When did we become Arabs?
I was watching Rotana Music yesterday, and this song caught my attention. It was about a university graduation ceremony… and even though everyone was an Arab including the Dean and the students, the ceremony looked exactly like a ceremony you would find in the heart of the USA! and not at all the graduation ceremony you would find in any Arab country.
I am not going to go into the song or video clip… I wondered yesterday why do we try too hard to be Americanized or westernized in everything even in our Arabic songs? This lead me to another question, maybe the reason is rooted much deeper inside us, historically and ideologically… were we always Arabs? and if not when did we become Arabs?
Well, honestly searching this whole Arab identity, made me feel how ignorant I am! I have always thought we were always Arabs and that Arabs and Muslims are synonyms! But that is very inaccurate. So forgive the shallowness of what I will write, I am not intending to give a lesson in history here, and obviously there is much much more to how we became Arabs. Even though these are random, isolated facts, for me they gave me a direction of where to start if I am interested to know more.
Basically, the idea of an Arab identity is fresh of the over, it is that new!! it started among the French educated intellectuals of Syria in the late nineteenth century, in an effort to mobilize both Christians and Muslims to throw off the domination of the Ottoman Empire which was doing really badly. Before that Arab had referred to the Bedouins and the inhabitants of Arabia. And we were known in different names.
During World War 1 the idea of Arab nationalism emerged again as an important idea, this time it took the form of the Arab revolt, with the help of the English. England played a major role afterwards in promoting Arabism in the Middle East, obviously to serve their own interests and so the area gradually became Arab! In 1941, Anthony Eden, the British Foreign Minister proposed the creation of an Arab league, which became a reality in 1945.
The Millions of inhabitants of this area, resisted the idea for a long time, because of their doubts of why they changed from Asians or Africans or whatever other identities we had to Arabs, but this was changed drastically with Gamal Abd Al Nasser, who became a national hero by nationalizing the Suez Canal and leading a war against Israel in 1956… After that the masses embraced the idea lovingly.
If you are curious to know morw, get on the internet to find out more 
![IMG_0150[1]](http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8168/7466787830_1ae1104b5d_m.jpg)
![IMG_0154[1]](http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8163/7466765652_6c4f552399_m.jpg)
![IMG_0152[1]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7253/7466761766_eb112ee6a3_m.jpg)
![IMG_0157[1]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7112/7466755688_2f25b64758_m.jpg)
Although i was a believer of Arabism and Nationalism but i later woke up to the sad reality that this idealogy did nothing but bring dictator governments to continue rule many parts of the arab world. Saddam Hussain used the idea of Arab Nationalism as a reason to stay in power and further kill and supress his own people.
The ruling Baathist party in Syria also used this idealogy to create a police state in the country and continue its occupation of Lebanon.
basboos
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Even Nasser was the same, i mean he was a very nice dictator!
Linda
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This is very interesting post. A very good book is Edward Said's Orientalism, it was the book that gave a meaning to all this arab nationalism, it also was the first book that spoke of what is to be an Arab in the middle east and in the West.
desert rose
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That's a wonderful post Mariam. Nothing fascinates me more than this topic, well, along with religion…
Roba
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before i forget signing i'm hareega (reega reega hareega)
I still believe strongly in Arabism, and the idea of unity based on speaking the same language and sharing the same history was a great one. Many leaders abused the idea of Arabism to enforce their dectatorships (like Saddam Hussain), just like many leaders abused Islam or Chrisitanity or Socialism to strengthen their rule.
I still feel very connected to an Arab in Morocco, Sudan,or Yemen much much more than I feel towards someone in Tukey or Iran, and although i'm Chrisitan I aslo feel more connected to them and I am to someone in Europe or Far East Asia or the US or Vatican City lol
It's our culture…. politics should not destroy it.
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At school, we were taught the phrase “Al Arab wal Muslimoon” and we memorized it by rote without even thinking of it for a second. We were forced to believe that the “great” leaps in humanity wouldn't have happened were it not for the contributions of the great “Arabs and Muslimoon” although a simple reality check would have shown that many such contributions were made by people who are neither Arabs (as the word means today) or Muslims. I think the point was to give the idea “Arabism” some merit, and what better merit is there than to sprinkle it religion! You can argue basically everything but “the word of the deity”.
