book Reel Bad Arabs,^[166] surveyed more than 900 film appearances of Arab characters. Of those, only a dozen were positive and 50 were balanced. Shaheen writes that "[Arab] stereotypes are deeply ingrained in American cinema. From 1896 until today, filmmakers have collectively indicted all Arabs as Public Enemy #1 – brutal, heartless, uncivilized religious fanatics and money-mad cultural "others" bent on terrorizing civilized Westerners, especially [Christians] and [Jews]. Much has happened since 1896 ... Throughout it all, Hollywood's caricature of the [Arab] has prowled the silver screen. He is there to this day – repulsive and unrepresentative as ever."^[167]

According to Newsweek columnist Meg Greenfield, anti-Arab sentiment presently promotes misconceptions about Arabs and hinders genuine peace in the Middle East.^[165]

In 1993, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee confronted Disney about anti-Arab racist content in its animated film Aladdin. At first Disney denied any problems but eventually relented and changed two lines in the opening song. Members of the ADC were still unhappy with the portrayal of Arabic characters and the referral to the Middle East as "barbaric".^[168]

In 1980, The Link, a magazine published by Americans for Middle East Understanding, contained an article "The Arab Stereotype on Television" which detailed negative Arab stereotypes that appeared in TV shows including Woody Woodpecker, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Jonny Quest and an educational children's show on PBS.^[168]

Arab advocacy organisations

United States

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) was founded in 1980 by United States SenatorJames Abourezk. The ADC claims that it is the largest Arab-American grassroots civil rights organization in the United States. Warren David is the national president of ADC^[169] On March 1, 2010, Sara Najjar-Wilson replaced former Democratic US CongresswomanMary Rose Oakar as president. ADC claims that is at the forefront in addressing anti-Arabism - discrimination and bias against Arab Americans.^[170]

Founded in 1985 by James Zogby, a prominent Democrat, the Arab American Institute (AAI) states that it is a partisan non-profit, membership organization and advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. that focuses on the issues and interests of Arab-Americans nationwide. The AAI also conducts research related to anti-Arabism in the United States. The Anti-Defamation League identifies the Arab American Institute as an anti-Israel protest organization.^[171] According to an AAI 2007 poll of Arab-Americans:

Experiences of discrimination are not uniform within the Arab American community, with 76% of young Arab Americans (18 to 29 years old) and 58% of Arab American Muslims reporting that they have "personally experienced discrimination in the past because of [their] ethnicity," as opposed to 42% of respondents overall... . Comparisons with previous AAI polls in which this same question was asked indicate a rise in experiences of discrimination amongst young Arab Americans.^[172]

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is an Islamic organization in North America that was created in June 1994.^[173][174] It has been active against anti-Arabism as well.^[175]

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which was founded to combat antisemitism and other forms of bigotry, actively investigated and spoke out against the rise in anti-Arab hate crimes following the September 2001 terrorist attacks.^[176] In 2003, the ADL urged the Speaker of the United States' House of Representatives to approve a resolution condemning bigotry and violence against Arab-Americans and American Muslims. The American Jewish Committee, and American Jewish Congress have issued similar responses.^[177] In 2004, the ADL national director issued the following statement: "we are disturbed that a number of Arab Americans and Islamic institutions have been targets of anger and hatred in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks."^[178][179]

In the 1990s, the Anti-Defamation League clashed with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in a legal dispute regarding sensitive information the ADL had collected about ADC members' positions on the Arab-Israeli conflict. In 1999, the dispute was finally settled out of court without any finding of wrongdoing.^[180] In 2001 the ADL attempted to bar Arab members of CAIR from attending a conference on multicultural inclusion. In 2007 the ADL accused the Council on American-Islamic Relations of having a "poor record on terrorism."^[181] CAIR, in turn, accused the ADL of "attempting to muzzle the First Amendment rights of American Muslims by smearing and demonizing them". When the case was settled, Hussein Ibish, director of communications for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), stated that the ADL had gathered data "systematically in a program whose clear intent was to undermine civil rights and Arab-American organizations".^[180]

United Kingdom

In Britain, the Greater London Council (GLC) and Labour Committee on Palestine (LCP) have been involved in fighting anti-Arabism through the promotion of Arab and Palestinian rights. The LCP funded a conference on anti-Arab racism in 1989.^[182] The National Association of British Arabs also works against discrimination.^[183]

United Nations

The final outcome document of the Durban Review Conference organized by the UN Human Rights Council, April 21, 2009, Deplores the global rise and number of incidents of racial or religious intolerance and violence, including Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianophobia and anti-Arabism^[184]

See also

References

Kim Kardashian is considered the ultimate role model for French Muslim girls who like dating black boys.

Paris is burning, and it's all Kim Kardashian's fault. OK, that's an overstatement, but the city's suburbs have been torn apart lately because of Arab French girls who happen to date black guys and the Arab French bigots who slut-shame them for doing so.

Since we are dealing with teenagers, the full extent of the issue is displayed on social media: Scrolling through Facemook—a sort of Facebook within Facebook, with more than 70,000 members—I stumbled upon countless offensive posts by groups with names such as "Anti beurette à khel" ("No to Arab girls dating black guys") and "Les beurettes utilisent l’Islam pour justifier leurs débauches" (Arab girls use Islam to justify their debauchery).

Clicking through the groups' pages, I realized this has evolved into a sort of modern-day witch hunt: Girls' photos, names, and even phone numbers are posted on the groups' "Timelines," often with humiliating captions. These girls are criticized for drifting away from Muslim traditions and for using something called the "Bilal excuse"—Bilal was the only black companion of the Prophet Muhammad.

Girl on the left: "Bilal was black, you racists." Girl on the right: "As long as he’s Muslim, we can suck his dick."

I called up my 32-year-old friend Haissam (whose name was changed to protect his identity), who works for a youth organization located in the northeastern suburbs of Paris. Naturally, he is quite upset to see young people fighting over such insanely inane matters.

VICE: Is this anger directed against Arab girls who are dating black guys a new phenomenon?
Haissam: I don’t think I've ever come across anything like this. There has always been a rivalry between North African teenagers and black teenagers, but it was more like banter. We knew it wasn’t serious. Today, I see a lot of people insulting these girls.

What is their problem?
They are accusing those girls of wearing too much makeup, staying out late at night, drinking, smoking, and using Islam as an excuse to redeem themselves. They say that these girls go out with young black guys because they think North African boys are too narrow-minded and bossy. When Muslim girls are criticized by their older brothers for their behavior, they'll say things like "He may be black, but he is Muslim, so you can not judge us. Only Allah can judge us," and that makes the bigots even angrier.

Has celebrity culture affected that phenomenon in any way?
Yes. I often hear that these girls want mixed-race children because of celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. It’s trendy to have a mixed-race family. I also hear that these girls are huge fans of Kim Kardashian, because she’s dating Kanye West, and black men are popular in France thanks to rap and hip-hop. Once, a girl told me she thought they were “more stylish.”

Caption reads: "This is now the favorite spot of Arab girls. I don’t know how their brothers and their parents can accept this."

What is the situation like on a daily basis?
If an Arab girl walks with a black boy, they will be pointed at and called names. Some Arab teenage boys see this as a betrayal. A few years back, the problem was Arab girls who dated French boys; they were accused of doing that only to Westernize themselves. Now it’s even worse, though. As this phenomenon is growing, you get black guys fighting back and going around saying stuff like ”We’ll make all your sisters pregnant, and tomorrow Arab boys won’t exist any more.” You can read this all over internet.

I feel that these Facebook groups make the situation even worse.
Yes, social networks exacerbate this phenomenon. It's obvious that it's reached the point of obsession for some, when you see all those pictures of "girls who have betrayed their people" splattered on feeds and Timelines. In real life, where I work, I come across a lot of young people who are completely OK with this situation.

It also appears that at the moment this is a French phenomenon. I don't think it has reached the rest of the world yet. But I’m afraid this will change.

Caption reads: "Arab girls think it’s OK to smoke hookah with black guys because Bilal was black."

How did it get this bad?
Because of these Facebook groups. At the beginning it was a bunch of angry, misinformed kids or insane people. But as time passes, they are joined by more and more people, including girls who have a grudge against "these Arab girls who do not respect themselves and bring shame to the community."

I also see people advising guys not to fall into the trap of Arab girls who say they want to settle down.
Yeah, because they think that black guys leave the girls once they’re pregnant. The girls become single moms and are accused of hiding their bad reputation to attract Arab boys as if nothing had happened. Again, this is pretty much a fantasy. But it's a fantasy that fuels a lot of hatred.

And as suburban teenagers are divided, inequality persists and nobody wins. It's a shitty situation. I keep trying to make the young people I work with understand that, but they ignore me. "You don’t understand, this is super serious," they tell me. Follow Emilie Laystary on Twitter.

Tagged:ParisteenagersIslamFacebookKim KardashianSocial MediaKimYeVice BlogBigotryFacemookBrandgelinafrench-arab

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The history of France is deeply marked by the influence and intervention of different cultures and peoples. For almost thirteen centuries, the Arab and Near Eastern presence has been especially important. In contemporary history, this presence became acutely visible following Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt in 1798 and the conquest of Algeria in 1830, followed by the presence on French soil of Turcos—battalions of Algerian infantrymen—during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. By the end of the nineteenth century, an elaborate colonial imaginary had emerged. The universal expositions held in Paris at the time featured ethnographic exhibitions and colonial folklore reflecting the construction of anthropological discourses and a hierarchy of races.

Far away from the imagery of the universal expositions, France became a fertile crossroad of cultures for intellectuals coming from all over the Arab and Near Eastern world—from Morocco to Syria, from the Ottoman Empire to Egypt. Paris was home to diverse Arab, Levantine, Ottoman, and Egyptian newspapers, like Le Lien Indissoluble, founded by two leading Islamist reformers in 1884, and political and reformist movements, including the Arab Congress of 1913, a watershed moment in pan-Arab nationalism.

In Paris and the provinces, the “Orient” was omnipresent in the arts and architecture. There existed a deep fascination for distant lands that were the focus of imagining the “beyond” and the “other.” In parallel, and paradoxically, the image of “the Arab” grew more negative in public discourse, as racist terms and caricatures gained common currency. The colonial project was extremely influential, as France occupied Algeria, and acquired protectorates over Tunisia (1881) and Morocco (1912). With the arrival of the twentieth century, the era of mass immigration to France began, and increased rapidly with the arrival of thousands of colonial soldiers and laborers during the First World War.

During the years of conflict, colonial authorities mobilized a vast military force in North Africa for the front in France. They also mobilized thousands of laborers to work in armament factories and agriculture, replacing those Frenchmen who had left for the army. If the war marked the first large-scale and personal encounter between French and Arab peoples, it also marked the beginning of modern xenophobia and marginalization. Yet paradoxically the popular imagination seized upon these colonial and new “modern heroes” as emblems of France’s possible triumph. At the same time, military authorities were careful to respect religious differences, and even favored Islam, helping to organize its practice and sending imams to the front. France, fighting Germany and its ally the Ottoman Empire, aspired to present itself as a guardian of Islam.

The Great War was a major turning point in the history of North African immigration not only because of the numbers, but because the encounter occurred in metropolitan France. As a result of the postwar settlement, France’s empire within the Arab World continued to grow. The Arab kingdom imagined by Napoleon III became a reality under the Third Republic’s acquisition of postwar mandates over Syria and Lebanon.

Yet within the Hexagon—metropolitan France—colonial attitudes and inequalities eventually won over any lingering sense of fraternity arising from the war or among the working class. The majority of laborers coming from Arab and Muslim lands had moved to the north’s industrial regions, where working and living conditions were often poor. They had to deal with growing hostility towards their presence. Popular language began developing offensive and racist terms like “bicot,” “naze,” “bougnoule,” “gourbi,” and “Sidis.”

Grandeur and Humiliation
During the interwar period, there emerged across France an entire network of immigrants and immigrant communities coming from across the Arab World, and especially Algeria. Among them were new populations coming from the Near East fleeing ethnic conflict and genocide, such as the Armenians. France was unique in the West for the number and diversity of its immigrants. Overwhelmingly these remained manual laborers who worked at the lowest levels of the pay scale without much hope of promotion and whose allowed period of stay in France was reduced by the authorities. “Bourgeois” immigrants likewise began arriving in France. Some were artists or political refugees, others came to study, work, or enrich their intellectual and athletic life. The decades of the twenties and thirties were heavily marked by xenophobia. In response, North African immigrants became politically active and began organizing their own nationalist movements.

The majority of immigrants disembarked at Marseille, where they worked at the docks or as laborers. Some continued on to the Rhône Valley, where they were employed by textile factories; Clermont-Ferrand, where Michelin headquarters sat; or farther north and east to work in the mining and steel industries. Most immigrants ended up in the capital and its surrounding areas working in heavy industries.

While some mosques had already been built, often funded by private individuals but with the support and cooperation of local and national authorities, the inauguration of the Great Mosque in Paris in 1926 marked a watershed moment. The building was presented as a tribute to World War I veterans. Despite such occasional shows of official support, the myth of the “undesirable” immigrant took root. It became conflated with stereotypes about the “Sidi” and the anti-colonialist “fanatic,” who were blindly driven by an unlikely combination of Islamism and Bolshevik Moscow’s revolutionary ideology. While the Rif War between Spanish colonial forces and Berber inhabitants of the Rif Mountains raged in Morocco, and military operations secured French control in Syria and Lebanon, Parisian municipal authorities created surveillance services specifically for monitoring the city’s Maghrebi populations and their political activism. The participation of North Africans in politics—within the French left and the French Communist Party, as well as within early nationalist organizations like the Étoile Nord-Africaine, founded by the Algerian revolutionary leader Ahmed Messali Hadj—rose alongside their participation in labor movements and unions.

The cultural life of these communities centered on France’s major cities and especially the capital, influencing Paris’s famous literary and arts scene. Arab artists and writers encountered avant-garde movements in the city, and began to make a name for themselves, like the Egyptian painter George Hanna Sabbagh.

Colonialism persisted, and even grew in its implications. The pomp of colonial expositions—Marseille in 1922, Strasbourg in 1924, Paris in 1931 and 1937—alongside the commemorations of Algeria’s conquest in 1930 reassured the French of their power and fed the illusion of control over docile colonial subjects. An entire colonial imaginary arose around the expositions showcasing France’s imperial power, the subjugation of “natives,” and the centrality of North Africa in the empire’s structure. The 1930 centenary celebrations in Algeria deeply marked French opinion. The festivities were conceived as modern propaganda depicting Arab colonized peoples as “loyal servers” of France. Humiliation became a prop for French grandeur. The following year, the 1931 Paris exposition brought to a culmination this wave of propaganda. Appealing to widespread exoticism, North Africa was idealized. Shows featuring “pacified Arabs” were organized for visitors—a far cry from the realities of colonial conquest and the Rif War that had ended only six years before.

On the eve of the Second World War, the first rumblings of independence movements arose. Relations between France and the Arab World became more complicated, especially after the failure of the Blum-Viollette project, which aimed to give citizenship rights to several million Algerians. The proposed law, which never made it through France’s parliament, would have made a select minority of native Algerians full citizens—primarily the educated classes and veterans from the First World War. By 1939, metropolitan France had some one hundred thousand Algerian immigrants living within its borders, the majority of Kabyle origin, a Berber population from the north of Algeria.

In this same period, France began mobilizing military forces across its empire, as well as developing a plan to bring colonial laborers to work within its own borders, a program brought to a stop by the country’s capitulation to Nazi Germany in June 1940. In reality, the number of colonial soldiers sent to France was far less than expected. After the defeat, these fighters were conscripted as agricultural laborers, while others were held in German-run prison camps (Frontstalag) established on French soil, which were later put under Vichy control.

During the war, some Algerian nationalists joined the collaboration. The Germans worked with networks of nationalist militants—who had begun organizing before the war—and exploited the disappointed hopes of Muslims. In North Africa, Germany supported anti-French and ultranationalist movements. Other North Africans and Near Easterners joined the resistance in France—notably the Main d’Oeuvre Immigrée, a group composed mostly of foreigners that was a wing of the communist-founded resistance group, Francs-Tireurs et Partisans, which was the best organized armed group within the resistance. Among them was Missak Manouchian, an Armenian poet who had spent much of his youth in Beirut, and Mohamed Lakhdar Toumi, an Algerian who later was interned by colonial authorities during the War of Independence. Tens of thousands of North African soldiers participated in France’s liberation by Allied forces. A moment of bitter irony, the parade on July 14, 1945 in Paris honored North African troops only months after the massacres on May 8 in the Algerian province of Constantine, where demonstrators had explicitly demanded independence following tentative hints of France’s withdrawal from Syria and Lebanon.

In the postwar years, immigration to France continued steadily, under the supervision of the National Office of Immigration. The flow of immigrants from the Arab World doubled, with the increase in students and workers needed for the country’s reconstruction. During the Trente Glorieuses, the thirty years of rapid economic growth following the war’s end, demand for workers from the Maghreb continued to rise. The law of September 20, 1947 granted partial political citizenship to all Algerians, opening the way towards massive new arrivals. French immigration policy remained contradictory: though never officially acknowledged, there was a desire to privilege migration from the Maghreb, without allowing for true political equality.

While North African workers were marginalized or invisible to the larger public—they often lived in bidonvilles, shantytowns lying at the city’s outskirts—the Armenian community acquired a degree of social acceptance and successfully integrated with French society. The experience of Arab and other immigrants coming from the Near East deeply diverged in this period, and was clearly linked with the situation in the colonies, which began to rapidly deteriorate following the start of the conflict in Algeria in 1954, then the independence process in Tunisia and Morocco (1956). The context of the Algerian War influenced public opinion for almost eight years. In 1958, Algerian soccer players quit France’s national team, returning to Algeria to form the soccer team for the National Liberation Front. Violence from the war affected French society, with a series of attacks within the Hexagon, and the mobilization of several hundred thousand conscripts sent to fight in Algeria.

