Arab
Please post your comments and suggestions for this article.
Comment by George Gharib on December 3rd, 2012 at 10:56 pm
Dear Sir/Madam
Under “Arab” you listed seventeen Arab states, there are twenty two, although you did mention the membership of the Arab League to be twenty two states you omitted Somalia, Djibouti, Mauritania, Comoros, and the Palestinian Authority. Thank you.
Comment by Jennifer Tanabe on June 4th, 2013 at 9:47 am
Thank you, George, for your comment. The article will be revised to include all members of the Arab League.
Comment by M> Issa on October 22nd, 2014 at 11:36 am
In regards to clasifying Sudanese, Ethiopian, and Somalis as black Arabs; it would be more correct to describe them as ‘dark skinned Arabs’. In our Arabic culture, an Arab cannot be described ‘Black’ but dark. It will be very offending. I hope you replace the adjective ‘black’ with ‘dark’.
Thank you
Comment by Jennifer Tanabe on October 23rd, 2014 at 11:42 am
Thank you, M> Issa, for your feedback. The article will be revised as you suggest. It was not our intention to be offensive.
Comment by Nuri ould el-Shinqiti on December 28th, 2014 at 2:44 am
Where did you get the idea that the majority of Mauritanians are not Arabs? This completely false; the non-Arab (“African”) population of Mauritania is less than 20% (they are ethnicities closely related to the populations of neighboring Senegal and Mali)! Many of the Mauritanian Arabs are “light or dark” brown, and very few would be confused with (for example) a Lebanese, but the overwhelming are still Arabs. And to refer to Sudanese, Somali, and other Arabs as “black”, why not refer to the Syrian and Lebanese Arabs as “white”? Yes, it is offensive, we are a nation based on our heritage, language, and culture, not European concepts of “color/ethnicity”. There are many Arabs in Syria and Lebanon descended from “Arabized” European crusaders, and in the Arabian Peninsula, descended from European slaves as well!
Comment by Jennifer Tanabe on January 26th, 2015 at 6:51 pm
Thank you, Nuri, for your feedback. Constructive comments that improve the accuracy of our articles are always appreciated.
According to various sources Mauritania has 3 major groups: the Haratin (“Black Moors”) – Arab speaking descendants of sub-Saharan slaves of the White Moors, 40%; the Beidane (“White Moors” of Arab-Berber descent) 30%; and other Africans (non-Arabic speaking Africans) 30%. This last group would be what you refer to as “less than 20%.” It is my understanding that only the Beidane are considered Arabs, not the Haratin, which is why the article states that the majority of Mauritanians are not Arabs. That does not mean that a majority of the population do not speak Arabic.
I appreciate that the terms “Black Moors” and “White Moors” might be offensive to some. However, it is not our intent to be offensive. These terms are not used in this article “Arab.” I will check the article “Mauritania.”
Comment by Danish Butter on September 12th, 2015 at 9:21 am
You claimed “Middle Eastern” as a race. It’s not. They are Caucasian. Also, Pakistan is not a middle eastern country, it’s south asian.
Comment by Jennifer Tanabe on September 12th, 2015 at 9:41 am
Thank you ‘Danish Butter’, for your feedback. Those errors in the text will be corrected.
Comment by brocephus on December 17th, 2015 at 11:52 pm
Out of curiosity: You state that Arabs are Semitic in race (“Race: While the term “Arab” does not refer to a particular race, the majority of Arabs are categorized as Semites.â€). Other sources say that use of the word (Semitic) to refer to race is obsolete: “The racial or ethnic use of the term [Semitic], together with the parallel terms Hamitic and Japhetic, is now obsolete.†https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_people
Comment by Jennifer Tanabe on March 7th, 2016 at 12:34 pm
Thank you, brocephus, for your comment. It is true that the term “Semitic” is now obsolete in terms of race or ethnicity, being considered appropriate only in the linguistic context. The text of our article is being revised.
Comment by Asi Ben Zikri on September 7th, 2021 at 1:01 am
Under the definition of Arab you falsely state that ‘Judaism and Christianity have their beginnings with the Arab line thru Abraham’,which is redicoulous,since Abraham was a Hebrew and not an Arab,as was he’s son Ishmael who(as you mentioned later on)had to learn Arabic later in his life.
Judaism and Christianity and Islam began from the Hebrew line,which is similar to The ‘Arab’line through both being Semitic,but not the same and defiantly not the other way around.
Please fix:)
Comment by Jennifer Tanabe on September 7th, 2021 at 10:15 am
Thank you for your comment.
Indeed that definition was incorrect and appears to have confused the common lineage of the three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) with the history of the Arab people. The text will be revised to remove that confusion.
Thank you again for taking the time to make NWE a valuable information resource.
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