Arabs

Arabic-speaking ethnic and national groups, originally from the Arabian Peninsula

The Arabs are a population inhabiting the Arab world. They primarily live in the Arab states in Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa and western Indian Ocean islands. They also form a significant diaspora, with Arab communities established around the world.

Maria Gażycz, "Arabka" (1889)

Quotes

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  • Few are the nations that excelled the Arabs in civility. No nation has ever achieved the greatest number of inventions within the shortest time as the Arabs did. In fact, the Arabs established one of the strongest religions which prevailed in the world and whose influence is still more vital than that of any other religion. Politically, they founded one of the greatest states known in history and civilized Europe culturally and morally. Few are the ethnic groups which rose and declined like the Arabs. No ethnos like the Arabs could be fit for a living example of the influence of the factors lying behind the foundation, magnificence and decline of states.
    • Gustave Le Bon, The World of Islamic Civilization (La Civilisation des Arabes, 1884).
  • One of the strongest impressions I had when I lived with the Arabs, was the 'everyday-ness' of God. He ruled their eating, their travelling, their business, their loving. He was their hourly thought, their closest friend, in a way impossible to people whose God is separated from them by the rites of formal worship.
  • Ali Ibn Abi Talib, said: Verily the Prophet said: God divided the earth in two halves and placed (me) in the better of the two, then He divided the half in three parts, and I was in the best of them, then He chose the Arabs from among the people, then He chose the Quraysh from among the Arabs, then He chose the children of ‘Abd al-Muttalib from among the Banu Hashim, then he chose me from among the children of ‘Abd al-Muttalib, and from them he chose me.
    • Ibn Sa'd, Abu Abd Allah Muhammad. Kitab al-Tabaqat, vol i. Translated in English by S. Moinul Haq, Kitab Bhavan, 1784, Kalan Mahal, Daraya Ganj, New Delhi, India, 1972, p12.
  • Arab culture is full of great story tellers, and it is one of the favorite pastimes of Arab people. I think that there is a deep hunger in the human psyche for story and the nourishment it gives us. People don't live on one level chatter alone, rhetoric or just the conveyance of news. We need the threading and layering of a day that story gives us, and that's very much from the culture.
  • Arabs are the most noble people in lineage, the most prominent, and the best in deeds. We were the first to respond to the call of the Prophet. We are Allah’s helpers and the viziers of His Messenger. We fight people until they believe in Allah. He who believes in Allah and His Messenger has protected his life and possessions from us. As for one who disbelieves, we will fight him forever in Allah’s Cause. Killing him is a small matter to us.
    • Al-Tabari, Vol. 9, p. 69 The History of al-Tabari is an English translation of The History of the Prophets and Kings
  • Bricks are considered to be the first material created by human intelligence from the four elements: earth, air, water, and fire. ...The great variety of designs and effects that artists of the past, especially the Arabs... were able to create in their brickwork, assembled with an element so monotonous... can be compared only with the beauty and attractiveness a romantic poet attained by adjusting his verses to the rigidity of a formal meter.
    • Eduardo Torroja, Philosophy of Structures (1958) p. 28, Tr. J. J. Polivka, Milos Polivka from Razón y ser de los tipos estructurales (1957)
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