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ARABS , the name given to that branch of the SemiticSee also: race which from the earliest historic times inhabited the. See also: south-western portion of the Arabian peninsula
.
The name, to-See also: day the collective See also: term for the overwhelming majority of the surviving Semitic peoples, was originally restricted to the nomad tribes who ranged the See also: north of the peninsula See also: east of See also: Palestine and the Syro-Arabian See also: desert
.
In this narrow sense " Arab " is used in the See also: Assyrian inscriptions, in the Old Testament and in the Minaean inscriptions
.
Before the Christian era it had come to include all the inhabitants of the peninsula
.
This, it is suggested, may have been due to the fact that the " Arabs "
i See also: Lord Cromer in See also: Egypt, No
.
1, 1905, p
.
2
.
were the chief See also: people near the See also: Greek and See also: Roman colonies in See also: Syria and See also: Mesopotamia
.
Classical writers use the term both in its See also: local and general sense
.
The Arabs to-day occupy, besides See also: Arabia, a See also: part of Mesopotamia, the western shores of the lied See also: Sea, the eastern See also: coast of the Persian Gulf and the north of See also: Africa
.
The finest type of the race is found in south Arabia among the Ariba Arabs, among the mountaineers of See also: Hadramut and See also: Yemen and among the Bedouin tribes roaming over the interior of central and See also: northern Arabia
.
The Arabs of the coasts and those of Mesopotamia are hybrids, showing See also: Turkish, See also: Negroid and Hamitic crossings
.
The people of Syria and Palestine are hybrids of Arab, Phoenician and Jewish descent . The theory that early Arab settlements were made on the east coast of Africa as far asSee also: Sofala south of the See also: Zambezi, is without foundation; the earliest Arab See also: settlement on the east coast of Africa that can be proved is Magadoxo (See also: Mukdishu) in the loth century, and the ruined cities of Mashonaiand, once supposed to be the remains of Arab settlements, are now known to be of See also: medieval See also: African origin
.
On the East African coast-lands Arab influence is still considerable
.
Traces of the Arab type are met with in See also: Asia Minor, the See also: Caucasus, western See also: Persia and See also: India, while the influence of the Arab language and See also: civilization is found in See also: Europe (See also: Malta and See also: Spain), See also: China and Central Asia
.
The Arabs are at once the most See also: ancient as they in many ways
are the purest surviving type of the true Semite
.
Certainly
See also: Ethnology. the inhabitants of Yemen are not, and in historic
times never were, pure Semites
.
Somali and other
elements, generally described under the collective racial name
of Hamitic, are clearly traceable; but the inland Arabs still
See also: present the nearest approach to the See also: primitive Semitic type
.
The origin of the Arab race can only be a See also: matter of conjecture
.
From the remotest historic times it has been divided into two
branches, which from their See also: geographical position it is simplest
to See also: call the North Arabians and the South Arabians
.
Arabic
and Jewish tradition trace the descent of the latter from Joktan
(Arabic Kahtan) son of Heber, of the former from Ishmael
.
The South Arabians—the older branch--were settled in the
south-western part of the peninsula centuries before the uprise
of the Ishmaelites
.
These latter include not only Ishmael's
See also: direct descendants through the twelve princes (Gen. See also: xxv
.
16), but the Edomites, Moabites, See also: Ammonites, Midianites and other
tribes
.
This ancient and undoubted division of the Arab race
—roughly represented to-day by the universally adopted
See also: classification into Arabs proper and Bedouin Arabs (see
BEDOUINS)—has caused much dispute among ethnologists
.
All authorities agree in declaring the race to be Semitic in the
broadest ethnological signification of that term, but some
thought they saw in this division of the race an indication of a
dual origin
.
They asserted that the purer branch of the Arab
See also: family was represented by the sedentary Arabs who were of
Hamitic (Biblical Cushite), i.e
.
African ancestry, and that the
nomad Arabs were Arabs only by adoption, and were nearer
akin to the true Semite as sons of Ishmael
.
