Arabization

Arabization is the gradual transformation of an area into one that speaks Arabic and is part of the Arab culture. It can also mean the replacement of a native population with Arabs, although this rarely happened in ancient times, and the native inhabitants just took up the language and culture. There were significant pre-islamic Arab migrations out of the peninsula (see: Ghassanids, Nabataeans), however, full arabization of the Middle East took place after the coming of Islam. It should be noted that the Arabs were not the first semitic peoples that migrated out of the Arabian peninsula (see: Aramaeans, Canaanites, Akkadians).

Countries that are traditionally thought to have been arabized include Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Sudan. The pure Arabic language became common among these areas, however, dialects also formed. Today, an Arab from the Levant finds the Arabic of a North African almost incomprehensible. It is then necessary to communicate in pure Modern Standard Arabic.

In modern times

In part of the Al-Anfal Campaign, Saddam's regime drove out hundreds of thousands of Kurdish families out of their homes in Kirkuk, and replaced their homes with oil field workers of Arab descent. This campaign was an example of violent arabization. The campaign was an attempt to transform the historic Kurdish city of Kirkuk into an Arab city. Kurdish families were left with no homes after being evicted forcefully by Saddam's Iraqi soldiers, and therefore had to migrate to refugee camps. After the fall of Saddam's regime, many Kurdish families came back to Kirkuk and kicked out Arab families out of their homes, saying they were traditionally Kurdish. This conflict is still being resolved in today's Iraq.