Even as the conflict in Algeria drew to a close, protests against the imposition of a curfew uniquely for French Muslims on October 17, 1961 marked another grim moment in these dark years. Acting on the orders of Paris prefect Maurice Papon, police violently suppressed demonstrations across the city. Over ten thousand Algerians were arrested, and an unknown number shot by policemen—estimates range from 50 to 300 deaths. Colonial violence had now reached across to the other side of the Mediterranean. This date—along with the bloody anniversaries of May 1 and July 14, 1953—definitively marked North African populations in France.

Despite these events, Arab culture in France continued to thrive, in poetry, art, theater, literature, and even the music of oriental cabarets. Sport was also an important space where those coming from the Maghreb could earn recognition, such as Marcel Cerdan, a world boxing champion of Algerian origin, and Larbi Ben Barek, a Moroccan footballer who played for the French national team.

March of Racism
Independence prompted the return of thousands of North Africans and political opponents, without stopping the flow of Maghrebi workers throughout the fifties. Diplomatic initiatives followed one after the other, attempting to control the surge in immigrants and organize the repatriation of populations displaced by decolonization. In France, the pieds-noirs (French settler populations in Algeria) and the Harkis (loyalist Muslim Algerians who served in the French army) symbolized the end of the colonial epoch. Their rejection by French society, the political elite’s disdain, and their treatment by public authorities deepened a feeling among these so-called repatriated populations of abandonment and marginalization, whatever their ethnic origin, culture, or social status.

During the wars of independence and decolonization, popular culture and the press stigmatized the figure of “the Arab.” Violent racism took hold in France during the 1960s. Yet there continued a vibrant intellectual, artistic, and cultural life that was enhanced by the emergence of new intellectuals coming from the Maghreb and Near East, such as the writers Albert Cossery, from Egypt, and Kateb Yacine, from Algeria.

The problem of bidonvilles also became worse from the 1950s to 1970s. The lack of housing was at the heart of the “immigrant question.” In 1966, the Nungesser law attempted to overcome the problem of informal housing and get rid of the bidonvilles. In reality, it would take more than a decade for the last shantytowns to be dismantled. At the same time, after the student and labor uprisings of May 1968, the debate around marginalization became more important and made room for the “immigrant’s voice” in the public discourse. Immigrant workers became active within social movements, and more visible in the country’s labor unions and economic life.

The Arab presence was increasingly diverse and noticeable in French society, which was still heavily overshadowed by the colonial legacy. Anti-Arab racism exploded during the 1970s. The ratonnades (physical attacks targeting North Africans) in Marseille between August and December 1973 were especially violent. Public policy, reacting to public opinion, the creation of the National Front, and the sudden hike in oil prices in 1974, turned towards both favoring family reunifications and the repatriation of Arab and Kabyle immigrants, while simultaneously stressing the importance of integrating these communities and their children. The Islamic Revolution in Iran and the rise of Islamism across the Arab World in the late 1970s changed the image of Islam in French society, which began to associate North Africans with the emergence of terrorism in Europe. Henceforth anxieties about Islamization of the country were a recurrent subject among rightwing groups, which grew rapidly in the following decade.

While racism spread across French society—becoming visible in literature and cinema—different minority communities struggled to preserve and control the memory of their own histories, such as the pieds-noir, the Harkis, Armenians, and, though far more marginalized than the others, North Africans and their children. The cultural expression of these communities was ever more important, and often even took on a tone of protest, like the Kabyle singer Ferhat Mehenni, or the far more widely known Dalida, who was born in Egypt. These social tensions and the rise in crimes of racism, despite the election of a leftist government in 1981, politically formed second-generation immigrants.

The social failure of the cités, public housing projects built in the suburbs of the country’s main cities, concentrated the new national obsessions of insecurity, violence, criminality, unemployment, and the refusal of immigrants to “integrate.” The March for Equality and Against Racism in 1983, often called the Marche des Beurs, reflected the determination of a new generation of youth to draw attention to social exclusion and claim their rights, and reclaim the word “beur,” a slang term for people of Arab and North African descent often used in a derogatory manner. The march, which began in Marseille and ended in Paris, was peaceful, and marked a new period in relations between France and the Arab communities living within its borders. It also succeeded in drawing media and political attention, including that of President François Mitterrand. As a result, a new residency permit system, the “ten-year card,” was established. In 1984, other political and cause-oriented movements emerged, among which SOS Racisme was the most prominent. Yet the new generation’s demands remained largely unheeded, both by the political elite and media, and were not integrated into French politics. They remained on the margins. The result, twenty years later in 2005, was that their children undertook a new, more violent form of protest, spreading revolt throughout France’s poorer neighborhoods.

At the same time, immigrant communities became more fragmented on the ground, with each person living in a seemingly isolated social unit. The new generation and its desire for the recognition of its own history and identity, as well as religious pressures and urban decay, redefined immigrant society. Stereotypes about Islam further fed public fears, mistrust, and a discriminatory discourse. Arab populations were the “interior enemies” and henceforth grouped collectively as “Muslims.”

Colonial Fracture
Throughout the 1990s, the problem of the banlieues, the poor suburbs where many immigrants lived, obsessed public opinion. A new cultural wave grew out of the banlieues, famously captured in the 1995 film La Haine. New forms of dance, music, and theater emerged that expressed this hybrid urban culture, which was popularly represented by hip-hop. Professional sport singled itself out as a viable path towards integration; France’s hosting of and victory in the 1998 FIFA World Cup fed the myth of a “black-white-beur” nation. Sport was a uniquely welcoming space for youth of North African background. Nevertheless, very few beur icons emerged in the public space and media.

During this period, despite more restrictive policies, immigration from the Maghreb continued apace. By now, second- and third-generation immigrants lived in the country. Their permanent presence changed the situation: their children are French and will remain so. The violence of xenophobic discourses now targets them.

The economic and social crisis continued for these communities, which encouraged the stigmatization of North Africans, especially by far right groups like the National Front. Communities pushed to the edge of society, unemployment two and half times higher than the national average, as well as insecurity and prejudice caused by fear of the “other” and Islam, created a “colonial fracture” within French society at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The early 2000s witnessed a shift in the language around Arab and Near Eastern France: Armenians asserted themselves in the political arena, especially regarding commemoration of the genocide; Turks and Kurds guarded their cultural specificity while living at the margins of society; the pieds-noirs and North African Jews created a space for themselves in the national memory. Syrian and Lebanese as well as Harki communities remained invisible, neither contentious nor incorporated into the national discourse. By contrast, North Africans were still the targets of racism in a country that is itself a prisoner to its own colonial past, even as personalities from immigrant backgrounds became national emblems, like Jamel Debbouze, an actor born in France to Moroccan parents; Dany Boon, a French comedian and actor whose father is Kabyle; Gad Elmaleh, a Morrocan-French standup comedian; Zinedine Zidane, a renowned French football player of Algerian Berber descent; Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, a socialist politician born in Morocco’s Rif Mountains who currently serves as French minister of education, higher education, and research; or Rachida Dati, a member of the European parliament and justice minister under President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Over the past decades, a “threatening” East has fixated the popular imagination, influenced by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the rise in jihadism. The September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and clashes around the France-Algeria football match in the following month resuscitated the myth of the “interior enemy,” and focused it on Muslim Arabs living in the banlieues. That rhetoric has continued to the present day and worsened following a wave of terrorist attacks in France in 2015. However, Arabs are more present in culture, literature, and the arts, as well as the economy and politics, than ever before. The paradox deeply reflects the contradictions of contemporary French society. The anxiety behind the myth of the “interior enemy,” the “culture of rejection,” and stigmatization fed into the urban revolts of 2005. But the reaction of French society was to deny the reasons behind the rebel movement.

Caught between acceptance and rejection, Arab France has two faces: a France which embraces its shared histories, and another France which persists in rejecting a part of its population and a centuries-old heritage that has made Arabs and Near Easterners “native foreigners” in the Hexagon. Today, Islamophobia continues to rise, while the social exclusion of certain communities within France is leading towards worrying social isolation. The attacks in January and November 2015 deeply changed for the worse perceptions of a population that accounts for between 6 and 8 percent of all French citizens.

A century after the Great War, during which the colonies answered France’s call for help, seventy years after the liberation of national territory by soldiers originally from North Africa, sixty years after decolonization, the condition of Arab and Near Eastern communities in France is surprising. They are a part of French society and deeply tied up with its national history, yet permanently at the nation’s margins. It is the paradox of thirteen centuries of Arab France.

Translated from the French by Amir-Hussein Radjy.

Pascal Blanchard is a historian and researcher in the Laboratoire Communication et Politique at the Université Paris-Dauphine and co-director of the Groupe de recherche Achac (Paris). He is the co-author of Le grand repli; La fracture coloniale: La société française au prisme de l’héritage colonial; and, most recently, Vers la guerre des identités? He is co-editor of La France arabo-orientale: Treize siècles de présences and La France noire.

Tags: AlgeriaFranceIslamophobiaNorth African immigrants

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Arabic-speaking ethnic and national groups, originally from the Arabian Peninsula

"Arab" and "Arabians" redirect here. For other uses, see Arab (disambiguation) and Arabian (disambiguation).

عَرَبٌ (Arabic) ʿarabun
c. 400 million[1][2] to 420+ million[3][4]
Arab League
350,000,000[5][6]
Brazil	15 to 21 million Arabs and descendants of Arabs[7][8]
France	4–7 million[9] to 5.5[10] million people of North African (Arab or Berber) descent[11]
Turkey	1,630,000–4,000,000[12][13]
Germany
Indonesia
Argentina	3,500,000 of Arab and partial Arab ancestry[17]
United States	3,700,000[18]
Israel	1,700,000[19]
Venezuela	1,600,000[20]
Colombia	1,500,000[21]
Iran	1,500,000[22]
Chad	1,689,168 (est.)[23]
Spain	1,350,000[24][25]
Mexico	1,100,000[26]
Chile	800,000[27][28][29]
Canada	750,925[30]
Italy	680,000[31]
United Kingdom	500,000[32]
Australia	500,000[33]
Netherlands	480,000–613,800[34]
Ivory Coast	300,000[35]
Honduras	280,000[36]
Niger	150,000 (2006)[37]
El Salvador	More than 100,000[38][39][40][41][42]
Ecuador	97,000[43]
Uruguay	75,000[44]
74,000
Eritrea	Ca 50-70,000 [45]
Tanzania	70,000[46]
Kenya	59,021 (2019)[47]
Arabic
Afro-Arabs and other Afro-Asiatic speakers[48][49][50][51][52][53]
a Arab ethnicity should not be confused with non-Arab ethnicities that are also native to the Arab world. But there are instances in which some non-Arab ethnicities native to the Arab world simultaneously identify as Arab and another non-Arab ethnicity through either cultural assimilation (partial/incomplete Arabization within certain communities), or as a pan-ethnic identity,[53] as well as partially Arabized communities.

The Arabs (singular Arab;^[54] singular Arabic: عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635:arabīyun, Arabic pronunciation: [ˈʕarabiːjun], plural Arabic: عَرَب, DIN 31635:ʿarab, Arabic pronunciation:[ˈʕarab] (listen)), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group^[a] mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Western Indian Ocean islands (including the Comoros).^[65] An Arab diaspora is established around the world in significant numbers, in the Americas, Western Europe, Indonesia, Turkey, and Iran.^{[66][67][68][69][70]}

In modern usage, the term "Arabs" tends to refer to those whose native language is Arabic and identify as such. In a source that compares Arabs in Europe to other socioethnic groups, Arabs are referred to as a socioethnic group.^[71] This contrasts with the narrower traditional definition, which refers to the descendants of the Tribes of the Arabian Peninsula.^[72]Islam started in Arabia, Arabic is the language of Islamic scripture, and most Arabs are Muslims. However, only 20% of Muslims are Arabs.^[73]

The first mention of Arabs appeared in the mid-9th century BCE, as a tribal people in Eastern and Southern Syria and the northern Arabian Peninsula.^[74] The Arabs appear to have been under the vassalage of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–612 BCE), as well as the succeeding Neo-Babylonian (626–539 BCE), Achaemenid (539–332 BCE), Seleucid and Parthian empires.^[75] The Nabataeans, an Arab people, ruled a Kingdom near Petra in the 3rd century BCE. Arab tribes, most notably the Ghassanids and Lakhmids, began to appear in the Southern Syrian Desert from the mid 3rd century CE onward, during the mid to later stages of the Roman and Sasanian empires.^[76]

Before the expansion of the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661 C.E.), "Arab" referred to any of the largely nomadic and settled Arabic-speaking people from the Arabian Peninsula, Syrian Desert and Lower Mesopotamia, with some even reaching what is now northern Iraq.^[77] Since the influence of Pan-Arabism in the 1950s and 1960s, "Arabs" has been taken to refer to a large number of people whose native regions became part of the Arab world due to the spread of Islam, Arabic tribes and the Arabic language throughout the region during the early Muslim conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries. These cultural and demographic influences resulted in the subsequent Arabisation of the indigenous populations.^[78][79]

The Arabs forged the Rashidun (632–661), Umayyad (661–750), Abbasid (750–1517) and the Fatimid (901–1071) caliphates, whose borders reached Southern France in the west, China in the east, Anatolia in the north and the Sudan in the south. This was one of the largest land empires in history.^[80] In the early 20th century, the First World War signalled the end of the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled much of the Arab world since conquering the Mamluk Sultanate in 1517.^[81] The end culminated in the 1922 defeat and dissolution of the empire and the partition of its territories, forming the modern Arab states.^[82] Following the adoption of the Alexandria Protocol in 1944, the Arab League was founded on 22 March 1945.^[83] The Charter of the Arab League endorsed the principle of an Arab homeland whilst respecting the individual sovereignty of its member states.^[84]

Today, Arabs primarily inhabit the 22 member states of the Arab League. The Arab world stretches around 13 million km², from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean in the southeast. People of non-Arab ethnicities associated with non-Arabic languages also live in these countries, sometimes as a majority. These include Somalis, Kurds, Berbers, the Afar people, Nubians and others. Beyond the boundaries of the League of Arab States, Arabs can also be found in the global diaspora.^[66] The ties that bind Arabs are ethnic, linguistic, cultural, historical, identical, nationalist, geographical and political.^[85] The Arabs have their own customs, language, architecture, art, literature, music, dance, media, cuisine, dress, society, sports and mythology.^[86]

Arabs are a diverse group in terms of religious affiliations and practices. In the pre-Islamic era, most Arabs followed polytheistic religions. Some tribes had adopted Christianity or Judaism and a few individuals, the hanifs, apparently observed another form of monotheism.^[87] Today, about 93% of Arabs are adherents of Islam^[88] and there are sizable Christian minorities.^[89]Arab Muslims primarily belong to the Sunni, Shiite, Ibadi and Alawite denominations. Arab Christians generally follow one of the Eastern Christian Churches, such as those within the Oriental Orthodox churches, Eastern Catholic churches, or Eastern Protestant churches.^[90] There also exist small numbers of Arab Jews still living in Arab countries and a much larger population of Jews descended from Arab Jewish communities living in Israel and various Western countries, who may or may not consider themselves Arab today. Christian minorities in Arab-majority states may also not consider themselves Arab, such as Copts and Assyrians. Other smaller minority religions also exist, such as the Druze,^[91]Zoroastrianism and the Baháʼí Faith.

Arabs have greatly influenced and contributed to diverse fields, notably the arts and architecture, language, philosophy, mythology, ethics, literature, politics, business, music, dance, cinema, medicine, science and technology in ancient and modern history.^[92]

Etymology[edit]

Further information: Arab (etymology)

The earliest documented use of the word Arab in reference to a people appears in the Kurkh Monoliths, an Akkadian-language record of the Assyrian conquest of Aram (9th century BCE). The Monoliths used the term to refer to Bedouins of the Arabian Peninsula under King Gindibu, who fought as part of a coalition opposed to Assyria.^[93] Listed among the booty captured by the army of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III in the Battle of Qarqar (853 BCE) are 1000 camels of "Gi-in-di-bu'u the ar-ba-a-a" or "[the man] Gindibu belonging to the Arabs" (ar-ba-a-a being an adjectival nisba of the noun ʿarab).^[93]

The related word ʾaʿrāb is used to refer to Bedouins today, in contrast to ʿarab which refers to Arabs in general.^[94] Both terms are mentioned around 40 times in pre-Islamic Sabaean inscriptions. The term ʿarab ('Arab') occurs also in the titles of the Himyarite kings from the time of 'Abu Karab Asad until MadiKarib Ya'fur. According to Sabaean grammar, the term ʾaʿrāb is derived from the term ʿarab. The term is also mentioned in Quranic verses, referring to people who were living in Madina and it might be a south Arabian loanword into Quranic language.^[95]

The oldest surviving indication of an Arab national identity is an inscription made in an archaic form of Arabic in 328 CE using the Nabataean alphabet, which refers to Imru' al-Qays ibn 'Amr as 'King of all the Arabs'.^[96][97]Herodotus refers to the Arabs in the Sinai, southern Palestine, and the frankincense region (Southern Arabia). Other Ancient-Greek historians like Agatharchides, Diodorus Siculus and Strabo mention Arabs living in Mesopotamia (along the Euphrates), in Egypt (the Sinai and the Red Sea), southern Jordan (the Nabataeans), the Syrian steppe and in eastern Arabia (the people of Gerrha). Inscriptions dating to the 6th century BCE in Yemen include the term 'Arab'.^[98]

The most popular Arab account holds that the word Arab came from an eponymous father named Ya'rub, who was supposedly the first to speak Arabic. Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdani had another view; he states that Arabs were called gharab ('westerners') by Mesopotamians because Bedouins originally resided to the west of Mesopotamia; the term was then corrupted into arab.

Yet another view is held by al-Masudi that the word Arab was initially applied to the Ishmaelites of the Arabah valley. In Biblical etymology, Arab (Hebrew: arvi) comes from the desert origin of the Bedouins it originally described (arava means 'wilderness').