Many arguments
were adduced in support of this theory
.
(I) The unquestioned
division in remote historic times of the Arab race, and the See also: im-
memorial hostility between the two branches
.
(2) The concur-
rence of pre-Islamitic literature and records in representing the
first settlement of the " pure " Arab as made in the extreme
south-western part of the peninsula, near See also: Aden
.
(3) The use
of Himyar, " dusky " or " red " (suggesting African See also: affinities),
as the name sometimes for the ruling class, sometimes for the
entire people
.
(4) The African affinities of the Himyaritic
language
.
(5) The resemblance of the grammar of the Arabic
now spoken by the " pure " Arabs, where it differs from that
of the North, to the Abyssinian grammar
.
(6) The marked
resemblance of the pre-Islamitic institutions of Yemen and its
allied provinces—its monarchies, courts, armies and serfs—to
the See also: historical Africo-See also: Egyptian type and even to See also: modern Abys-
sinia
.
(7) The physique of the " pure " Arab, the shape and See also: size of the See also: head, the slenderness of the See also: lower limbs, all suggesting
an African rather than an See also: Asiatic origin
.
(8) The habits of the
people, viz. their sedentary rather than nomad occupations, their fondness for See also: village See also: life, for dancing, See also: music and society, their cultivation of the See also: soil, having more in See also: common with African life than with that of the western Asiatic continent
.
(q) The extreme facility of See also: marriage which exists in all classes of the See also: southern Arabs with the African races, the fecundity of such unions and the slightness or even See also: total See also: absence of any caste feeling between the dusky " pure " Arab and the still darker African, pointing to a community of origin
.
And further arguments were found in the characteristics of the Bedouins, their pastoral and nomad tendencies; the peculiarities of their idiom allied to the See also: Hebrew; their strong clan feeling, their continued resistance to anything like See also: regal power or centralized organization
.
Such, briefly, were the more important arguments; but latterly ethnologists are inclined to agree that there is little really to be said for the African ancestry theory and that the Arab race had its beginning in the deserts of south Arabia, that in See also: short the true Arabs are See also: aborigines
.
Mahommedans call the centuries before the See also: Prophet's See also: birth wagt-el jahiliya, " the See also: time of ignorance," but the fact is that the Arab See also: world has in some respects never since reached so high a level as it had in those days which it suits Moslems to paint in dreary See also: colours
.
Writing was a See also: fine See also: art and See also: poetry flourished
.
Eloquence was an accomplishment all strove to acquire, and each See also: year there were assemblies, lasting sometimes a See also: month, which were devoted to contests of skill among the orators and poets, to listen to whose friendly rivalry tribesmen journeyed long distances
.
Last, that surest See also: index of a people's civilization —the treatment of women—contrasted very favourably with their position under the See also: Koran
.
See also: Women had rights and were respected
.
The veil and the See also: harem See also: system were unknown before Mahomet
.
According to See also: Noldeke the Nabataean inscriptions and coins show that women held a high social position in northern Arabia, owning large estates and trading independently
.
Polyandry and polygamy, it is true, were practised, but the right of See also: divorce belonged to the woman as well as the See also: man
.
Two kinds of marriage were celebrated
.
One was a purely See also: personal See also: con-See also: tract, with no witnesses, the wife not leaving her home or passing under marital authority
.
The other was a formal marriage, the woman becoming subject to her See also: husband by See also: purchase or capture
.
Even See also: captive women were not kept in See also: slavery
.
Arabic See also: wealth and culture had indeed thus early reached a stage which justified Professor See also: Robertson See also: Smith in writing, " In this
See also: period the name of Arab was associated to Western writers with ideas of effeminate indolence and peaceful opulence
.
. . the See also: golden age of Yemen." But long before Mahomet's time this early Arab predominance was at an end, possibly due in See also: great measure to the loss of the See also: caravan See also: trade through the increase of See also: shipping
.
