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.<a href='#easy-footnote-bottom-1-837' title='Daniel David Luckenbill, Ancient records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. I (Chicago: University of Chicago press, 1926), 223.'>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/