The root ʿ-r-b has several additional meanings in Semitic languages—including 'west, sunset', 'desert', 'mingle', 'mixed', 'merchant' and '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'.^[99]

History[edit]

Main article: History of the Arabs

Antiquity[edit]

Main article: Pre-Islamic Arabia

Pre-Islamic Arabia refers to the Arabian Peninsula prior to the rise of Islam in the 630s. The study of Pre-Islamic Arabia is important to Islamic studies as it provides the context for the development of Islam. Some of the settled communities in the Arabian Peninsula developed into distinctive civilizations. Sources for these civilizations are not extensive, and are limited to archaeological evidence, accounts written outside of Arabia, and Arab oral traditions later recorded by Islamic scholars. Among the most prominent civilizations was Dilmun, which arose around the 4th millennium BCE and lasted to 538 BCE, and Thamud, which arose around the 1st millennium BCE and lasted to about 300 CE. Additionally, from the beginning of the first millennium BCE, Southern Arabia was the home to a number of kingdoms, such as the Sabaean kingdom (Arabic: سَـبَـأ, romanized: Saba',^[100] possibly Sheba),^[101] and the coastal areas of Eastern Arabia were controlled by the Parthian and Sassanians from 300 BCE.

Origins and early history[edit]

Further information: Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples and Proto-Arabic

According to Arab-Islamic-Jewish traditions, Ishmael was father of the Arabs, to be the ancestor of the Ishmaelites.

• Both Judaism and Islam see him as the ancestor of Arab peoples.^[102]
• Ishmael is recognized by Muslims as the ancestor of several prominent Arabtribes and being the forefather of Muhammad. A–Z of Prophets in Islam and Judaism, Wheeler, Ishmael Muslims also believe that Muhammad was the descendant of Ishmael that would establish a great nation, as promised by God in the Old Testament.
• Genesis 17:20^[103]
• Zeep, Ira G. (2000). A Muslim primer: beginner's guide to Islam, Volume 2. University of Arkansas Press. p. 5. ISBN .
• Ishmael was considered the ancestor of the Northern Arabs and Muhammad was linked to him through the lineage of the patriarch Adnan. Ishmael may also have been the ancestor of the Southern Arabs through his descendant Qahtan.
• Assyrians referred to the Arab Tribes as Ishmaelites, or "Shumu'ilu" as recorded in their inscriptions.^[104]
• "Zayd ibn Amr" was another Pre-Islamic figure who refused idolatry and preached monotheism, claiming it was the original belief of their [Arabs] father Ishmael.^[105]
• The tribes of Central West Arabia called themselves the "people of Abraham and the offspring of Ishmael."^[106]
• Gibb, Hamilton A. R., and J. H. Kramers. 1965. Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. pp. 191–98
• Maalouf, Tony. Arabs in the Shadow of Israel: The Unfolding of God's Prophetic Plan for Ishmael's Line. Kregel Academic. ISBN .
• Urbain, Olivier (2008). Music and Conflict Transformation: Harmonies and Dissonances in Geopolitics. I.B.Tauris. ISBN .</ref>

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 Qarqar. Some of the names given in these texts are Aramaic, while others are the first attestations of Ancient North Arabian 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 Aravi 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.^{[citation needed]} Arab tribes came into conflict with the Assyrians during the reign of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, and he records military victories against the powerful Qedar tribe among others.

Old Arabic diverges from Central Semitic by the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE.^{[citation needed]}

Medieval Arab genealogists divided Arabs into three groups:

1. "Ancient Arabs", tribes that had vanished or been destroyed, such as ʿĀd and Thamud, often mentioned in the Qur'an as examples of God's power to vanquish those who fought his prophets.
2. "Pure Arabs" of South Arabia, descending from Qahtan. The Qahtanites (Qahtanis) are said to have migrated from the land of Yemen following the destruction of the Ma'rib Dam (sadd Ma'rib).
3. The "Arabized Arabs" (mustaʿribah) of Central Arabia (Najd) and North Arabia, descending from Ishmael the elder son of Abraham, through Adnan (hence, Adnanites). The Book of Genesis narrates that God promised Hagar to beget from Ishmael twelve princes and turn him to a great nation.^[107] 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:

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 towards the East facing the desert. And these mingled with each other, and their name was called Arabs, and Ishmaelites.

— Book of Jubilees 20:13

Assyrian relief depicting battle with camel riders, from Kalhu (Nimrud) Central Palace, Tiglath Pileser III, 728 BCE, British Museum

Assyrian and Babylonian Royal Inscriptions and North Arabian inscriptions from 9th to 6th century BCE, mention the king of Qedar as king of the Arabs and King of the Ishmaelites.^{[109][110][111][112]} Of the names of the sons of Ishmael the names "Nabat, Kedar, Abdeel, Dumah, Massa, and Teman" were mentioned in the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions as tribes of the Ishmaelites. Jesur was mentioned in Greek inscriptions in the 1st century BCE.^[113]

Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddima distinguishes between sedentary Arab Muslims who used to be nomadic, and 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 Yemenis.^[115] The Christians of Italy and the Crusaders preferred the term Saracens for all the Arabs, Muslims.^[116] The Christians of Iberia used the term Moor to describe all the Arabs and Muslims of that time.

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 Quran 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 at-Tawba 97,

al-ʾaʿrābu ʾašaddu kufrān wanifāqān "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 eighth 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.

Classical kingdoms[edit]

Main articles: Palmyra, Nabateans, Qedarite, Osroene, and Kingdom of Hatra

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 the Arabian Peninsula and Sinai (not in reality connected with Thamud).

The Nabataeans were nomadic Arabs 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 reveal a dialect no longer considered proto-Arabic, but pre-classical Arabic. Five Syriac inscriptions mentioning Arabs have been found at Sumatar Harabesi, one of which dates to the 2nd century CE.

Arabs arrived in the Palmyra in the late first millennium BCE. The soldiers of the sheikh Zabdibel, who aided the Seleucids in the battle of Raphia (217 BCE), were described as Arabs; Zabdibel and his men were not actually identified as Palmyrenes in the texts, but the name "Zabdibel" is a Palmyrene name leading to the conclusion that the sheikh hailed from Palmyra. Palmyra was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate after its 634 capture by the Arab general Khalid ibn al-Walid, who took the city on his way to Damascus; an 18-day march by his army through the Syrian Desert from Mesopotamia. By then Palmyra was limited to the Diocletian camp. After the conquest, the city became part of Homs Province.

Fragment of a wall painting showing a Kindite king, 1st century CE

Palmyra prospered as part of the Umayyad Caliphate, and its population grew.^[122] It was a key stop on the East-West trade route, with a large souq (Arabic: سُـوق, market), built by the Umayyads,^[122] who also commissioned part of the Temple of Bel as a mosque. During this period, Palmyra was a stronghold of the Banu Kalb tribe. After being defeated by Marwan II during a civil war in the caliphate, Umayyad contender Sulayman ibn Hisham fled to the Banu Kalb in Palmyra, but eventually pledged allegiance to Marwan in 744; Palmyra continued to oppose Marwan until the surrender of the Banu Kalb leader al-Abrash al-Kalbi in 745. That year, Marwan ordered the city's walls demolished. In 750 a revolt, led by Majza'a ibn al-Kawthar and Umayyad pretender Abu Muhammad al-Sufyani, against the new Abbasid Caliphate swept across Syria; the tribes in Palmyra supported the rebels. After his defeat Abu Muhammad took refuge in the city, which withstood an Abbasid assault long enough to allow him to escape.

Late kingdoms[edit]

Further information: Lakhmids, Ghassanids, and Kindites

The Near Eastin 565, showing the Lakhmids and their neighbors

The Ghassanids, Lakhmids and Kindites were the last major migration of pre-Islamic Arabs out of Yemen to the north. The Ghassanids increased the Semitic presence in the then Hellenized Syria, the majority of Semites were Aramaic peoples. They mainly settled in the Hauran region and spread to modern Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan.

Greeks and Romans referred to all the nomadic population of the desert in the Near East as Arabi. The Romans called Yemen "Arabia Felix".^[129] The Romans called the vassal nomadic states within the Roman EmpireArabia Petraea, after the city of Petra, and called unconquered deserts bordering the empire to the south and east Arabia Magna. The Emesene were a Roman client dynasty of Arab priest-kings known to have ruled from Emesa, Syria. Roman empress Julia Domna, matriarch of the Severan dynasty of Roman emperors, was one of their descendants.^[130]

The Lakhmids as a dynasty inherited their power from the Tanukhids, the mid Tigris region around their capital Al-Hira. They ended up allying with the Sassanids against the Ghassanids and the Byzantine Empire. The Lakhmids contested control of the Central Arabian tribes with the Kindites with the Lakhmids eventually destroying the Kingdom of Kinda in 540 after the fall of their main ally Himyar. The Persian Sassanids dissolved the Lakhmid dynasty in 602, being under puppet kings, then under their direct control.^[131] 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 Arabia from "Qaryah Dhat Kahl" (the present-day called Qaryat al-Faw). They ruled much of the Northern/Central Arabian peninsula, until they were destroyed by the Lakhmid king Al-Mundhir, and his son 'Amr.

Medieval period[edit]

Arab caliphates[edit]

Rashidun era (632–661)[edit]

Main article: Rashidun Caliphate

After the death of Muhammad in 632, Rashidun armies launched campaigns of conquest, establishing the Caliphate, or Islamic Empire, one of the largest empires in history. It was larger and lasted longer than the previous Arab empire of Queen Mawia or the Aramean-Arab Palmyrene Empire. The Rashidun state was a completely new state and unlike the Arab kingdoms of its century such as the Himyarite, Lakhmids or Ghassanids.

Umayyad era (661–750 & 756–1031)[edit]

Main article: Umayyad Caliphate

See also: Caliphate of Córdoba and Al-Andalus

See also: Abbadid, Taifa, Nasrid dynasty (Sistan), Zengid dynasty, and Ikhshidid dynasty

In 661, the Rashidun Caliphate fell into the hands of the Umayyad dynasty and Damascus was established as the empire's capital. The Umayyads were proud of their Arab identity and sponsored the poetry and culture of pre-Islamic Arabia. They established garrison towns at Ramla, Raqqa, Basra, Kufa, Mosul and Samarra, all of which developed into major cities.^[133]

CaliphAbd al-Malik established Arabic as the Caliphate's official language in 686.^[134] 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 disparity, 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.

Umayyads expanded their Empire westwards capturing North Africa from the Byzantines. Before the Arab conquest, North Africa was conquered or settled by various people including Punics, Vandals and Romans. After the Abbasid Revolution, the Umayyads lost most of their territories with the exception of Iberia. Their last holding became known as the Emirate of Córdoba. It wasn't until the rule of the grandson of the founder of this new emirate that the state entered a new phase as the Caliphate of Córdoba. This new state was characterized by an expansion of trade, culture and knowledge, and saw the construction of masterpieces of al-Andalus architecture and the library of Al-Ḥakam II which housed over 400,000 volumes. With the collapse of the Umayyad state in 1031 CE, Islamic Spain was divided into small kingdoms.

Abbasid era (750–1258 & 1261–1517)[edit]

Main article: Abbasid Caliphate

Scholars at an Abbasid library in Baghdad. Maqamat of al-Hariri Illustration, 123.

The Abbasids were the descendants of Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, one of the youngest uncles of Muhammad and of the same Banu Hashim clan. The Abbasids led a revolt against the Umayyads and defeated them in the Battle of the Zab effectively ending their rule in all parts of the Empire with the exception of al-Andalus. In 762, the second Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur founded the city of Baghdad and declared it the capital of the Caliphate. Unlike the Umayyads, the Abbasids had the support of non-Arab subjects.^[133]

The Islamic Golden Age was 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 of 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. Rival 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.^[135]

The Abbasids ruled for 200 years before they lost their central control when Wilayas began to fracture in the 10th century; afterwards, in the 1190s, there was a revival of their power, which was ended by the Mongols, who conquered Baghdad in 1258 and killed the Caliph Al-Musta'sim. Members of the Abbasid royal family escaped the massacre and resorted to Cairo, which had broken from the Abbasid rule two years earlier; the Mamluk generals taking the political side of the kingdom while Abbasid Caliphs were engaged in civil activities and continued patronizing science, arts and literature.

Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171)[edit]

Main article: Fatimid Caliphate

The Fatimid caliphate was founded by al-Mahdi Billah, a descendant of Fatimah, the daughter of Muhammad, in the early 10th century. Egypt was the political, cultural, and religious centre of the Fatimid empire. The Fatimid state took shape among the Kutama Berbers, in the West of the North African littoral, in Algeria, in 909 conquering Raqqada, the Aghlabid capital. In 921 the Fatimids established the Tunisian city of Mahdia as their new capital. In 948 they shifted their capital to Al-Mansuriya, near Kairouan in Tunisia, and in 969 they conquered Egypt and established Cairo as the capital of their caliphate.

Intellectual life in Egypt during the Fatimid period achieved great progress and activity, due to many scholars who lived in or came to Egypt, as well as the number of books available. Fatimid Caliphs gave prominent positions to scholars in their courts, encouraged students, and established libraries in their palaces, so that scholars might expand their knowledge and reap benefits from the work of their predecessors.^[136] The Fatimids were also known for their exquisite arts. Many traces of Fatimid architecture exist in Cairo today; the most defining examples include Al-Hakim Mosque and the Al-Azhar University.

Arabesque pattern behind hunters on ivory plaque, 11th–12th century, Egypt

It was not until the 11th century that the Maghreb saw a large influx of ethnic Arabs. Starting with the 11th century, the Arab bedouin Banu Hilal tribes migrated to the West. Having been sent by the Fatimids to punish the Berber Zirids for abandoning Shias, they travelled westwards. The Banu Hilal quickly defeated the Zirids and deeply weakened the neighboring Hammadids. According to some modern historians. their influx was a major factor in the arabization of the Maghreb.^[137][138] Although Berbers ruled the region until the 16th century (under such powerful dynasties as the Almoravids, the Almohads, Hafsids, etc.), the arrival of these tribes eventually helped Arabize much of it ethnically, in addition to the linguistic and political impact on local non-Arabs.^{[citation needed]}

Ottoman Empire[edit]

Main articles: Ottoman Empire and Ottoman Caliphate

From 1517 to 1918, much of the Arab world was under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans defeated the Mamluk Sultanate in Cairo, and ended the Abbasid Caliphate. Arabs did not feel the change of administration because the Ottomans modeled their rule after the previous Arab administration systems.^{[citation needed]}

In 1911, Arab intellectuals and politicians from throughout the Levant formed al-Fatat ("the Young Arab Society"), a small Arab nationalist club, in Paris. Its stated aim was "raising the level of the Arab nation to the level of modern nations." In the first few years of its existence, al-Fatat called for greater autonomy within a unified Ottoman state rather than Arab independence from the empire. Al-Fatat hosted the Arab Congress of 1913 in Paris, the purpose of which was to discuss desired reforms with other dissenting individuals from the Arab world. However, as the Ottoman authorities cracked down on the organization's activities and members, al-Fatat went underground and demanded the complete independence and unity of the Arab provinces.^[139]

After World War I, when the Ottoman Empire was overthrown by the British Empire, former Ottoman colonies were divided up between the British and French as League of Nations mandates.

Modern period[edit]

Arabs in modern times live in the Arab world, which comprises 22 countries in Western Asia, North Africa, and parts of the Horn of Africa.^[140] They are all modern states and became significant as distinct political entities after the fall and defeat and dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908–1922).^[141]

Identity[edit]

Further information: Arab identity

Arab identity is defined independently of religious identity, and pre-dates the spread of Islam, with historically attested Arab Christian kingdoms and Arab Jewish tribes. Today, however, most Arabs are Muslim, with a minority adhering to other faiths, largely Christianity, but also Druze and Baháʼí.^[142][143]

Paternal descent has traditionally been considered the main source of affiliation in the Arab world when it comes to membership into an ethnic group or clan.^[144]

The Near East in 565, showing the Ghassanids, Lakhmids, Kinda and Hejaz

Today, the main unifying characteristic among Arabs is Arabic, a Central Semitic language from the Afroasiatic language family. Modern Standard Arabic serves as the standardized and literary variety of Arabic used in writing. The Arabs are first mentioned in the mid-ninth century BCE as a tribal people dwelling in the central Arabian Peninsula subjugated by Upper Mesopotamia-based state of Assyria. The Arabs appear to have remained largely under the vassalage of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BCE), and then the succeeding Neo-Babylonian Empire (605–539 BCE), Persian Achaemenid Empire (539–332 BCE), GreekMacedonian/Seleucid Empire and Parthian Empire.

Arab tribes, most notably the Ghassanids and Lakhmids begin to appear in the south Syrian deserts and southern Jordan from the mid 3rd century CE onwards, during the mid to later stages of the Roman Empire and Sasanian Empire. Also, before them the Nabataeans of Jordan and arguably the Emessans,^[145]Edessans,^[146] and Hatrans^[147] all appear to have been an Aramaic speaking ethnic Arabs who came to rule much of the pre-Islamic fertile crescent often as vassals of the two rival empires, the Sasanian (Persian) and the Byzantine (Eastern Roman).^[148] Thus, although a more limited diffusion of Arab culture and language was felt in some areas by these migrant minority Arabs in pre-Islamic times through Arabic-speaking Christian kingdoms and Jewish tribes, it was only after the rise of Islam in the mid-7th century that Arab culture, people and language began their wholesale spread from the central Arabian Peninsula (including the south Syrian desert) through conquest and trade.

Subgroups[edit]

Further information: Tribes of Arabia

Arabs in the narrow sense are the indigenous Arabians who trace their roots back to the tribes of Arabia and their immediate descendant groups in the Levant and North Africa. Within the people of the Arabian Peninsula, distinction is made between:

• "Perishing Arabs" (Arabic: الـعـرب الـبـائـدة), which are ancient tribes about whose history little is known. They include ʿĀd (Arabic: عَـاد),^[149]Thamûd (Arabic: ثَـمُـود),^[150] Tasm, Jadis, Imlaq and others. Jadis and Tasm perished because of genocide. 'Aad and Thamud perished because of their decadence, as recorded in the Qur'an. Archaeologists have recently uncovered inscriptions that contain references to Iram dhāṫ al-'Imād (Arabic: إِرَم ذَات الـعِـمَـاد, Iram of the Pillars),^[149] which was a major city of the 'Aad. Imlaq is the singular form of 'Amaleeq and is probably synonymous to the biblical Amalek.
• "Pure Arabs" (Arabic: الـعـرب الـعـاربـة) or Qahtanites from Yemen, taken to be descended from Ya'rub ibn Yashjub ibn Qahtan and further from Hud.
• "Arabized Arabs" (Arabic: الـعـرب الـمـسـتـعـربـة) or Adnanites, taken to be the descendants of Ishmael son of Abraham.