The abandonment of great cities and the ruin of many tribes contributed to the apparent nationalization of the Arab peoples
.
Though the traditional jealousy and hostility of the two branches, the Yemenites and Maadites or Ishmaelites, remained, the Arab world had attained by the levelling See also: process of common misfortune the superficial unity it presents to-day
.
The nation thus formed, never a nation in the strict sense of the word, was distinctively and thoroughly Semitic in character and language, and has remained unchanged to the present day
.
The sporadic brilliancy of the ancient Arab kingdoms gave place to a social and See also: political lethargy, the continuation of which for many centuries made the uprise of Saracenic empires seem a miracle to a world ignorant of the Arab past
.
The Arab race up to Mahomet's day had been in the See also: main See also: pagan
.
Monotheism, if it ever prevailed, early gave place to See also: sun and See also: star worship, or See also: simple See also: idolatry
.
Professor Robertson Smith suggests that See also: totemism was the earliest See also: form of Arabian idolatry, and that each tribe had its sacred animal
.
This he supports by the fact that some tribal names were derived from those of animals, and that animal-worship was not unknown in Arabia
.
What seems certain is that Arab See also: religion was of a complex hybrid nature, not much to be wondered at when one remembers that Arabia was the See also: asylum of many religious refugees, Zoroastrians, Jews,
Christians
.
In the later pre-Islamitic times See also: spirits, or jinns, as they were called, of which each tribe or family had its own, were worshipped, and there was but a vague idea of a Supreme Being
.
Images of the jinns to the number of 36o, one for each day of the lunar year, were collected in the See also: temple at See also: Mecca, the chief seat of their worship
.
That worship was of a sanguinary nature
.
Human sacrifice was fairly frequent
.
Under the See also: guise of religion See also: female See also: infanticide was a common practice
.
At Mecca the great See also: object of worship was a plain black See also: stone, and to it pilgrimages were made from every part of Arabia
.
This stone was so sacred to the Arabs that even Mahomet dared not dispense with it, and it remains the central object of sanctity in the Ka'ba to-day
.
The temples of the
See also: Sabaeans and the Minaeans were built east of their cities, a fact suggesting sun-worship, yet this is not believed to have been the cult of the Minaeans
.
Common to both was the worship of Attar, the male Ashtoreth . With the appearance of Mahomet the Arabs took anew a place in the world'sSee also: history
.
Physically the Arabs are one of the strongest and noblest races of the world
.
Baron de Larrey, surgeon-general to Physique
.
See also: Napoleon on his expedition to Egypt and Syria,
writes: " Their See also: physical structure is in all respects more perfect than that of Europeans; their See also: organs of sense exquisitely acute, their size above the See also: average of men in general, their figure robust and elegant, their colour See also: brown; their intelligence proportionate to their physical perfection and without doubt
See also: superior, other things being equal, to that of other nations." The typical Arab face is of an See also: oval form, lean-featured; the eyes a brilliant black, deep-set under bushy eyebrows; nose aquiline, forehead straight but not high
.
In See also: body the Arab is See also: muscular and long-limbed, but lean
.
De-formed individuals or dwarfs are rare among Arabs; nor, except leprosy, which is common, does any disease seem to be hereditary among them
.
They often suffer from ophthalmia, though not in the virulent Egyptian form
.
They are scrupulously clean in their persons, and take See also: special care of their teeth, which are generally See also: white and even
.
Simple and abstemious in their habits, they often reach an extreme yet healthy old age; nor is it common among them for the faculties of the mind to give way sooner than those of the body
.
Thus, physically, they yield to few races, if any, of mankind;
mentally, they surpass most, and are only kept back in the
character.
See also: march of progress by the remarkable defect of or-
ganizing power'and incapacity for combined
See also: action
.
