Arabization during the early Caliphate The most significant wave of "Arabization" in history followed the
early Muslim conquests of Muhammad and the subsequent
Rashidun and
Umayyad Caliphates. These Arab empires were the first to grow well beyond the Arabian Peninsula, eventually reaching as far as
Iberia in the West and Central Asia to the East, covering , one of the
largest imperial expanses in history.
Southern Arabia South Arabia is a historical region that consists of the southern region of the Arabian Peninsula, mainly centered in what is now the Republic of Yemen, yet it also includes Najran, Jizan, and 'Asir, which are presently in Saudi Arabia, and the Dhofar of present-day Oman.
Old South Arabian was driven to extinction by the Islamic expansion, being replaced by
Classical Arabic , which is written with the
Arabic script. The
South Arabian alphabet which was used to write it also fell out of use. A separate branch of
South Semitic, the
Modern South Arabian languages still survive today as spoken languages in southern of present-day Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Dhofar in present-day Oman. Although
Yemen is traditionally held to be the homeland of the
Qahtanite Arabs who, according to some Arab traditions, are "pure" Arabs; however, most of the sedentary Yemeni population did not speak
Old Arabic prior to the spread of
Islam, and spoke the extinct
Old South Arabian languages instead.
Eastern and Northern Arabia Before the 7th century CE, the population of Eastern Arabia consisted of
Christian Arabs,
Zoroastrian Arabs,
Jews, and
Aramaic-speaking agriculturalists. Some sedentary dialects of Eastern Arabia exhibit
Akkadian,
Aramaic and
Syriac features. The sedentary people of ancient Bahrain were Aramaic speakers and to some degree, Persian speakers, while Syriac functioned as a
liturgical language.
The Levant Prior to the Islamic conquests, Arabs and Arabic inscriptions existed in the region; the Roman emperor
Philip the Arab was born in what is now
Bosra, Syria. The
Emasene dynasty was a Roman client dynasty of Syrian priest-kings known to have ruled by 46 BCE from
Arethusa and later from
Emesa,
Syria, until between 72 and 78/79 and they were of
Arab origin. The
Safaitic (named after
Al-Safa region in Syria) inscriptions of old Arabic existed in
Harrat al-Sham, the script existed in the period from the 1st century BCE to the 4th century CE. On the eve of the
Rashidun Caliphate conquest of the Levant, 634 CE, Syria's population mainly spoke Aramaic; Greek was the official language of administration.
Arabization and
Islamization of Syria began in the 7th century, and it took several centuries for Islam, the Arab identity, and language to spread; the Arabs of the caliphate did not attempt to spread their language or religion in the early periods of the conquest, and formed an isolated aristocracy. The Arabs of the caliphate accommodated many new tribes in isolated areas to avoid conflict with the locals; caliph
Uthman ordered his governor,
Muawiyah I, to settle the new tribes away from the original population. Syrians who belonged to
Monophysitic denominations welcomed the peninsular Arabs as liberators. The
Abbasids in the eighth and ninth century sought to integrate the peoples under their authority, and the Arabization of the administration was one of the tools. Arabization gained momentum with the increasing numbers of Muslim converts; the ascendancy of Arabic as the formal language of the state prompted the cultural and linguistic assimilation of Syrian converts. Those who remained
Christian also became Arabized; it was probably during the Abbasid period in the ninth century that Christians adopted Arabic as their first language; the first translation of the gospels into Arabic took place in this century. Many historians, such as
Claude Cahen and Bernard Hamilton, proposed that the Arabization of Christians was completed before the
First Crusade. By the thirteenth century, Arabic language achieved dominance in the region and its speakers became Arabs.
