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Arab Christians

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Arab Christians or Arabic-speaking Christians
مسيحيون عرب ومسيحيون ناطقون بالعربية
Masīḥīūn ʿArab wa Masīḥīūn nāṭiqūn bil-ʿArabīyyah



Khalil Gibran • Michel Aflaq • Fairuz
Ralph Nader • Suleiman Mousa • Salma Hayek •
Tony Shaloub • Shakira •
Carlos Menem • Carlos Ghosn
Total population

22,000,000-33,000,000
Founder
Regions with significant populations
Syria:
2,000,000 [1]

Lebanon:
1,800,000 [2]
(16,000,000 diaspora)
Jordan:
370,000.[3]
Brazil:
   16000
Canada:
   200,000[4]
Australia:
   140,000[5][6]
Israel:
  122,000[7]
Religions
Maronite Catholic, Syriac Orthodox, Chaldean Catholic, others
Scriptures
The Bible
Languages
Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, other European languages
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Arab Christians (Arabic مسيحيون عرب Masīḥīūn ʿArab) or Arabic-speaking Christians (Arabic مسيحيون ناطقون بالعربية Masīḥīūn nāṭiqūn bil-ʿArabīyyah) are culturally unique Christians who live in, or originate from, the Arabic-speaking region of the Middle East and North Africa and maintain the Arabic language as their primary community language. There are significant Arabic-speaking religious minorities which coexist with each other and with the numerically superior Arab or Arabic-speaking Muslim population.

People who speak Arabic as their first language, be they Christians, Druze, Jews, or Muslims, may not necessarily identify as Arabs, but no statistics exist that show how many of any Arabic-speaking religious community identify as Arabs; this is particularly true for Christians.

The largest numbers of Arabic-speaking Christians, be it in whole numbers or as a percentage of each country's population, are found in Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories, as well as Jordan. Emigrant Arab communities descended from these countries are also found throughout the world, with the Arab populations in the Americas, especially among the populations of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, and the United States, being overwhelmingly Christian.

Contents

[edit] Identity

Not all Arabic-speaking Christians in the Middle East and North Africa consider themselves to be Arabs. This holds true also for many Arabic-speaking Muslims, and nowadays, virtually all but a few Arabic-speaking Jews. Arabic-speaking Christians may, however, concede to the application of the term Arab differently, depending on which aspect of their identity they wish to emphasize; political, linguistic, ethnic, or genealogical.

Some Lebanese, mainly Maronites, claim to be of Phoenician descent, be they Christians or Muslims, to differentiate themselves (the Lebanese) from their non-Lebanese neighbours. Others yet claim Aramean, Mardaite or even Crusader identities.

Some of the most influential secular Arab nationalists were Levantine Greek Orthodox Christians like Michel Aflaq, founder of the Baath Party, George Habash, founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Constantin Zureiq.

[edit] History

Christian martyr Saint Abo, the patron saint of Tbilisi

The first mention of Christianity in Arab lands occurs in the New Testament as the Apostle Paul refers to his journey in Arabia following his conversion (Galatians 1: 15-17). Later, Eusebius of Caesarea discusses a bishop named Beryllus in the see of Bostra, the site of a synod c. 240. Christians existed in Arab-speaking lands from the third century onward.[8] Some modern scholars suggest that Philip the Arab was the first Christian emperor of Rome.[9] By the fourth century a significant number of Christians occupied the Sinai peninsula, Mesopotamia and Arabia.

Throughout many eras of history, Arabic-speaking Christians have co-existed fairly peacefully with their fellow non-Christian Arabic-speaking neighbours, principally Muslims and Jews. Even after the rapid expansion of Islam from the 7th century AD onwards through the Islamic conquests, many Christians chose not to convert to Islam and instead maintain their pre-existing beliefs.

As "People of the Book", Christians in the region are accorded certain rights by theoretical Islamic law (Shari'ah) to practice their religion free from interference or persecution; that was, however, strictly conditioned with first paying a special amount of money (tribute) obliged from non-Muslims called 'Jizyah' (pronounced Jiz-ya), in form of either cash or goods, usually a wealth of animals, in exchange for their safety and freedom of worship. The tax was not levied on slaves, women, children, monks, the old, the sick,[10][11] hermits, or the poor.[12]

Arabic-speaking Christians, and Arabic-speaking Jews for that matter, predate Arabic-speaking Muslims, as there were many Arab tribes which adhered to Christianity since the first century, including the Nabateans and the Ghassanids. The latter were of Qahtani origin and spoke Yemeni-Arabic as well as Greek who protected the south-eastern frontiers of the Roman and Byzantine Empires in north Arabia.