Lax and imperfect as are their forms of See also: government, it is with
impatience that even these are See also: borne; of the four caliphs
who alone reigned—if reign theirs could be called—in Arabia
proper, three died a violent See also: death; and of the Wahhabi princes,
the most genuine representatives in later times of pure Arab
See also: rule, almost all have met the same See also: fate
.
The Arab face, which is not unkindly, but never smiling, expresses that dignity and gravity which are typical of the race . While the Arab is always polite, See also: good-natured, manly and brave, he is also revengeful,
cruel, untruthful and superstitious
.
Of the Arab nature Burck-
hardt (other authorities, e.g
.
Barth and Rohlfs, are far less com-
plimentary) wrote: " The Arab displays his manly character when
he defends his See also: guest at the peril of his own life, and submits
to the reverses of See also: fortune, to disappointment and See also: distress, with
the most patient resignation
.
He is distinguished from a Turk
by the virtues of pity and gratitude
.
The Turk is cruel, the Arab
of a more kind temper; he pities and supports the wretched, and
never forgets the generosity shown to him even by an enemy."
The Arab will lie and cheat and swear false oaths, but once his
word is pledged he may be trusted to the last
.
There are some
oaths such as Wallah (by See also: Allah) which mean nothing, but such
an See also: oath as the threefold one with wa, bi and to as particles of
swearing the meanest thief will not break
.
In temper, or at
least in the manifestation of it, the Arab is studiously See also: calm;
and he rarely so much as raises his See also: voice in a dispute
.
But this
outward tranquillity covers feelings alike keen and permanent;
and the remembrance of a rash jest or injurious word, uttered
285
years before, leads only too often to that See also: blood-revenge which is a sacred duty everywhere in Arabia
.
There exist, however, marked tribal or almost semi-See also: national diversities of character among the Arabs
.
Thus, the inhabitants of See also: Hejaz are noted for courtesy and blamed for fickleness; those of See also: Nejd are distinguished by their stern tenacity and dignity of deportment; the nations of Yemen are gentle and pliant, but revengeful; those of See also: Hasa and See also: Oman cheerful and fond of sport, though at the same time turbulent and unsteady
.
Anything approaching to a See also: game is rare in Nejd, and in the Hejaz religion and the yearly occurrence of the See also: pilgrim ceremonies almost exclude all public' diversions; but in Yemen the well-known game of the " jerid," or palm-stick, with dances and music is not rare
.
In Oman such amusements are still more frequent . Again in Yemen and Oman, See also: coffee-houses, where people resort for conversation, and where public recitals, songs and other amusements are indulged in, stand open all day; while nothing of the sort is tolerated in Nejd
.
So too the ceremonies of circumcision or marriage are occasions of gaiety and pastime on the coast, but not in the central provinces
.
An Arab See also: town, or even village, except it be the merest See also: hamlet, is invariably walled round; but seldom is a stronger material than dried See also: earth used; the walls are occasionally
flanked by towers of like construction
.
A dry ditch See also: Manners and often surrounds the whole
.
The streets are irregular customs
.
and seldom parallel
.
The Arab, indeed, lacks an
See also: eye for the straight
.
The Arab See also: carpenter cannot form a right angle; an Arab servant cannot place a See also: cloth square on a table
.
The Ka'ba at Mecca has none of its sides or angles equal
.
The houses are of one or two storeys, rarely of three, with flat mud See also: roofs, little windows and no See also: external See also: ornament
.
If the town be large, the expansion of one or two streets becomes a market-place, where are ranged a few shops of eatables, drugs, coffee, cottons or other goods
.
Many of these shops are kept by women . The chief mosque is always near the market-place; so is also the governor's residence, which, except in size and in being more or less fortified Arab fashion, does not differ from a privateSee also: house
.
Drainage is unthought of; but the extreme dryness of the air obviates the inconvenience and disease that under other skies could not fail to ensue, and which in the damper climates of the coast make themselves seriously felt
.
But the streets are roughly swept every day, each householder taking care of the roadway that lies before his own door
.
