The paper was launched in London on 1 June 1977,[2] as a secular pan-Arab daily.

[3] Ahmed el-Houni, a former Libyan minister of information, was the owner and editor-in-chief of the daily.

[4] Al-Arab sometimes reflected official Libyan government views and was run, as of 2004, by the Hounis as a family business, producing 10,000 copies that were also being printed in Tunisia and distributed throughout the Arab world, with the exception of some countries where it was banned.

[5] It has undergone a series of expansions over the years, which included the launching of sister publications such as the magazine Al-Jadid and The Arab Weekly.

[2] The Al-Arab media organization also helped fund Ahval, a news website launched by Yavuz Baydar, a Turkish journalist who left Turkey following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt.