Origin of Arab Ethnicity

Last updated: April 16th, 2025 at 12:18 pm · Est. Reading Time: < 1 minute

Arabs (‘Arab عَرَب) became an identifiable ethnic group around the beginning of first millennium BCE.

Assyrian king Shalmaneser III has recorded his victory over a coalition of Syrian and Palestinian kings on Kurkh Stele.  This war, known as battle of Qarqar, was fought in 853 BCE. Shalmaneser III writes that among others, a certain ‘Gindibu the Arabian’ fought alongside him with one thousand camels.¹

It is the first ever historical recognition of Arabs as a distinct ethnic group.

Further Reading

History of Islam, Social Structure of Pre-Islamic Arabs, https://historyofislam.org/social-structure-of-pre-islamic-arabs/

1. Daniel David Luckenbill, Ancient records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. I  (Chicago: University of Chicago press, 1926), 223.