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ARAB,(1) indigenous people Middle East and North Africa who speak Arabic and identify with Arab culture; (2) Arabic-speaking desert nomads, Bedouins. The second meaning of the term is older, since for the first time the term Arabs began to be used to refer to the nomads of northern Arabia already in the 9th century. BC. The first meaning, which is broader, is more applicable to modern realities and corresponds to the practice of its use by most Arabs.
The countries, the majority of whose population are Arabs in the broad sense, form in their unity what has come to be called today the Arab world. In northern Africa, these are Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, and Egypt; in western Asia, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq; in Arabia - Saudi Arabia, Yemen and a number of other coastal states. small number Arab population also available in Israel. The Arab world has almost 130 million people, of which 116 million are Arabs.
However, the population Arab world does not have common origin. Although early history Arab culture was associated with the Arabian Peninsula, over the centuries, many other peoples were Arabized through the adoption of the Arabic language and Arabic culture. For almost all of them, Arabization went through Islam, the main religion of the Arab world. Arabs are as diverse in their physical characteristics as they are in ethnic origin. Arabic " racial type" does not exist. Part of the Arabs corresponds stereotypical description thin people with an "aquiline nose", dark skin and black hair, but these features are not typical. Negroid Arabs are similar in appearance to sub-Saharan Africans, and light-skinned Maghreb Arabs are often physically almost indistinguishable from most Europeans.
The Arabs are divided into three main groups: Bedouin pastoralists engaged in breeding sheep, goats or camels, peasant farmers and urban dwellers. In addition, there are several small groups leading a different lifestyle. Some Arabs live in villages, farming for a few months of the year and migrating with their animals for the rest of the year. One such group is the Sudanese baggara pastoralists. The Arabs of the swamps of the Tigris and Euphrates deltas are fishermen and hunters; The main occupation of the inhabitants of the coastal Arab villages, especially on the Red Sea, is sea fishing.
Having long served as an arena for mixing different cultures, trade and other contacts between three continents, the Arab world includes a number of non-Arab minorities. Although many of them have had significant Arab influences, none of them consider themselves Arabs. Such minorities include the descendants of the pre-Arab peoples of northern Africa, such as the Berbers and Tuaregs, Kurds in Iraq who speak a language related to Persian, as well as Jews, Armenians and some peoples of the geographic region of Sudan. The Copts, the Christians of Egypt, also speak Arabic, but consider themselves to be the original pre-Arab Egyptians.
BEDOUIN HERDERS
Most Bedouins live in Arabia and the neighboring desert areas of Jordan, Syria and Iraq, but some Bedouins who insist on their Arab origin live in Egypt and the northern Sahara. The exact number of Bedouins is unknown, since no serious attempts were made to conduct a census of these nomads. According to rough estimates, their number is from 4 to 5 million people.
The image of the Bedouin, often considered the most colorful figure among the Arabs, is largely romanticized by Europeans and other Arabs. Many see the Bedouins as the "purest" Arabs, up until the 20th century. who have kept the way of life of their ancestors unchanged. In reality, they, like most peoples, are subject to continuous external influences and changes in the course of their history.
Bedouin society.
The Bedouin lead a strictly tribal lifestyle. The Bedouin tribe consists of several groups who consider themselves related by kinship through the male line and descended from a common male ancestor.
Tribes can have from a few hundred to fifty thousand members. Each tribal group is subdivided into own names small subgroups with their own common ancestors etc. down to a division of several families called "hamula" (hamulah). Some of the largest tribes have up to five or six levels of such subgroups. "Hamula" consists of a number of closely related families, it can be a group of brothers or cousins with their families living together, grazing their livestock together and staying together when moving. The family is the smallest social unit, consisting of a man, his wife or wives, their children, and sometimes including the wives and children of the man's sons.
The organization of the Bedouin tribe is mobile. Its parts often bud off and unite again, from time to time strangers join the tribe. But at the same time, the very idea of kinship remains unchanged, and genealogies are transformed through the invention of new kinship ties and in other ways in accordance with the changes taking place in the composition of the tribe or its divisions.
The tribe and each of its parts is headed by a sheikh, who is considered senior in wisdom and experience. In the largest divisions, the position of sheikh can be inherited in the circle of certain families. Shaykhs of all levels manage jointly with a council of adult males.
The Bedouin prefer marriages within the "hamula". Often these are related marriages, since all people of the same generation in the “khamul” are cousins and cousins. Ideally, marriages are arranged by the parents of the young couple, and the "dowry" for the bride is provided by the groom's family. Despite these customs, Bedouin poetry is rich in stories of secret love and escapism with lovers.
economic life.
Bedouins lead a nomadic lifestyle. In winter, when they fall light rain, "hamuls" constantly migrate with herds and flocks through the desert in search of water and pastures. Most of them follow a regular sequence in visiting certain wells and oases, i.e. plots of fertility in the lifeless expanses of the desert. In the completely dry summer time, the "hamuls" gather near the tribal wells, where the water supply is more reliable. Each tribe and its divisions are forced to defend their grazing lands, they often have to fight for the rights to land and water. Some Bedouin sheikhs own entire agricultural areas, receiving tribute from them in addition to their usual means of subsistence.
The Bedouins recognize two main activities - camel breeding and sheep and goat breeding. The camel breeders consider themselves superior to the sheep breeders, and sometimes the latter sometimes pay tribute to the former. Sheep breeders often maintain close relations with the inhabitants of villages and cities, sometimes hiring themselves as shepherds. Camel breeders, who consider themselves the only true Arabs, try not to resort to this method of activity, seeing it as a humiliation of their dignity. For all Bedouins, the camel is a very valuable animal both for riding and for transporting goods. This animal supplies Bedouin camel breeders with milk for food and wool for making cloth, and also serves as a valuable trade item.