Egypt Prior to the Islamic conquests, Arabs had been inhabiting the
Sinai Peninsula, the
Eastern desert and
eastern Delta for centuries. These regions of Egypt collectively were known as "Arabia" to the contemporary historians and writers documenting them. Several pre-Islamic Arab kingdoms, such as the
Qedarite Kingdom, extended into these regions. Inscriptions and other archeological remains, such as bowls bearing inscriptions identifying
Qedarite kings and
Nabatean Arabic inscriptions, affirm the Arab presence in the region. Egypt was conquered from the
Romans by the
Rashidun Caliphate in the 7th century CE. The
Coptic language, which was written using the
Coptic variation of the
Greek alphabet, was spoken in most of Egypt prior to the Islamic conquest. Arabic, however, was already being spoken in the eastern fringes of Egypt for centuries prior to the arrival of Islam. By the
Mameluke era, the Arabization of the
Egyptian populace alongside a shift in the majority religion going from Christianity to Islam, had taken place.
The Maghreb Neither North Africa nor the Iberian Peninsula were strangers to
Semitic culture: the
Phoenicians and later the
Carthaginians dominated parts of the North African and Iberian shores for more than eight centuries until they were suppressed by the
Romans and by the following
Vandal and
Visigothic invasions, and the
Berber incursions. From the
Muslim conquest of the Maghreb in the 7th century, Arabs began to
migrate to the Maghreb in several waves. Arab migrants settled in all parts of the Maghreb, coming as peaceful newcomers who were welcomed everywhere, establishing large Arab settlements in many areas. In addition to changing the population's demographics, the early migration of Arab tribes resulted in the Arabization of the native
Berber population. This initial wave contributed to the Berber adoption of
Arab culture. Furthermore, the
Arabic language spread during this period and drove local
Latin (
African Romance) alongside the
Church of Carthage, which was based in the Roman (and later
Byzantine)
province of Africa went into extinction in the cities. The Arabization took place around Arab centres through the influence of Arabs in the cities and rural areas surrounding them. Arab political entities in the Maghreb such as the
Aghlabids,
Idrisids,
Salihids and
Fatimids, were influential in encouraging Arabization by attracting Arab migrants and by promoting Arab culture. In addition, disturbances and political unrest in the
Mashriq compelled the Arabs to migrate to the Maghreb in search of security and stability. In response to the Zirids later declaring independence from the Fatimids, the Fatimids dispatched large
Bedouin Arab tribes, mainly the
Banu Hilal and
Banu Sulaym, to defeat the Zirids and settle in the Maghreb. The invasion of Ifriqiya by the Banu Hilal, a warlike Arab
Bedouin tribe, sent the region's urban and economic life into further decline. The Fatimid caliph instructed the Bedouin tribes to rule the Maghreb instead of the Zirid emir
Al-Mu'izz and told them, "I have given you the Maghrib and the rule of al-Mu'izz ibn Balkīn as-Sanhājī the runaway slave. You will want for nothing." and told Al-Mu'izz "I have sent you horses and put brave men on them so that God might accomplish a matter already enacted". Sources estimated that the total number of Arab nomads who migrated to the Maghreb in the 11th century was at around 1 million Arabs. There were later Arab migrations to the Maghreb by
Maqil and
Beni Hassan in the 13th-15th century and by
Andalusi refugees in the 15th–17th century. The migration of Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym in the 11th century had a much greater influence on the process of Arabization of the population than did the earlier migrations. It played a major role in spreading
Bedouin Arabic to rural areas such as the countryside and steppes, and as far as the southern areas near the
Sahara.
Al-Andalus After the
Umayyad conquest of Hispania, under the
Arab Muslim rule, Iberia (
al-Andalus) incorporated elements of the Arabic language and culture. The
Mozarabs were
Iberian Christians who lived under Arab Islamic rule in
Al-Andalus. Their descendants remained unconverted to
Islam, but did however adopt elements of Arabic language and
culture and dress. They were mostly
Roman Catholics of the
Visigothic or Mozarabic Rite. Most of the Mozarabs were descendants of
Hispano–
Gothic Christians and were primarily speakers of the
Mozarabic language under Islamic rule. Many were also what the
Arabist Mikel de Epalza calls
"Neo-Mozarabs", that is
Northern Europeans who had come to the Iberian Peninsula and picked up Arabic, thereby entering the Mozarabic community. Besides Mozarabs, another group of people in Iberia eventually came to surpass the Mozarabs both in terms of population and Arabization. These were the Muladi or
Muwalladun, most of whom were descendants of local Hispano-Basques and Visigoths who converted to Islam and adopted Arabic culture, dress, and language. By the 11th century, most of the population of al-Andalus was Muladi, with large minorities of other Muslims, Mozarabs, and
Sephardic Jews. It was the Muladi, together with the Berber, Arab, and other (
Saqaliba and
Zanj) Muslims who became collectively termed in Christian Europe as "
Moors". The
Andalusian Arabic was spoken in Iberia during Islamic rule.