The tribes of Tayy, Abd Al-Qais, and Taghlib were also known to have included a large number of Christians prior to Islam. The Yemenite city of Najran was also a center of Arabic-speaking Christianity, and were made famous by virtue of their persecution by one of the kings of Yemen, Dhu Nawas, who was himself an enthusiastic convert to Judaism. The leader of the Arabs of Najran during the period of persection, Al-Harith, was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church as St. Aretas.

Arabic-speaking Christians have made significant contributions to Arab civilization and still do. Some of Arab literature's finest poets were Arabic-speaking Christians, and some Arabic-speaking Christians were physicians, writers, government officials, men of letters, and held equally important cultural and scientific roles as their Muslim and Jewish counterparts.

[edit] Arabic-speaking Christians today

[edit] Lebanon

St Maron (died sometime between 406 and 423), founder of the Maronite spiritual movement. Since the 17th century, his feast day has been celebrated on 9 February.

Lebanon was established by France in 1920 according to the Maronite Christian ambitions who sent many delegates to France following WWI requesting the re-establishment of the entity of the Principality of Lebanon (1515AD-1840AD), in which they prospered and co-existed in harmony with their fellow druze for hundreds of years.

Maronite Christians, as with the Lebanese in general, are mainly descendants of the Phoenician civilization of the Levant, which was later Aramaized. Christians formed the majority of the Lebanese population at the time of its modern statehood, estimated at around 80%[citation needed] of the total population, thus making Lebanon the only Levantine nation to be dominated by Christians, and not Muslims. The main language of the Lebanese was a Western dialect of Aramaic, but they gradually replaced it after the 15th century with Arabic, although the Maronites maintained the use of Aramaic in their liturgy in the form of Syriac language (which, as opposed to the vernacular Aramaic of pre-Arabic Lebanon, was an Eastern Aramaic language by which Christianity was disseminated in the Middle East).

Lebanon contains the largest number of Christians in proportion to its total population. It is known that they made up around 55% of Lebanon's population before the Lebanese Civil War, but their percentage today may be as low as 40% now (1,800,000), however of the estimated 16,000,000 strong diaspora, they form a crushing majority. Lebanese Christians belong mostly to the Maronite Catholic Church, with sizable minorities of Greek Orthodox and Melkite Greek Catholics, among others. There are also many Roman Catholics in the country due to French rule, and most of them are of French descent. There is, however, uncertainty about the exact numbers because no official census has been made in Lebanon since 1932.

It is important to note that Lebanon was never officially an Arab country even though it was a member of the Arab League. Up until 1989, it was written in the Lebanese Constitution that Lebanon was of an "Arabic Face" (a direct translation), to please the Muslim population, simply because Lebanese Christians in general never viewed themselves as Arabs and always held on to their Levantine identity and French Lebanese Christians view themselves French.[citation needed] However after the 1989 Taef Accord the country's constitution was changed to please Lebanese Muslims, thus making Lebanon an Arab country.

Genetically speaking and following the Genographics program which was funded by the National Geographic channel and implemented by Dr. Pierre Zalloua, the Lebanese Christian were found to have what is scientifically known as the Phoenician gene (J2). According to the study about 29.5% have J2, about 2%[1] have the Western European R1b1 gene (but some differ,for example in paticular christian groups it can go up to 25-50%), 10% have the I gene and 10% have the R1a gene (directly related to the Crusades and mainly French and German, excluding Italians and Greeks), and about 12% have J* which is known as the Arabian gene.

Lebanon's president is, not by constitution but by a verbal agreement of Lebanon's different denominations, always a Maronite Catholic Christian.

[edit] Syria

John of Damascus an Arab monk and presbyter, 7th century

In Syria, Christians formed just under 15% of the population (about 1.2 million people) under the 1960 census, but no newer census has been taken. Current estimates put them at about 10% of the population (2,000,000), due to lower rates of birth and higher rates of emigration than their Muslim compatriots. Most Christians are Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic, with some Syriac Christians.

[edit] Jordan

In Jordan, Christians constitute about 7% of the population (about 400,000 people), though the percentage dropped sharply from 18% in the early beginning of the twentieth century. This drop is largely due to influx of Muslim Arabs from Hijaz after the First World War, the low birth rates in comparison with Muslims and the large numbers of Palestinians (85-90% Muslim) who fled to Jordan after 1948. Nearly 70-75% of Jordanian Christians belong to the Eastern Orthodox Church, while the rest adhere to Catholicism with a small minority adhering to Protestantism. Christians are well integrated in the Jordanian society and have a high level of freedom. Nearly all Christians belong to the middle or upper classes. Moreover, Christians enjoy more economic and social opportunity in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan than elsewhere in Southwest Asia[citation needed]. Although they constitute less then ten per cent of the total population, they have disproportionately large representation in the Jordanian parliament (10% of the Parliament) and hold important government portfolios, ambassadorial appointments abroad, and positions of high military rank.

