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Map of the Arab world

Map of the Arab World

The Arabs (Arabic: العرب‎ ʻarab) are an ethnic group widespread in the Middle East and North Africa. Most Arabs today follow the religion of Islam, whose greatest prophet is Muhammad. In Islamic and Jewish tradition, Arabs are a Semitic people who trace their ancestry from Ishmael, a son of the ancient patriarch Ibrahim and Hagar.

History[]

Arabs are first mentioned in Biblical and Assyrian texts of the ninth to fifth centuries BCE where they appear as nomadic pastoralists inhabiting the Syrian Desert. Proto-Arabs are presumed to have originated from what is now modern-day northern Arabia, Jordan and southern Syria.

One of the most dramatic and sudden movements of any people in history is the expansion, by conquest, of the Arabs in the 7th century. When Muhammad dies in 632, the western half of Arabia is Muslim. Two years later the entire peninsula has been brought to the faith, and Muslim armies have moved up into the desert between Syria and Mesopotamia.The great Christian cities of Syria and Palestine fall to the Arabs in rapid succession from 635. Damascus, in that year, is the first to be captured. Antioch follows in 636. And 638 brings the greatest prize of all, in Muslim terms, when Jerusalem is taken after a year's siege.

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