Encyclopedia
| Arab Christians and Arabic-speaking Christians
Encyclopedia
|
|
|
|
 
Arab Christians and Arabic-speaking Christians
The majority of Arab Christians (Arabic ??????? ???) and Arabic-speaking Christians (Arabic ??????? ?????? ????????) live in Southwest Asia and North Africa where significant religious minorities exist in a number of countries. People who speak Arabic as their first language may not necessarily identify as Arabs, but no statistics exist that show how many or which Arabic-speaking Christians identify as Arabs. The largest numbers of Arabic-speaking Christians are found in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Israel (as well as the Palestinian territories) and Jordan. Emigrant Arab communities throughout the Americas, especially among the Arab populations of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and the United States, are overwhelmingly Christian.
Identity
Historically, a number of minority Christian sects that were persecuted as heretical under Byzantine rule (such as Miaphysites) actually began to enjoy more religious freedom under initial Arab Muslim occupation than they had under Byzantine (Eastern Orthodox Christian) rule. History
John of Damascus an Arab monk and presbyter, 7th century The first Christian ruler in history was a Syriac called Abgar VIII of Edessa, who converted ca. 200 AD[6]. Throughout many eras of history, Arabic-speaking Christians have co-existed fairly peacefully with followers of the other religions of the Arab world (principally Islam and Judaism). Even after the rapid expansion of Islam from the 7th century AD onwards through the Islamic conquests (or Ghazwa), 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,[7][8] hermits, or the poor.[9] Arabic-speaking Christians predate Arabic-speaking Muslims, as there were many Arab tribes which adhered to Christianity since the first century, including the Nabateans and the Ghassanids (who 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 Yemeni 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, 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 counterparts. Arabic-speaking Christians todayEgyptEgypt has the largest number of Arabic-speaking Christians, also known as Copts. Copts, just like Muslim Egyptians, speak a dialect of Arabic known as Egyptian Arabic or Masri, which is heavily influenced by the indigenous Copto-Egyptian language of pre-Islamic Egypt,[10][11][12] and later by other languages such as Turkish, French and English. The See of the Church of Alexandria is one of the four original Sees of Christianity, along with Rome, Antioch and Constantinople. The foundation of the Egyptian Church (later called the Coptic Church by the Arabs) dates back to Saint Mark the Apostle in 42 A.D.[13] Today, 95% Copts belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, an Orinetal Orthodox Church.[14] The remainder 5% belong to the Coptic Catholic Church, a uniate church, and to various Protestant churches. It is noteworthy to state that Copts do not self-identify as Arabs and that Copts in the diaspora, numbering about 2 millions,[15] do not speak Arabic. There are also a small number of Protestants because of British rule and a tiny number of Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholics, most of them are Greek Egyptians and Italian Egyptians. LebanonLebanon was re-established by France in 1920 according to the Maronite Christian ambitions who sent many delegates to France following WWI requesting the re-establisment 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 who mainly are descendant of the Arameic-Phoenician civilization of the Levant formed the majority of the Lebanese population at that time, estimated at around 80% of the total population, thus making Lebanon the only Levantine nation to be dominated by Christians and not Muslims. Their main language was Syriac, a western dialect of Arameic (the language of Christ), but they graduatly replaced it following after the 15th century by Arabic, though keeping it in their liturgy. 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 1975, but their percentage may be today as low as 40% now (1,600,000), however of the estimated 16,000,000 strong diaspora, they form a crushing majority. Lebanese Christians belong largely to the Maronite Church, with a sizable minority belonging to the Greek Orthodox, Melkite Greek Catholic, among others. 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 although it is part of the Arab league. Up untill 1989, it was written in the Lebanese Constitution that Lebanon has an "Arabic Face" (direct translation, in other words to please the muslim population), simply because Lebanese christians never viewd themselvs as arabs and always held on to their Levantine identity. However after 1989 (Taef Accord) the country's constitution was changed to please lebanese muslims, thus making lebanon and 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 knwon as the Phoenician gene (J2). According to the study about 29.5% have J2, about 17% have the Western European R1b1 and I genes (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 by constitution always a Maronite Catholic Christian. SyriaIn 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 (2,100,000), due to lower rates of birth and higher rates of emigration than their Muslim compatriots. JordanIn 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 Palestians (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 . 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. Palestinian territoriesAbout 90,000 Palestinian Christians live in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip,[16] 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. North AfricaThere 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, 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 and France (due to its historical connections with Lebanon). DoctrineLike 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. Prominent Arab Christians and Arabic-speaking Christians
See also
References
External links
ar:??????? ??? de:Arabische Christen fr:Arabes chrétiens it:Arabi cristiani he:????? ?????? mk:??????? ?????????? ms:Arab Kristian pl:Arabscy chrze?cijanie ru:?????-????????? simple:Arab Christians 
Source: Wikipedia | The above article is available under the GNU FDL. | Edit this article 
|
|
top
©2008-2009 TutorGig.com. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Statement
