followed polytheistic Semitic religion, while some tribes adopted Judaism or Christianity and a few
individuals, known as the hanifs , followed a form of monotheism.[95] Currently, around 93% of Arabs
are Muslims, while the rest are mainly Arab Christians, as well as Arab groups of Druze and Baháʼís.[96]
Etymology
Further information: Arab (etymology)
The Namara inscription, an Arabic epitaph of Imru' al-
Qais, son of "Amr, king of all the Arabs", inscribed in Nabataean script. Basalt, dated in 7 Kislul, 223, viz.
7 December 328 CE. Found at Nimreh in the Hauran (Southern Syria).
The earliest documented use of the word Arab in reference to a people appears in the Kurkh Monoliths,
an Akkadian-language record of the Assyrian conquest of Aram (9th century BCE). The Monoliths used
the term to refer to Bedouins of the Arabian Peninsula under King Gindibu, who fought as part of a
coalition opposed to Assyria.[97] Listed among the booty captured by the army of the Assyrian
king Shalmaneser III in the Battle of Qarqar (853 BCE) are 1000 camels of " Gîndibuʾ the Arbâya " or "[the
man] Gindibu belonging to the Arabs " ( ar-ba-a-a being an adjectival nisba of the noun ʿarab ).[97]
The related word ʾaʿrāb is used to refer to Bedouins today, in contrast to ʿarab which refers to Arabs in
general.[98] Both terms are mentioned around 40 times in pre-Islamic Sabaean inscriptions. The
term ʿarab ('Arab') occurs also in the titles of the Himyarite kings from the time of 'Abu Karab Asad until
MadiKarib Ya'fur. According to Sabaean grammar, the term ʾaʿrāb is derived from the term ʿarab. The
term is also mentioned in Quranic verses, referring to people who were living in Madina and it might be
a south Arabian loanword into Quranic language.[99]
The oldest surviving indication of an Arab national identity is an inscription made in an archaic form of
Arabic in 328 CE using the Nabataean alphabet, which refers to Imru' al-Qays ibn 'Amr as 'King of all the
Arabs'.[100][101] Herodotus refers to the Arabs in the Sinai, southern Palestine, and the frankincense
region (Southern Arabia). Other Ancient-Greek historians like Agatharchides, Diodorus
Siculus and Strabo mention Arabs living in Mesopotamia (along the Euphrates), in Egypt (the Sinai and
the Red Sea), southern Jordan (the Nabataeans), the Syrian steppe and in eastern Arabia (the people
of Gerrha). Inscriptions dating to the 6th century BCE in Yemen include the term 'Arab'.[102]
The most popular Arab account holds that the word Arab came from an eponymous father
named Ya'rub, who was supposedly the first to speak Arabic. Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdani had
another view; he states that Arabs were called gharab ('westerners') by Mesopotamians because
Bedouins originally resided to the west of Mesopotamia; the term was then corrupted into arab.
Yet another view is held by al-Masudi that the word Arab was initially applied to the Ishmaelites of
the Arabah valley. In Biblical etymology, Arab (Hebrew: arvi ) comes from the desert origin of the
Bedouins it originally described ( arava means 'wilderness').
The root ʿ-r-b has several additional meanings in Semitic languages—including 'west, sunset', 'desert',
'mingle', 'mixed', 'merchant' and 'raven'—and are "comprehensible" with all of these having varying