Arabians are most prevalent in the Arabian Peninsula, but are also found in large numbers in Mesopotamia (Arab tribes in Iraq), the Levant and Sinai (Negev Bedouin, Tarabin bedouin), as well as the Maghreb (Eastern Libya, South Tunisia and South Algeria) and the Sudan region.

Arabian tribes before the spread of Islam

This traditional division of the Arabs of Arabia may have arisen at the time of the First Fitna. Of the Arabian tribes that interacted with Muhammad, the most prominent was the Quraysh. The Quraysh subclan, the Banu Hashim, was the clan of Muhammad. During the early Muslim conquests and the Islamic Golden Age, the political rulers of Islam were exclusively members of the Quraysh.

The Arab presence in Iran did not begin with the Arab conquest of Persia in 633 CE. For centuries, Iranian rulers had maintained contacts with Arabs outside their borders, dealt with Arab subjects and client states (such as those of Iraq and Yemen), and settled Arab tribesmen in various parts of the Iranian plateau. It follows that the "Arab" conquests and settlements were by no means the exclusive work of Arabs from the Hejaz and the tribesmen of inner Arabia. The Arab infiltration into Iran began before the Muslim conquests and continued as a result of the joint exertions of the civilized Arabs (ahl al-madar) as well as the desert Arabs (ahl al-wabar).^[151] The largest group of Iranian Arabs are the Ahwazi Arabs, including Banu Ka'b, Bani Turuf and the Musha'sha'iyyah sect. Smaller groups are the Khamseh nomads in Fars Province and the Arabs in Khorasan.

Post-card of Emir Mejhem ibn Meheid, chief of the Anazatribe near Aleppowith his sons after being decorated with the Croix de Légion d'honneur on 20 September 1920

The Arabs of the Levant are traditionally divided into Qays and Yaman tribes. This tribal division is likewise taken to date to the Umayyad period. The Yemen trace their origin to South Arabia or Yemen; they include Banu Kalb, Kinda, Ghassanids, and Lakhmids.^[152] Since the 1834 Peasants' revolt in Palestine, the Arabic-speaking population of Palestine has shed its formerly tribal structure and emerged as the Palestinians^{[citation needed]}.

Native Jordanians are either descended from Bedouins (of which, 6% live a nomadic lifestyle),^[153] or from the many deeply rooted non bedouin communities across the country, most notably Al-Salt city west of Amman which was at the time of Emirate the largest urban settlement east of the Jordan River. Along with indigenous communities in Al Husn, Aqaba, Irbid, Al Karak, Madaba, Jerash, Ajloun, Fuheis and Pella.^[154] In Jordan, there is no official census data for how many inhabitants have Palestinian roots but they are estimated to constitute half of the population,^[155][156] which in 2008 amounted to about 3 million.^[156] Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics put their number at 3.24 million in 2009.^[157]

Old Bedouin man and his wife in Egypt, 1918

The Bedouins of western Egypt and eastern Libya are traditionally divided into Saʿada and Murabtin, the Saʿada having higher social status. This may derive from a historical feudal system in which the Murabtin were vassals to the Saʿada.

In Sudan, there are numerous Arabic-speaking tribes, including the Shaigya, Ja'alin and Shukria, who are ancestrally related to the Nubians. These groups are collectively known as Sudanese Arabs. In addition, there are other Afroasiatic-speaking populations, such as Copts and Beja.

The medieval trans-Saharan slave trade in the Sudan drove a wedge between the Arabized Sudanese and the non-Arabized Nilotic Sudanese populations. It has contributed to ethnic conflict in the region, such as the Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, Northern Mali conflict, or the Boko Haram insurgency.

The Arabs of the Maghreb are descendants of Arabian tribes of Banu Hilal, the Banu Sulaym and the Maqil native of Middle East^[158] and of other tribes native to Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Iraq. Arabs and Arabic-speakers inhabit plains and cities. The Banu Hilal spent almost a century in Egypt before moving to Libya, Tunisia and Algeria, and another century later some moved to Morocco, it is logical to think that they are mixed with inhabitants of Egypt and with Libya.^[159]

Demographics[edit]

Further information: Demographics of the Arab League

The total number of Arabic speakers living in the Arab nations is estimated at 366 million by the CIA Factbook (as of 2014). The estimated number of Arabs in countries outside the Arab League is estimated at 17.5 million, yielding a total of close to 384 million.

Arab world[edit]

For a more comprehensive list, see list of Arab countries by population.

Population density of the Arab world in 2008.

According to the Charter of the Arab League (also known as the Pact of the League of Arab States), the League of Arab States is composed of independent Arab states that are signatories to the Charter.^[160]

Arabic-speaking peoples in the Middle East and North Africa

Although all Arab states have Arabic as an official language, there are many non-Arabic-speaking populations native to the Arab world. Among these are Berbers, Toubou, Nubians, Jews, Assyrians, Armenians, Kurds.^[53] Additionally, many Arab countries in the Persian Gulf have sizable non-Arab immigrant populations (10–70%). Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman have a Persian speaking minority. The same countries also have Hindi-Urdu speakers and Filipinos as sizable minority. Balochi speakers are a good size minority in Oman. Additionally, countries like Bahrain, UAE, Oman and Kuwait have significant non-Arab and non-Muslim minorities (10–20%) like Hindus and Christians from South Asia and the Philippines.

The table below shows the distribution of populations in the Arab world, as well as the official language(s) within the various Arab states.^[161]

Arab state	Population	% Arabs	Official language(s)	Notes
Algeria	44,261,994[162]	85%[163]	Arabic co-official language with Berber	The Mixing between Arabs and Berbers in Algeria makes it difficult to trace the roots of many people. The percentage mentioned also includes people with Berber roots who identify themselves as Arabs.
Bahrain	1,733,100[162]	51%[164]	Arabic official language
Comoros	780,971[165]	0.1%[166]	Arabic co-official language with Comorian and French
Djibouti	810,179[167]	4%[168]	Arabic co-official language with French	It is estimated that there are about 37,000 Arabs in Djibouti.
Egypt	102,069,001[169]	90%[170]	Arabic official language	[171]

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The nature of romantic relationships is different in Germany than in Arab societies, being less restricted and more open.  Concepts of love and marriage differ between Germany and the Arab world owing to cultural norms and traditions.  Sexual relations, cohabitation and having children outside of marriage are normal and acceptable in Western societies. For Arab societies, however, quite the opposite is the case, and even debate on these subjects is taboo. Arab refugees of the younger generation in Germany, particularly young women, are torn between these two perspectives.

Personal freedom

Rama, a Syrian in her twenties, came to Germany with her mother last year to escape the horrors of war.  She's learning German at the advanced level at the moment so she can prepare for university study. Western society and Germany in particular did not really shock her, she explained. She says she has adjusted to the  lifestyle in this country, especially with regard to its openness. She is only not used to seeing small things, such as kissing in public.

"I respect the freedom of this country very much and am impressed by the German view of personal space and the way they live their lives. However I can not act like them regarding romantic relationships, as I am a Muslim from a Muslim family and I want to maintain the customs and traditions that I grew up with.  Even if I were born in Germany, I would have this perspective,” Rama said in an interview with DW Arabic.

She then adds: "Romantic relationships and having kids should be confined to marriage. I will only get married to an Arab man, as a large cultural gap exists between me and the Germans, the easiest part being the language!"

Cultural barriers

Syrian refugees in Germany

Rama knows exactly what she wants, but the situation is different for others, especially teenage girls. They  are surrounded by peers who chat about romantic flings, and must separate their lives at school from life with the family. These younger refugees face a tough cultural barrier - they do not dare ask their families about many of the questions they have about relationships.   

This is the internal conflict that many women face, such as 17-year-old Sara (not her real name) from Syria. Sara has been living in Germany for about two years now. She describes her life as being divided between "at home" and "in public."  On the one hand, she agrees with the customs and traditions she grew up with at home, but she is also is open to the German way of life. This is a source of internal conflict for her:  She is living a Western lifestyle as a teenager in public alongside her friends but at the same time she cannot shake off the more conservative Eastern ideals she grew up with. "Maybe I will decide when I begin university, but in any case, do not tell my mom about this conversation," she told DW.

The role of parents

Young Syrians must reconcile Eastern and Western moral views

Renee Abu al-Alaa, director of an Arab family care center in Berlin, explained that the conflict experienced by young women and men  because of the differences between their conservative  families and the more liberal environment surrounding them was significant, and could lead to serious problems. She told the story of  a 13-year-old Iraqi girl who fled from her family to a humanitarian organization for fear of being killed after nude photographs of her had been published. To Abu al-Alaa, this story is a clear example of how serious these problems can be.

Speaking with DW Arabic, Abu al-Alaa stressed the importance of the role of parents at this stage: "Immigration is really difficult, but parents can foster dialogue and understanding with their kids instead of intimidation in order to gain their trust and answer their questions."

On the other hand, there are very few young women who dare to rebel against the customs and traditions of their Arab background and adopt a Western lifestyle.  Hana (not her real name) is a 24-year-old Syrian university student who is critical of the concept of honor and other traditional values in Arab societies. This was one of the most important reasons behind her journey to Germany three years ago to get away from the Syrian war. She feels  that the conservatism of the society she grew up in contradicts her own beliefs.

 Hana has lived with her German boyfriend in a student apartment for several months. This is a step that she would not have dared to take if she were in Syria.  "I wouldn't have made a decision like this in Syria because society would reject it completely and it would tarnish my entire family's reputation. Here in Germany it is different, because people don't look into your personal life and they don't a require a certificate of marriage for a couple to live together. I feel more freedom and confidence to make my own decisions. This is my life and my body," she told DW.

However,  she admitted: "I, of course, did not tell my family back home about this decision to live with my boyfriend." 

Opposition to, dislike, fear or hatred of Arab people

Not to be confused with Islamophobia.

Anti-Arabism, Anti-Arab sentiment or Arabophobia includes opposition to, dislike, fear or hatred of Arab people.

Historically, anti-Arab prejudice has been an issue in such events as the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula, dating arab women france condemnation of Arabs in Spain by the Spanish Inquisition, dating arab women france, the Zanzibar Revolution in 1964, and the 2005 Cronulla riots in Australia. In the modern era, anti-Arabism is apparent in many nations in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Various dating arab women france organizations have been formed to protect the civil rights of individuals of Arab descent in the United States, such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Definition of Arab

Further information: Arab people and Arab culture

Arabs are people whose native language is Arabic. People of Arabic origin, in particular native English and French speakers of Arab ancestry in Europe and the Americas, often identify themselves as Arabs. Due to widespread practice of Islam among Arab populations, Anti-Arabism is commonly confused with Islamophobia.^[1]

There are prominent Arab non-Muslim minorities in the Arab world. These minorities include the Arab Christians in Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain, dating arab women france other Arab countries.^[2] There are also sizable minorities of Arab Jews, Druze, Baháʼí, and nonreligious.^[3][4]

Historical anti-Arabism

Graffiti in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, calling for an expulsion of Arabs and Jews

Anti-Arab prejudice is suggested by many events in history. In the Iberian Peninsula, when the reconquest by the indigenous Christians from the Moorish colonists was completed with the fall of Granada, all dating arab women france were expelled. In 1492, Arab converts to Christianity, called Moriscos, were expelled from Spain to North Africa after being condemned by the Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish word "moro", meaning moor, today carries a negative meaning.^[5] Although ethnically different from the Arabs in Spain at the time, dating arab women france, the term Moro was also used pejoratively^{[citation needed]} by married dating sites Spanish since the 16th century to refer to Muslim tribal groups in the Philippines; the term indios was used to refer to Christianized tribal groups.^{[citation needed]}

After the annexation of the Muslim-ruled state of Hyderabad by India in 1948, about 7,000 Arabs were interned and deported.^[6]

The Zanzibar Revolution of January 12, 1964, ended the local Arab dynasty. As many as 17,000 Arabs were exterminated by black African revolutionaries, according to reports, and thousands of others fled the country.^[7][8][9]

In The Arabic Language and National Identity: a Study in Ideology, Yasir Suleiman notes of the writing of Tawfiq al-Fikayki that he uses the term shu'ubiyya to refer to movements he perceives to be anti-Arab, such as the Turkification movement in the Ottoman Empire, extreme-nationalist and Pan-Iranist movements in Iran and communism. The economic boom in Iran which lasted until 1979 led to an overall increase of Iranian nationalism sparking thousands of anti-Arab movements. In al-Fikayki's view, the objectives of anti-Arabism are to attack Arab nationalism, pervert history, emphasize Arab regression, deny Arab culture, and generally be hostile to all things Arab. He concludes that, "In all its various roles, anti-Arabism has adopted a policy of intellectual conquest as a means of penetrating Arab society and combatting Arab nationalism."^[10]

In early 20th and late 19th century when Palestinians and Syrians migrated to Latin America Arabophobia was common in these countries.^[11]

Modern anti-Arabism

Algeria

Anti-Arabism is a major element of movements known as Berberism that are widespread mainly amongst Algerians of Kabyle and other Berber origin.^[12] It has historic roots as Arabs are seen as invaders that occupied Algeria and destroyed its dating arab women france Roman and early medieval civilization that was considered an integral part of the West; this invasion is considered to have been the source of the resettlement of Algeria's Berber population in Kabylie and other mountainous areas. Regardless, dating arab women france, russian dating pictures Kabyles and other Berbers have managed to preserve their culture and achieve higher standards of living and education when compared to Algerian Arabs. Furthermore, many Berbers speak their language and French; are non religious, secular, or Evangelical Christian; and openly identify with the Western World. Many Berber Nationalists view Arabs as a hostile people intent on eradicating their own culture and nation. Berber social norms restrict marriage to someone of Arab ethnicity, although it is permitted to marry someone from other ethnic groups.^[13]

According to Lawrence Rosen, ethnic background is not a crucial factor in marriage between members of each group in North Africa, when compared to social and economic backgrounds.^[14] There are regular Hate incidents between Arabs and Berbers and Anti-Arabism has been accentuated by the Algerian government's anti-Berber policies. Contemporary relations between Berbers and Arabs are sometimes tense, particularly in Algeria, where Berbers rebelled (1963–65, 2001) against Arab rule and have demonstrated and rioted against their cultural marginalization in the new founded state.^[15][16]

The Anti-Arab sentiments among Algerian Berbers (mainly from Kabylie) were always related to the reassertion of Kabyle identity. It began as an intellectual militant movement in schools, universities, and popular culture (mainly nationalistic songs).^[17] In addition to that, the authorities' efforts to promote development in Kabylie contributed to a boom of sorts in Tizi Ouzou, whose population almost doubled between 1966 and 1977, and to a greater degree of economic and social integration within the region had the contrary effect of strengthening a collective Amazigh consciousness and Anti-Arab sentiments.^[18]

Arabophobia can be seen at different levels of intellectual, social, and cultural life of some Berbers. After the Berberist crisis in 1949, a new radical intellectual movement emerged under the name L'Académie Berbère. This movement was known by its adoption and promotion of Anti-Arab and Anti-Islam ideologies especially amongst immigrant Kabyles in France and achieved a relative success at the time.^[19]

In 1977, the final game of the national soccer championship pitting a team from Kabylie against one from Algiers turned into an Arab-Berber conflict. The Arab national anthem of Algeria was overwhelmed by the shouting of Anti-Arab slogans such as "A bas les arabes" (down with the Arabs).^[20]

The roots of modern day Arabophobia in Algeria can be traced back to multiple factors. For some, Anti-Arabism movement among Berbers is part of the legacy of French Colonization or manipulation of North Africa. As from the beginning, dating arab women france, the French understood that to attenuate Muslim resistance to their presence, mainly in Algeria, they had to resort to the divide and rule doctrine. The most obvious divide that could be instrumentalized in this perspective was the ethnic one. Therefore, France employed some official dating arab women france practices to tighten its control over Algeria by creating racial tensions between Arabs and Berbers and between Jews and Muslims.^[21]

Others argue that the Berber language and traditions are deeply rooted in the North African cultural mosaic; for centuries, Berber culture has survived conquests, repression, and exclusion from different invaders: Romans, Arabs, and French. Hence, believing that its identity and specificity were threatened, the Berbers took note of the political and ideological implications of Arabism as defended by successive governments.^[22] Gradual radicalization and Anti-Arab sentiments began to emerge in Algeria and among the hundreds of thousands of Berbers in France who had been in the forefront of the Berber cultural movement.^[20]

Australia

See also: Racism in Australia

The Cronulla riots in Sydney, Australia in December 2005 have been described as "anti-Arab racism" by community leaders.^[23] NSW Premier Morris Iemma said the violence revealed the "ugly face of racism in this country".^[24]

A 2004 report by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission said that more than two-thirds of Muslim and Arab Australians say they have experienced racism or racial vilification since the September 11 attacks and that 90% of female respondents experienced racial abuse or violence.^[25]

Adam Houda, a LebaneseMuslimlawyer, has been repeatedly harassed by the New South Wales police force.^{[26][27][28][29][30]} Houda has been arrested or detained six times in 11 years and has sued the police force for malicious prosecution and harassment three times. Houda claims that the police's motivation is racism which he says is "alive and well" in Bankstown. He has been stopped going to prayers, with relatives and friends and has been subjected to a humiliating body search. He has been the object of several groundless accusations of robbery or holding a knife. A senior lawyer told the Sydney Morning Herald that the police harassment was due to the police enmity against Houda's clients and the Australian Arab community.^[31] He was first falsely arrested in 2000 for which he was awarded $145,000 damages by a judge who described his persecution as "shocking". Dating arab women france Lance Stebbing was found to have maliciously arrested Houda, as well as using profanities against him and approaching him in a "menacing manner". Stebbing was supported by other police, against the testimony of many eyewitnesses.^[32] In 2005, Houda accused the police of disabling his mobile phone making it difficult to perform his work as a criminal defense lawyer.^[33]