Necessity forces the Bedouin to produce some of the necessary food themselves, but they usually consider such activities degrading and therefore enter into barter relations with the village and urban population, offering skins, wool, meat and milk in exchange for grain, dates, coffee and others. products, as well as factory fabrics (with which they supplement their own production), metal utensils, tools, firearms and ammunition. The Bedouin use little money.
Since all their belongings should easily fit on animals for frequent migrations, the Bedouins use very little furniture. Their tents are quickly dismantled and consist of wide panels of knitted sheep wool laid on a frame of poles and poles.
Bedouin men.
The Bedouin men take care of the animals and manage the migration operations. They love hunting and fighting various animals, reaching in this great art. They often find themselves involved in intertribal and internecine squabbles, not only related to issues of property (for example, water rights), but also to issues of honor. The Bedouins, like most other Arabs, are very sensitive to issues of honor and dignity; their infringement is considered a serious insult and can lead to bloodshed.
Cases of bloodshed are also associated with attacks on caravans and villages for the purpose of robbery or extortion of payment for so-called "protection". However, in Lately As planes and trucks replace camel caravans as the main form of transportation, and as Middle Eastern governments' police forces become more efficient, such raids and attacks become rarer.
most great pride Bedouin male is his horse. The famous Arabian horse, however, is used mainly for racing and light walks and never for hard work. It is poorly adapted to the conditions of the desert and serves mainly as an object of prestige, available only to those men who can afford this luxury.
Bedouin.
Bedouin women are busy with household chores, sometimes taking care of sheep and goats, but most of the time they take care of children, weave material for tents and clothes, and take care of the kitchen. Although they are usually less segregated than the women of villages and cities, Bedouin women are carefully guarded against contact with strangers. As a rule, they live in a separate part of the family tent, denoted in Arabic by the word "harem", and must go there when strangers appear.
Food.
The main product of the Bedouin daily diet is camel milk, fresh or after special fermentation. Dates, rice and products made from wheat flour or sorghum are an addition to it. Bedouins rarely eat meat, on the occasion of holidays and other special celebrations, for which they slaughter a sheep and roast it over an open fire. Their favorite hot drinks are tea and coffee.
Cloth.
There is considerable regional variation in Bedouin clothing styles. For West Africa typical men's outerwear with a hood - "gellaba" and a dressing gown also with a hood - "burnus". Further east, Bedouin men wear a long-skirted, nightgown-like robe - “galabey”, and over it a spacious robe open in front - “aba”, for those who are more in contact with the villages, a jacket is more characteristic. European style. Men wear a special headdress - "kufiya", fixed on the head with a cord ring - "agalem". The aba and keffiyeh may be worn loosely draped or wrapped around the body and head for weather protection. Women wear dresses resembling "galabea" or dresses with a distinct bodice. In addition, they may wear loose bloomers and a variety of jackets or different type"aba". Women's hair is always covered with a scarf. Some Bedouin women may also wear a "haiq" - a special curtain for the face, and in other groups, when they appear unknown man women simply cover their faces with part of their headscarf.
Religion.
There are both Christians and Shia Muslims among the Bedouin, but the majority belong nominally to either Wahhabi Muslims or Sunni Muslims. The Bedouins are not as religious as the Muslims of villages and cities, but at the same time they regularly perform the five daily prayers prescribed by Islam. Because most Bedouins are illiterate, they cannot read the Qur'an themselves and must rely on the oral transmission of religious ideas. Together with many residents of villages and cities, they share a belief in the evil eye and evil spirits as the cause of illness and misfortune, as well as in the healing and protective powers of the tombs of various Muslim saints.
ARAB PEASANTS
About 70% of Arabs live in villages. Most of the villagers are farmers, called fellah in Arabic, but there are also masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, shepherds, fishermen, shopkeepers and people of other professions among them. Village houses of adobe brick or stone are built closely together without any clearly distinguishable plan. Around the houses are fields, orchards and vineyards. The degree of soil fertility is different everywhere, but the lack of water is a ubiquitous phenomenon, so irrigation is required for survival. The big problem in the countryside is poverty, which is slowly yielding to the impact of modern social reforms and technological changes.
Rural economy.
Most important crops, grown in the villages are cereals - wheat and sorghum, the main food is bread. Wherever possible, vegetables are grown. Other important crops in different regions dates are in the desert oases, citrus fruits on the Lebanese coast, figs, grapes, olives, apricots, almonds and other fruits in the foothills and other areas where water is more abundant. In some regions, notably Egypt, cotton is an important cash crop.
Arab farmers use many ingenious ways to conserve and distribute their limited water supply. In some cases, they direct water from natural streams into a complex system of canals and sluices, through which they allocate water to eligible users. Water wheels can be used to lift water from one level to another. IN last years dams are being built for large irrigation systems and hydroelectric power generation.
Part of the farmers, especially in the mountainous areas, are independent owners of the land, while the majority of the fellah are tenants who must give a significant part of the produced product to the owners of the land. Usually such landowners are townspeople, but some powerful Bedouin sheikhs are also large landowners. Some landowners give the peasants modern agricultural equipment, but most of them are quite conservative. Ownership of land by non-resident owners is a serious social problem in the Arab world, which many governments are trying to solve in different ways.
Villagers often maintain close relationships with the Bedouins and with the townspeople. Peasants exchange their products with them for services, goods or money. Some of the farmers are recent Bedouins and can support family ties with them. An even more important trend is the constant migration of farmers to the cities in search of better paid jobs. Some peasants move alternately between the countryside and the city, but the resident urban population includes many people who were born in the villages and maintain their ties with them. The active growth of school education, noted in the Arab villages in the 20th century, served as a factor in the increase in the desire of rural residents to live in the city.
rural society.
