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Arabization or Arabicization () is a sociology process of cultural change in which a non-Arab society becomes Arabs, meaning it either directly adopts or becomes strongly influenced by the Arabic, Arab culture, literature, Islamic art, Arabic music, and Arab identity as well as other socio-cultural factors. It is a specific form of cultural assimilation that often includes a language shift. The term applies not only to cultures, but also to individuals, as they acclimate to Arab culture and become "Arabized". Arabization took place after the Muslim conquest of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as during the more recent Arab nationalism policies toward non-Arabic speaking minorities in modern Arab world, such as Algeria, Iraq, Iraq, Claims in Conflict: Reversing Ethnic Cleansing in Northern Iraq. [1] Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, and Sudan.
After the rise of Islam in the Hejaz and subsequent Muslims conquests, Arab culture and language spread outside the Arabian Peninsula through trade and intermarriages between members of the non-Arab local population and the peninsular Arabs. The Arabic language began to serve as a lingua franca in these areas and various dialects were formed. This process was accelerated by the migration of various Arab tribes outside of Arabia, such as the Arab migrations to the Maghreb and the Levant.
The influence of Arabic has been profound in many other countries whose cultures have been influenced by Islam. Arabic was a major source of vocabulary for various languages. This process reached its zenith between the 10th and 14th centuries, widely considered to be the high point of Arab culture, during the Islamic Golden Age.
The Arab Ghassanids were the last major non-Islamic Semitic migration northward out of Greater Yemen in late classic era. They were Greek Orthodox Christian, and clients of the Byzantine Empire. They arrived in Byzantine Syria which had a largely Aramean population. They initially settled in the Hauran region, eventually spreading to the entire Levant (modern Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan), briefly securing governorship of parts of Syria and Transjordan away from the Nabataeans.
The Arab Lakhmid kingdom was founded by the Lakhum tribe that emigrated from Greater Yemen in the 2nd century and ruled by the Banu Lakhm, hence the name given it. They adopted the religion of the Church of the East, founded in Assyria/Asōristān, opposed to the Ghassanids Greek Orthodox Christianity, and were clients of the Sasanian Empire.
The Byzantines and Sasanians used the Ghassanids and Lakhmids to fight proxy wars in Arabia against each other.
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 who, according to some Arab traditions, are "pure" Arabs; however, mostNebes, Norbert, "Epigraphic South Arabian," in Uhlig, Siegbert, Encyclopaedia Aethiopica (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005), p. 335Leonid Kogan and Andrey Korotayev: Sayhadic Languages (Epigraphic South Arabian) // Semitic Languages. London: Routledge, 1997, pp. 157-183. 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.Nebes, Norbert, "Epigraphic South Arabian," in Uhlig, Siegbert, ed. Encyclopaedia Aethiopica (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005), p. 335Leonid Kogan and Andrey Korotayev: Sayhadic Languages (Epigraphic South Arabian) // Semitic Languages. London: Routledge, 1997, p[. 157-183.
Even within Northern Arabia, Arabization occurred to non-Arab populations such as the Hutaym in the northwestern Arabia and the Solluba in the Syrian Desert and the region of Mosul.
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 Monophysitism 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.
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 Berbers population. This initial wave contributed to the Berber adoption of Arab culture. Furthermore, the Arabic spread during this period and drove local Latin (African Romance) 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, Idrisid dynasty, 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.
After establishing Cairo in 969, the Fatimids left rule over Tunisia and eastern Algeria to the local Zirid dynasty (972–1148). 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 Arab historian Ibn Khaldun wrote that the lands ravaged by Banu Hilal invaders had become completely arid desert. 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 Al-Andalus 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. It also heavily transformed the culture of the Maghreb into Arab culture, and spread nomadism in areas where agriculture was previously dominant.
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 , 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.
In 1846, Arab Rashaida people, 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 Bedawiyet dialects in eastern Sudan.
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.