Whitewash and colour are occasionally used in Yemen, Hejaz and Oman; elsewhere a See also: light ochre tint, the colour of the sun-dried bricks, predominates, and gives an Arab town the appearance at a distance of a large dust-heap in the centre of the bright See also: green ring of gardens and palm-groves
.
Baked bricks are unknown in Arabia, and stone buildings are rare, especially in Nejd
.
Palm branches and the like, See also: woven in wattles, form the dwellings. of the poorer classes in the southern districts
.
Many Arab towns possess See also: watch-towers, like huge round factory chimneys in appearance, built of sun-dried bricks, and varying in height from 5o to too ft. or even more
.
Indeed, two of these constructions at the town of Birkat-el-Mauj, in Oman, are said to be each of 170 ft. in height, and that of Nezwah, in the same province, is reckoned at too; but these are of stone
.
The See also: principal feature in the interior of an Arab house is the "kahwah " or coffee-See also: room
.
It is a large apartment spread with mats, and sometimes furnished with carpets and a few cushions
.
At one end is a small See also: furnace or fireplace for preparing coffee
.
In this room the men congregate; here guests are received, and even lodged; women rarely enter it, except at times when strangers are unlikely to be present . Some of these apartments are very spacious and supported by pillars; one See also: wall is usually built transversely to the compass direction of the Ka'ba; it serves to facilitate the performance of prayer by those who may happen to be in the kahwah at the appointed times
.
The other rooms are ordinarily small
.
The Arabs are proverbially hospitable
.
A stranger's arrival is often the occasion of an amicable dispute among the wealthier inhabitants as to who shall have the See also: privilege of receiving him
.
Arab See also: cookery is of the simplest
.
Roughly-ground See also: wheat cooked with butter; See also: bread in thin cakes, prepared on a heated iron See also: plate or against the walls of an open oven; a few vegetables, generally of the leguminous kinds; boiled mutton or camel's flesh, among the wealthy; See also: dates and fruits—this is the menu of an ordinary See also: meal
.
See also: Rice is eaten by the See also: rich and See also: fish is common on the coasts
.
See also: Tea, introduced only a few decades back, is now largely drank
.
A See also: food of which the Arabs are fond is locusts boiled in See also: salt and See also: water and then dried in the sun
.
They taste like stale shrimps, but there is a great sale for them
.
Spices are freely employed; butter much too largely for a See also: European taste
.
After eating, the hands are always washed, See also: soap or the ashes of an alkaline plant being used
.
A covered censer with burning See also: incense is then passed round, and each guest perfumes his hands, face, and sometimes his clothes; this censer serves also on first receptions and whenever special honour is intended
.
In Yemen and Oman scented water often does duty for it
.
Coffee, without milk or See also: sugar, but flavoured with an aromatic seed brought from India, is served to all
.
This, too, is done on the occasion of a first welcome, when the cups often make two or three successive rounds; but, in fact, coffee is made and drunk at any time, as frequently as the See also: desire for it may suggest itself; and each time fresh grains are sifted, roasted, pounded and boiled—a very laborious process, and one that requires in the better sort of establishments a special servant or slave for the See also: work
.
Arabs generally make but one solid meal a day—that of supper, soon after sunset
.
Even then they do not eat much, gluttony being rare among them, and even daintiness esteemed disgraceful
.
See also: Wine, like other fermented drinks, is prohibited by the Koran, and is, in fact, very rarely taken, though the inhabitants of the mountains of Oman are said to indulge in it
.
On the coast spirits of the worst quality are sometimes procured; opium and See also: hashish are sparingly indulged in
.
On the other See also: hand, wherever Wahhabiism has See also: left freedom of action, See also: tobacco-smoking prevails; short pipes of See also: clay, long pipes with large open See also: bowls, or most frequently the water-See also: pipe or " narghileh," being used
.
The tobacco smoked is generally strong and is either brought from the neighbourhood of See also: Bagdad or grown in the country itself
.