Most of the farms in the Arab village consist of married couple and their children. Some households may also include sons' wives and their children. However, adult brothers and closely related cousins and their families most often live nearby. As with the Bedouins, several families form a "hamula". Preference is given to marriages within the village. Muslim Arabs also marry inside the "hamula", i.e. between cousins and cousins. Many Arab peasants are members of large tribal groups whose membership spans many different villages. Several of these tribes trace their origins to the Bedouins.
Most Arab peasants have a deeply developed sense of belonging to their village, the inhabitants of which usually help each other in case of an external threat. They are also united by religious holidays or funerals. Most of the time, however, the villagers are divided into separate factions, and there is little cooperation in most activities that concern the community as a whole.
URBAN ARAB
Arab cities are commercial, industrial, administrative and religious centers. Some of them are in many ways similar to European metropolitan areas with large buildings, wide streets and busy car traffic. In the 20th century Arab cities have grown and changed, especially due to the influx of migrants from the countryside. However, in some smaller towns and older areas major cities can still be seen traditional type city life.
The old Arab city remains today almost the same in cities such as the capital of Yemen, Sanaa, and in a number of other small provincial centers. Such major cities like Aleppo in Syria, much remains of the old city, but modernity still prevails in them. In the Arab world metropolis of Cairo, the old city is surrounded by a dominant new one, and in Beirut (Lebanon) traces of the old city are completely erased.
Traditional city.
The traditional Arab city, and those old districts of modern cities that still exist, are characterized by narrow streets and closely built houses, often with shops and workshops on the ground floors. Such shops and workshops united by specialization form bazaars, called in Arabic "suk". In these bazaars, merchants and artisans display goods, often making them in small shops that open directly onto the street. The owner of the shop can invite the buyer for thick sweet coffee, over a cup of which a leisurely trade is carried out about any product made of bronze or self made carpet. Numerous food vendors in the bazaars sell a variety of spiced honey confectionery and spiced meat products.
There is no clear division between commercial and residential areas in an Arab city, although it is often clearly divided into neighborhoods, each serving a different community. ethnic background, religion or trade specialization. The main public buildings are religious buildings and, sometimes, fortifications. important community centers there are coffee houses in which men drink coffee, smoke, play different games and discuss the news.
Modern city.
The new Arab cities were built on the model of European ones, not only physically, but also in terms of municipal organization and institutions such as hospitals, museums, railways, bus services, radio and television stations, schools, universities and factories. Each city differs in the extent to which new forms have replaced the old ones, although old traditions are largely continued in new ones. New residential areas, for example, retain traditional small shops and coffee shops. There are very few suburban communities.
Urban social organization.
In a traditional city, the system municipal government did not go far beyond controlling markets and maintaining a kind of police force. The family and religion were at the center of the concerns and feelings of the townspeople, and not the city as a community. Family life did not differ in its image from the rural one, with the exception that there were large differences in the levels of wealth and social status.
In the 20th century this situation has changed. As before, the inhabitants of the modern Arab city cherish and identify with their families and religion, but now both of these feelings are forced to compete with loyalty to the state. Built from samples developed countries the educational system had a powerful impact on the middle and upper classes of the cities, who were largely interested in relaxing the demands placed on them by family and religion and in promoting the idea of social equality between men and women.
The position of women.
In the 20th century position Arab women, traditionally subordinate to men, has changed significantly, especially in large urban centers. Arab countries schools for girls are rapidly increasing, in most Arab states women have the right to vote and access to professional activity becomes more and more open to them. Islam-permissible polygamy, the practice of which was once limited to a minority of Arabs, is becoming increasingly rare. Moreover, most Arab polygamists now have no more than two wives, and not at all harems, as depicted in the movies.
Today, however, even in cities, many muslim women go out to people in veils, which are a symbol of the fact that a woman needs to be protected from strangers. In recent years, due to the growth of fundamentalism in the Arab world, the number of such women is increasing, and even many European women who come to Arab and Islamic countries are forced to go out in Islamic clothing.
STORY
The history of the Arabs is difficult to separate from the history of the Semitic-speaking peoples in general. Historical evidence from Mesopotamia, they begin to separate the Arabs from their other Semitic neighbors not earlier than the 1st millennium BC. At that time, the Arabs of southern Arabia had already established flourishing cities and kingdoms, such as Saba at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. The northern regions of Arabia were inhabited mainly by Bedouin nomads, although in late pre-Christian and early Christian times, under Roman influence, two medium-sized trading kingdoms, Petra and Palmyra, were established by the more settled minority of the north. The northern and southern Arabs were connected by trade routes through western Arabia. This region in the era of Christianity was inhabited by townspeople and nomads who spoke Arabic and considered their origins to go back to the biblical patriarchs (either to the son of Abraham - Ishmael, or to the grandson of Noah - Noktan), and in the city of Mecca they worshiped idols in the temple, for the first time presumably built by Abraham.
By the 5th–6th centuries AD northern and southern Arabian civilizations declined. However, at the beginning of the seventh century, a merchant from Mecca, Muhammad, had the insight to begin preaching revelations that served to create the religion and community of Islam. Under Muhammad and his successors, the caliphs, Islam swept the entire Middle East. And a hundred years after the death of Muhammad, the territory of Islam spread already from Spain through North Africa and southwestern Asia to the borders of India. Although the Bedouin contributed to its initial spread to Syria and its neighboring regions, the ancestor of Islam was a city dweller, and further it was developed mainly by the literate people of the city. Despite the fact that many Arabians, by their migration to other regions, contributed to the spread of Islam, the initial stage was the acceptance of non-Arabian converts into the Arabian tribes, who were already familiar with the Arabic language during the process itself. Later, Arabic became the main language in the territories from Morocco to Iraq. Even those who remained Christian or Jewish in their religion adopted Arabic as their primary language. Thus, the majority of the population of this region gradually became Arabs in the broadest sense of the word.