Modern Arabization in Algeria took place to develop and promote Arabic into the nation's education system, government, and media in order to replace the former language that was enforced due to colonization, French. Algeria had been conquered by France and even made to be part of its metropolitan core for 132 years, a significantly longer timespan compared to Morocco and Tunisia, and it was also more influenced by Europe due to the contiguity with Pied-Noir: both Algerian and French nationals used to live in the same towns, resulting in the cohabitation of the two populations.
While trying to build an independent and unified nation-state after the Evian Accords, the Algerian government under Ahmed Ben Bella's rule began a policy of Arabization. Indeed, due to the lasting and deep colonization, French was the major administrative and academic language in Algeria, even more so than in neighboring countries. Since independence, Algerian nationalism was heavily influenced by Arab socialism, Islamism and Arab nationalism.James McDougall. History and the Culture of Nationalism in Algeria. Cambridge, England, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. 25.
However, the process of Arabization was meant not only to promote Islam, but to fix the gap and decrease any conflicts between the different Algerian ethnic groups and promote equality through monolingualism. In 1964 the first practical measure was the Arabization of primary education and the introduction of religious education, the state relying on Egyptian teachers – belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood and therefore particularly religiousAbu-Haidar, Farida. 2000. 'Arabisation in Algeria'. International Journal of Francophone Studies 3 (3): 151–163. – due to its lack of literary Arabic-speakers. In 1968, during the Houari Boumediene regime, Arabization was extended, and a lawordonnance n° 68-92 du 26 avril rendant obligatoire, pour les fonctionnaires et assimilés, la connaissance de la langue nationale (1968) tried to enforce the use of Arabic for civil servants, but again, the major role played by French was only diminished.
The whole policy was ultimately not as effective as anticipated: French has kept its importanceBenrabah, Mohamed. 2007. 'Language Maintenance and Spread: French in Algeria'. International Journal of Francophone Studies 10 (1–2): 193–215 and Berber opposition kept growing, contributing to the 1988 October Riots. Some Berber groups, like the Kabyle people, felt that their ancestral culture and language were threatened and the Arab identity was given more focus at the expense of their own. After the Algerian Civil War, the government tried to enforce even more the use of Arabic, but the relative effect of this policy after 1998 (the limit fixed for complete Arabization) forced the heads of state to make concessions towards Berber languages, recognizing it in 2002article 3bis in the 2002 constitutional revision as another national language that will be promoted. However, because of literary Arabic's symbolic advantage, as well as being a single language as opposed to the fragmented Berber languages, Arabization is still a goal for the state, for example with laws on civil and administrative procedures.loi du 25 fevrier 2008 http://www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca/afrique/algerie_loi-diverses.htm#Loi_n°_08-09_du_25_février_2008_portant_code_de_procédure_civile_et_administrative_
The Modern South Arabian languages have also come under threat in Oman. Hobyot language is considered a critically endangered language. The actual number of speakers is unknown, but it is estimated to be only a few hundred. Most of those who maintain the language are elderly, which adds to the likelihood that language extinction is near. Ethnologue categorizes it as a moribund language (EGIDS 8a). The only fluent speakers that are left are older than the child-bearing age, which ultimately makes integration of the language into subsequent generations highly improbable. Mechanisms of transmission would have to be created from outside the community in order to preserve it.
The Harsusi language is also critically endangered, as most Harsusi children now attend Arabic-language schools and are literate in Arabic, Harsusi is spoken less in the home, meaning that it is not being passed down to future generations.Morris, M. 2007. " The pre-literate, non-Arabic languages of Oman and Yemen. " Lecture conducted from Anglo-Omani and British-Yemeni Societies. With the discovery of oil in the area and the reintroduction of the Arabian Oryx in the area which has provided job opportunities for Harsusi men, this has led to them using primarily Arabic or Mehri language when communicating with their co-workers.Peterson, J.E. " Oman's Diverse Society: Southern Oman." In: Middle East Journal 58.2, 254-269. These factors have also caused many Harasis to speak Arabic and Mehri in addition to or in place of Harsusi. These pressures led one researcher to conclude in 1981 that "within a few generations Harsusi will be replaced by Arabic, more specifically by the Omani Arabic standard dialect"Swiggers, P. 1981. "A Phonological Analysis of the Ḥarsūsi Consonants." In: Arabica 28.2/3, 358-361. though this has not yet materialized. UNESCO has categorised Harsusi as a language that is "definitely endangered".United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), " Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger", 2010.
