Paternal descent has traditionally been considered the main source of affiliation in the Arab world when it comes to membership into an ethnic group or clan.
in the mid-ninth century BCE as a people living in eastern and southern Syria, and the north of the Arabian Peninsula.
The relation of ʿarab and ʾaʿrāb is complicated further by the notion of "lost Arabs" al-ʿArab al-ba'ida mentioned in the Qur'an as punished for their disbelief.
In the modern era, this idea was embodied by ideologies such as Nasserism and Ba'athism, which were common forms of nationalism in the Arab world, especially in the mid-twentieth century.
[6][7] Pan-Arabism is an ideology espousing the unification of the countries of North Africa and Middle East from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, often referred to as the Arab world.
[13] An Arab can be defined as a member of a Semitic people, inhabiting much of the Middle East and North Africa.
[18] In their long history and with many local variations, Arabs have developed their distinct customs, language, architecture, fine art, literature, music, cinema, dance, media, cuisine, dress, societies, and mythology.
There, where he is - that is to say, in the experience of a life which is both tolerable and intolerable for him.—Abdelkebir KhatibiArabs: name given to the ancient and present-day inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula and often applied to the peoples closely allied to them in ancestry, language, religion, and culture.
Presently more than 200 million Arabs are living mainly in 21 countries; they constitute the overwhelming majority of the population in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, and the nations of North Africa.
[25] Arab identity can be described as consisting of many interconnected parts: Based on analysis of the DNA of Semitic-speaking peoples, some recent genetic studies have found Y-chromosomal links between modern Semitic-speaking peoples of the Middle East like Arabs, Hebrews, Mandaeans, Samaritans, and Assyrians.
[29] It is the sense of a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, language and politics.
[36] Although significant Jewish and Christian minorities developed, polytheism remained the dominant belief system in pre-Islamic, most Arabs followed a pagan religion with a number of deities, including Hubal,[37] Wadd, Allāt,[38] Manat, and Uzza.
A few individuals, the hanifs, had apparently rejected polytheism in favor of monotheism unaffiliated with any particular religion.
[citation needed] Ba'athism emerged as a secular countercurrent to the pan-Islamist ambitions of political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1960s.
[50][51] The family is still at the heart of traditional Arabic letters that the fact that the family is a basic unit of social organization in the traditional Arab contemporary society may explain why it continues to exercise a significant influence on the formation of identity.
Exercise the early and most lasting influence on the person's affiliations.—Halim BarakatFor some Arabs, beyond language, race, religion, tribe or region.
[52] According to the Iraqi world exclusive Cece, "it must be people who speak one language one heart and one soul, so should form one nation and thus one country."
Arab political identity characterized by restraint, compassion, hospitality, generosity, and proper conduct.
Their sense of the Arab nation is based on their common denominators: language, culture, ethnicity, social and political experiences, economic interests and the collective memory of their place and role in history.