The spread of Islam provided the Arabs with a network of useful contacts for them, and together with dependent peoples - Christians, Jews, Persians, etc. - they built one of the greatest known to the world civilizations. Period from 8 to 12 centuries. laid the foundation big mass works of great Arabic literature in the form of poetry and prose, a brilliant tradition of art, elaborate and complex legal codes and philosophical treatises, a rich palette of geographical and historical research, as well as the great progress of science, especially in the field of astronomy, medicine and mathematics.
In the first centuries of its existence, the Arab empire was politically united under the rule of the caliphs, but by the middle of the tenth century its fragmentation began and it soon fell victim to the crusaders, Mongols and Turks. In the 16th century Ottoman Turks conquered the entire Arab world, dividing it into provinces of their empire. In the 19th century The British and French actually took control of for the most part North Africa, while in Egypt and Syria, a wave of demands for Arab independence was growing.
During the First World War, the British organized an uprising against Ottoman Empire in Arabia. The Arabs assisted the British in the conquest of Syria and Palestine in the hope of gaining independence after the war, but instead fell under the complete control of the British and French. Arab demands for independence and unification resumed. European management stimulated modernization, but at the same time its result was the resettlement of the French on best lands Algeria and European Jews in Palestine.
During the Second World War and after it all Arab peoples with the exception of the Palestinians, they eventually gained full independence, although the Algerians managed to do this only after eight years of war from 1954 to 1962. Since 1991, various agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) began to be put into effect; in these agreements are outlined in in general terms measures for the future of Palestinian self-government.
The first hoax is the origin of the Arabs. Today, the Arabs believe that they are the descendants of Abram (Ibrahim, Ibrahim, Abrahim) through his eldest son Ismail (Ismael), which allows them to inscribe themselves in sacred history.
They claim that the Kaaba temple in Mecca was built by Adam, repaired by his son Seth, and rebuilt by Abram (Ibrahim). The Prophet Muhammad even accused the Arabs of turning the place that was originally intended for a mosque into a pagan temple: by the time of the Prophet Muhammad, there were 360 idols around the Kaaba in Mecca!This story is very confusing. I didn't want to go back to the Bible. I hoped that in the future I would manage without her texts. But the heavily promoted materials of Islamist "researchers" require proof of the improbability of their hoaxes. And so we start with the biblical version of the story.
The flood brought the ark to Ararat. When the water began to recede and the dove did not return, Noah and his three sons came out of the ark: Ham, Shem and Japheth. “From them the nations spread over the earth after the flood.” The offspring of the children and grandchildren of Japheth settled the surrounding lands. The descendants of Ham settled the lands south to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The Bible mentions the kingdoms of Babylon, Erech, Akkad and Haliya in the land of Shinar, as well as the tribes of the Philistines, Canaanites, Jebusites, Amorites: “And there were the limits of the Canaanites from Sidon to Gerar to Gaza, from here to Sodom, Gomorrah, Adme and Zeboim to Lasha” - is the northwestern part of the Arabian Peninsula to mediterranean sea and Sinai.
According to the Bible, Eber, a descendant of Shem, had two sons in the third generation: Joktan and Peleg. The descendants of Joktan and his 13 sons settled the areas "from Mesha to Sephar, the eastern mountain" (Genesis 10:30). Mesha is known as Mecca, and these spaces are the Arabian Peninsula (Arabian): from the Red Sea and Sinai in the west to the Persian Gulf in the east, from Syria and Iraq in the north to the Arabian Sea (Indian Ocean) in the south. A vast territory, more than two million square kilometers of desert, barren land almost waterless and devoid of vegetation. This land is designated by the word "Arab". At the dawn of history, this word was called the Arabian Peninsula and the peoples inhabiting it.
The branch of the descendants of Shem through Eber and Peleg leads us through 4 generations to Ur of the Chaldees to the house of Terah to his son Abram. Then it was in issue #8. Yes, Arabs and Jews have a common origin. But the ancestor of the Arabs is the son of Eber Joktan, and not Abram (Ibrahim, Abraham), as it was presented at the dawn of Islam by the Prophet and his followers. They have no evidence, especially since (according to the Bible) Abram was a Jew, not an Arab (!), a monotheist (not a pagan). Arab monotheism (Islam) appeared millennia later. The first-born of Abram - Ibrahim, born to the servant of Sarah, the Egyptian Hagar (Hajar, Keturah), also could not be an Arab or their progenitor. Since the pagan Arabs for 2.5 millennia BC. already lived in the Arabian Peninsula. He could not be a pagan like the son of Abraham, much less a Muslim, since Islam appeared thousands of years later.
(1) the indigenous people of the Middle East and North Africa who speak Arabic and identify with Arab culture; (2) Arabic-speaking desert nomads, Bedouins. The second meaning of the term is older, since for the first time the term Arabs began to be used to refer to the nomads of northern Arabia already in the 9th century. BC. The first meaning, which is broader, is more applicable to modern realities and corresponds to the practice of its use by the majority of Arabs.
The countries, the majority of whose population are Arabs in the broad sense, form in their unity what has come to be called today the Arab world. In northern Africa, these are Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, and Egypt; in western Asia, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq; in Arabia Saudi Arabia, Yemen and a number of other coastal states. There is also a small Arab population in Israel. The Arab world has almost 130 million people, of which 116 million are Arabs.