The Shehri language has also come under threat in recent years, prior to the Arabization of Oman, Shehri was once spoken from Yemen's Hadhramaut region to Ras Al Hadd in Eastern Oman. Until around as little as forty years ago, Shehri was spoken by all of the inhabitants of Dhofar as the common language, including by the native Arabic speakers in Salalah who spoke it fluently. The remainder of Dhofar's inhabitants all spoke Shehri as their mother tongue. Today however Arabic has taken over as the form of mutual communication in Dhofar and is now exclusively spoken by those to whom it is their native tongue. A number of the older generation of Shehri language speakers, particularly those who live in the mountains, do not even speak Arabic and it was only around fifty years ago that most of Dhofar's Shehri speaking population began to learn it. The fact that Arabic has a written form unlike Shehri has also greatly contributed to its decline.
Another language, Bathari language is the most at risk of dying out with its numbers (as of 2019) at currently anywhere from 12 to 17 fluent elderly speakers whereas there are some middle aged speakers but they mix their ancestral tongue with Arabic instead. The tribe seems to be dying out with the language also under threat from modern education solely in Arabic. The Bathari language is nearly extinct. Estimates are that the number of remaining speakers are under 100.
First and foremost, educational policy was the main focus within the process, debates surfaced between officials who preferred a "modern and westernized" education with enforcement of bilingualism while others fought for a traditional route with a focus of "Arabo-Islamic culture". Once the Istiqlal Party took power, the party focused on placing a language policy siding with the traditional ideas of supporting and focusing on Arabic and Islam. The Istiqlal Party implemented the policy rapidly and by the second year after gaining independence, the first year of primary education was completely Arabized, and a bilingual policy was placed for the remaining primary education decreasing the hours of French being taught in a staggered manner.
Arabization in schools had been more time-consuming and difficult than expected because for the first 20 years following independence, politicians (most of which were educated in France or French private school in Morocco) were indecisive as to if Arabization was best for the country and its political and economic ties with European nations. Regardless, complete Arabization can only be achieved if Morocco becomes completely independent from France in all aspects; politically, economically, and socially. Around 1960, Hajj Omar Abdeljalil the education minister at the time reversed all the effort made to Arabize the public school and reverted to pre-independent policies, favoring French and westernized learning. Another factor that reflected the support of reversing the Arabization process in Morocco, was the effort made by King Hassan II, who supported the Arabization process but on the contrary increased political and economic dependence on France. Because Morocco remained dependent on France and wanted to keep strong ties with the Western world, French was supported by the elites more than Arabic for the development of Morocco.
There were legitimate efforts made to Arabize the nation from the 1970s up until 1982, though the efforts came to an end and the process of reversing all the progress of Arabization began and French implementation in schooling took effect. The Arabization process was criticized and linked with Islamic extremists, resulting in the process of "Francophonie" or promoting French ideals, values, and language throughout the nation and placing its importance above Arabic. Although Tunisia gained its independence, nevertheless the elites supported French values above Arabic, the answer to developing an educated and modern nation, all came from Westernization. The constitution stated that Arabic was the official language of Tunisia but nowhere did it claim that Arabic must be utilized within the administrations or every-day life, which resulted in an increase of French usage not only in science and technology courses. Further, major media channels were in French, and government administrations were divided – some were in Arabic while others were in French.
