04/25/2025 - 02:10 AM
Ali Abdulkarim Alsady :
Is Iraq an Arab country, or does the term "Arab" limit and undermine it, given its qualifications, energies,
and history?
To understand this, let's first explore the term "Arab" and its origins. The term "Arab" comes from the Mesopotamian emperor Shalmaneser III, who in the ancient Mesopotamian language, referred to the nomadic tribes he defeated in the Battle of Qarqar, including the Hebrews, as "Aribi" or "Arbayu". This term was later used to describe the nomadic tribes without land. The modern term "Arab" is derived from the ancient Mesopotamian language and is used to describe a language that existed before Islam.
The language referred to as "Arabic" is a Mesopotamian language that developed from the Syriac script and grammar, and its roots are in Iraq and Syria, not in the desert. The Quran was written in Kufic script, which is derived from Syriac. The science of grammar was developed in Iraq by the schools of Kufa and Basra. The majority of linguists who codified the rules of the language referred to as "Arabic" were from Iraq.
The term "Arabic" was imposed on this Mesopotamian language after the emergence of Islam as a form of cultural appropriation and monopolization, similar to what the founders of Judaism did when they appropriated the Mesopotamian language and called it "Semitic languages" after the biblical figure Shem, son of Noah.
There is no historical or archaeological evidence of the existence of the Mesopotamian language (referred to as "Arabic") in the Arabian Peninsula. All the roots and development of the language are found in Mesopotamia, specifically in Iraq and Syria. The history of Iraq dates back 7,000 years, while the term "Arab" is only 2,860 years old and is a Mesopotamian term that originally meant "without land" or "nomadic".
The imposition of the term "Arab" on Iraqis was the result of several factors, including the emergence of Islam and British colonialism. The British colonizers, who controlled the region, wanted to impose their allies from the Arabian Peninsula on the rest of the population, including the Iraqi people, who had been known as Iraqis since the time of al-Mutanabbi and Imru' al-Qais. They started promoting the term "Arab" to create a sense of shared identity and to facilitate their control over the region.
The third and final reason that solidified the term 'Arab' and imposed it on Iraq, thereby limiting and diminishing it, is the nationalist political parties since the era of Gamal Abdel Nasser. By nature, any political party seeks to capitalize on existing cultural trends and finds it easier to do so rather than challenging established narratives, as their primary goal is political rather than social. This was further reinforced by figures like Michel Aflaq and other nationalists. Notably, Michel Aflaq, a Syrian man, was well aware of this context, but as a politician and founder of a political party, his priorities lay elsewhere.
It's worth noting that leaders like Gamal Abdel Nasser, Michel Aflaq, Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, or Saddam Hussein did not intend to refer to the common notion of 'Arabs' as Bedouins or people from the Arabian Peninsula. Instead, they aimed to promote a shared language among peoples as a means of reaching the masses, which is a Mesopotamian language unrelated to the term 'Arab'.
What has Iraq gained throughout history from the term "Arab?
1- Dilution, dissolution, and waste of all its energies, qualifications, and scholars in various fields, including language, literature, arts, chemistry, mathematics, and physics, under the name "Arab", which erases the name of Iraq, the oldest country name on the planet.
2- Reduction and limitation by a relatively modern term, not to mention that Iraq is the one who originally coined the term to describe other peoples and branded them with it, like marking camels, in addition to its unsuitable meaning for any Iraqi.
3- Betrayals, conspiracies, and mobilization of the entire world's armies against it to destroy it, followed by a 13-year embargo with the approval and funding of the Arabs, launched from Arab lands, waters, and skies, with their consent and financing
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