# Humanities & Anthropology > History & Civilisations >  Is there such thing as an Arab race ?

## Maciamo

It is common usage to refer to all speakers of Arabic as "Arabs". But does an definite ethnic group really matches with at least a majority of the speakers of that language ? According to my observations, people living in Morocco bear little resemblance to those living in Egypt, who also bear little resemblance to those living in Saudi Arabia.

In the 7th and 8th centuries, the inhabitants of the Arabic peninsula invaded the whole Middle East, North Africa then in the following centuries also central Asia and other parts of the world to spread Islam. 

These jihadi warriors became the rulers of the Muslim world from Spain to the Middle East. But they did not massacre and replace the ethnic groups living there before them. Egypt is now the most populous Arabic-speaking country (60m inhabitants), and it was already one of the most populous part of the world in the Antiquity. When the Arabs invaded Egypt in the 7th century, they were vastly outnumbered by the local population. I could imagine that the invadors made less than 1% of the total population. Of course that proportion may have increased with time, as the Arabs in power may have procreated more thanks to Islam's allowance of multiple wives and concubines for rich and powerful men. Neverthelless, we can hardly consider the rather round-faced and short-nosed Egyptians to be the same ethnic group as the elungated face, and long, aquiline nosed Arabs of Saudi Arabia.

I watch a documentary on Algeria a few weeks ago, and they mentioned that Algeria was made of 4 distinct ethnic groups : the Arabs, the Jews, the Berbers (itself of mix of various closer ethnic groups) and the descendent from the Roman empire's inhabitants (mixed Latin and Phoenician blood). Add to that the infusion of Aryan blood from the 5th and 6th century invasions of Alans (an Aryano-Iranian nomadic group originally from the Caucasus) and Vandals (an Eastern Germanic tribe), which explains the occurence of blue eyes among a tiny minority of the Maghreban population. Genetic tests have shown that most northwest Africans are predominantly of Berber origin.

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*Maghreban blood*

DNA analysis of the Berbers have indicated that the Y chromosomes (paternal line) is 75% of North-West African with older origins in Eastern Africa, 8% of recent sub-Saharan African, 13% of North-West African origin (maybe originally from the Near or Middle East) and 4% historic European gene.

The maternal line shows 1/3 of Near East ancestry (dating from about 50,000 years ago), 1/8 from subsaharan ancestry, and the rest (about 40%) mainly from Europe (probably Iberian, Celtic, Roman and Germanic). 

This gives us a maternal line mostly European and Near Eastern (e.g. Phoenicia, aka Lebanon), and a paternal line mostly (subsaharan) African. There is fairly little presence of recent Arabic blood from the 7th-century invasion. Maghrebans are thus mostly Berbers (African paternal line and Euro-Phoenician maternal line)
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The Syrians and Iraqi also look quite different from the Saudi, as they inherited more of the original Assyrian and Babylonian blood.

Conclusion, there is an Arab race, but it is mostly limited to the Arabic peninsula, with just traces of blood found throughout the Arabic-speaking world. Within the Arabic peninsula, I noticed that the Omani had much darker skin than the Saudi. Could this be due to a blood influx from (southern) India, with which it has been trading for milllenia ?

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## Didi

There is no such thing as a Arab ethnic group. If your father was a arab does not inevitably make you also an arab if you cant speak the language. The country of Saudi Arabia can call themselves arab because it is a place that speaks arab but if a citizen of that country didnt speak arab he wouldnt be an arab. But alas there are people who are trying to change the truth of things and sell a load of crap to the unawares.

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## MOHAMMEd21

simply 
now the word arabs used to refer to countries that speak languages near Arabic
you might don`t know that no one speak the arabic language now cause it`s too hard
but every country have it`s owen language and all thoes languages are close 

about race
ethnically all the midle east not related to the same race

the arabs are the people liviving in the countries in the west of the persian gulf like saudi arabia ,emerates ........... yamen

north africa and egypt related to the east african race (like other ethiopians ...etc) and they are Caucasian

old syria (now its syria ,lebanone ,jordon ,palastine and israel) is related to west asia
and their old cilivization was known with phinocia and they made ancient settlements in norht afirica and also europe

you can say the relations between the middle east is like the relations between europe
both are not unified ethnically

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## humanbyrace

There is no Arabic or European or French or whatever race.

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## martin parra

the arabic is a race, but a muslim is a religion.

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## dnabuff

Maciamo, its interesting you said the Syrian maintained the Assyrian and Babylonian looks

According to alot of historian the Assyrians and Babylonians will look olive tan and look Semitic.