Jordanian Christians are allowed by the public and private sectors to leave their work to attend Divine Liturgy or Mass on Sundays. All Christian religious ceremonies are publicly celebrated in Jordan. Christians have established good relations with the royal family and the various Jordanian government officials and they have their own ecclesiastic courts for matters of personal status.

[edit] Palestine and Israel

Mariam of Abellin

About 90,000 Palestinian Christians live in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip,[13] with about 190,000 Arab Christians living in Israel and an estimated 400,000 Palestinian Christians living in the Palestinian diaspora. Both the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, George Habash, and the founder if its offshoot, the DFLP, Nayif Hawatmeh, were Christians, as is prominent Palestinian activist and former Palestinian Authority minister Hanan Ashrawi.

[edit] North Africa

There are tiny communities of Roman Catholics in Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, and Morocco because of French rule for Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, Spanish rule for Morocco, and Italian rule for Libya. Most of the members in North Africa, however, are foreign missionaries or immigrant workers and people of French, Spanish, and Italian colonial descent, while only a minority among them are converted Arabs (or their descendants) or descendants of converted Berbers, often brought to Christian (Catholic) belief during the modern era or under French colonialism. Charles de Foucauld was renowned for his missions in North Africa among Muslims, including African Arabs.

Many millions of Arabic-speaking Christians also live in a diaspora elsewhere in the world. These include such countries as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia,Venezuela, Cuba, Dominican Republic and the United States. The majority of self-identifying Arab Americans are Eastern Rite Catholic or Orthodox, according to the Arab American Institute. On the other hand, most American Muslims are black or of South Asian (Indian or Pakistani) origin. There are also many Arabic-speaking Christians in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom,France (due to its historical connections with Lebanon), and Spain (due to its historical connections with north Morocco), and to a lesser extent, Ireland, Germany, Italy, and Greece.

[edit] Doctrine

Like Arab Muslims and Arab Jews, Arabic-speaking Christians refer to God as Allah, since this is the word in Arabic for "God". The use of the term Allah in Arabic-speaking Christian churches predates Islam by several centuries. In more recent times (especially since the mid 1800s), some Arabs from the Levant region have been converted from these native, traditional churches to more recent Protestant ones, most notably Baptist and Methodist churches. This is mostly due to an influx of Western, predominantly American Evangelical, missionaries.

[edit] Prominent Arab Christians and Arabic-speaking Christians

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sy.html (CIA: World Factbook)
  2. ^ CIA - The World Factbook - Lebanon
  3. ^ CIA - The World Factbook - Jordan
  4. ^ The Canadian Arab Federation & Arab Community Centre of Toronto (1999). "A Profile of Arabs in Canada". Virtual Library. Toronto Centre of Excellence. http://ceris.metropolis.net/Virtual%20Library/community/Arab1/arab1.html. 
  5. ^ "2001 Census: Ancestry - Detailed paper" (PDF). Australian Bureau of Statistics. http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/AD2222ECE5AD4396CA25712500161734/$File/29330_2001.pdf. 
  6. ^ "Appendices to Isma". Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission's Publications Unit. http://www.hreoc.gov.au/racial_discrimination/isma/report/appendices.html. 
  7. ^ SOCIETY: Minority Communities, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
  8. ^ Parry, Ken; David Melling (editors) (1999). The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity. Malden, MA.: Blackwell Publishing. p. 37. ISBN 0-631-23203-6. 
  9. ^ Parry, Ken; David Melling (editors) (1999). The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity. Malden, MA.: Blackwell Publishing. p. 37. ISBN 0-631-23203-6. 
  10. ^ Shahid Alam, Articulating Group Differences: A Variety of Autocentrisms, Journal of Science and Society, 2003
  11. ^ Seed, Patricia. Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the New World, 1492-1640, Cambridge University Press, Oct 27, 1995, pp. 79-80.
  12. ^ Ali, Abdullah Yusuf (1991). The Holy Quran. Medina: King Fahd Holy Qur-an Printing Complex.
  13. ^ Don Wagner. "Palestinian Christians: An Historic Community at Risk?". Palestine Center. http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/pubs/20020312ib.html. 
  14. ^ http://middleeast.about.com/od/booksopinions/p/me081214.htm
  15. ^ http://www.watchinguglybetty.com/salma-hayek-half-lesbian/

[edit] External links

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