In 2010, Houda, his lawyer Chris Murphy, and Channel Seven journalist Adam Walters claimed that Frank Menilli, a senior New South Wales police officer, behaved in a corrupt fashion by trying to alter Channel Seven's coverage of the Houda Case by promising Walters inside information in exchange for presenting the case in the police's favour. Walters regarded the offer as an "attempted bribe".^[34][35] The latest incident occurred in 2011, when Houda was arrested for refusing a frisk search and resisting arrest after having been approached by police suspecting him of involvement in a recent robbery. These charges were thrown out of us match dating site by Judge John Connell who stated "At the end of the day, here were three men of Middle Eastern appearance walking along a suburban street, for all the police knew, minding their own business at an unexceptional time of day, in unexceptional clothing, except two of the men had hooded jumpers. The place they were in could not have raised a reasonable suspicion they were involved in the robberies"^[31] Houda is currently suing the six police officers involved for false imprisonment, unlawful arrest, dating arab women france, assault and battery and defamation. One of the six is an assistant commissioner. He dating arab women france seeking $5 million in damages.^[36][37]

Czech Republic

In September 2008, Muslims complained about anti-Arabism and Islamophobia in the Czech Republic. Czech Republic was well known for being dating arab women france most anti-Arabism country in the whole of Europe in 2008.^[38]

France

See also: Racism in France

France used to be a colonial empire, dating arab women france, with still great post-colonial power over its former colonies, dating arab women france Africa as a reservoir for labor, dating arab women france in moments of dire need. During World War I, reconstruction and shortages made France bring thousands of North African workers. Out of a total of 116,000 workers from 1914–1918, 78,000 Algerians, 54,000 Moroccans, dating arab women france, and Tunisians were requisitioned.^{[dubious – discuss]} Two hundred and forty thousand Algerians were mobilized or drafted, and two thirds of these were soldiers who served mostly in France. This constituted more than one-third of the men of those nations from ages 20–40.^[39] According to historian Abdallah Laroui, Algeria sent 173,000 soldiers, 25,000 of whom were killed. Tunisia sent 56,000, of whom 12,000 were killed. Moroccan soldiers helped defend Paris and landed at Bordeaux in 1916.^[40]

After the war, reconstruction and labor shortages necessitated even larger number of Algerian laborers. Migration (or the need for labor) was reestablished at a high level by 1936. This was partly the result of collective recruitments in the villages conducted by French officers and representatives of companies. Labor recruitment continued throughout the 1940s. North Africans were mostly recruited for dangerous and low-wage jobs, unwanted by ordinary French workers.^[41]

This large number of immigrants was of great help for France's rapid post–World War II economic growth, dating arab women france. The 1970s were marked by recession followed by the cessation of labor migration programs and crackdowns on illegal immigration. During the 1980s, political disfavor with President Mitterrand's social programs led to the rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen and other far right French nationalists. The public increasingly blamed immigrants for French economic problems. In March 1990, according to a poll reported in Le Monde, 76% of those polled said that there were too many Arabs in France while 39% said they had an "aversion" to Arabs.^[42] In the following years, Interior Minister Charles Pasqua was noted for dramatically toughening immigration laws.^[43]

In May 2005, riots broke out between North Africans and Romani people in Perpignan, after a young Arab man was shot dead and another Arab man was lynched by a group of Roma.^[44][45]

Chirac's controversial "Hijab ban" law, presented as secularization of schools, was interpreted by its critics as an "indirect legitimization of dating arab women france stereotypes, fostering rather than preventing racism."^[43]

A higher rate of racial profiling is conducted on Blacks and Arabs by the French police.^[46]

Iran

See also: Iranian Arabs and Anti-Iranian sentiment

Human rights group Amnesty International dating arab women france that in practice, Arabs are among a number of ethnic minorities that are disadvantaged and suffer discrimination by the authorities.^[47]Separatist tendencies in Khuzestan exacerbate this. How far the situation facing Arabs in Iran is related to racism or simply a result of policies suffered by all Iranians is a matter of debate (see: Politics of Khuzestan). Iran is a multi-ethnic society with its Arab minority mainly located in the south.^[48]

It is claimed by some that anti-Arabism in Iran may be related to the notion that Arabs forced some Persians to convert to Islam in 7th century AD (See: Muslim conquest of Persia).^{[weasel words]} Author Richard Foltz in his article "Internationalization of Islam" states "Even today, many Iranians perceive the Arab destruction of the Sassanid Empire as the single greatest tragedy in Iran's long history.^[49] Following the Muslim conquest of Persia, many Iranians (also known as "mawali") came to despise the Umayyads due to discrimination against them by their Arab rulers. The Shu'ubiyah movement was intended to reassert Iranian identity and resist attempts to impose Arab culture while reaffirming their commitment to Islam, dating arab women france.

More recently, anti-Arabism has arisen as why you should redownload your dating app consequence of aggression against Iran by the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, dating arab women france. During a visit to Khuzestan, which has most of Iran's Arab population, a British journalist, John R. Bradley, wrote that despite the fact that the majority of Arabs supported Iran in the war, "ethnic Arabs complain that, as a result of their divided loyalties during the Iran–Iraq War, they are viewed more than ever by the clerical regime in Tehran as a potential fifth column, dating arab women france, and suffer from a policy of discrimination."^[50] However, Iran's Arab population played an important role in defending Iran during the Iran-Iraq War and most refused to heed Saddam Hussein's call for an uprising and instead fought against their fellow Arabs.^[51] Furthermore, Iran's former defense minister Ali Shamkhani, a Khuzestani Arab, was chief commander of the ground force during the Iran-Iraq War as well as serving as first deputy commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Arab minority of southern Iran has been subject to discriminations, persecution in Iran.^[52] In a report published in February 2006, Amnesty International stated that the "Arab population of Iran is one of the most economically and socially deprived in Iran" and that Arabs have "reportedly been denied state employment under the gozinesh [job placement] criteria."

Furthermore, dating arab women france, land expropriation by the Iranian authorities is reportedly so widespread that it appears to amount to a policy aimed at dispossessing Arabs of their traditional lands. This is apparently part of a strategy aimed at the forcible relocation of Arabs to other areas while facilitating the transfer of non-Arabs into Khuzestan and is linked to economic policies such dating arab women france zero-interest loans which are not available dating arab women france local Arabs.

— Amnesty International, dating arab women france, ^[47]

Critics of such reports have pointed out that they are often based on sketchy sources and are not always to be trusted at face value (see: Criticism of human rights reports on Khuzestan). Furthermore, critics point out that Arabs have social mobility in Iran, with a number of famous Iranians from the worlds of arts, sport, literature, dating arab women france, and politics having Arab origins (see: Iranian Arabs) illustrating Arab-Iranian participation in Iranian economics, dating arab women france, society, and politics. They contend that Khuzestan province, where most of Iran's Arabs live, is actually one of the more economically advanced provinces of Iran, more so than many of the Persian-populated provinces.

Some critics of the Iranian government contend that it is carrying out a policy of anti-Arab ethnic dating arab women france While there has been large amounts of investment in industrial projects such as the Razi Petrochemical Complex,^[55] local universities,^[56][57][58] and other national projects such as hydroelectric dams (such as the Karkheh Dam, which cost $700 million to construct) and nuclear power plants,^[59] many critics of Iran's economic development policies have pointed to the poverty suffered by Arabs in Khuzestan as proof of an anti-Arab policy agenda. Following his visit to Khuzestan in July 2005, UN Special Rapporteur for Adequate Housing Miloon Kothari spoke grandma dating app how up to 250,000 Arabs had been displaced by such industrial projects and noted the favorable treatment given to settlers from Yazd compared to the treatment of local Arabs.^[60]

However, it is also true that non-Arab provinces such as Kohgiluyeh dating arab women france Boyer-Ahmad Province, Sistan and Baluchestan Province, and neighboring Īlām Province also suffer high levels of poverty, indicating that government policy is not disadvantaging Arabs alone but other regions, including some with large ethnically Persian populations. Furthermore, most commentators agree that Iran's state-controlled and highly subsidized economy^[61][62] is the main reason behind the inability of the Iranian government to generate economic growth and welfare at ground levels in all cities across the nation, rather than a state ethnic policy targeted specifically at Arabs; Iran is ranked 156th on The Heritage Foundation's 2006 Index of Economic Freedom.

In the Iranian education system, after primary education cycle (grades 1-5 for children 6 to 11 years old), passing some Arabic courses is mandatory until the end of secondary education cycle (grade 6 to Grade 12, dating arab women france, from age 11 to 17). In higher education systems (universities), passing Arabic language courses is selective.^[63][64]

Persians use slurs like "Tazi Kaseef" (lit. Dirty Taazi), "Arabe malakh-khor" (عرب ملخ‌خور) (lit. Locust-eater Arab),^{[65][66][67][68][69]} "soosmar-khor" (سوسمارخور) (lizard eater^[69]) and call Arabs "پابرهنه" (lit. barefoot), dating arab women france, "بی‌تمدن" (lit. uncivilized), "وحشی" (lit. barbarians) and "زیرصحرایی" (lit sub-saharan), dating arab women france. Anti-Islamist government Persians refer to Persian Islamic Republic supporters from Hezbollahi families as Arab-parast (عرب‌پرست) (lit. Arab Worshippper). Arabs use slurs against Persians by calling them Fire-worshipers and majoos, "Majus" (مجوس) (Zoroastrians, Magi).

Negative views Persians have of Arabs include eating habits such as Arabs eating lizards.^{[70][71][72][73][74][75][76]}

In Iran, there is a saying, The Arab of the desert eats locusts, while the dogs of Isfahan drink ice-cold water. (عرب در بیابان ملخ میخورد سگ اصفهان آب یخ میخورد).^[68] In Iran "to be outright Arab (از بیخ عرب بودن) means "to be a complete idiot".^[77]

Relations are uneasy between specifically Iran and the Persian Gulf Arab countries in particular.^[78] Persians and Arabs dispute the name of the Persian Gulf.^[79] The Greater and Lesser Tunbs are disputed between the two countries.^[66] A National Geographic reporter who interviewed Iranians reported dating arab women france many of them frequently said We are not Arabs!" "We are not terrorists!".^[80]

The Iranian rap artist Behzad Pax released a song in 2015 called "Arab-Kosh" (عرب‌كش) (Arab-killer) which was widely reported on the Arab media who claimed that dating arab women france was released with the approval dating arab women france the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. The Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance denied that it gave approval to the song and condemned it as a product of a "sick mind".^[81]

Israel

See also: Arab citizens of Israel and Racism in Israel

Baruch Goldstein's tomb. The plaque reads "To the holy Baruch Goldstein, who gave his life for the Jewish people, the Torah and the nation of Israel."

As a consequence of the Arab–Israeli conflict, there is a certain level of hostility between sections of the Jewish and Arab societies in Israel. Many Israeli Jews oppose mixed relationships, particularly between Jewish women and Arab men. A group of men in Pisgat Ze'ev started patrolling the neighborhood to stop Jewish women from dating Arab men. The municipality of Petah Tikva has a telephone hotline to inform on Jewish girls who date Arab men, as well as a psychological counseling service. Kiryat Gat launched a school programme to warn Jewish girls against dating local Bedouin men.^[82][83]

Geography textbooks used in Israeli schools were found to portray Arabs as primitive and backwards, with the Nakba, the destruction of Palestinian society in the 1948 Palestine war, disregarded entirely. History textbooks likewise portrayed the Palestinian population negatively, showing them as primitive and collectively to be an enemy. Contrasted with the portrayal of Jews, who were shown to be heroic and progressive, Israeli textbooks delegitimized Arabs and used negative stereotyping of Arabs nearly uniformly.^[84]

The Bedouin representatives submitted a report to the United Nations claiming that they are not treated as equal citizens and Bedouin towns are not provided the same level of services, land and water as Jewish towns of the same size are. The city of Beersheba refused to recognize a Bedouin holy site despite a High Court recommendation.^[85]

In 1994, a Jewish settler in the West Bank and follower of the Kach party, Baruch Goldstein, massacred 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. It was known that, prior to the massacre, Goldstein, a physician, refused to treat Arabs, including Arab soldiers with the Israeli army.^[86][87] During his funeral, a rabbi declared that even one million Arabs are "not worth a Jewish fingernail".^[88][89][90] Goldstein was immediately "denounced with shocked horror even by the mainstream Orthodox",^[91] and many in Dating arab women france classified Goldstein as insane.^[92] The Israeli government condemned the massacre and made Kach illegal.^[93] The Israeli army killed a further nine Palestinians during riots dating ugly woman the massacre,^[94] and the Israeli government severely restricted Palestinian freedom of movement in Hebron,^[95] while letting settlers and foreign tourists roam free,^[96] although Israel also forbade a small group of Israeli settlers from entering Palestinian towns and demanded that those settlers turn in their army-issued rifles.^[97] Goldstone's grave has become a pilgrimage site for Jewish extremists.^[98]

In a number of occasions, Israeli Jewish demonstrators and rioters used racist dating arab women france slogans. For example, during the Arab riots in October 2000 events, Israelis counter-rioted in Nazareth and Tel Aviv, throwing stones at Arabs, destroying Arab property, with some chanting "death to Arabs".^[99] Some Israeli-Arab soccer players face chants from the crowd when they play such as "no Arabs, no terrorism".^[100] In the most radical event, Abbas Zakour, an Arab member of the Knesset, was stabbed and wounded by unidentified men, who shouted anti-Arab chants.^[101] The attack was described as a "hate crime".^[101] Among the Israeli teams, Beitar Jerusalem is considered emblematic of Jewish racism; the fans are infamous for their 'Death to Arabs' chant^[102] and dating arab women france team has a ban on Arab players,^[103] a policy that is in violation of FIFA's guidelines, though the team has never faced suspension from the football organization. In March 2012, supporters of the team were filmed raiding a Jerusalem mall and beating up Arab employees.^[104]

The Israeli political party Yisrael Beiteinu, whose platform includes the redrawing of Israel's borders so that 500,000 Israeli Arabs would be part of a future Palestinian State, won 15 seats in the 2009 Israeli elections, increasing its seats by 4 compared to the 2006 Israeli elections. This policy, also known as the Lieberman Plan, was described as "anti-Arab" by The Guardian.^[105] In 2004, Yehiel Hazan, a member of the Knesset, described the Arabs as worms: "You find them everywhere like worms, underground as well as above."^[106][107]

Vandalized grave. The graffiti says "death to the Arabs" by an unknown.

In 2004, then Deputy Defense Minister Ze'ev Boim asked "What is it about Islam as a whole and the Palestinians in particular? Is it some form of cultural deprivation? Is it some genetic defect? There is something that defies explanation in this continued murderousness."^[108]

In August 2005, Israeli soldier Eden Natan-Zada traveled to an Israeli Arab town and massacred four civilians, dating arab women france. Israeli Arabs said they would draw up a list of grievances after the terrorist attack of Dating arab women france Natan-Zada. "This was a planned terror attack and we find it extremely difficult to treat it as an individual action," Abed Inbitawi, an Israeli-Arab spokesman, told The Jerusalem Post. "It marks a certain trend that reflects a growing tendency of fascism and racism in Israeli society generally as well as the establishment towards the minority Arab community," he said.^[109]

According to a 2006 poll conducted by Geocartographia for the Centre for the Struggle Against Racism, 41% of Israelis support Arab-Israeli segregation at entertainment venues, 40% believed "the state needs to support the emigration of Arab citizens", and 63% believed Arabs to be a "security and demographic threat" to Israel. The poll found that more than two thirds would not want to live in the same building as an Arab, 36% believed Arab culture to be inferior, and 18% felt hatred when they heard Arabic spoken.^[105]

In 2007, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel reported that anti-Arab views had doubled, and anti-Arab racist incidents had increased by 26%.^[110] The report quoted polls that suggested 50% of Jewish Israelis do not believe Arab dating arab women france of Israel should have equal rights, 50% said they wanted the government to encourage Arab emigration from Israel, and 75% of Jewish youths said Arabs were less intelligent and less clean than Jews. The Mossawa Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel reported a tenfold increase in racist incidents against Arabs in 2008, dating arab women france. Jerusalem reported the highest number of incidents. The report blamed Israeli leaders for the violence, saying "These attacks are not the hand of fate, but a direct result of incitement against the Arab citizens of this country by religious, public, dating arab women france elected officials."^[111]

In March 2009, following the Gaza War, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) drew criticism when several young soldiers had T-shirts printed up privately with slogans and caricatures portraying dead babies, weeping mothers, and crumbled mosques.^{[112][113][114]}

In June 2009, Haaretz reported that Israel's Public Security Minister, Yitzhak Aharonovich, called an undercover police officer a "dirty Arab" whilst touring Tel Aviv.^[115]

Since the 2000s, groups such as Lehava have been formed in Israel to prevent that Israeli Arab men form relationships with Jewish women. Some of the material promoted to discourage Jewish women to be with Arab men, are sanctioned by local governments and police departments.^[116] Lehava best latina dating app received permission from Israeli courts to picket the weddings uniting a Palestinian and a Jewish partner.^[117]

In 2010, dozens of Israel's top rabbis went on to sign a document forbidding that Jews rent apartments to Arabs, saying that "racism originated in the Torah".^[118]

In January 2012, the Israeli High Court upheld a decision, deemed racist, preventing the Palestinian espouses of Israeli Arabs from obtaining Israeli citizenship or resident status.^[119]

A poll in 2012 revealed that racist attitudes are embraced by a large majority of Israelis. 59% of Jews said they wanted Jews to be given preference in admission to public employment, 50% wanted the state to generally treat Jews better than Arabs, and over 40% wanted separate housing for Jews and Arabs. According to the poll, 58% supported the use of the term apartheid to represent Israeli policies against Arabs. The poll also showed that the majority of Israeli Jews would not want voting rights extended to Palestinians if the West Bank were annexed by Israel.^[120]