The Syrian now are actually Semitic Melange with some Indo European blood

Ancient Assyrians , Phoenicians, Saba Yemeni, Akkadians, all look similar and sound similar

Arabs race are Semitic people who speaks Arabic, Its like the White European Race but unlike EU this Semitic people speaks Arabic. One language that unifies linguistically

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## Cambrius (The Red)

> Maciamo, its interesting you said the Syrian maintained the Assyrian and Babylonian looks
> 
> According to alot of historian the Assyrians and Babylonians will look olive tan and look Semitic.
> 
> The Syrian now are actually Semitic Melange with some Indo European blood
> 
> Ancient Assyrians , Phoenicians, Saba Yemeni, Akkadians, all look similar and sound similar
> 
> Arabs race are Semitic people who speaks Arabic, Its like the White European Race but unlike EU this Semitic people speaks Arabic. One language that unifies linguistically


I have a hard time classifying Arab as a race. Perhaps we can say Arabs are part of the Semitic "race", which would include ethnic Jews. Not sure...

Part of the codification problem is that a number Arab populations are heavily mixed genetically, a blend of White, Black African and Mongol. This is particularly true of places like Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

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## Cambrius (The Red)

> It is common usage to refer to all speakers of Arabic as "Arabs". But does an definite ethnic group really matches with at least a majority of the speakers of that language ? According to my observations, people living in Morocco bear little resemblance to those living in Egypt, who also bear little resemblance to those living in Saudi Arabia.
> 
> In the 7th and 8th centuries, the inhabitants of the Arabic peninsula invaded the whole Middle East, North Africa then in the following centuries also central Asia and other parts of the world to spread Islam. 
> 
> These jihadi warriors became the rulers of the Muslim world from Spain to the Middle East. But they did not massacre and replace the ethnic groups living there before them. Egypt is now the most populous Arabic-speaking country (60m inhabitants), and it was already one of the most populous part of the world in the Antiquity. When the Arabs invaded Egypt in the 7th century, they were vastly outnumbered by the local population. I could imagine that the invadors made less than 1% of the total population. Of course that proportion may have increased with time, as the Arabs in power may have procreated more thanks to Islam's allowance of multiple wives and concubines for rich and powerful men. Neverthelless, we can hardly consider the rather round-faced and short-nosed Egyptians to be the same ethnic group as the elungated face, and long, aquiline nosed Arabs of Saudi Arabia.
> 
> I watch a documentary on Algeria a few weeks ago, and they mentioned that Algeria was made of 4 distinct ethnic groups : the Arabs, the Jews, the Berbers (itself of mix of various closer ethnic groups) and the descendent from the Roman empire's inhabitants (mixed Latin and Phoenician blood). Add to that the infusion of Aryan blood from the 5th and 6th century invasions of Alans (an Aryano-Iranian nomadic group originally from the Caucasus) and Vandals (an Eastern Germanic tribe), which explains the occurence of blue eyes among a tiny minority of the Maghreban population. Genetic tests have shown that most northwest Africans are predominantly of Berber origin.
> 
> ---
> ...


One thing we must remember is that native origin Berbers were / are (what remains of them) Eurasian. Only about 30% of North Africa is native origin Berber and such types are found mainly in Morocco and Algeria (Amazigh (sp?) and Kyble (sp?) tribes). Most "Berbers" today are only culturally Berber.

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## Wilhelm

Arabs are Semites also Levants, like Jews, Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, and other middle-easterns

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## maltesekid

true arabs i seen in history books are the bedouins of arabia and jordan syria etc they have long hooked or straight noses long faces bronze skin (with women being lighter) giant eyes and eyebrows they are differnt from assyrians and babylonians in only that their skin is darker they have the same eastern mediteranean levantine skull though these two paintings illustrate what "pure" arab bedouins untouched by mongol and sub saharan african are supposed to look like >> http://www.siue.edu/COSTUMES/images/PLATE8DX.JPG http://www.siue.edu/COSTUMES/PLATE8CX.HTML infact my dad kindve looks like them hes maltese though! maybe i have phoenician in me? arabs are basically the first mediterraneans! original arabs were probably the ancestors of the levantines or maybe the levantines are the ancestors of the arabians im not sure...! racially they woud be dark caucasians but obviouly lighter then dravidians of south india who iam not sure what race they belong since some are even as dark as sub saharan africans!

