The History of Arabs in IRAQ

 By Wefa M. S.

The history of Arabs in Iraq can be traced back to ancient Mesopotamia. Arabs were mentioned in Assyrian manuscripts. They were known to be talented singers and musicians. 

In “Ancient and Oriental Music” book edited by Egon Wellesz, chapter V, page 236, “The Music of Ancient Mesopotamia”, Henry George Farmer states, “…It has been said that ‘the old danced whilst the young made music. One imagines that there were toil songs among the ancient Semites, as we know in the ‘well song’ of Numbers xxi.17. Singers and drummers, in a picture of Assyrians felling palm-trees, certainly appear to be facilitating labor. Indeed an Assyrian annalist gives a picture of the Arabs who, as prisoners of war, were working as slaves at Nineveh, where they sang their native songs to relieve their sorrows. Their exotic music fascinated the idle Assyrians who begged for more.”

The earliest mention of the term ‘Arab’ was recorded during the reign of the Assyrian King, Salmanassar III (858-824 BCE) when Assyrians were at war near Al-Asi River, north of Homa in Syria. The war was between the Assyrian army on one side and the Arameans, Phoenicians and Arabs on another; all backing the king of Damascus. The war ended in favor of the Assyrian King who wrote: “Qarqar is the capital; I burnt and destroyed it: 1200 Knights, 20,000 soldiers and 1000 camels for the Arab Jandibo….”

During the Assyrian king, Tiglat Pilesar III (745-727 BCE), who was mentioned in the Torah, Arabian queen, Zabiba, was recorded as follows: “…and so the Aribi [meaning Arabian] queen, Zabiba paid taxes …” to the Assyrian king Pilesar III. In his reign, there was also a mention of another Arabian queen, Sams, Shams or Shamsa.

Arabs were also mentioned during King Sargon II (721-705 BCE). He was quoted as saying, “The distant Arabs who live in the Badiya [or Peninsula] don’t have a king or ruler and they never paid taxes to any king before me.”

In documenting the war against Babylonians, Assyrian King, Sencharib (705-681 BCE) stated that, “he took soldiers of an Arabian army, led by Basqanu, as prisoners”. Basqanu was the brother of Arabian queen Yatie. In 691 BCE, Sencharib also mentioned that he went to war against another Arabian queen, Talkhono, and later against the Arab King, Khazayli (خزعلي).

The term ‘Arab’ was recorded in Assyrian manuscripts as Aribi, Arbi, Arabi or Urbi. Arabs were also mentioned numerous times in the Torah as well as ancient Greek and Roman manuscripts.

Therefore, the statements indicating that Arab history began with Islam and in the Arabian Peninsula are far from the truth. In ancient times, and depending on who was in power and where they lived, Arabs spoke their native language, Arabic, and the languages of the region, Aramaic and Hebrew; all Semitic languages. There is absolutely no evidence as to which of the Semitic languages appeared or was spoken first. One thing is certain: Only Arabic (of all Semitic languages) is still used closest to its original form (more than one and half thousand years) in books, newspapers, TV/radio, films, the UN and in religious mosques and institutions with the largest number of speakers (in comparison to speakers of other Semitic languages).

Jaroslav Stetkevych*, an emeritus professor of Arabic at the University of Chicago, described Arabic language as follows: “It has lived for one millennium and a half essentially unchanged, usually gaining, never completely losing. Venus-like, it was born in a perfect state of beauty, and it has preserved that beauty in spite of all the hazards of history and all the corrosive forces of time. It is true that there was not always that Praxitelean limpidity of line about it. Figuratively speaking, it has known its Gothic, its Renaissance and its Baroque periods. It has known austerity, holy ecstasy and voluptuousness, bloom and decadence. It exuberated in times of splendor and persisted through times of adversity in a state of near-hibernation. But when it awoke again, it was the same language. The fact that Arabic long survived and still had the vitality to burgeon a new might be due to religious and social factors, but the quantitative ability to expand and the qualitative capacity to attain perfection and to maintain its essential characteristics are merits of the language exclusively.”

Jaroslav Stetkevych

Ancient Arabs followed paganism and practiced Judaism, Christianity and Islam. A minority of Arabs are Sabi'a (aka Mandaeans) who have been living in Iraq for centuries or Druze who live outside of Iraq, mainly in Syria and Lebanon. Christian Arabs have been living in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine and Sudan. The largest number of Jewish Arabs have lived in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco and Yemen. Moslem Arabs are the vast majority and have been living in twenty different countries extending from Yemen, Oman and Iraq in Asia to Sudan, Libya and Mauritania in Africa.  

In the 20th Century and with the European colonization and later Euro-American monopoly, the terms ‘Arab Jew’ or ‘Jewish Arab’ became a matter of debate to the extent of rejecting these terms by Ashkenazi Jews (European converts to Judaism), Zionists and pro-Zionists in the industrial west. Due to this identity rejection along with the continued discrimination against Jewish Arabs (in some Arab countries and especially in Israel), the history and contributions of Arabs in general and of Jewish Arabs in particular have been marginalized. 

The interference of Ashkenazi Jews (who adopted and funded Zionism) in the lives of Jewish Arabs has been mentioned in depth by Naeem Giladi, Yeheskeil Kojaman, Ella Shohat, Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber, Zvi Bendor, Sami Shalom, David Shasha, Sami Michael, Samir Naqqash, Shimon Ballas and others. In his book, “Ben Gurion’s Scandals,” Giladi mentions in details how the Zionists applied terror and used explosives to force Iraqi Jews to leave Iraq for Israel and use them as cheap labor. 

There is a large body of misinformation and errors made about the history of Arabs in general and especially in Iraq that necessitate re-evaluation and correction, not only in history books and journals, but also in school curriculum and the media.    

* Died on June 21, 2021
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Sources:

1. “Ancient and Oriental Music,” edited by Egon Wellesz, Oxford University Press.

2. “The Link,” Volume 31, Issue 2, April-May 1998.

3. “Tareekh al-Musiqa al-Arabiyah” by Subhi Anwar Rashid, Bavaria Institute, 2000.