History of the Arabs

Before the expansion of the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661) during the early Muslim conquests, the word "Arab" referred to any of the largely nomadic or settled Arab tribes in the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, and Upper and Lower Mesopotamia. Today, "Arab" refers to a variety of large numbers of people whose native regions form the Arab world due to Arab migrations and the concurrent spread of the Arabic language throughout the region, namely the Levant and the Maghreb, following the rise of Islam in the 7th century. During this period, they forged the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), and the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258). These Arab dynasties ruled some of the largest land empires in history, reaching southern France in the west, China in the east, Anatolia in the north, and Sudan in the south. In 1517, the Mamluk Sultanate of Cairo was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, which went on to rule much of the Arab world until World War I, after which it was defeated and dissolved and its territories partitioned, forming the modern Arab states. Following the adoption of the Alexandria Protocol in 1944, the Arab League was founded on 22 March 1945. The Charter of the Arab League endorsed the principle of an Arab homeland while respecting the individual sovereignty of its member states.

Antiquity

Prehistoric Arabia

In the Neolithic period of Prehistoric Arabia, local Neolithic communities — many of them pastoralist, semi-sedentary, and seasonally mobile — engaged in herding, agriculture, and sometimes fishing in the Syrian steppe from at least 6000 BCE. By about 850 BCE, a complex network of settlements and camps was established. The earliest Arab tribes emerged from Bedouin groups.

Iron age

Arabs are first mentioned in Biblical and Assyrian texts of the 9th to 5th centuries BC where they inhabited parts of the Levant, Mesopotamia and Arabia. Several Arab tribes and towns are identified during the Neo-Assyrian period through their onomastics and toponyms. These tribes were present throughout Mesopotamia and the Syrian Desert, and in many times their presence often accompanied Aramean tribes. In the land of Laqē near Terqa, which was mentioned in an inscription by Adad-nirari II (911–891 BC), Aramaean and Arab clans formed a confederacy.

When Shalmaneser III descended on Pattin in 858 BC, he fought a force which included two Arab chieftains from transhumant tribes of the lower Orontes valley: a certain Bur-'Anat of Yašbuq, and Hada[d-ya]ṯa of a tribe whose name is lost. In the Battle of Qarqar in 853 BC, Arabs were part of a Damascene coalition of Syrian and Israelite allies under Gindibu, who ruled over an Arab kingdom located in the northeastern parts of present-day Jordan and Wadi Sirhan. In the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III (744–727 BC), the "Arabāy" (Arabs) were among the Syrians integrated into the Assyrian administrative system, and were reportedly located in the regions of Damascus, Tadmor and Homs. Tiglath-Pileser III even appointed a certain Arab, Idibi'ilu, to the Sinai peninsula jurisdiction. Arab raiders were also active in the Beqaa Valley, where they attacked Sargon II's (722–705 BC) troops.

A reference to the potential ancestors of Nabataeans, the Nabayatu, is made in a Babylonian letter from before 648 BC. The Nabaytau reportedly lived in the Babylonian border region, and were probably the namesake of the city of Nabatu mentioned in an inscription of Marduk-apla-iddina II (721–710 BC). During the campaigns of Ashurbanipal (669–631 BC) most Nabayatu clans shifted to the Syrian Desert, and by the 6th century had migrated to the area south of Wadi Sirhan. Ashurbanipal launched a punitive campaign against the Arabs in Hauran from his base in Damascus, capturing Abiyate the Qedarite and taking him to Assyria.

Classical kingdoms

Ancient North Arabian texts give a clearer picture of Arabic's developmental history and emergence. Ancient North Arabian is a collection of texts from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria which not only recorded ancient forms of Arabic, such as Safaitic and Hismaic, but also of pre-Arabic languages previously spoken in the Arabian peninsula, such as Dadanitic, Hasaitic and Taymanitic. The texts are either written in variants or closely related sister scripts of epigraphic south Arabian musnad.

Nabataeans

The Nabataeans were nomads who moved into territory vacated by the Edomites – Semitic-speakers who settled the region centuries before them. Their early inscriptions were in Aramaic but gradually switched to their spoken Nabataean Arabic, thus producing some of the earliest clear Arabic texts. 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 BC) and the many Arabic personal names in Nabataean inscriptions. From about the 2nd century BC, 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 northeast of Harran, one of which dates to the 2nd century AD.

In Syria

Arabs are first recorded in Palmyra in the late first millennium BC. The soldiers of the sheikh Zabdibel, who aided the Seleucids in the battle of Raphia (217 BC), 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. After the Battle of Edessa in 260 CE, the Roman emperor Valerian was taken prisoner. Assuming the side of Rome, the Palmyrenes united under Odaenathus and defeated the Sassanian armies in several battles, even reaching the capital city, Ctesiphon, twice.