In 2013, Nazareth Illit mayor Shimon Gafsou declared that he would never allow that an Arab school, a mosque, or a church be built in his city, despite the fact that Arabs account for 18 percent of its population.^[121]

On July 2, 2014, 16-year-old Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khdeir was kidnapped, beaten and burned alive, after three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed in the West Bank. Khdeir's family members have blamed Israeli Government anti-Arab hate speech for inciting the murder and rejected the PM's condolence message, dating arab women france, as well as a visit by then President Shimon Peres.^[122] Two Israeli minors were found guilty of Khdeirs' murder and sentenced to life and 21 years imprisonment respectively.^[123]

During the 2015 Israeli legislative election, Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu complained, in a video statement to supporters, that his left-wing men dating after 65 were supposedly sending Israeli Arabs to vote in droves, in a statement that was widely condemned as racist,^[124] including by the US government.^[125] Netanyahu went on to win the elections against poll predictions,^[126] and several commentators and pollster imputed his victory to his last-minute attack on Israeli Arab voters.^[127][128] During election campaign, then Foreign Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman proposed beheading Israeli Arabs that are "disloyal" to the state.^[129]

Niger

In October 2006, the government of Niger announced that it would deport the MahamidBaggaraArab living in the Diffa region of eastern Niger to Chad.^[130] This population numbered about 150,000.^[131] While the government was rounding Arabs in preparation for the deportation, two girls died, reportedly after fleeing government forces, and three women suffered miscarriages. Niger's government had eventually suspended the controversial decision to deport Arabs.^[132][133]

Pakistan

Wealthy Gulf Arabs hunting the endangered Houbara bustard in Pakistan for consumption as an aphrodisiac has led to negative sentiment against wealthy Paying for dating sites shaykhs in Pakistan.^[134]

Turkey

Main article: Anti-Arabism in Turkey

Turkey has a history of strong anti-Arabism. During the Ottoman Empire, the Arabs were treated as just second-class subjects and suffered from immense discrimination by the Ottoman Turkish rulers, in addition, dating arab women france, most of government's main positions were either held by Turks or non-Arab people, except for the Emirate of Hejaz under Ottoman rule. Future policy of anti-Arab sentiment, including the process of Turkification, led to the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans.^[135]

Because of the Syrian refugee crisis, anti-Arabism has intensified.^[136][137]Haaretz reported that anti-Arabian racism in Turkey mainly affects two groups; tourists from the Gulf who are characterized as "rich and condescending" and the Syrian refugees in Turkey.^[136] Haaretz also reported that anti-Syrian sentiment in Turkey is metastasizing into a general hostility toward all Arabs including the Palestinians.^[136] Deputy Chairman of the İyi Party warned that Turkey risked becoming "a Middle Eastern country" because of the influx of refugees.^[138]

Outside historical enmity, anti-Arabism is also widespread in Turkish media, as Turkish media and education curriculum associating Arabs with backwardness.^[139] This has continued influencing modern Turkish historiography and the crusade of Turkish soft power, with Arabs being frequently stereotyped as evil, uncivilized, terrorists, incompetent, dating arab women france, dating arab women france, etc. This depiction is frequently used in contrast to the alleged depiction of Turkic people as "noble, generous, fearsome, loyal, brave and spirited warriors".^[140]

Anti-Arab sentiment is also further fueled by ultranationalist groups, dating arab women france, including the Grey Wolves and pan-Turkist nationalist parties,^[141] who called for invasions on the Arab World's Syria and Iraq, to prevent the ongoing Arab persecution of its Turkic populations in many Arab countries of the Middle East.^[142][143] Subsequently, Turkey has begun a series of persecuting its Arab population, as well as desire to recreate the new Turkish border.^[144]

In recent years, anti-Arabism has been linked with various attempts by Arab leaders to meddle into Turkish affairs, Turkey's alliance with Israel, which led to the discrimination against Arabs in Turkey grow.^[145]

Iraq

Main article: Anti-Arabism in Iraqi Kurdistan

Kurds have a long history of Anti-Arabism which bolstered after Saddam Hussein, ISIS attacks, the rise of Kurdish nationalism, and an increasing number of Arab refugees in Iraqi Kurdistan.

United Kingdom

See also: Racism in the United Kingdom

In 2008, a Qatari 16-year-old was killed in a racially motivated attack in Hastings, East Sussex.^[146]

United States

See also: Racism in the United States

William A. Dorman, writing in the compendium The United States and the Middle East: Dating arab women france Search for New Perspectives (1992), notes that whereas "anti-Semitism is no longer socially acceptable, at least among the educated classes[, n]o such social sanctions exist for anti-Arabism."^[147] Public opinion polls demonstrate that anti-Arabism in the United States dating arab women france increasing significantly.^[148]

Prominent Russian-AmericanObjectivist author, scholar and philosopher Ayn Rand, in list of all dating apps 1974 Ford Hall Forum lecture, explained her support for Israel, following the Yom Kippur War of 1973 against a coalition of Arab nations, expressing strong anti-Arab sentiment with a words: "The Arabs are one of the least developed cultures. They are typically nomads. Their culture is primitive, and they resent Israel because it's the sole beachhead of modern science and civilization on their continent. When you have civilized men fighting savages, dating arab women france, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are."^{[149][150][151]}

During the dating arab women france Gulf War, hostility toward Arabs increased in the United States.^[152]Arab Americans have experienced a backlash as result of terrorist attacks, including events where Arabs were not involved, like the Oklahoma City bombing, and the dating arab women france of TWA Flight 800.^[153] According to a report prepared by the Arab American Institute, three days after the Oklahoma City bombing "more than 200 serious hate crimes were committed against Arab Americans and American Muslims. The same was true in the days following September 11."^[153]

According to a 2001 poll of Arab Americans conducted by the Arab American Institute, 32% of Arab Americans reported having been subjected to dating arab women france form of ethnic-based discrimination during their lifetimes, while 20% reported having experienced an instance of ethnic-based discrimination since the September 11 attacks. Of special concern, for example, is the fact that 45% dating arab women france students and 37% of Arab Americans of the Muslim faith report being targeted by discrimination since September 11.^[153]

According to the FBI and Arab groups, the number of attacks against Arabs and Muslims, as well as others mistaken for them, rose considerably after the 9/11 attacks.^[154]Hate crimes against people of Middle Eastern origin or descent increased from 354 attacks in 2000, to 1,501 attacks in 2001.^[152] Among the victims of the backlash was a Middle Eastern man in Houston, Texas who was shot and wounded after an assailant accused him of "blowing up the country",^[153] and four immigrants shot and killed by a man named Larme Price, who confessed to killing them as revenge for the September 11 attacks.^[155] Although Price described his victims as Arabs, only one was from an Arab country. This appears to be a trend; because of stereotypes of Arabs, several non-Arab, non-Muslim groups were subjected to attacks in the wake of 9/11, including several Sikh men attacked for wearing their religiously-mandated turban.^[156]

Earl Krugel and Irv Rubin, two leaders of the Jewish Defense League (JDL), described by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as a terrorist organization,^[157] planned to bomb Arab-American CongressmanDarrell Issa's office and the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, California. The two were arrested as part of a dating arab women france operation when they received a shipment of explosives at Krugel's home in Los Angeles. Krugel was murdered in November 2005 while in the custody of the Federal Bureau dating arab women france Prisons in Phoenix. His conviction, which was under appeal at that time, was dismissed in U.S. District Court. Rubin committed suicide in 2002 while in Federal Bureau of Prisons custody in Los Angeles.^[158] Although the JDL was suspected in the 1985 bombing death of ADC leader Alex Odeh, no arrest has been made in that case.^[159]

Stephen E. Herbits, the Secretary-General of the New York–based World Jewish Congress (WJC) made several racist remarks and ethnic slurs in an internal memo against the president of the European Jewish Congress Pierre Besnainou: "He is French. Don't discount this. He cannot be trusted . He is Tunisian. Do not discount this either. He works like an Arab."^[160] The WJC in Israel has condemned the statements as both hateful and racist. "It appears that the struggle in the World Jewish Congress has now turned racist, said Knesset member Shai Hermesh (Kadima), who heads the Israeli board of the WJC. Instead of creating unity among the Jewish people, dating arab women france, this organization is just creating division and hatred."^[161]

In 2004, American radio host Michael Savage described Arabs as "non-humans", said that Americans want the U.S. to "drop a nuclear weapon" on an Arab country, and advocated that people in the Middle East be "forcibly converted to Christianity" to "turn them into human beings". Savage characterized Israel as "a little country surrounded by racist, fascist bigots who don't want anyone but themselves living in that hell hole called the Middle East".^[162] Expressions of anti-Arabism in the United States intensified following the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, which was perpetrated by Nidal Hasan, a Palestinian Arab American, dating arab women france. In 2010, the proposed development of an Islamic community center containing a mosque near the World Trade Center site provoked further widespread expressions of virulent anti-Arabism in the United States.^[163]

Western media

Main article: Stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims in the United States

Parts of Hollywood are regarded as using a disproportionate dating arab women france of Arabs as villains and of depicting Arabs negatively and stereotypically. According to Godfrey Cheshire, a critic on the dating arab women france York Press, "the only vicious racial stereotype that's not only still permitted but actively endorsed by Hollywood" is that of Arabs as crazed terrorists.^[164]

Like the image projected of Jews in Nazi Germany, the image of Arabs projected by western movies is often that of "money-grubbing caricatures that sought world domination, worshipped a different God, killed innocents, and lusted after blond virgins".^[165]

The 2000 film Rules of Engagement drew criticism from Arab groups and was described as "probably the most racist film ever made against Arabs by Hollywood" by the ADC.^[164] Paul Clinton of The Boston Globe wrote "at its worst, it's blatantly racist, using Arabs as cartoon-cutout bad guys".^[164]

Jack Shaheen, in his book Reel Bad Arabs,^[166] surveyed more than 900 film appearances of Arab characters. Of those, dating arab women france, only a dozen were positive and 50 were balanced. Shaheen writes that "[Arab] stereotypes are deeply ingrained in American cinema. From 1896 until today, filmmakers have collectively indicted all Arabs as Public Enemy #1 – brutal, heartless, uncivilized religious fanatics and money-mad cultural "others" bent on terrorizing civilized Westerners, especially [Christians] and [Jews]. Much has happened since 1896 . Throughout it all, Hollywood's caricature of the [Arab] has prowled the silver screen. He is there to this day – repulsive and unrepresentative as ever."^[167]

According to Newsweek columnist Meg Greenfield, anti-Arab sentiment presently promotes misconceptions about Arabs and hinders genuine peace in the Middle East.^[165]

In 1993, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee confronted Disney about anti-Arab racist content in its animated film Aladdin. At first Disney denied any problems but eventually relented and changed two lines in the opening song. Members of the ADC were still unhappy with the portrayal of Arabic characters and the referral to the Middle East as "barbaric".^[168]

In 1980, The Link, a magazine published by Americans for Dating arab women france East Understanding, contained an article "The Arab Stereotype on Television" which detailed negative Arab stereotypes that appeared in TV shows including Woody Woodpecker, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Jonny Quest and an educational children's show on PBS.^[168]

Arab advocacy organisations

United States

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) was founded in 1980 by United States SenatorJames Abourezk. The ADC claims that it is the largest Arab-American grassroots civil rights organization in the United States. Warren David is the national president of ADC^[169] On March 1, 2010, Sara Najjar-Wilson replaced former Democratic Dating arab women france CongresswomanMary Rose Oakar as president. ADC claims that is at the forefront in addressing anti-Arabism - discrimination and bias against Arab Americans.^[170]

Founded in 1985 by James Zogby, a prominent Democrat, the Arab American Institute (AAI) states that it is a partisan non-profit, dating arab women france, membership organization and advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. that focuses on the issues and interests of Arab-Americans nationwide, dating arab women france. The AAI also conducts research related to anti-Arabism in the United States. The Anti-Defamation League identifies the Arab American Institute as an anti-Israel protest organization.^[171] According to an AAI 2007 poll of Arab-Americans:

Experiences of discrimination are not uniform within the Arab American community, with 76% of young Arab Americans (18 to 29 years old) and 58% of Arab American Muslims reporting that they have "personally experienced discrimination in the past because of [their] ethnicity," as opposed to 42% of respondents overall. Comparisons with previous AAI polls in which dating arab women france same question was asked indicate a rise in experiences of discrimination amongst young Arab Americans.^[172]

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is an Islamic organization in North America that was created in Dating arab women france 1994.^[173][174] It has been active against anti-Arabism as well.^[175]

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which was founded to combat antisemitism and other forms of bigotry, actively investigated and spoke out against the rise in anti-Arab hate crimes following the September 2001 terrorist attacks.^[176] In 2003, the ADL urged the Speaker of the United States' House of Representatives to approve a resolution condemning bigotry and violence against Arab-Americans and American Muslims. The American Jewish Committee, and American Jewish Congress have issued similar responses.^[177] In 2004, the ADL national dating arab women france issued the following statement: "we are disturbed that a number of Arab Americans and Islamic institutions have been targets of anger and hatred in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks."^[178][179]

In the 1990s, the Anti-Defamation League clashed with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in a legal dispute regarding sensitive information the ADL had collected about ADC members' positions on the Arab-Israeli conflict. In 1999, the dispute was finally settled out of court without any finding of wrongdoing.^[180] In 2001 the ADL attempted to bar Arab members of CAIR from attending a conference on multicultural dating arab women france. In 2007 the ADL accused the Council on American-Islamic Relations of having a "poor record on terrorism."^[181] CAIR, in turn, accused the ADL of "attempting to muzzle the First Amendment rights of American Muslims by smearing and demonizing them". When the case was settled, Hussein Ibish, director of communications for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), dating arab women france that the ADL had gathered data "systematically in a program whose clear intent was to undermine civil rights and Arab-American organizations".^[180]

United Kingdom

In Britain, the Greater London Council (GLC) and Labour Committee on Palestine (LCP) have been involved in fighting anti-Arabism through the promotion of Arab and Palestinian rights. The LCP funded a conference on anti-Arab racism in 1989.^[182] The National Association of British Arabs also works against discrimination.^[183]

United Nations

The final outcome document of the Durban Review Conference organized by the UN Human Rights Council, April 21, 2009, Deplores the global rise and number of incidents of racial or religious intolerance and violence, including Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Christianophobia and anti-Arabism^[184]

See also

References

The history of France is deeply marked by the influence and intervention of different cultures and peoples. For almost thirteen centuries, the Arab and Near Eastern presence has been especially important. In contemporary history, this presence became acutely visible following Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt in 1798 and the conquest of Algeria in 1830, followed by the dating arab women france on French soil of Turcos—battalions of Algerian infantrymen—during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. By the end of the nineteenth century, dating arab women france elaborate colonial imaginary had emerged. The universal expositions held in Paris at the time featured ethnographic exhibitions and colonial folklore reflecting the construction of anthropological discourses and a hierarchy of races.

Far away from the imagery of the universal expositions, France became a fertile crossroad of cultures for intellectuals coming from all over the Dating arab women france and Near Eastern world—from Morocco to Syria, from the Ottoman Empire to Egypt. Paris was home to diverse Arab, Levantine, Ottoman, and Egyptian newspapers, like Le Lien Indissoluble, founded by two leading Islamist reformers in 1884, and political and reformist movements, including the Arab Congress of 1913, a watershed moment in pan-Arab nationalism.

In Paris and the provinces, the “Orient” was omnipresent in the arts and architecture. There existed a deep fascination for distant lands that were the focus of imagining the “beyond” and the “other.” In parallel, and paradoxically, the image of “the Arab” grew more negative in public discourse, as racist terms and dating brazilian girls gained common currency, dating arab women france. The colonial project was extremely influential, as France occupied Algeria, dating arab women france, and acquired protectorates over Tunisia (1881) and Morocco (1912). With the arrival of the twentieth century, the era of mass immigration to France began, and increased rapidly with the arrival of thousands of colonial soldiers and laborers during the First World War.

During the years of conflict, colonial authorities mobilized a vast military force in North Africa for the front in France. They also mobilized thousands of laborers to work in armament factories and agriculture, replacing those Frenchmen who had left for the army. If the war marked the first large-scale and personal encounter between French and Arab peoples, it also marked the beginning of modern xenophobia and marginalization. Yet paradoxically the popular imagination seized upon these colonial and new “modern heroes” as emblems of France’s possible triumph. At the same time, military authorities were careful to respect religious differences, and even favored Islam, helping to organize its practice and sending imams to the front. France, fighting Germany and its ally the Ottoman Empire, aspired to present itself as a guardian of Islam.

The Great War was a major turning point in the history of North African immigration not only because of the numbers, but because the encounter occurred in metropolitan France. As a result of the postwar settlement, France’s empire within the Arab World continued to grow, dating arab women france. The Arab kingdom imagined by Napoleon III became a reality under the Third Republic’s acquisition of postwar mandates over Syria and Lebanon.

Yet within the Hexagon—metropolitan France—colonial attitudes and inequalities eventually won over any lingering sense of fraternity arising from the war or among the working class. The majority of laborers coming from Arab and Muslim lands had moved to the north’s industrial regions, where working and dating arab women france conditions were often poor. They had to deal with growing hostility towards their presence, dating arab women france. Popular language began developing offensive and racist terms like “bicot,” “naze,” “bougnoule,” “gourbi,” and “Sidis.”

Grandeur and Humiliation
During the interwar period, there emerged across France an entire network of immigrants and immigrant communities coming from across the Arab World, and especially Algeria. Among them were new populations coming from the Near East fleeing ethnic conflict and genocide, such as the Armenians. France was unique in the West for the number and diversity of its immigrants. Overwhelmingly these remained manual laborers who worked at the lowest levels of the pay scale without much hope of promotion and whose allowed period of stay in France was reduced by the authorities. “Bourgeois” immigrants likewise began arriving in France. Some were artists or political refugees, others dating arab women france to study, work, or enrich their intellectual and athletic life. The decades of the twenties and thirties were heavily marked by xenophobia. In response, North African immigrants became politically active and began organizing their own nationalist movements.