Nowadays, there are “Arabs” who do not know there are “Arab Christians” or “Arab Jews” because Christians are Europeans crusaders and Jews are, well, “enemies”. I have a Moroccan friend, and she had the shock of her life when she saw a Jordanian girl wearing a cross. The only other time she has seen anyone wear a cross was in France! Many people refuse to believe that the Maghreb, Iraq, Syria, Egypt and other Arab countries have a Jewish population.
-J
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I guess this happened to every single movement in the history of humanity! even religions I mean they all start as very good causes, but then they get exploited by the corruption of human beings…
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Well, then here we have another thing in common beside vampires and science fiction!… I totally hear you.
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Ya i agree Linda….
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By the way I have a Moroccan friend who never heard of the term “Shiite” “Shee3a” cause in Morocco they dont have that sect of Islam. They only have Sunna Muslims and Jews.
Basbooos
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BTW i am Basbooos
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reega reega hareega,
Actually i did not agree with what you wrote here, till i left Jordan, and then I started feeling very similar… I felt that i relate to Arabs very much and i enjoy the culture, and the language and the food, I even realized that I am proud to be an Arab…
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“The” great leaps of humanity to be attributed to Arabs is a bit too much, but i do think that great leaps of humanity could be attributed to arabs or muslims (and here i am making the same mistake of considering them the same)especially in math…
Just like many other great leaps could be attributed to the Romans in architecture and acoustics or the Greeks in philosophy or the Pharonites or the spanish in geography or the English or the french……or..or.. or..all and any other culture that did add something to humanity… The point is i guess we should not glorify what the islamic culture has done and by relying on the past live without a future, but we should not take the credit of what they did do….
By the way being an Arab has nothing to do with islam… they are two different things… Arab includes many religions and sects and schools of thoughts…
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I forgot to sign
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yup… why would people hear of something that is not in their surrounding? unless they are curious to learn or very cultures or they were exposed to these things, maybe people would not even care to learn.
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From the way I see it nowadays, seems like we are going through one tough identity crisis.
I dunno how this happened? Especially to the Arabs & Middle Eastern nations.How will we be able to preserve our identity in the next generations?
& The cultural gap is growing in a fast pace.Take for example in Amman, you'd find some “priviliged” people conversing amongst each other with profound American accent, you'd say to yourself they just landed from California or Chicago…& on the other hand, the majority of population in Amman & in Jordan as a whole don't relate to this kind of culture.
Are the more”privilged” members of our society trying to get out of their skins by adopting Uncle Sam's accent? Are these people really cultured? Or it's merely a “Fake” culture under which they're hiding their ignorance?
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Yeah, I would not agree more, this is the whole point, maybe we have a lost identity, because this whole arabness did not sink in yet, completetly? maybe it owuld take generations for us to become true Arabs.
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by the way anonymous how did you do these eyes? I am really curious.
thanks
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Hello Madas,
Well , it's very easy …it's no big secret…when you type in the subject, there's a little face just beside the type in box, it's almost non-visible…just click on it (click on the face)& it'll give ya several choices….
Me on the other hand,I'm trying to type in my “Identity” , i.e. in the OpenID or LiveJournalUser…..I'm kinda new 2 all of this blogging thing…, but the whole process seems not very clear….would you “illuminate” me plz?
Thanx a million…
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wow thankd, that was really easy:)
Wll, you need to have an identity to start with in livejournal.com ,if you are in other places it wont work. so if you have an ID here, you go to livejournal user and write your name and password.
If you are not a livejournal person, you could either write your own page, in the Iodentity URL. and if you dont have one anywhere, you go to Anonymous and grace us with your signiture at the end of the post
I hope I answer you.
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I'm not sure why you were in a surprised mood when you composed this post about the Arabs ! I would think that a pensive mood would have been a lot more appropriate.
Arabs since the dawn of time were, still are, and will always be identified with the Bedouin,and pastoral type life style. I understand that they have come a long way since the advent of oil and all that, but still, even with all of the premeditations that they have gone through, they are still imbued with the truculent logo.
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Maybe surprised at my own ignorance…pensive… well i am always in a pensive mood…surprised is just a break from the usual routine
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The term “Arab” or “Arabian” has been used to translate several different but similar sounding words in ancient and classical texts which do not necessarily have the same meaning or origin. The etymology of the term is of course closely linked to that of the place name “Arabia”.
