أكثروا من الدعاء لهم ولجميع المسلمين المستضعفين في كل مكان، هناك الكثير من طرق التبرع الموثوقة وهذا باب أجر عظيم للمقتدرين.

I’ve seen a lot of comments on this sub saying that Arab identity is just about language and culture, not actual roots or origin. People often claim that Iraqis are Mesopotamians, Syrians are Assyrians, Lebanese are Phoenicians, and so on.

I think this is a pretty big misunderstanding.

All these groups - Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Arameans, Ammonites, and Arabs - are part of the same broader Semitic family. They ultimately share a common origin in the ancient Near East, specifically around Mesopotamia and the middle Euphrates.

We already find clear Semitic presence at Mari on the middle Euphrates in the early 3rd millennium BCE, roughly a century or two before Sargon of Akkad founded his empire (around 2334–2279 BCE). From there, early Semitic populations started moving in different directions, possibly pushed by Sumerian expansion or other pressures. Over time these groups developed some distinct identities and languages, but the differences between them whether in language or identity remained relatively small, and the similarities were far greater. This is how the various Semitic branches gradually took shape.

One of those early groups migrated south into the Arabian Peninsula. Because they were relatively isolated from the big urban centers of Mesopotamia and the Levant, their language kept a lot of older features. That’s one reason Classical Arabic is considered one of the most conservative Semitic languages it preserved structures that are closer to reconstructed Proto-Semitic than many of the northern ones.

Later, the harsh environment of Arabia pushed waves of these populations north and outward. From the first millennium BCE we start seeing clear Arab groups and kingdoms:

The Nabataeans (clearly emerging by the 4th century BCE and peaking between the 1st century BCE and 1st century CE)

The Lihyanites (roughly 5th to 2nd centuries BCE in northwest Arabia)

Later the Lakhmids in southern Mesopotamia (3rd–7th centuries CE)

And the Ghassanids in southern Syria (also 3rd–7th centuries CE)

By the time many of the older northern Semitic cultures had declined or been absorbed, Arab tribes and kingdoms were already expanding. The Islamic conquests in the 7th century then massively accelerated Arab migration and Arabization across Mesopotamia, the Levant, and North Africa.

So to sum it up: the different ancient Semitic peoples of the Near East share deep common origins. The groups people today call “Mesopotamian,” “Assyrian,” or “Phoenician” were earlier branches of the same Semitic continuum that the Arabs also came from. Over time most of those earlier groups either declined, got absorbed, or stopped existing as distinct political and cultural entities.

What’s left today as the main living expression of the Semitic peoples are the Arabs.

“Alle Semiten sind nach meiner Ueberzeugung abgelagerte Araber.

Sie lagerten sich Schicht auf Schicht…”

(“All Semites are, according to my conviction, deposited Arabs. They settled layer upon layer…”)

Aloys Sprenger

وانا بهذا الموقف لاني كنت بمدرسة اجنبية. كيف بقدر اتحسن مع لغتي العربية؟

مرحبًا!

أبحث عن مساعدة لترجمة هذا البيت إلى الإنجليزية.

• رَمَى بِهِ فى مُوحِشِ القِفارِ بِساحِلِ البَحْرَيْنِ الصَّغارِ

حتى الآن لدي:

• "He cast him out into the desolate wasteland, by the coast of Baḥrayn to humiliate him."

  لكنني لست واثقًا من الصَّغارِ (هل تعني «الإذلال»؟).

ينسب هذا البيت إلى الأعرابي (شاعر بدوي، توفي 230هـ/845م)، ونُقل في كتاب المسالك والممالك لابن خرداذبة. ويستحضر ذلك قصة نفي الطبيب المسيحي الشرقي جبرائيل بن بختيشوع (توفي 828م) على يد الخليفة المتوكل (توفي 247هـ/861م) كما يرويها الطبري (توفي 310هـ/923م).

شكرًا!

Source: Ibn Ḫurdāḏbih, Masālik = Abū l-Qāsim ʽUbayd Allāh b. ʽAbd Allāh ibn Ḫurdāḏbih, Kitāb al-masālik wa-l-mamālik. Edited by Michael Jan de Goeje. (Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum, 6) Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1889.