However, the population of the Arab world does not share a common origin. Although the early history of Arab culture was linked to the Arabian Peninsula, over the centuries, many other peoples were Arabized through the adoption of the Arabic language and Arabic culture. For almost all of them, Arabization went through Islam, the main religion of the Arab world. Arabs are as diverse in their physical characteristics as they are in ethnic origin. There is no Arabic "racial type". Some Arabs fit the stereotypical description of thin people with an "eagle nose", dark skin and black hair, but these features are not typical. Negroid Arabs are similar in appearance to sub-Saharan Africans, and light-skinned Maghreb Arabs are often physically almost indistinguishable from most Europeans.
The Arabs are divided into three main groups: Bedouin pastoralists engaged in breeding sheep, goats or camels, peasant farmers and urban dwellers. In addition, there are several small groups leading a different way of life. Some Arabs live in villages, farming for a few months of the year and migrating with their animals for the rest of the year. One such group is the Sudanese baggara pastoralists. Arabs of the swamps of the Tigris and Euphrates delta fishermen and hunters; The main occupation of the inhabitants of the coastal Arab villages, especially on the Red Sea, is sea fishing.
Having long served as an arena for mixing different cultures, trade and other contacts between three continents, the Arab world includes a number of non-Arab minorities. Although many of them have had significant Arab influences, none of them consider themselves Arabs. Such minorities include the descendants of the pre-Arab peoples of northern Africa, such as the Berbers and Tuaregs, Kurds in Iraq who speak a language related to Persian, as well as Jews, Armenians and some peoples of the geographic region of Sudan. The Copts, the Christians of Egypt, also speak Arabic, but consider themselves to be the original pre-Arab Egyptians.
BEDOUIN HERDERS Most Bedouins live in Arabia and the neighboring desert areas of Jordan, Syria and Iraq, but some Bedouins who insist on their Arab origin live in Egypt and the northern Sahara. The exact number of Bedouins is unknown, since no serious attempts were made to conduct a census of these nomads. According to rough estimates, their number is from 4 to 5 million people.
The image of the Bedouin, often considered the most colorful figure among the Arabs, is largely romanticized by Europeans and other Arabs. Many see the Bedouins as the "purest" Arabs, up until the 20th century. who have kept the way of life of their ancestors unchanged. In reality, they, like most peoples, are subject to continuous external influences and changes in the course of their history.
Bedouin society. The Bedouin lead a strictly tribal lifestyle. The Bedouin tribe consists of several groups who consider themselves related by kinship through the male line and descended from a common male ancestor.
Tribes can have from a few hundred to fifty thousand members. Each tribal group is subdivided into small sub-groups with their own names, with their own common ancestors, and so on. down to a division of several families called "hamula" (hamulah). Some of the largest tribes have up to five or six levels of such subgroups. "Hamula" consists of a number of closely related families, it can be a group of brothers or cousins with their families living together, grazing their livestock together and staying together when moving. The family is the smallest social unit, consisting of a man, his wife or wives, their children, and sometimes including the wives and children of the man's sons.
The organization of the Bedouin tribe is mobile. Its parts often bud off and unite again, from time to time strangers join the tribe. But at the same time, the very idea of kinship remains unchanged, and genealogies are transformed through the invention of new kinship ties and in other ways in accordance with the changes taking place in the composition of the tribe or its divisions.
The tribe and each of its parts is headed by a sheikh, who is considered senior in wisdom and experience. In the largest divisions, the position of sheikh can be inherited in the circle of certain families. Shaykhs of all levels manage jointly with a council of adult males.
The Bedouin prefer marriages within the "hamula". Often these are related marriages, since all people of the same generation in the “khamul” are cousins and cousins. Ideally, marriages are arranged by the parents of the young couple, and the "dowry" for the bride is provided by the groom's family. Despite these customs, Bedouin poetry is rich in stories of secret love and escapism with lovers.
economic life. Bedouins lead a nomadic lifestyle. In winter, when light rains fall, "hamuls" constantly migrate with herds and flocks through the desert in search of water and pastures. Most of them follow a regular sequence in visiting certain wells and oases, i.e. plots of fertility in the lifeless expanses of the desert. In the completely dry summer time, the "hamuls" gather near the tribal wells, where the water supply is more reliable. Each tribe and its divisions are forced to defend their grazing lands, they often have to fight for the rights to land and water. Some Bedouin sheikhs own entire agricultural areas, receiving tribute from them in addition to their usual means of subsistence.
The Bedouins recognize two main activities camel breeding and sheep and goat breeding. The camel breeders consider themselves superior to the sheep breeders, and sometimes the latter sometimes pay tribute to the former. Sheep breeders often maintain close relations with the inhabitants of villages and cities, sometimes hiring themselves as shepherds. Camel breeders, who consider themselves the only true Arabs, try not to resort to this method of activity, seeing it as a humiliation of their dignity. For all Bedouins, the camel is a very valuable animal for both riding and transporting goods. This animal supplies Bedouin camel breeders with milk for food and wool for making cloth, and also serves as a valuable trade item.
Necessity forces the Bedouin to produce some of the necessary food themselves, but they usually consider such activities degrading and therefore enter into barter relations with the village and urban population, offering skins, wool, meat and milk in exchange for grain, dates, coffee and others. products, as well as factory fabrics (with which they supplement their own production), metal utensils, tools, firearms and ammunition. The Bedouin use little money.
Since all their belongings should easily fit on animals for frequent migrations, the Bedouins use very little furniture. Their tents are quickly dismantled and consist of wide panels of knitted sheep's wool, stacked on a frame of poles and poles.
Bedouin men. The Bedouin men take care of the animals and manage the migration operations. They love hunting and fighting various animals, achieving great skill in this. They often find themselves involved in intertribal and internecine squabbles, not only related to issues of property (for example, water rights), but also to issues of honor. The Bedouins, like most other Arabs, are very sensitive to issues of honor and dignity; their infringement is considered a serious insult and can lead to bloodshed.