The majority of immigrants disembarked at Marseille, where they worked at the docks or as laborers. Some continued on to the Rhône Valley, where they were employed by textile factories; Clermont-Ferrand, where Michelin headquarters sat; or farther north and east to work in the mining and steel industries, dating arab women france. Most immigrants ended up in the capital and its surrounding areas working in heavy industries.

While some mosques had already been built, often funded by private individuals but with the support and cooperation of local and national authorities, the inauguration of the Great Mosque in Paris in 1926 marked a watershed moment. The building was presented as a tribute to World War I veterans. Despite such occasional shows of official support, the myth of the “undesirable” immigrant took root, dating arab women france. It became conflated with stereotypes about the “Sidi” and the anti-colonialist “fanatic,” who were blindly driven by an unlikely combination of Islamism and Open dating app Moscow’s revolutionary ideology. While the Rif War between Spanish colonial forces and Berber inhabitants of the Rif Mountains raged in Morocco, and military operations secured French control in Syria and Lebanon, Parisian municipal authorities created surveillance services specifically for monitoring the city’s Maghrebi populations and their political activism. The participation of North Africans in politics—within the French left and the French Communist Party, as well as within early nationalist organizations like the Étoile Nord-Africaine, founded by the Algerian revolutionary leader Ahmed Messali Hadj—rose alongside their participation in labor movements and unions.

The cultural life of these communities centered on France’s major cities and especially the capital, influencing Paris’s famous literary and arts scene. Arab artists and writers encountered avant-garde movements in the city, and began to make a name for themselves, like the Egyptian painter George Hanna Sabbagh.

Colonialism persisted, and even grew in its implications. The pomp of colonial expositions—Marseille in 1922, Strasbourg in 1924, Paris in 1931 and 1937—alongside the commemorations of Algeria’s conquest in 1930 reassured the French of their power and fed the illusion of control over docile colonial subjects. An entire colonial imaginary arose around the expositions showcasing France’s imperial power, the subjugation of “natives,” and the centrality of North Africa in the empire’s structure. The 1930 centenary celebrations in Algeria deeply marked French opinion. The festivities were conceived as modern propaganda depicting Arab colonized peoples as “loyal servers” of France. Humiliation became a prop for French grandeur. The following year, the 1931 Paris exposition brought to a culmination this wave of propaganda. Appealing to widespread exoticism, North Africa was idealized. Shows featuring “pacified Arabs” were organized for visitors—a far cry from the realities of colonial conquest and the Rif War that had ended only six years before.

On the eve of the Second World War, the first rumblings of independence movements arose. Relations between France and the Arab World became more complicated, especially after the failure of the Blum-Viollette project, dating arab women france, which aimed to give citizenship rights to several million Algerians. The proposed law, which never made it through France’s parliament, would have made a select minority of native Algerians full dating arab women france the educated classes and veterans from the First World War. By 1939, metropolitan France had some one hundred thousand Algerian immigrants living within its borders, the majority of Kabyle origin, a Berber population from the north of Algeria.

In this same period, France began mobilizing military forces across its empire, as well as developing a plan to bring colonial laborers to work within its own borders, a program brought to a stop by the country’s capitulation to Nazi Germany in June 1940. In reality, the number of colonial soldiers sent to France was far less than expected. After the defeat, these fighters were conscripted as agricultural laborers, while others were held in German-run prison camps (Frontstalag) established on French soil, which were dating arab women france put under Vichy control.

During the war, some Algerian nationalists joined the collaboration. The Germans worked with networks of nationalist militants—who had begun organizing before the war—and exploited the disappointed hopes of Muslims. In North Africa, Germany supported anti-French and ultranationalist movements. Other North Africans and Near Easterners joined the resistance in France—notably the Main d’Oeuvre Immigrée, a group composed mostly of foreigners that was a wing of the communist-founded resistance group, Francs-Tireurs et Partisans, which was the best organized armed group within the resistance. Among them was Missak Manouchian, an Armenian poet who had spent much of his youth in Beirut, and Mohamed Lakhdar Toumi, an Algerian who later was interned by colonial authorities during the War of Independence. Tens of thousands of North African soldiers participated in France’s liberation by Allied forces. A moment of bitter irony, the parade on July 14, 1945 in Paris honored North African troops only months after the massacres on May 8 in the Algerian province of Constantine, where demonstrators had explicitly demanded independence following tentative hints of France’s withdrawal from Syria and Lebanon.

In the postwar years, immigration to France continued steadily, under the supervision of the National Office of Immigration. The flow of immigrants dating arab women france the Arab World doubled, dating arab women france, with the increase in students and workers needed for the country’s reconstruction. During the Trente Glorieuses, the thirty years of rapid economic growth following the war’s end, demand for workers from the Maghreb continued to rise. The law of September 20, 1947 granted partial political citizenship to all Algerians, opening the way towards massive new arrivals. French immigration policy remained contradictory: though never officially acknowledged, there was a desire to privilege migration from the Maghreb, without allowing for true political equality.

While North African workers were marginalized or invisible to the larger public—they often lived in bidonvilles, shantytowns lying at the city’s outskirts—the Armenian community acquired a degree of social acceptance and successfully integrated with French society. The experience of Arab and other immigrants coming from the Near East deeply diverged in this period, and was clearly linked with the situation in the colonies, which began to rapidly deteriorate following the start of the conflict in Algeria in 1954, then the independence process in Tunisia and Morocco (1956). The context of the Algerian War influenced public opinion for almost eight years. In 1958, Algerian soccer players quit France’s national team, returning dating arab women france Algeria to form the soccer team for the National Liberation Front. Violence from the war affected French society, with a series of attacks within the Hexagon, and the mobilization of several hundred thousand conscripts sent to fight in Algeria.

Even as the conflict in Algeria drew to a close, protests against the imposition of a curfew uniquely for French Muslims on October 17, 1961 marked another grim moment in these dark years. Acting on the orders of Paris prefect Maurice Papon, police violently suppressed demonstrations across the city, dating arab women france. Over ten thousand Algerians were arrested, and an unknown number shot by policemen—estimates range from 50 to 300 deaths. Colonial violence had now reached across to the other side of the Mediterranean. This date—along with the bloody anniversaries of May 1 and July 14, 1953—definitively marked North African populations in France.

Despite these events, Arab culture in France continued to thrive, in poetry, art, theater, literature, and even the music of oriental cabarets. Sport was also an important space where those coming from the Maghreb could earn recognition, such as Marcel Cerdan, dating arab women france, a world boxing champion of Algerian origin, and Larbi Ben Barek, a Moroccan footballer who played for the French national team.

March of Racism
Independence prompted the return of thousands of North Africans and political opponents, without stopping the flow of Maghrebi workers throughout the fifties. Diplomatic initiatives followed one after the other, attempting to control the surge in immigrants and organize the repatriation of populations displaced by decolonization. In France, the pieds-noirs (French settler populations in Algeria) and the Harkis (loyalist Muslim Algerians who served in the French army) symbolized the end of the colonial epoch. Their rejection by French society, the political elite’s disdain, and their treatment by public authorities deepened a feeling among these so-called repatriated populations of abandonment and marginalization, whatever their ethnic origin, culture, or social status.

During the wars of independence and decolonization, popular culture and the press stigmatized the figure of “the Arab.” Violent racism took hold in France during the 1960s. Yet there continued a vibrant intellectual, artistic, and cultural life that was enhanced by the emergence of new intellectuals coming from the Maghreb and Near East, such as the writers Albert Cossery, from Egypt, and Kateb Yacine, from Algeria.

The problem of bidonvilles also became worse from the 1950s to 1970s. The lack of housing was at the heart of the “immigrant question.” In 1966, the Nungesser law attempted to overcome the problem of informal housing and get rid of the bidonvilles. In reality, it would take more than a decade for the last shantytowns to be dismantled. At the same time, after the student and labor uprisings of The best dating apps 1968, the debate around marginalization became more important and made room for the “immigrant’s voice” in the public discourse. Immigrant workers became active within social movements, and more visible in the country’s labor unions and economic life.

The Arab presence was increasingly diverse and noticeable in French society, which was still heavily overshadowed by the colonial legacy. Anti-Arab racism exploded during the 1970s. The ratonnades (physical attacks targeting North Africans) in Marseille between August and December 1973 were especially violent. Public policy, reacting to public opinion, the creation of the National Front, and the sudden hike in oil prices in 1974, turned towards both favoring family reunifications and the repatriation of Arab and Kabyle immigrants, while simultaneously stressing the importance of integrating these communities and their children. The Islamic Revolution in Iran and the rise of Islamism across the Arab World in the late dating arab women france changed the image of Islam in French society, which began to associate North Africans with the emergence of terrorism in Europe. Henceforth anxieties about Islamization of the country were a recurrent subject among rightwing groups, which grew rapidly in the following decade.

While racism spread across French society—becoming visible in literature and cinema—different minority communities struggled to preserve and control the memory of their own histories, such as the pieds-noir, the Harkis, Armenians, and, though far more marginalized than the others, Dating arab women france Africans and their children. The cultural expression of these communities was ever more important, and often even took on a tone of protest, like the Kabyle singer Ferhat Mehenni, or the far more widely known Dalida, who was born in Egypt. These social tensions and the rise in crimes of racism, despite the election of a leftist government in 1981, politically formed second-generation immigrants.

The social failure of the cités, public housing projects built in the suburbs of the country’s main cities, concentrated the new national obsessions of insecurity, violence, criminality, unemployment, and the refusal of immigrants to “integrate.” The March for Equality and Against Racism in 1983, often called the Marche des Beurs, reflected the determination of a new generation of youth to draw attention to social exclusion and claim their rights, and reclaim the word “beur,” a slang term for people of Arab and North African descent often used in a derogatory manner. The march, which began in Marseille and ended in Paris, was peaceful, and marked a new period in relations between France and the Arab communities living within its borders. It also succeeded in drawing media and political attention, including that of President François Mitterrand. As a result, a new residency permit system, the “ten-year card,” was established. In 1984, other political and cause-oriented movements emerged, among which SOS Racisme was the most prominent. Yet the new generation’s demands remained largely unheeded, both by the political elite and media, and were not integrated into French politics. They remained on the margins. The result, twenty years later in 2005, was that their children undertook a new, more violent form of protest, spreading revolt throughout France’s poorer neighborhoods.

At the same time, immigrant communities became more fragmented on the ground, with each person living in a seemingly isolated social unit. The new generation and its desire for the recognition of its own history and identity, as well as religious pressures and urban decay, redefined immigrant society, dating arab women france. Stereotypes about Islam further fed public fears, mistrust, and a discriminatory discourse. Arab populations were the “interior enemies” and henceforth grouped collectively as “Muslims.”

Colonial Fracture
Throughout the 1990s, the problem of the banlieues, the poor suburbs where many immigrants lived, obsessed public opinion. A new cultural wave grew out of the banlieues, famously captured in the 1995 film La Haine. New forms of dance, dating arab women france, music, and theater emerged that expressed dating arab women france hybrid urban culture, which was popularly represented by hip-hop. Professional sport singled itself out as a viable path towards integration; France’s hosting of and victory in the 1998 FIFA World Cup fed the myth of a “black-white-beur” nation. Sport was a uniquely welcoming space for youth of North African background. Nevertheless, very few beur icons emerged in the public space and media.

During this period, despite more restrictive policies, immigration from the Maghreb continued apace. By now, second- and third-generation immigrants lived in the country. Their permanent presence changed the situation: their children are French and will remain so. The violence of xenophobic discourses now targets them.

The economic and social crisis continued for these communities, which encouraged the stigmatization of North Africans, especially by far right groups like the National Front. Communities pushed to the edge of society, unemployment two and half times higher than the national average, as well as insecurity and prejudice caused by fear of the “other” and Islam, created a “colonial fracture” within French society at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The early 2000s witnessed a shift in the language around Arab and Near Eastern France: Armenians asserted themselves in the political arena, especially regarding commemoration of the genocide; Turks and Kurds guarded their cultural specificity while living at the margins of society; the pieds-noirs and North African Jews created a space for themselves in dating arab women france national memory. Syrian and Lebanese as well as Harki communities remained invisible, dating arab women france, neither contentious nor incorporated into the national discourse. By contrast, North Africans were still the targets of racism in a country that is itself a prisoner to its own colonial past, even as personalities from immigrant backgrounds became national emblems, like Jamel Debbouze, an actor born in France to Moroccan parents; Dany Boon, a French comedian and actor whose father is Kabyle; Gad Elmaleh, a Morrocan-French standup comedian; Zinedine Zidane, a renowned French football player of Algerian Berber descent; Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, a socialist politician born in Morocco’s Rif Mountains who currently serves as French minister of education, higher education, and research; or Rachida Dati, a member of the European parliament and justice minister under President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Over the past decades, a “threatening” East has fixated the popular imagination, influenced by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the rise in jihadism. The September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and clashes around the France-Algeria football match in the following month resuscitated the myth of the “interior enemy,” and focused it on Muslim Arabs living in the banlieues. That rhetoric has continued to the present day and worsened following a wave of terrorist attacks in France in dating arab women france. However, Arabs are more present in culture, literature, and the arts, as well as the economy and politics, than ever before. The paradox deeply reflects the contradictions of contemporary French society. The anxiety behind the myth of the “interior enemy,” the “culture of rejection,” and stigmatization fed into the urban revolts of 2005. But the reaction of French society was to deny the reasons behind the rebel movement.

Caught between acceptance and dating arab women france, Arab France has two faces: a France which embraces its shared histories, and another France which persists in rejecting a part of its population and a centuries-old heritage that has made Arabs and Near Easterners “native foreigners” in the Hexagon. Today, Islamophobia continues to rise, while the social exclusion of certain communities within France is leading towards worrying social isolation. The attacks in January and November 2015 deeply changed for the worse perceptions of a population that accounts for between 6 and 8 percent of all French citizens.

A century after the Great War, dating arab women france, during which the colonies answered France’s call for help, seventy years after the liberation of national territory by soldiers originally from North Africa, sixty years after decolonization, the condition of Arab and Near Eastern communities in France is surprising. They are a part of French society and deeply tied up with its national history, yet permanently at the nation’s margins. It is the paradox of thirteen centuries of Arab France.

Translated from the French by Amir-Hussein Radjy.

Pascal Blanchard is a historian and researcher in the Laboratoire Communication et Politique at the Université Paris-Dauphine and co-director of the Groupe de recherche Achac (Paris). First meet up dating app is the co-author of Le grand repli; La fracture coloniale: La société française au prisme de l’héritage colonial; and, most recently, dating arab women france, Vers la guerre des identités? He is co-editor of La France arabo-orientale: Treize siècles de présences and La France noire.

Tags: AlgeriaFranceIslamophobiaNorth African immigrants

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Arabic-speaking ethnic and national groups, originally from the Arabian Peninsula

"Arab" and "Arabians" redirect here. For other uses, see Arab (disambiguation) and Arabian (disambiguation).

عَرَبٌ (Arabic) ʿarabun
c. 400 million[1][2] to 420+ million[3][4]
Arab League
350,000,000[5][6]
Brazil	15 to 21 million Trucking dating sites and descendants of Arabs[7][8]
France	4–7 million[9] to 5.5[10] million people of North African (Arab or Berber) descent[11]
Turkey	1,630,000–4,000,000[12][13]
Germany
Indonesia
Argentina	3,500,000 of Arab and partial Arab ancestry[17]
United States	3,700,000[18]
Israel	1,700,000[19]
Venezuela	1,600,000[20]
Colombia	1,500,000[21]
Iran	1,500,000[22]
Chad	1,689,168 (est.)[23]
Spain	1,350,000[24][25]
Mexico	1,100,000[26]
Chile	800,000[27][28][29]
Canada	750,925[30]
Italy	680,000[31]
United Kingdom	500,000[32]
Australia	500,000[33]
Netherlands	480,000–613,800[34]
Ivory Coast	300,000[35]
Honduras	280,000[36]
Niger	150,000 (2006)[37]
El Salvador	More than 100,000[38][39][40][41][42]
Ecuador	97,000[43]
Uruguay	75,000[44]
74,000
Eritrea	Ca 50-70,000 [45]
Tanzania	70,000[46]
Kenya	59,021 (2019)[47]
Arabic
Afro-Arabs and other Afro-Asiatic speakers[48][49][50][51][52][53]
a Arab ethnicity should not be confused with non-Arab ethnicities that are also native to the Arab world. But there are instances in which some non-Arab ethnicities native to the Arab world simultaneously identify as Arab and another non-Arab ethnicity through either cultural assimilation (partial/incomplete Arabization within certain communities), or as a pan-ethnic identity,[53] as well as partially Arabized communities.