Although the term mâtu arbâi in Assyrians texts is conventionally translated of Arab land, nothing is known with certainty about the exact location or extent of the land. In fact several different ethnonyms are found in Assyrian texts that are conventionally translated “Arab”: Arabi, Arubu, Aribi and Urbi. The presence of Proto-Arabic names amongst those qualified by the terms arguably justifies the translation “Arab” although it is not certain if they all in fact represent the same group.
Nabateanss, who spoke Arabic. who brought tribute to King Solomon. The word is typically translated Arabia and is the name for Arabia in Modern Hebrew . The people in question are understood to be the early Nabateanss who do indeed appear to have been a mix of different tribes. The medieval writer Ibn an-Nadimm, in Kitab al-Fihrist, derived the word from a Syriacc pun by Abrahamm on the same root: in his account, Abraham addresses Ishmaell and tells him u`rub, from Syriac `rob, “. It is usually translated “Arabian” or “Arab” and was used in early 20th century Hebrew to mean Arab.
One meaning of the word Arab in Arabic is clear; clear as in comprehensible rather than as in pure. Bedouin elders still use this term with the same meaning; those whose speech they comprehend (ie Arabic-speakers) they call Arab, and those whose speech is of unknown meaning to them, they call Ajamm .
Another explanation derives the word from an old Semitic stem `.R.B., with a metathetical alternative `.B.R., both meaning travelling around the land, that is, nomadic. From that root, the terms Arab(Arabi) and Hebrew(Ebri), meaning nomads, are derived.
By the fourth century AD, the Arab kingdoms of the Lakhmids in southern Iraq and Ghassanids in southern Syria had emerged just south of the Fertile Crescent and, constantly at war, ended up allying respectively with the Sassani and Byzantine Empires. Their courts were responsible for some notable examples of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, and for some of the few surviving pre-Islamic Arabic inscriptions in the Arabic alphabet. The Lakhmid kingdom was dissolved by the Sassanids in 602, while the Ghassanids would hold out until engulfed by the expansion of Islam.
During the 8th and 9th centuries, the Arabs (specifically the Umayyads and later Abbasids forged an empire whose borders touched southern France in the west, China in the east, Asia Minor in the north, and the Sudan in the south. This was one of the largest land empires in history. Throughout much of this area, the Arabs spread the religion of Islam and the Arabic language (the language of the Qur'an through conversion and assimilation. Many groups came to be known as “Arabs” not through descent but through Arabization. Thus, over time, the term Arab came to carry a broader meaning than the original ethnic term. Many Arabs in Sudan, Morocco, Algeria and elsewhere became Arab through cultural diffusion.
For further intersting reading you can check this linc::
http://www.brow.on.ca/Articles/ArabsBible.html
May be starnge and un coth ,but it is worth reading
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long time no comment….
Wow, that was very informative… thank you very much. As many others i am very fascinated with this topic.
so thanks again
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Thanks four your expressed interest in how we became Arab?such can be seen in a repeated action at a different era. And witnessed how it is subjecting a whole race the BARBERS OF NORTH AFRICAN a demographic Race subjected to action forceing them to lose their roots to become/change for ARABS through Islam .If you are interested to read my summery views please check my Post BERBERS 4 Parts the one dated Aug 23 05 in my Blog Surfers Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/nadimsolo/
if this dose not bore you go on to my Blog is a strange one .Take care nadim
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Hello ,I stopped by to chick on you ,you have been away for quite some time ,trust all is well ,and await to read you soon .with care
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Hope all is well with you ,I am truly wondering what kept you from your Journal ,and your readers ,as they say 3assa Maa Shaar ,Wa Kheer In Shallaah….,drop a line toassure those who care for you Mariam..
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There are nothing wrong to feel nationalist if you really from that nation. The sad thing is that, the people outside of Saudi Arabia are not Arabs. The African are not Arabs. The Iraqi, Syrians and lebonan
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Madas Reply:
December 26th, 2008 at 21:51
I really don’t see your point
i think identity changes with people and circumstances… for example, with refugees, they noticed that already the identy changes when people end up in this camp or that camp… the point is you have a sense of belonging to the place you come from, but also to that one you live at… regardless of whether it is being called Arabs or Jordanians or Ammanis, or this camp or that camp… am i making any sense?
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