Since independence in 1956, Sudan has been a multilingual country, with Sudanese Arabic as the major first language among the majority and second language by some minority groups such as the Beja people in Eastern Sudan. In the 2005 constitution of the Republic of Sudan and following the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the official languages of Sudan were declared Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and English. Before the independence of South Sudan in 2011, people in the southern parts of the country, who mainly speak Nilo-Saharan or Juba Arabic, were subjected to the official policy of Arabization by the central government in Khartoum. The constitution declared, however, that "all indigenous languages of the Sudan are national languages and shall be respected, developed, and promoted," and it allowed any legislative body below the national level to adopt any other national language(s) as additional official working language(s) within that body's jurisdiction. Though published in 2015, this work covers events in the whole of Sudan (including present-day South Sudan) until the 2011 secession of South Sudan.
MSA is also the language used in Sudan's central government, the press, as well as in official programmes of Sudan television and Radio Omdurman. Several have emerged, and many people have become genuinely multilingual, fluent in a native language spoken at home, a lingua franca, and perhaps other languages.
In the 1970s, Saddam Hussein Moaved between 350,000 and 650,000 Shia Iraqis of Iranian ancestry (Ajam). Most of them went to Iran. Those who could prove an Iranian/Persian ancestry in Iran's court received Iranian citizenship (400,000) and some of them returned to Iraq after Saddam Hussein.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the Anfal campaign destroyed many Kurdish, Assyrian and other ethnic minority villages and enclaves in North Iraq, and their inhabitants were often forcibly relocated to large cities in the hope that they would be Arabized.
This policy drove out 500,000 people in the years 1991–2003. The Baathists also pressured many of these ethnic groups to identify as Arabs, and restrictions were imposed upon their languages, cultural expression and right to self-identification.
"Successive Syrian governments continued to adopt a policy of ethnic discrimination and national persecution against Kurds, completely depriving them of their national, democratic and human rights – an integral part of human existence. The government imposed ethnically-based programs, regulations and exclusionary measures on various aspects of Kurds' lives – political, economic, social and cultural."
The Kurdish language was not officially recognized, it had no place in public schools. A decree from 1989 prohibited the use of Kurdish at the workplace as well as in marriages and other celebrations. In September 1992 came another government decree that children not be registered with Kurdish names. Also businesses could not be given Kurdish names. Books, music, videos and other material could not be published in Kurdish language. Expressions of Kurdish identity like songs and folk dances were outlawed and frequently prosecuted under a purpose-built criminal law against "weakening national sentiment". Celebrating the Nowruz holiday was often constrained.
In 1973, the Syrian authorities confiscated 750 square kilometers of fertile agricultural land in Al-Hasakah Governorate, which were owned and cultivated by tens of thousands of Kurdish citizens, and gave it to Arab families brought in from other provinces. Describing the settlement policies pursued by the regime as part of the "Arab Belt programme, a Kurdish engineer in the region stated:
"The government built them homes for free, gave them weapons, seeds and fertilizer, and created agricultural banks that provided loans. From 1973 to 1975, forty-one villages were created in this strip, beginning ten kilometers west of Ras al-Ayn. The idea was to separate Turkish and Syrian Kurds, and to force Kurds in the area to move away to the cities. Any Arabs could settle in Al-Hasakah, but no Kurd was permitted to move and settle there."
In 2007, in another such scheme in Al-Hasakah governate, 6,000 square kilometers around Al-Malikiyah were granted to Arab families, while tens of thousands of Kurdish inhabitants of the villages concerned were evicted. These and other expropriations of ethnic Kurdish citizens followed a deliberate masterplan, called "Arab Belt initiative", attempting to depopulate the resource-rich Jazeera of its ethnic Kurdish inhabitants and settle ethnic Arabs there.
After the Turkish-led forces had captured Afrin District in early 2018, they began to implement a resettlement policy by moving Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army fighters and Sunni Arab refugees from southern Syria into the empty homes that belonged to displaced locals. The previous owners, most of them Kurds or Yazidis, were often prevented from returning to Afrin. Refugees from Eastern Ghouta, Damascus, said that they were part of "an organised demographic change" which was supposed to replace the Kurdish population of Afrin with an Arab majority.
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