Cases of bloodshed are also associated with attacks on caravans and villages for the purpose of robbery or extortion of payment for so-called "protection". Recently, however, as airplanes and trucks have replaced camel caravans as the main form of transportation, and as the police forces of Middle Eastern governments have become more efficient, such raids and attacks are becoming rarer.
The greatest pride of a Bedouin man is his horse. The famous Arabian horse, however, is used mainly for racing and light walks and never for hard work. It is poorly adapted to the conditions of the desert and serves mainly as an object of prestige, available only to those men who can afford this luxury.
Bedouin. Bedouin women are busy with household chores, sometimes taking care of sheep and goats, but most of the time they take care of children, weave material for tents and clothes, and take care of the kitchen. Although they are usually less segregated than the women of villages and cities, Bedouin women are carefully guarded against contact with strangers. As a rule, they live in a separate part of the family tent, denoted in Arabic by the word "harem", and must go there when strangers appear.
Food. The main product of the Bedouin daily diet is camel milk, fresh or after special fermentation. Dates, rice and products made from wheat flour or sorghum are an addition to it. Bedouins rarely eat meat, on the occasion of holidays and other special celebrations, for which they slaughter a sheep and roast it over an open fire. Their favorite hot drinks are tea and coffee.
Cloth. There is considerable regional variation in Bedouin clothing styles. For West Africa, men's outerwear with a hood "gellaba" and a dressing gown also with a hood "burnus" are typical. Further east, Bedouin men wear a long-skirted, nightgown-like robe "galabey", and over it a spacious open-front robe "aba", for those who are more in contact with the villages, a European-style jacket is more characteristic. Men wear a special headdress "keffiyeh", fixed on the head with a cord ring "agal". The aba and keffiyeh may be worn loosely draped or wrapped around the body and head for weather protection. Women wear dresses resembling "galabea" or dresses with a distinct bodice. In addition, they may wear loose bloomers and a variety of jackets or different types of "aba". Women's hair is always covered with a scarf. Some Bedouin women may also wear a "haiq" a special face covering, and in other groups, when a stranger appears, women simply cover their faces with part of their headscarf.
Religion. Among the Bedouins there are both Christians and Shia Muslims, but the majority belong nominally to either Wahhabi or Sunni Muslims. The Bedouins are not as religious as the Muslims of villages and cities, but at the same time they regularly perform the five daily prayers prescribed by Islam. Because most Bedouins are illiterate, they cannot read the Qur'an themselves and must rely on the oral transmission of religious ideas. Together with many residents of villages and cities, they share a belief in the evil eye and evil spirits as the cause of illness and misfortune, as well as in the healing and protective powers of the tombs of various Muslim saints.
ARAB PEASANTS About 70% of Arabs live in villages. Most of the villagers are farmers, called fellah in Arabic, but among them there are also masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, shepherds, fishermen, shopkeepers and people of other professions. Village houses of adobe brick or stone are built closely together without any clearly distinguishable plan. Around the houses are fields, orchards and vineyards. The degree of fertility of the land is different everywhere, but the lack of water is a ubiquitous phenomenon, so irrigation is required for survival. The big problem in the countryside is poverty, which is slowly yielding to the impact of modern social reforms and technological changes.
Rural economy. The most important crops grown in the villages are cereals, wheat and sorghum, with bread being the staple food. Wherever possible, vegetables are grown. Other important crops in various regions are dates in the desert oases, citrus fruits on the Lebanese coast, figs, grapes, olives, apricots, almonds and other fruits in the foothills and other areas where water is more abundant. In some regions, notably Egypt, cotton is an important cash crop.
Arab farmers use many ingenious ways to conserve and distribute their limited water supply. In some cases, they direct water from natural streams into a complex system of canals and sluices, through which they allocate water to eligible users. Water wheels can be used to lift water from one level to another. In recent years, dams have been built for large irrigation systems and hydroelectric power generation.
Part of the farmers, especially in the mountainous areas, are independent owners of the land, while the majority of the fellah are tenants who must give a significant part of the produced product to the owners of the land. Usually such landowners are townspeople, but some powerful Bedouin sheikhs are also large landowners. Some landowners give the peasants modern agricultural equipment, but most of them are quite conservative. Ownership of land by non-resident owners is a serious social problem in the Arab world, which many governments are trying to solve in different ways.
Villagers often maintain close relationships with the Bedouins and with the townspeople. Peasants exchange their products with them for services, goods or money. Some farmers are recent Bedouins and may have family ties to them. An even more important trend is the constant migration of farmers to the cities in search of better paid jobs. Some peasants move alternately between the countryside and the city, but the resident urban population includes many people who were born in the villages and maintain their ties with them. The active growth of school education, noted in the Arab villages in the 20th century, served as a factor in the increase in the desire of rural residents to live in the city.
rural society. Most of the households in the Arab village consists of a married couple and their children. Some households may also include sons' wives and their children. However, adult brothers and closely related cousins and their families most often live nearby. As with the Bedouins, several families form a "hamula". Preference is given to marriages within the village. Muslim Arabs also marry inside the "hamula", i.e. between cousins and cousins. Many Arab peasants are members of large tribal groups whose membership spans many different villages. Several of these tribes trace their origins to the Bedouins.
Most Arab peasants have a deeply developed sense of belonging to their village, the inhabitants of which usually help each other in case of an external threat. They are also united by religious holidays or funerals. Most of the time, however, the villagers are divided into separate factions, and there is little cooperation in most activities that concern the community as a whole.
URBAN ARAB Arab cities are commercial, industrial, administrative and religious centers. Some of them are in many ways similar to European metropolitan areas with large buildings, wide streets and busy car traffic. In the 20th century Arab cities have grown and changed, especially due to the influx of migrants from the countryside. However, in some of the smaller towns and in older areas of larger cities, the traditional type of city life can still be observed.