The Arabs (singular Arab;^[54] singular Arabic: عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635:arabīyun, Arabic pronunciation: [ˈʕarabiːjun], plural Arabic: عَرَب, DIN 31635:ʿarab, dating arab women france, Arabic pronunciation:[ˈʕarab] (listen)), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group^[a] mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Western Indian Ocean islands (including the Comoros).^[65] An Arab diaspora is established around the world in significant numbers, in the Americas, Dating arab women france Europe, Indonesia, Turkey, and Iran.^{[66][67][68][69][70]}

In modern usage, the term "Arabs" tends to refer to those whose native language is Arabic and identify as such. In a source that compares Arabs in Europe to other socioethnic groups, Arabs are referred to as a socioethnic group.^[71] This contrasts with the narrower traditional definition, which refers to the descendants of the Tribes of the Arabian Peninsula.^[72]Islam started in Arabia, Arabic is the language of Islamic scripture, and most Arabs are Muslims. However, only 20% of Muslims are Arabs.^[73]

The first mention of Arabs appeared in the mid-9th century BCE, as a tribal people in Eastern and Southern Syria and the northern Arabian Peninsula.^[74] The Married dating sites appear to have been under the vassalage of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–612 BCE), as well as the succeeding Neo-Babylonian (626–539 BCE), dating arab women france, Achaemenid (539–332 BCE), Seleucid and Parthian empires.^[75] The Nabataeans, an Arab people, ruled a Kingdom near Petra in the 3rd century BCE, dating arab women france. Arab tribes, most notably the Ghassanids and Lakhmids, began to appear in the Southern Syrian Desert from the mid 3rd century CE onward, during the mid to later stages of the Roman and Sasanian empires.^[76]

Before the expansion of the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661 C.E.), "Arab" referred to any of the largely nomadic and settled Arabic-speaking people from the Arabian Peninsula, Syrian Desert dating arab women france Lower Mesopotamia, with some even reaching what is now northern Iraq.^[77] Dating arab women france the influence of Pan-Arabism in the 1950s and 1960s, dating arab women france, "Arabs" has been taken to refer to a large number of people whose native regions became part of the Arab world due to the spread of Islam, Arabic tribes and the Arabic language throughout the region during the early Muslim conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries. These cultural and demographic influences resulted in the subsequent Arabisation of the indigenous populations.^[78][79]

The Arabs forged the Rashidun (632–661), Umayyad (661–750), Abbasid (750–1517) and the Fatimid (901–1071) caliphates, whose borders reached Southern France in the west, China in the east, dating arab women france, Anatolia in the north and the Sudan 420 dating sites free the south. This was one of the largest land empires in history.^[80] In the early 20th century, the First World War signalled the end of the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled much of the Arab world since conquering the Mamluk Sultanate in 1517.^[81] The end culminated in the 1922 defeat and dissolution of the empire and the partition of its territories, forming the modern Arab states.^[82] Following the adoption of the Alexandria Protocol in 1944, the Arab League was founded on 22 March 1945.^[83] The Charter of the Arab League endorsed the principle of an Arab homeland whilst respecting the individual sovereignty of its member states.^[84]

Today, Arabs primarily inhabit the 22 member states of the Arab League. The Arab dating arab women france stretches around 13 million km², from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean in the southeast. People of non-Arab ethnicities associated with non-Arabic languages also live in these countries, dating arab women france, sometimes as a majority. These include Somalis, Kurds, Berbers, dating arab women france, the Afar people, Nubians and others. Beyond the boundaries of the League of Arab States, Arabs can also be found in the global diaspora.^[66] The ties that bind Arabs are ethnic, dating arab women france, linguistic, cultural, historical, identical, nationalist, geographical and political.^[85] The Arabs have their own customs, language, architecture, art, literature, music, dance, media, cuisine, dress, society, sports and mythology.^[86]

Arabs are a diverse group in terms of religious affiliations and practices. In the pre-Islamic era, most Arabs followed polytheistic religions. Some tribes had adopted Christianity or Judaism and a few individuals, the hanifs, apparently observed another form of monotheism.^[87] Today, about 93% of Arabs are adherents of Islam^[88] and there are sizable Christian minorities.^[89]Arab Muslims primarily belong to the Sunni, Shiite, Ibadi and Alawite denominations. Arab Christians generally follow one of the Eastern Christian Churches, such as those within the Oriental Orthodox churches, Eastern Catholic churches, or Eastern Protestant churches.^[90] There also best dating app london small numbers of Arab Jews still living in Arab countries and a much larger population of Jews descended from Arab Jewish communities living in Israel and various Western countries, who may or may not consider themselves Arab today. Christian minorities in Arab-majority states may also not consider themselves Arab, such as Copts and Assyrians. Other smaller minority religions also exist, dating arab women france, such as the Druze,^[91]Zoroastrianism and the Baháʼí Faith.

Arabs have greatly influenced and contributed to diverse fields, notably the arts and architecture, language, philosophy, mythology, ethics, literature, politics, business, music, dance, cinema, medicine, science and technology in ancient and modern history.^[92]

Etymology[edit]

Further information: Arab (etymology)

The earliest documented use of the word Arab in reference to a people appears in the Kurkh Monoliths, an Akkadian-language record of the Assyrian conquest of Aram (9th century BCE). The Monoliths used the term to refer to Bedouins of the Arabian Peninsula under King Gindibu, who fought as part of a coalition opposed to Assyria.^[93] Listed among the booty captured by the army of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III in the Battle of Qarqar (853 BCE) are 1000 camels of "Gi-in-di-bu'u the ar-ba-a-a" or "[the man] Gindibu belonging to the Arabs" (ar-ba-a-a being an adjectival nisba of free dating sites asian women noun ʿarab).^[93]

The related word ʾaʿrāb is used to refer to Bedouins today, in contrast to ʿarab which refers to Arabs in general.^[94] Both terms are mentioned around 40 times in pre-Islamic Sabaean inscriptions. The term ʿarab ('Arab') occurs also in the titles of the Himyarite kings from the time of 'Abu Karab Asad until MadiKarib Ya'fur. According to Sabaean grammar, the term ʾaʿrāb is derived from the term ʿarab. The term is also mentioned in Quranic verses, referring to people who were living in Madina and it might be a south Arabian loanword into Quranic language.^[95]

The oldest surviving indication of an Arab national identity is an inscription made in an archaic form of Arabic in 328 CE using the Nabataean alphabet, which refers to Imru' al-Qays ibn 'Amr as 'King of all the Arabs'.^[96][97]Herodotus refers to the Arabs in the Sinai, southern Palestine, and the frankincense region (Southern Arabia). Other Ancient-Greek historians like Agatharchides, Diodorus Siculus and Strabo mention Arabs living in Mesopotamia (along the Euphrates), dating arab women france, in Egypt (the Sinai and the Red Sea), southern Jordan (the Nabataeans), the Syrian steppe and in eastern Arabia (the people of Gerrha). Inscriptions dating to the 6th century BCE in Yemen include the term 'Arab'.^[98]

The most popular Arab account holds that the word Arab came from an eponymous father named Ya'rub, who was supposedly the first to speak Arabic. Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdani had another view; he states that Arabs were called gharab ('westerners') by Mesopotamians because Bedouins originally resided to the west of Mesopotamia; the term was then corrupted into arab.

Yet another view is held by al-Masudi that the word Arab was initially applied to the Ishmaelites of the Arabah valley. In Biblical etymology, dating arab women france, Arab (Hebrew: arvi) comes from the desert origin of the Bedouins it originally described (arava means 'wilderness').

The root ʿ-r-b has several additional meanings in Semitic languages—including 'west, sunset', dating arab women france, 'desert', 'mingle', 'mixed', 'merchant' and 'raven'—and dating arab women france "comprehensible" with all of these having varying degrees of relevance to the emergence dating arab women france the dating profile free search. 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'.^[99]

History[edit]

Main article: History of the Arabs

Antiquity[edit]

Main article: Pre-Islamic Arabia

Pre-Islamic Arabia refers to the Arabian Peninsula prior to the rise of Islam in the 630s. The study of Pre-Islamic Arabia is important to Islamic studies as it provides the context for the development of Islam. Some of the settled communities in the Arabian Peninsula developed into distinctive civilizations, dating arab women france. Sources for these civilizations are not extensive, and are limited to archaeological evidence, accounts written outside of Arabia, and Arab oral traditions later recorded by Islamic scholars. Among the most prominent civilizations was Dilmun, which arose around the 4th millennium BCE and lasted to 538 BCE, and Thamud, which arose around the 1st millennium BCE and lasted to about 300 CE. Additionally, from the beginning of the first millennium BCE, Southern Manhunt gay dating site was the home to a number of kingdoms, such as the Sabaean kingdom (Arabic: سَـبَـأ, romanized: Saba',^[100] possibly Sheba),^[101] and the coastal areas of Eastern Arabia were controlled by the Parthian and Sassanians from 300 BCE.

Origins and early history[edit]

Further information: Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples and Proto-Arabic

According to Arab-Islamic-Jewish traditions, Ishmael was father of the Arabs, to be the ancestor of the Ishmaelites.

• Both Judaism and Islam see him as the ancestor of Arab peoples.^[102]
• Ishmael is recognized by Muslims as the ancestor of several prominent Arabtribes and being the forefather of Muhammad. A–Z of Prophets in Islam and Judaism, dating arab women france, Wheeler, Ishmael Muslims also believe that Muhammad was the descendant of Dating women older than you that would establish a great nation, as promised by God in the Old Testament.
• Genesis 17:20^[103]
• Zeep, Ira G. (2000). A Muslim primer: beginner's guide to Islam, Volume 2. University of Arkansas Press. p. 5. ISBN .
• Ishmael was considered the ancestor of the Northern Arabs and Muhammad was linked to him through the lineage of the patriarch Adnan. Dating arab women france may also have been the ancestor of the Southern Arabs through his descendant Qahtan.
• Assyrians referred to the Arab Tribes as Ishmaelites, or "Shumu'ilu" as recorded in their inscriptions.^[104]
• "Zayd australian dating sites for over 50s Amr" was another Pre-Islamic figure who refused idolatry and preached monotheism, claiming it was the original belief of their [Arabs] father Ishmael.^[105]
• The tribes of Central West Arabia called themselves the "people of Abraham and the offspring of Ishmael."^[106]
• Gibb, Hamilton A. R., and J. H. Kramers. 1965. Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. pp. 191–98
• Maalouf, Tony. Arabs in the Shadow of Israel: The Unfolding of God's Prophetic Plan for Ishmael's Line. Kregel Academic. ISBN .
• Urbain, Olivier (2008). Music and Conflict Transformation: Harmonies and Dissonances in Geopolitics, dating arab women france. I.B.Tauris. ISBN .</ref>

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 Qarqar. Some of the names given in these texts dating arab women france Aramaic, while others are the first attestations of Ancient North Arabian 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 Aravi 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.^{[citation needed]} Arab tribes came into conflict with the Assyrians during the reign of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, and he records military victories against the powerful Qedar tribe among others.

Old Arabic diverges from Central Semitic by the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE.^{[citation needed]}

Medieval Arab genealogists divided Arabs into three groups:

1. "Ancient Arabs", tribes that had vanished or been destroyed, such as ʿĀd and Thamud, often mentioned in the Qur'an as examples of God's power to vanquish those who fought his prophets.
2. "Pure Arabs" of South Arabia, descending from Qahtan. The Qahtanites (Qahtanis) are said to have migrated from the land of Yemen following the destruction of the Ma'rib Dam (sadd Ma'rib).
3. The "Arabized Arabs" (mustaʿribah) of Central Arabia (Najd) and North Arabia, descending from Ishmael the elder son of Abraham, through Adnan (hence, Adnanites). The Book of Genesis narrates that God promised Hagar to beget from Ishmael twelve princes and turn him to a great nation.^[107] 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:

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 towards the East facing the desert. And these mingled with each other, and their name was called Arabs, and Ishmaelites.

— Book of Jubilees 20:13

Assyrian relief depicting battle with camel riders, from Kalhu (Nimrud) Central Palace, Tiglath Pileser III, 728 BCE, British Museum

Assyrian and Babylonian Royal Inscriptions and North Arabian inscriptions from 9th to 6th century BCE, dating arab women france, mention the king of Qedar as king of the Arabs and King of the Ishmaelites.^{[109][110][111][112]} Of the names of the sons of Ishmael the names "Nabat, Kedar, Abdeel, Dumah, Massa, and Teman" were mentioned in the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions as tribes of the Ishmaelites, dating arab women france. Jesur was mentioned in Greek inscriptions in the 1st century BCE.^[113]

Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddima distinguishes between sedentary Arab Muslims who used to be nomadic, and 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 Yemenis.^[115] The Christians of Italy and the Crusaders preferred the term Saracens for all the Arabs, Muslims.^[116] The Christians of Iberia used the term Moor to describe all the Arabs and Muslims of that time.

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, dating arab women france. 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 Quran 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 at-Tawba 97,

al-ʾaʿrābu ʾašaddu kufrān wanifāqān "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 eighth 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.

Classical kingdoms[edit]

Main articles: Palmyra, Nabateans, dating arab women france, Qedarite, Osroene, and Kingdom of Hatra

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 the Arabian Peninsula and Sinai (not in reality connected with Thamud).

The Nabataeans were nomadic Arabs 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 reveal a dialect no longer considered proto-Arabic, but pre-classical Arabic. Five Syriac inscriptions mentioning Arabs have been found at Sumatar Harabesi, one of which dates to the 2nd century CE.

Arabs arrived in the Palmyra in the late first millennium BCE. The soldiers of the sheikh Zabdibel, who aided the Seleucids in the battle of Raphia (217 BCE), were described as Arabs; Zabdibel and his men were not actually identified as Palmyrenes in the texts, but the name "Zabdibel" is a Palmyrene name leading to the conclusion that the sheikh hailed from Palmyra. Palmyra was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate after its 634 capture by the Arab general Khalid ibn al-Walid, dating arab women france, who took the city on his way to Damascus; an 18-day march by his army through the Syrian Desert from Mesopotamia. By then Palmyra was limited to the Diocletian camp. After the conquest, the city became part of Homs Province.

Fragment of a wall painting showing a Kindite king, 1st century CE

Palmyra prospered as part of the Umayyad Caliphate, and its population grew.^[122] It was a key stop on the East-West trade route, with a large souq (Arabic: سُـوق, market), built by free singles dating site Umayyads,^[122] who also commissioned part of the Temple of Bel as a mosque. During this period, Palmyra was a stronghold of the Banu Kalb tribe. After being defeated by Marwan II during a civil war in the caliphate, Umayyad contender Sulayman ibn Hisham fled to the Banu Kalb in Palmyra, dating arab women france, but eventually pledged allegiance to Marwan in 744; Palmyra continued to oppose Marwan until the surrender of the Banu Kalb leader al-Abrash dating arab women france in 745. That year, dating arab women france, Marwan ordered the city's walls demolished. In 750 a revolt, led by Majza'a ibn al-Kawthar and Umayyad pretender Abu Muhammad al-Sufyani, dating arab women france, against the new Abbasid Caliphate swept across Syria; the tribes in Palmyra supported the rebels. After his defeat Abu Muhammad took refuge in the city, dating arab women france, which withstood an Abbasid assault long enough to allow him to escape.

Late kingdoms[edit]

Further information: Lakhmids, Ghassanids, and Kindites

The Near Eastin 565, showing the Lakhmids and their neighbors

The Ghassanids, Lakhmids and Kindites were the last major migration of pre-Islamic Arabs out of Yemen to the north. The Ghassanids increased the Semitic presence in the then Hellenized Syria, dating arab women france, the majority of Semites were Aramaic peoples, dating arab women france. They mainly settled in the Hauran region and spread to modern Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan.

Greeks and Romans referred to all the nomadic population of the desert in the Near East as Arabi. The Romans called Yemen "Arabia Felix".^[129] The Romans called the vassal nomadic states within the Roman EmpireArabia Petraea, after the city of Petra, and called unconquered deserts bordering the empire to the south and east Arabia Magna. The Emesene were a Roman client dynasty of Arab priest-kings known to have ruled from Emesa, Syria. Roman empress Julia Domna, matriarch of the Severan dynasty of Roman emperors, was one of their descendants.^[130]

The Lakhmids as a dynasty inherited their power from the Tanukhids, the mid Tigris region around their capital Al-Hira. They ended up allying with dating arab women france Sassanids against the Ghassanids and the Byzantine Empire. The Lakhmids dating arab women france control of the Central Arabian tribes with the Kindites with the Lakhmids eventually destroying the Kingdom of Kinda in 540 after the fall of dating arab women france main ally Himyar. The Persian Sassanids dissolved the Lakhmid dynasty in 602, being under puppet kings, then under their direct control.^[131] 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 Arabia from "Qaryah Dhat Kahl" (the present-day called Qaryat al-Faw). They ruled much of the Northern/Central Arabian peninsula, until they were destroyed by the Lakhmid king Al-Mundhir, and his son 'Amr.

Medieval period[edit]

Arab caliphates[edit]

Rashidun era (632–661)[edit]

Main article: Rashidun Caliphate

After the death of Muhammad in 632, Rashidun armies launched dating arab women france of conquest, establishing the Caliphate, or Islamic Empire, one of the largest empires in history, dating arab women france. It was larger and lasted longer than the previous Arab empire of Queen Mawia or the Aramean-Arab Palmyrene Empire. The Rashidun state was a completely new state and unlike the Arab kingdoms of its century such as the Himyarite, Lakhmids or Ghassanids.

Umayyad era (661–750 & 756–1031)[edit]

Main article: Umayyad Caliphate

See also: Caliphate of Córdoba and Al-Andalus

See also: Abbadid, Taifa, Nasrid dynasty (Sistan), dating arab women france, Zengid dynasty, and Ikhshidid dynasty

In 661, the Rashidun Caliphate fell into the hands of the Umayyad dynasty and Damascus was established as the empire's capital. The Umayyads were proud of their Arab identity and sponsored the poetry and culture of pre-Islamic Arabia. They established garrison towns at Ramla, Raqqa, Basra, Kufa, Mosul and Samarra, all of which developed into major cities.^[133]

CaliphAbd al-Malik established Arabic as the Caliphate's official language in 686.^[134] 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, dating arab women france. He rectified the disparity, demanding that all Muslims be treated as equals, but his intended reforms did not take effect, as he died after dating arab women france 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.

Umayyads expanded their Empire westwards capturing North Africa from the Byzantines, dating arab women france. Before the Arab conquest, North Africa was conquered or settled by various dating arab women france including Punics, dating arab women france, Vandals and Romans. After the Abbasid Revolution, the Umayyads lost most of their territories with the exception of Iberia. Their last holding became known as the Emirate of Córdoba. It wasn't until the rule of the grandson of the founder of this new emirate that the state entered a new phase as the Caliphate of Córdoba. This new state was characterized by an expansion of trade, culture and knowledge, and saw the construction of masterpieces of al-Andalus architecture and the library of Al-Ḥakam II which housed over 400,000 volumes. With the collapse of the Umayyad state in 1031 CE, Islamic Spain was divided into small kingdoms.

Abbasid era (750–1258 & 1261–1517)[edit]

Main article: Abbasid Caliphate

dating arab women france at an Abbasid library in Baghdad. Maqamat of al-Hariri Illustration, 123.