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## kinggenesis

There is no such thing as the Arab race, just that the original Arabs are those of the Arabian peninsula which later by conquest spread to other regions of the Near-East blending with various other peoples they met whereever they went. Arabs are a Middle-Eastern folk, similar to the ancient Assyrians, a little distant from the Persians. The vast majority of Arabs have a dark pigmentation in comparison to Europeans, even other peoples of the Mediterranean such as Persians,Berbers,etc...The majority of Arabs today have black hair,brown eyes and a light brown to brown skin color!

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## genetic code

the answere is yes if you mean real arabs 
the arabian tribes not the levantines who speak arabic in syria lebanon 
the haplogroups of the arabic tribes are j1e-p58
and e1b1b1c1 which is high in yemen oman 
genetic code

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## transmitter

> true arabs i seen in history books are the bedouins of arabia and jordan syria etc they have long hooked or straight noses long faces bronze skin (with women being lighter) giant eyes and eyebrows they are differnt from assyrians and babylonians in only that their skin is darker they have the same eastern mediteranean levantine skull though these two paintings illustrate what "pure" arab bedouins untouched by mongol and sub saharan african are supposed to look like >> http://www.siue.edu/COSTUMES/images/PLATE8DX.JPG http://www.siue.edu/COSTUMES/PLATE8CX.HTML infact my dad kindve looks like them hes maltese though! maybe i have phoenician in me? arabs are basically the first mediterraneans! original arabs were probably the ancestors of the levantines or maybe the levantines are the ancestors of the arabians im not sure...! racially they woud be dark caucasians but obviouly lighter then dravidians of south india who iam not sure what race they belong since some are even as dark as sub saharan africans!






> they have long hooked or straight noses long faces bronze skin (with women being lighter)  giant eyes and eyebrows


The Sumerians were arabs.
*Sumerian Statues from Ancient Mesopotamia*


 :Petrified:

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## transmitter

:Angry: where is the other picture?
there were 2 pictures!

that is why i wrote : *Sumerian Statues from Ancient Mesopotamia.


**Statues not Statue***

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## Humanist

> Maciamo, its interesting you said the Syrian maintained the Assyrian and Babylonian looks
> 
> According to alot of historian the Assyrians and Babylonians will look olive tan and look Semitic.
> 
> The Syrian now are actually Semitic Melange with some Indo European blood
> 
> Ancient Assyrians , Phoenicians, Saba Yemeni, Akkadians, all look similar and sound similar


I do not agree. I believe Maciamo is correct in his opinion regarding the distinctiveness of the Syrian and Iraqi phenotypes, as it relates to those native to the Arabian Peninsula. And that it is likely a consequence of a significant part of the Syrian and Iraqi peoples' true derivation from the Assyrians of old. I need only glance upon the faces of those that attend my church to know this.

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## mandey7

> Maciamo, its interesting you said the Syrian maintained the Assyrian and Babylonian looks
> 
> According to alot of historian the Assyrians and Babylonians will look olive tan and look Semitic.
> 
> The Syrian now are actually Semitic Melange with some Indo European blood
> 
> Ancient Assyrians , Phoenicians, Saba Yemeni, Akkadians, all look similar and sound similar
> 
> Arabs race are Semitic people who speaks Arabic, Its like the White European Race but unlike EU this Semitic people speaks Arabic. One language that unifies linguistically


Skin types #3 and #4 is the correct definition for historians of 'olive skin' type. (Not type #5 which is mid-eastern.)

#3 and #4 are olive and are defined as "caucasian" skin types.
*Fitzpatrick Classification Scale*
*Skin Type**Skin Color**Characteristics*IWhite; very fair; red or blond hair; blue eyes; frecklesAlways burns, never tansIIWhite; fair; red or blond hair; blue, hazel, or green eyesUsually burns, tans with difficultyIIICream white; fair with any eye or hair color; very commonSometimes mild burn, gradually tansIVBrown; typical Mediterranean caucasian skinRarely burns, tans with easeVDark Brown; mid-eastern skin typesvery rarely burns, tans very easilyVIBlackNever burns, tans very easily

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## mandey7

*Fitzpatrick Classification Scale*

*Type I* – Very white or freckled skin, always burns with sun exposure (very fair; often in people with red or blond hair and blue eyes)
*Type II* – White skin, usually burns with sun exposure (fair; often in people with red or blond hair and blue, green, or hazel eyes)
*Type III* – White or olive skin tone, sometime burns with sun exposure (fair; seen in people with any hair or eye color)
*Type IV* – Brown skin, rarely burns with sun exposure (common in people of Mediterranean descent)
*Type V* – Dark brown skin, very rarely burns with sun exposure (common in people of Middle-Eastern descent)
*Type VI* – Black skin, never burns with sun exposure

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