The old Arab city remains today almost the same in cities such as the capital of Yemen, Sanaa, and in a number of other small provincial centers. In large cities such as Aleppo in Syria, much of the old city remains, but modernity still prevails in them. In the Arab world metropolis of Cairo, the old city is surrounded by a dominant new one, and in Beirut (Lebanon) traces of the old city are completely erased.
Traditional city. The traditional Arab city, and those old districts of modern cities that still exist, are characterized by narrow streets and closely built houses, often with shops and workshops on the ground floors. Such shops and workshops united by specialization form bazaars, called in Arabic "suk". In these bazaars, merchants and artisans display goods, often making them in small shops that open directly onto the street. The owner of the shop can invite the buyer to a thick sweet coffee, over a cup of which a leisurely trade is carried out about any product made of bronze or a hand-made carpet. Numerous food vendors in the bazaars sell a variety of spiced honey confectionery and spiced meat products.
There is no clear division between commercial and residential areas in an Arab city, although it is often clearly divided into neighborhoods, each of which serves communities of different ethnic origins, religions or trade specializations. The main public buildings are religious buildings and, sometimes, fortifications. Important social centers are coffee houses where men drink coffee, smoke, play different games and discuss the news.
Modern city. The new Arab cities are modeled on European ones not only physically but also in terms of municipal organization and institutions such as hospitals, museums, railways, bus services, radio and television stations, schools, universities and factories. Each city differs in the extent to which new forms have replaced the old ones, although old traditions are largely continued in new ones. New residential areas, for example, retain traditional small shops and coffee shops. There are very few suburban communities.
Urban social organization. In the traditional city, the system of municipal government did not go far beyond controlling markets and maintaining a kind of police force. The family and religion were at the center of the concerns and feelings of the townspeople, and not the city as a community. Family life did not differ in its image from rural life, except that there were great differences in the levels of wealth and social status.
In the 20th century this situation has changed. As before, the inhabitants of the modern Arab city cherish and identify with their families and religion, but now both of these feelings are forced to compete with loyalty to the state. Modeled after developed countries, the education system had a powerful impact on the middle and upper classes of the cities, who were largely interested in relaxing the demands placed on them by family and religion and in promoting the idea of social equality between men and women.
The position of women. In the 20th century the position of Arab women, traditionally subordinate to men, has changed significantly, especially in large urban centers. The Arab countries are rapidly expanding the number of schools for girls, in most Arab countries women have the right to vote, and access to professional activities is becoming more open for them. Islam-permissible polygamy, the practice of which was once limited to a minority of Arabs, is becoming increasingly rare. Moreover, most Arab polygamists now have no more than two wives, and not at all harems, as depicted in the movies.
Today, however, even in the cities, many Muslim women go out to people wearing veils, which are a symbol of the fact that a woman needs to be protected from strangers. In recent years, due to the growth of fundamentalism in the Arab world, the number of such women is increasing, and even many European women who come to Arab and Islamic countries are forced to go out in Islamic clothing.
STORY The history of the Arabs is difficult to separate from the history of the Semitic-speaking peoples in general. Historical evidence from Mesopotamia begins to separate the Arabs from their other Semitic neighbors no earlier than the 1st millennium BC. At that time, the Arabs of southern Arabia had already established flourishing cities and kingdoms, such as Saba at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. The northern regions of Arabia were inhabited mainly by Bedouin nomads, although in late pre-Christian and early Christian times, under Roman influence, two medium-sized trading kingdoms of Petra and Palmyra were established by a more settled minority in the north. The northern and southern Arabs were connected by trade routes through western Arabia. This region in the era of Christianity was inhabited by townspeople and nomads who spoke Arabic and considered their origins to go back to the biblical patriarchs (either to the son of Abraham Ishmael, or to the grandson of Noah Noktan), and in the city of Mecca they worshiped idols in the temple, for the first time presumably built by Abraham.
By the 56 centuries. AD northern and southern Arabian civilizations declined. However, at the beginning of the seventh century, a merchant from Mecca, Muhammad, had the insight to begin preaching revelations that served to create the religion and community of Islam. Under Muhammad and his successors, the caliphs, Islam swept the entire Middle East. And a hundred years after the death of Muhammad, the territory of Islam spread already from Spain through North Africa and southwestern Asia to the borders of India. Although the Bedouin contributed to its initial spread to Syria and its neighboring regions, the ancestor of Islam was a city dweller, and further it was developed mainly by the literate people of the city. Despite the fact that many Arabians, by their migration to other regions, contributed to the spread of Islam, the initial stage was the acceptance of non-Arabian converts into the Arabian tribes, who were already familiar with the Arabic language during the process itself. Later, Arabic became the main language in the territories from Morocco to Iraq. Even those who remained Christian or Jewish in their religion adopted Arabic as their primary language. Thus, the majority of the population of this region gradually became Arabs in the broadest sense of the word.
The spread of Islam provided the Arabs with a network of useful contacts, and together with dependent peoples Christians, Jews, Persians, etc. they built one of the greatest civilizations known to the world. Period from 8 to 12 centuries. laid the foundation for a great body of great Arabic literature in the form of poetry and prose, a brilliant tradition of art, elaborate and complex legal codes and philosophical treatises, a rich palette of geographical and historical research, and great progress in science, especially in the fields of astronomy, medicine and mathematics .
In the first centuries of its existence, the Arab empire was politically united under the rule of the caliphs, but by the middle of the tenth century its fragmentation began and it soon fell victim to the crusaders, Mongols and Turks. In the 16th century Ottoman Turks conquered the entire Arab world, dividing it into provinces of their empire. In the 19th century the British and French effectively took control of most of North Africa, while in Egypt and Syria a wave of demands for Arab independence was rising.