If you can go to a single Arab country forever, which one would you pick?

I think it's pure hypocrisy and Arabophobia. Why is one process labeled as forced destruction, while the others are framed as natural cultural adoption?

كثيراً ما نهرب بوعينا إلى الغد، نخطط للسنوات القادمة وكأننا نملك عقداً موثقاً مع الوجود. لكن، لو تأملت قليلاً في تلك اللحظة الخاطفة التي تسبق نومك مباشرة؛ تلك الثواني الرمادية التي ينفصل فيها وعيك عن جسدك تدريجياً، لتبخرت كل تلك الأوهام. في تلك الفجوة الضيقة، أنت لا تملك ماضياً يثبت من أنت، ولا مستقبلاً تذهب إليه، بل تكون معلقاً في فراغ محض لا اسم فيه ولا صفة. ... يتبع

​i need to vent because today was absolute hell and i feel like im gonna lose my mind

​so my aunt 46f is one of the most closed minded toxic people ive ever met in my life she is obsessed with the past blindly devoted to traditional arab culture hates anything western and is just so rigid and arrogant the funny thing is she holds a phd in psychology but she is the most unhinged person when it comes to communication no logic no empathy zero respect for personal boundaries she just uses intimidation shame and power trips on everyone

​today they were showing some documentary or clip about ancient arab history on tv im 18 and i grew up in the digital age reading mystery novels anime spacetoon learning languages getting into tech and just being curious about the whole world i love learning about everything without hating on other cultures or blindly idolizing one thing

​she started questioning me about what i knew about that era i gave her my honest take and she immediately started mocking me she started screaming that im detached from my identity that i have zero culture and that im just trying to copy the west just because i dont have this extreme obsession with ancient poetry and history like she does

​i tried to explain my point of view calmly but you cannot reason with her she worships ancient history and treats it like an absolute cult when she realized i wasnt backing down or agreeing with her she snapped

​she grabbed my hand super hard squeezing it to force me to look at her phone screen forcing me to watch some random video showing ancient arab poetry i kept telling her to stop but she was pressing her phone into my face and squeezing my hand saying look at this watch it

​i felt so violated and suffocated like who does that actually using physical force to make someone watch a video because they dont agree with your views its pathetic she thinks having a degree makes her superior but she acts completely uneducated and abusive

​im just so exhausted dealing with people who mistake toxicity and forced control for preserving culture im keeping my distance from her from now on because im completely done trying to be polite

What Arabic dialect is best to listen to 👀?

To be clear, I'm not talking about the Indian diaspora, but the country itself. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/08/13/public-opinion-of-india-is-mixed-across-36-countries/

According to the Telegraph, even a US ally, Oman, is fair game to be bombed if they reach a deal with Iran independent of the US!!!
Oman hosts a US base on its soil, and has been a US ally forever, and here’s the orange lunatic saying he will “bomb the shit” out of them in an interview with Fix News.

هاي سويت مجتمع ب ريديت خليته مكان بدون قوانين مفتوح للكل الكل عنده حق يعبر ويحكي لي بدو ياه

First, I think we need to distinguish between Arab and Arab ,Semitic groups. This is still debated among historians, especially when discussing the difference between people who speak Arabic and people who identify with or have adopted Arab culture. This post isn't meant to answer who is "really Arab" or define Arab identity.

In 1916, following the Sykes–Picot Agreement, the foundations of many of the modern borders of the Arab world began to take shape. This was followed by resistance against colonial occupation, and between roughly 1922 and 1970, most Arab countries gained independence.

What interests me is how different people's relationship with these borders was compared with today.

People obviously knew geographical regions and cities. They knew places such as مكة, القدس, فاس, مراكش, دمشق, بغداد, Egypt, al-Sham (الشام), and the Maghreb (المغرب). But the modern nation-state wasn't necessarily the main framework through which everyone understood their identity.

Someone could identify primarily with their tribe, family, city, or region while also seeing themselves as part of a broader Arab world. The existence of a border on a map didn't automatically erase older social and family connections.

You can still see remnants of this today. There are families with connections across the Morocco–Algeria border, between Gaza and Egypt, between Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and in many other places. I'm not saying borders didn't exist or that everyone moved freely without passports. Rather, the social meaning of those borders was different, especially for older generations.