Odaenathus' son Vaballathus succeeded him in 270 under the regency of his mother Zenobia, who declared the Palmyrene Empire, quickly capturing most of the Near East, including Egypt and most of Asia Minor in 271, reaching Ancyra. Zenobia was defeated by Aurelian with the help of the Arab enemies of Zenobia, the Tanukhids. The Tanukhids initially appear in 196 CE as a federation of Arab tribes roaming the western banks of the Euphrates who later made way into central and northern Syria, where they became part of the foederati of the Romans. They rebelled against Roman authority in 378 CE under their queen, Mavia, who led her forces into Palestine, Arabia and even the edges of Egypt, and also served as auxiliaries in the Roman army.

South of the Taurus range and in the region of Antioch were an Arab group ruled by a certain Aziz, who played an important role in the affairs of the last Seleucid king Antiochus XIII Asiaticus. To the east of Antioch was another Arab group that ruled in Chalcidice represented by the Rhambaei, Gambarus and Themella, who were ruled by way of various Arab princes, including a famous Alchaedamnus who fought against Tigranes and in Caesar's civil war. Another Arab group or community was established in the Orontes river valley, the Emesene Arabs who dominated Emesa and Aresutha until the 2nd century, and were involved in the affairs of late Seleucid monarchs under their chief Sempsigeramus. In al-Zabadani region close by the Qalamoun Mountains, was an Arab group known as the Zabadaioi who came into conflict with Alexander Jannaeus (103–76 BCE).

The Itureans, another Arab group known since Alexander the Great, inhabited the Bekaa valley, Southern Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon mountains, and from there they expanded their territories into the Phoenician coast, Aurinitis, Trachonitis and Batanaea, coming close to Damascus. In southern Palestine, the Idumaeans inhabited and became numerous in the area west of the Dead Sea, whose names comprised an admixture of Arabic and Canaanite names.

Arabs were also living in Egypt even in pre-Christian times, in the Ptolemaic nome called Arabia, in Arsinoites across the Nile, and in Thebaid.

In Mesopotamia

Further north, the Osroeni Arabs were in possession of the city of Edessa which they had occupied and ruled since the 2nd century BC, and which they had continued to rule until the 3rd century CE. The Kingdom of Hatra was similarly ruled by an Arab dynasty since the 2nd century CE, whose rulers assumed the title malka often in form of "King of the Arabs". The Osroeni and Hatrans were part of several Arab groups or communities in upper Mesopotamia, who also included the Praetavi of Singara (present-day Sinjar, Iraq) reported by Pliny the Elder, and the Arabs of Adiabene. This elaborate Arab presence in upper Mesopotamia was acknowledged by the Sasanians, who called the region Arbayistan, meaning "land of the Arabs".

Late kingdoms

Several Arab entities flourished during middle and late Antiquity; these included kingdoms and confederations of tribes that dominated large swaths of land in the Arabian Peninsula, Levant and Mesopotamia.

In central Arabia and Iraq, the Lakhmids assumed leadership from the Tanukhids and established themselves as clients for the Sasanians by 300 CE, ruling from their capital city of Al-Hirah and acting as a buffer between them and the Romans and unruly nomadic Arab tribes further south. Their Ghassanid counterparts served the same purpose for the Byzantines after their settlement in Syria likely between 250 and 300 CE. The Ghassanids were part of an influx from Yemen due to conflict between the South Arabian kingdoms of Qataban, Himyar and Sabaa in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE; it's not clear whether or not Ghassanids originally spoke Arabic or a South Semitic language like the ones spoken in Yemen at the time. Upon their settlement in the Levant around 300 CE, the Ghassanids also became part of the foederati, along with several other Arab tribes in the region including Banu Amilah and Banu Judham.

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

The Kingdom of Kinda was yet another Arab entity in central Arabia, established in 450 CE as a confederation of the Ma'ad tribes ruled by the Kindites. The Kindites originally migrated from Yemen along with the Ghassanids, where they had served as nomad auxiliaries for the armies of the Sabaean and Himyarite kings, but were turned back in Eastern Arabia 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). The Lakhmids contested control of the Central Arabian tribes with the Kindites with the Lakhmids eventually destroying Kinda in 540 after the fall of their main ally Himyar. The Persian Sassanids dissolved the Lakhmid dynasty in 602, being under puppet kings, then under their direct control. They ruled much of the Northern/Central Arabian peninsula, until they were destroyed by the Lakhmid king Al-Mundhir, and his son 'Amr.