PreZ--Yes, Ishmael rather than Isaac, but what about the Arab Jews in places like Yemen, etc.? The consider themselves Arabs, speak Arabic, etc.
It all sound very fuzzy to me, and in Alikhalid case, very political and presumptive. There were people in all of these places before the Arab conquests and the Arabs that came and converted some of them blended with the locals; when they retreated out of the Iberian peninsula, they blended again. There is no such thing as a "purely" Arab person outside of Arabia, and even that is dubious considering historically how many peoples from the ME, Europe and North Africa moved here. Look at Qatar, for example, whose citizen population has many people who have ancestors from Eastern Africa, Iran, etc. A genetic case for an Arab is impossible to make. Language doesn't work, because too many people speak Arabic, and geography is fuzzy too.
After reading the posts here, it seems to me it is a mindset or mentality more than anything, which combines cultural elements of location, tradition, history and language, but there is no clear definition.
PreZ--Yes, Ishmael rather than Isaac, but what about the Arab Jews in places like Yemen, etc.? The consider themselves Arabs, speak Arabic, etc.
It all sound very fuzzy to me, and in Alikhalid case, very political and presumptive. There were people in all of these places before the Arab conquests and the Arabs that came and converted some of them blended with the locals; when they retreated out of the Iberian peninsula, they blended again. There is no such thing as a "purely" Arab person outside of Arabia, and even that is dubious considering historically how many peoples from the ME, Europe and North Africa moved here. Look at Qatar, for example, whose citizen population has many people who have ancestors from Eastern Africa, Iran, etc. A genetic case for an Arab is impossible to make. Language doesn't work, because too many people speak Arabic, and geography is fuzzy too.
After reading the posts here, it seems to me it is a mindset or mentality more than anything, which combines cultural elements of location, tradition, history and language, but there is no clear definition.