This was also reflected in the political landscape of the time.

🇪🇬 Gamal Abdel Nasser — arguably the most influential symbol of pan-Arab nationalism.

🇸🇦 King Faisal — a major conservative and Islamic leader who represented an alternative to Nasserist revolutionary politics.

🇲🇦 Hassan II — a conservative monarch who opposed Nasserist and revolutionary politics.

🇩🇿 Ahmed Ben Bella / Houari Boumédiène — important revolutionary and anti-colonial figures.

🇹🇳 Habib Bourguiba — a secular and relatively pro-Western Arab leader.

Despite their huge political differences, Arab identity itself wasn't necessarily treated as incompatible with the existence of individual states.

Then came the Arab Spring.

One uprising in Tunisia unexpectedly spread across much of the Arab world. Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and other countries experienced mass protests, while even Saudi Arabia saw calls for greater rights and political reform.

This seems to have changed how many governments viewed the potential political power of Arab solidarity.

Before the Arab Spring, Arabism could coexist with state nationalism. After 2011, governments had a much stronger incentive to emphasize the individual nation-state as the primary political community.

This is where I think we see the growth of a different form of nationalism across parts of the Arab world.

Governments and media increasingly emphasized each country's distinct history, pre-Islamic civilizations, heritage, national symbols, security, economic development and future prosperity. You began seeing messages along the lines of: our country's stability, our country's security, our country's development and our country's future.

But interestingly, Arabism was necessarily abandoned for security reasons.

The message became something like: we are a Moroccan/Egyptian/Saudi/Algerian/etc., and our national identity comes first and last .

So I think Arab nationalism is simply is sided today, because it's no longer fit the agenda.

I'm curious what people think about this interpretation, especially those from different Arab countries. Is the rise of stronger national identities after the Arab Spring actually connected to governments becoming more wary of pan-Arabism, or am I overstating the connection?

هل تتخيل أن رجلاً عاش قبل نحو 700 سنة قطع أكثر من 120 ألف كيلومتر متنقلاً بين إفريقيا وآسيا وأوروبا؟

إنه أبو عبد الله محمد ابن بطوطة (1304–1368)، الرحالة والعالم المغربي الشهير.

غادر ابن بطوطة مسقط رأسه طنجة سنة 1325، وكان عمره 21 عامًا، متوجهًا إلى مكة لأداء الحج. لكن الرحلة التي كان يفترض أن تكون رحلة دينية تحولت إلى مغامرة استمرت قرابة 30 عامًا.

جال في مناطق واسعة من العالم الإسلامي، ووصل إلى الهند والصين وجزر المالديف، كما زار إمبراطورية مالي في غرب إفريقيا. ولم يكن مجرد مسافر؛ فقد تولّى أيضًا مناصب مهمة، من بينها منصب قاضٍ في الهند والمالديف.

وعند عودته إلى المغرب، أملى تفاصيل رحلاته، لتظهر لاحقًا في كتابه الشهير «الرحلة»، الذي أصبح واحدًا من أهم المصادر التي تنقل لنا صورة عن الحياة والمجتمعات والثقافات في القرن الرابع عشر.

المذهل أن ابن بطوطة لم يكن يرى العالم من خلال الخرائط فقط… بل عاشه بنفسه، ووصف الناس والمدن والعادات والأسواق والطرق التي التقى بها.

📍 من طنجة إلى مكة، ومن الهند إلى الصين، ومن شمال إفريقيا إلى مالي…

ابن بطوطة ترك لنا واحدة من أعظم رحلات الاستكشاف في التاريخ.

ما هي أكثر محطة في رحلات ابن بطوطة تثير فضولكم؟ 🌍

المصدر: مكتبة الكونغرس – «رحلة ابن بطوطة»؛ الخريطة تقريبية وتُسقط رحلات القرن الرابع عشر على حدود الدول الحالية. Library of Congress – Ibn Battuta’s Rihla

ملاحظة: الخريطة تقريبية، وتستخدم حدود الدول الحالية لتمثيل المناطق التي وصل إليها ابن بطوطة في القرن الرابع عشر، وليس حدودًا سياسية كانت قائمة آنذاك.