Sicily, Malta, and Crete A similar process of Arabization and Islamization occurred in the
Emirate of Sicily (
Ṣiqilliyyah) and Malta (
Mālṭā), and the
Emirate of Crete (
Iqrīṭish or
Iqrīṭiya). During this period some segments of the populations of these islands converted to
Islam and began to adopt elements of
Arabic culture,
traditions, and
customs. The Arabization process also resulted in the development of the now extinct
Siculo-Arabic language, from which the modern
Maltese language derives. By contrast, the present-day
Sicilian language, which is an
Italo-Dalmatian Romance language, retains very little Siculo-Arabic, with its influence being limited to some 300 words.
Sudan Contacts between Nubians and Arabs long predated the coming of Islam, but the Arabization of the Nile Valley was a gradual process that occurred over a period of nearly one thousand years. Arab
nomads continually wandered into the region in search of fresh pasturage, and Arab seafarers and merchants traded at
Red Sea ports for spices and slaves. Intermarriage and assimilation also facilitated Arabization. Traditional genealogies trace the ancestry of the Nile valley's area of Sudan mixed population to Arab tribes that migrated into the region during this period. Even many non-Arabic-speaking groups claim descent from Arab forebears. The two most important Arabic-speaking groups to emerge in Nubia were the
Ja'alin and the
Juhaynah. In the 12th century, the Arab Ja'alin tribe migrated into
Nubia and
Sudan and gradually occupied the regions on both banks of the
Nile from
Khartoum to
Abu Hamad. They trace their lineage to
Abbas, uncle of the
Islamic prophet
Muhammad. They are of Arab origin, but now of mixed blood mostly with Northern Sudanese and
Nubians. In the 16th and 17th centuries, new Islamic kingdoms were established – the
Funj Sultanate and the
Sultanate of Darfur, starting a long period of gradual
Islamization and
Arabization in Sudan. These sultanates and their societies existed until the Sudan was conquered by the
Ottoman Egyptian invasion in 1820, and in the case of Darfur, even until 1916. In 1846, Arab
Rashaida, who speak
Hejazi Arabic, migrated from the
Hejaz in present-day Saudi Arabia into what is now
Eritrea and north-east Sudan, after tribal warfare had broken out in their homeland. The Rashaida of Sudan live in close proximity with the
Beja people, who speak
Bedawiye dialects in eastern Sudan.
The Sahel In
medieval times, the
Baggara Arabs, a grouping of Arab ethnic groups who speak
Shuwa Arabic (which is one of the regional
varieties of Arabic in Africa), migrated into Africa, mainly between
Lake Chad and southern
Kordofan. Currently, they live in a belt which stretches across
Sudan,
Chad,
Niger,
Nigeria,
Cameroon,
Central African Republic and
South Sudan and they number over six million people. Like other Arabic speaking tribes in the
Sahara and the
Sahel, Baggara tribes have origin ancestry from the
Juhaynah Arab tribes who migrated directly from the
Arabian peninsula or from other parts of
north Africa. Arabic is an official language of Chad and Sudan as well as a
national language in Niger,
Mali,
Senegal, and South Sudan. In addition, Arabic dialects are spoken of minorities in
Nigeria,
Cameroon, and
Central African Republic. ==Arabization in modern times==