The strongest quality is that of Oman; the leaf is broad and coarse, and retains its green colour even when dried; a few whiffs have been known to produce absolute stupor
.
The aversion of the See also: Wahhabis to tobacco is well known; they entitle it " mukhzi " or " the shameful," and its use is punished with blows, as the public use of wine would be elsewhere
.
In dress much variety prevails
.
The loose See also: cotton drawers girded at the See also: waist, which in hot climates do duty for See also: trousers, Uress. are not often worn, even by the upper classes, in Nejd
or Yemama, where a kind of See also: silk dressing-See also: gown is thrown over the long See also: shirt; frequently, too, a brown or black cloak distinguishes the wealthier citizen; his head-dress is a handkerchief fastened round the head by a See also: band
.
But in Hejaz, Yemen and Oman, turbans are by no means uncommon; the ordinary colour is white; they are worn over one or more See also: skull-caps
.
Trousers also form part of the dress in the two former of these districts; and a voluminous See also: sash, in which a See also: dagger or an inkstand is See also: stuck, is wrapped round the waist
.
The poorer folk, however, and the villagers often content themselves with a broad piece of cloth round the loins, and another across the shoulders
.
In Oman trousers are rare, but over the shirt a long gown, of See also: peculiar and somewhat close-fitting cut, dyed yellow, is often worn
.
The women in these provinces commonly put on loose drawers and some add veils to their head-dresses; they are over-fond of ornaments (gold and See also: silver); their hair is generally arranged in a long plait See also: hanging down behind
.
All men allow their beards and moustaches full growth, though this is usually scanty
.
Most Arabs shave their heads, and indeed all, strictly speaking, ought by See also: Mahommedan See also: custom to do so
.
An Arab seldom or never dyes his hair
.
Sandals are worn more often than shoes; none but the very poorest go barefoot
.
Slavery is still, as of old times, a recognized institution through-out Arabia; and an illicit See also: traffic in blacks is carried on along the coasts of the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea
.
The Slavery. slaves themselves were obtained chiefly from the east
African coast districts down as far as See also: Zanzibar, but this source of supply was practically closed by the end of the 19th century
.
Slaves are usually employed in Arabia as herdsmen or as domestic servants, rarely in agricultural work; they also form a considerable portion of the bodyguards with which Eastern greatness loves to surround itself
.
Like their countrymen elsewhere, they readily embrace the religion of their masters and become zealous Mahommedans
.
Arab custom enfranchises a slave who has accepted See also: Islam at the end of seven years of bondage, and when that period has arrived, the master, instead of exacting from his slave the price of freedom, generally, on giving him his liberty, adds the requisite means for supporting himself and a family in comfort
.
Further, on every important occasion, such as a birth, circumcision, a marriage or a death, one or more of the See also: household slaves are sure of acquiring their freedom
.
Hence Arabia has a considerable See also: free black population; and these again, by inter-marriage with the whites around, have filled the See also: land with a mulatto breed of every shade, till, in the eastern and southern provinces especially, a white skin is almost an exception
.
In Arabia no See also: prejudice exists against See also: negro alliances; no social or political See also: line separates the African from the Arab
.
A negro may become a sheik, a kadi, an amir, or whatever his industry and his talents may render him capable of being
.
This is particularly so in Nejd, Yemen and Hadramut; in the Hejaz and the north a faint line of demarcation may be observed between the races
.
The Arabs are good soldiers but poor generals
.
Personal courage, wonderful endurance of privation, fixity of purpose, and a contempt of death are qualities common to Military almost every race, tribe and clan that compose the qualities
.
Arab nation . In skirmishing and harassing they have few equals, while at close quarters they have often shown them-selves capable of maintaining, armed with swords and spears alone, a desperate struggle against guns and bayonets, neither giving nor receiving quarter . Nor are they wholly ignorant of tactics, their armies, when engaged inSee also: regular war, being divided into centre and wings,-with skirmishers in front and a reserve behind, often screened at the outset of the engagement by the camels of the expedition
.
