Middle East: 阿拉伯

Arab people (Arabic: عربي‎, ʿarabi) or Arabs (العرب al-ʿarab) are an ethnic group whose members identify along linguistic, culturalor genealogical grounds.^[11] Arabs are a Semitic-speaking people originating in Arabia, but today spread across most of Western Asia and North Africa, and many other parts of the world.^[12]

The Arab World (Arabic: العالم العربي‎, al-ʻālam al-ʻarabi) refers to Arabic-speaking countries stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to theArabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean in the southeast. It consists of 25 countries and territories with a combined population of 325 million people straddling North Africa and Western Asia.

The Arabic language became the lingua franca of the wider Mediterranean region with the rise of Islam in the 7th century CE as the language of the Qur'an, and Arabic language and culture were widely disseminated as a result of early Islamic expansion.^[13]

Though the Arabic language is older, Arabic culture was first spread in Western Asia beginning in the 2nd century as culturallyArab Christians such as the Ghassanids, Lakhmids and Banu Judham began migrating north from Arabia into the Syrian Desertand the Levant.^[14]^[15]

在蒙昧時代，只有阿拉比亞的游牧民族貝都因人被稱為阿拉伯人。

大擴張之後倭馬亞王朝建立，只有源出阿拉伯半島、血統純正的人才有資格自稱阿拉伯人，擁有高貴的身份；

而到了阿拔斯王朝，文明的融合進一步加強。阿拉伯人這個概念，逐漸包括了帝國屬下所有使用阿拉伯語、信仰伊斯蘭的各族人民。以上是簡便的說法，民族的鬥爭與融合要複雜的多。很多人可以承受異族的統治，甚至皈依他們的宗教（一個重要的原因是為了避稅），但他們一直沒有放棄自己的語言。直到阿拔斯王朝的末期，阿拉伯語才成為整個帝國的「普通話」。

和猶太人一樣，同屬閃族的分支。根據伊斯蘭傳統的說法，阿拉伯人的祖先是以實瑪利(易斯馬儀)，而以實瑪利則是以撒(易斯哈格)的同父異母兄弟，是亞伯拉罕(易卜拉欣)的長子。因此，猶太人和阿拉伯人同是兄弟，這一對兄弟的紛爭已經有一千四百餘年了。

阿拉伯人口數量眾多，且與猶太人的紛爭不斷。