During the First World War, the British organized an uprising against the Ottoman Empire in Arabia. The Arabs assisted the British in the conquest of Syria and Palestine in the hope of gaining independence after the war, but instead fell under the complete control of the British and French. Arab demands for independence and unification resumed. European management stimulated modernization, but at the same time it resulted in the settlement of the French in the best lands of Algeria and European Jews in Palestine.
During and after World War II, all Arab peoples, with the exception of the Palestinians, eventually gained full independence, although the Algerians managed to do so only after eight years of war from 1954 to 1962. Since 1991, various agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization began to be put into effect. (OOP); these agreements outline the arrangements for future Palestinian self-government.
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There are hundreds of nations all over the world. All of them are of different numbers, they all have their own special traditions, their own mentality. Many live in some separate territory of their own, as, for example, the peoples of Russia or Africa. And what is the name of the country where the Arabs live?
Arab League
This people long story, which originates tens of centuries ago. Their ancestors lived in the Middle East and North Africa. At present, nothing much has changed. Arabs still live on their territory. There is the League of Arab States, which includes not one country where the Arabs live, but several located just on this territory. The largest of them:
- Saudi Arabia.
- Egypt.
- Algeria.
- Libya.
- Sudan.
- Morocco.
This organization includes twenty-two states where Arabs live, the total population of which exceeds 425 million people! For comparison, the population of the European Union is approximately 810 million people. Not a very big gap, is it? Especially when you consider that a mixed population lives in Europe: different nations and nationalities. Arabs are one people.
Ancient world
Arabs live not only in Africa and the Middle East. More precisely, the first ancestors of this group of peoples (and the Arabs are precisely a group of peoples) settled on
And the first Arab states began to appear in the second half of the second millennium BC. Moreover, even then it was believed that where the Arabs live, in which country it is not so important, the state will be one of the most developed. before them Ancient Rome and the new Europe of the dark times was still very far away.
Modernity
Now, in the twenty-first century, a huge number of representatives of this people are settled around the world. For example, in South America in total, about 15 million 100 thousand people live. And more specifically:
- in Brazil - 9 million people;
- in Argentina - 4.5 million people;
- in Venezuela - 1.5 million people.
In the aforementioned Europe, where the Arabs live, there are more than six and a half million representatives of this nation. Most of them are in France: almost six million. Even in Asia, there are a huge number of ethnic Arabs who are settled throughout the region.
Islam and Arabs
And, in general, this is not surprising. After all, around the beginning of the seventh century AD, a man whom all Muslims would later call the prophet Muhammad began to preach the religion of Islam. On this basis, the state of the Caliphate was created.
100 years after its founding, it has already stretched its borders from the coast of Spain to Southwest Asia. Title, if expressed modern terminology, the nation of this state was Arab. Arabic was the state religion, and Islam was the predominant religion.
It was as a result of such political and religious transformations that the Arabs appeared in Asia. But what is interesting is that arab nation makes up the majority of the population Asian countries where Arabs live, like:
- Bahrain.
- Jordan and Iraq.
- Yemen.
- Qatar and
- Syria.
- Lebanon.
- Yemen.
As before, the main religion of the Arabs is Islam. There are a considerable number of supporters in Syria, Egypt and Libya Christian religion. But Islam is not a single religion. Its followers are divided into at least two areas: the followers of the Islamic religion of the Sunni and Shiite persuasion.
The culture of this group of peoples is also quite interesting to study. It can be said that Arab culture- almost one of the most ancient in the world. When in Europe began to collect Crusades First of all, we went to where the Arab peoples live. They were already among the developed countries.
But the world does not stand still. Some kind of micro-migrations of small peoples and nationalities are constantly taking place. In addition, according to many reputable scientists, humanity is now experiencing almost another one. So, who knows, perhaps in a couple of centuries the main place of residence of the Arabs will not be the Middle East and as it is now, but Australia, Europe or North America. Who knows, anything can happen.
Berbers
Interestingly, the Berbers are related to the Arabs. This is a people whose representatives profess predominantly the Islamic religion. The approximate number of Berbers, if we take into account the whole world, is approximately 25 million people, most of whom live in Algeria and Morocco: in total, about 20 million people are obtained - 10.7 million in Algeria and 9.2 million in Morocco. This people can be called one of the largest in North Africa.
In the northern part of Morocco, where Arabs and Berbers live, the Amatsirgs settled, in the southern part - shillu, Algerian Berbers - Kabyles, Tuareg and Shaouya. Tuareg live in the territories of such countries as:
- Niger.
- Burkina Faso.
- Mali.
The Berbers themselves do not call themselves that. This name was given to them by the Europeans when they heard their strange language. You can immediately draw an analogy with the barbarians, who have roughly the same situation.
Where do the Berbers live?
The Berbers speak both their national language and Arabic and French. The question arises: how do Berbers know French? The answer is simple: Algeria and part of Morocco were until recently the colonial possessions of France, and more than 1.2 million representatives of the Berber people live in the country itself. And the Berber language itself is divided into many dialects that are spoken in different parts Sveta.
A considerable number of Berbers live in the Canary Islands (900 thousand) and in Libya (260 thousand). What is most surprising, representatives of this people live even in Canada. About 10 thousand Berbers live in the United Kingdom.
Despite their kinship with the Arabs, the Berbers adhere to a different culture, which in some aspects is fundamentally different from the Arab. But there are also a number of similarities. In general, hospitality is held in high esteem among the Berbers. And the law of hospitality, as you know, is the main law of the East.
These people have different ideas about material values than the Europeans. The Berbers consider gold to be a diabolical metal, unlike silver. Much higher than gold, camels are valued. Yes, yes, camels. They are considered a sign of wealth and prosperity in the family.
