CONFLICTED

The People Who Became Arabs

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In this Conflicted Conversation, Thomas speaks to historian Yossef Rapoport about his new book Becoming Arab, and the revolutionary argument at its heart: that Arab identity in Egypt and the Levant was not the result of mass migration from Arabia, but was forged in the medieval countryside between the 11th and 15th centuries.

Rapoport explains:

  • What the word ‘Arab’ meant in the early Islamic centuries
  • Why most medieval villagers in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine did not initially think of themselves as Arabs
  • Why migration models fail to explain Arabisation in the settled countryside
  • How Islamisation and Islamic governance reshaped rural society
  • The role of clan genealogies, taxation, and local leadership in creating Arab village identities
  • The extraordinary 1245 Fayyum survey and what it reveals about rural Egypt
  • The rise of popular Arab epics and the imagination of tribal ancestry
  • Ibn Taymiyyah’s critique of manufactured tribalism in the 14th century
  • How medieval Arabisation reshapes modern debates about identity, belonging, and land

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    Conflicted is a Message Heard production.

    Executive Producers: Jake Warren & Max Warren.

    This episode was produced by Thomas Small and edited by Lizzy Andrews.

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