The Arabs are Semites and members of the groups of Caucasoid
people who speak a Semitic language.
The Semitic languages include:
Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic Syriac, Akkadian and Phoenician.Click on each of the images below to see a larger version.
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HEBREW |
ARAMAIC SYRIAC |
AKKADIAN |
PHOENICIAN |
PRE-ISLAMIC ARAB HISTORY
Early Arab history was handed down from one generation to the other by word of mouth, poems, legends and proverbs hundred of years after the occurrence of the events which they were referring to.
WHAT WAS DISCOVERED?
In the nineteenth century many attempts took place to decipher "cuneiform" writings of the pre-Christian era. Successful attempts revealed a striking similarity between the languages of the Babylonians, Assyrians (note these are different from the Syrians), Aramaic, Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Amorites, Hebrews, Arabians and Abyssinians (currently Ethiopia).
WHO IS SEM (SHEM)?
This discovery indicated that all these people must have come from the same roots, and they must have common ancestors. Their common ancestors were the original "Arabs" or "Semites" referring to the tribe of Sem (or Shem) one of three sons of Noah.
The word "Arab" means "desert dweller" in the Semitic language, and the earliest Arab settlement was in Yarab where Yemen is located today. These were the fifth generation descendants of Sem (or Shem).
Around 3500 B.C.
EMERGENCE AND DECLINE OF GREAT CIVILIZATIONS
When the Arabian Peninsula could not sustain the growing population of its Arab inhabitants any more, migration started around 3500 B.C. into two major directions to find the necessary resources.One migration took place along the west coast of Arabia called "Hejaz" and through "Sinai" into Egypt where the Semites mixed with the Hamites (descendants of Ham son of Noah) to produce the Egyptians. They absorbed elements of science and culture to produce the basis of our current civilization.
The second migration took place along the eastern coast of Arabia into the land of the Mesopotamia, which is today's Iraq, and settled in the valley of The Tigris and The Euphrates, where the Semites mixed with the non-Semitic Sumerians to produce the Babylonians. Like in Egypt they adapted local resources and scientific methods to their own needs and produced great civilizations.
Thousand years later, the Semites mixed also with the population in Syria and Palestine and created the Amorites and the Phoenicians.
Around 1200 B.C. – 900 B.C.
Around 1200 B.C., the nomadic Hebrews arrived in Palestine and established the world's first monotheistic faith, which in turn became the base of the Christian and the Moslem belief.Around that same time frame, the Arameans moved into Syria and established their capital at Damascus, which is the capital of Syria today.
Around 900 B.C.
Around the ninth century B.C. the Arameans lost their empire to the Assyrian descendants of the Babylonians who originated in Nineveh which is today's Mosul city in Iraq, and created a great empire that stretched from Babylonia in southern Iraq to Armenia in the north and Phoenicia in today's Lebanon, in the west. This empire was as powerful as the Babylonian empire but never surpassed it.
Around 538 B.C. – 332 B.C. – 63 B.C.
The Chaldeans succeeded the Assyrians in ruling Mesopotamia, Syria and southern Turkey for a short period and until the invasion of the Parthian ancestors of today's Persians, in 538 B.C., followed by the Greeks in 332 B.C., and the Romans in 63 B.C.
Modern History
The great empires of Europe in modern history concentrated their attention on the fertile northern and western Arabian territories. They left the desert wastes of the Arabian Peninsula alone.