These animals, kneeling and ranged in long parallel rows, form a sort of entrenchment, from behind which the soldiers of the main body fire their matchlocks, while the front divisions, opening out, See also: act on either flank of the enemy
.
This arrangement of troops may be traced in Arab records as far back as the 5th century, and was often exemplified during the Wahhabi See also: wars
.
Arab women are scarcely less distinguished for their bravery than the men
.
Records of armed heroines occur frequently in the See also: chronicles or myths of the pre-Islamitic time; and in authentic history the See also: Battle of the Camel, 656 A.D., where Ayesha, the wife of Mahomet, headed the See also: charge, is only the first of a number of instances in which Arab See also: amazons have taken, sword in hand, no inconsiderable share in the wars and victories of Islam
.
Even now it is the custom for an Arab force to be always accompanied by some courageous See also: maiden, who, mounted on a blackened camel, leads the onslaught, singing verses of encouragement for her own, of insult for the opposing tribe
.
Round her litter the fiercest of the battle rages, and her capture or death is the See also: signal of utter rout; it is hers also to head the See also: triumph after the victory of her clan
.
There is little See also: education, in the European sense of the word, in Arabia
.
Among the Bedouins there are no See also: schools, and few, even of the most elementary character, in the towns Edacadon. or villages
.
Where they exist, little beyond the
See also: mechanical See also: reading of the Koran, and the equally mechanical learning of it by rote, is taught
.
On the other hand, Arab male- See also: children, brought up from early years among the grown-up men of the house or See also: tent, learn more from their own parents and at home than is common in other countries; reading and writing are in most instances thus acquired, or rather
transmitted; besides such general principles of grammar and eloquence, often of poetry and history, as the elders themselves may be able to impart
.
To this family schooling too are due the good manners, politeness, and self-restraint that early distinguish Arab children
.
In the very few instances where a public school of a higher class exists, writing, grammar and rhetoric sum up its teachings
.
See also: Law and See also: theology, in the narrow sense that both these words have in the Islamitic system, are explained in afternoon lectures given in most mosques; and some verses of the Koran, with one of the accepted commentaries, that of Baidawi for example, form the basis of the instruction
.
Great See also: attention is paid to accuracy of grammar and purity of diction throughout Arabia; yet something of a See also: dialectic difference may be observed in the various districts
.
The purest Arabic, that which is as nearly as possible identical in the choice of words and in its inflections with the language of the Koran, is spoken in Nejd, and the best again of that in the province of See also: Sutler
.
Next in purity comes the Arabic of Shammar
.
Throughout the Hejaz in general, the language, though extremely elegant, is not equally correct; in el-Hasa, Bahrein and Oman it is decidedly influenced by the See also: foreign See also: element called Nabataean
.
In Yemen, as in other southern districts of the peninsula, Arabic merges insensibly into the Himyaritic or African dialect of Hadramut and Mahra
.
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There are many superstitions about Arabs in ancient and recent centuries e.g. perfect physical structure.This is just a joke,many diseases and defects are well known in Arabs since early times especially syphilis and their manner of conduct suggests strongly a defeciency complex not dignity . As they were a nomadic people they also play a role of robbers not only of neighbours but for any thing they can steal.There ancient history includes nothing but wars and invasions under the name of pride and elogance.This is reflected completely in their culture esp. after Muhammed by adopting the theory of chosen people,sons of Ishmael but a correct study of this myth explains that they are outcasted men.Study of their mythology,holy book,poetry etc. shows they add nothing to human civilizations and all achievements attributed to Arabs in the Middle Ages are done by Persians or Assyrians or Egyptians.We must look to Arab culture specially religion as a combination of Jewish,Yemen,and Hindu cultures with Egyptian ,Mesoptamian effects.Nowadays,terrorism is a substitute of robbery and high minerates is a substitute of defeciency complex.
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