Arab Muslims

The seventh century saw the rise of Islam as the peninsula's dominant religion. The Islamic prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca in about 570 (53 BH) and first began preaching in the city in 610, but migrated to Medina in 622. From there he and his companions united the tribes of Arabia under the banner of Islam and created a single Arab Muslim religious polity in the Arabian peninsula.

Muhammad established a new unified polity which under the subsequent Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates saw a century of rapid expansion of Arab power, well beyond the Arabian peninsula in the form of a vast Muslim Arab Empire.

The Arabs of the Levant are traditionally divided into Qays and Yaman tribes, back to the pre-Islamic era and was based on tribal affiliations and geographic locations; include Banu Kalb, Kinda, Ghassanids, and Lakhmids.[11] On the eve of the Rashidun Caliphate's conquest of the Levant in the 7th century, Arab tribes largely migrated to Levant and Upper Mesopotamia with the Muslim armies in the mid-7th century.[12]

The caliphate also allowed the migration of Arab tribes to Egypt. The Muslim governor of Egypt encouraged the migration of tribes from the Arabian Peninsula to Egypt to increase the Muslim population in the region and to strengthen his regime by enlisting warrior tribesmen to his forces, encouraging them to bring their families and entire clans. The Fatimid era was the peak of Bedouin Arab tribal migrations to Egypt.[13]

In the 12th century, the Arab Ja'alin tribe migrated into Nubia and Sudan and formerly occupied the country on both banks of the Nile from Khartoum to Abu Hamad. They trace their lineage to Abbas, uncle of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. They are of Arab origin, but now of mixed blood mostly with Nilo-Saharans and Nubians.[14][15] Other Arab tribes migrated into Sudan in the 12th century and intermarried with the indigenous populations, forming the Sudanese Arabs.[16] In 1846, many Arab Rashaida migrated from Hejaz in present-day Saudi Arabia into what is now Eritrea and north-east Sudan after tribal warfare had broken out in their homeland. The Rashaida of Sudan and Eritrea live in close proximity with the Beja people. Large numbers of Bani Rasheed are also found on the Arabian Peninsula. They are related to the Banu Abs tribe.[17]

Before the Arab-Islamic conquest took place, North Africa was mainly inhabited by Berbers.[25] The Berbers were largely Animists until Islam reached North Africa and they were thus coerced into converting to Islam in a process known as Arabization and Islamization.[26] Arabization refers to the process of acculturation in which the peoples of North Africa adopted the Arabic language in addition to various other aspects of Arab culture. Islamization refers to the process by which North Africans converted to Islam and thus became Muslims by faith. Though the majority of North Africans identify as Arabs today, a considerable number of the population perceive themselves as Berbers.[27]