عرب
ʿArab
Group
A people of the Arabian peninsula; Muslim tradition traces them to Ishmael and to Qahtan.
What it means
Arab genealogists distinguish the “original” Arabs of the south, from Qahtan, from the “Arabized” Arabs of the north, descended from Ishmael through Adnan. Muhammad was of Quraysh, of the second group. Most Muslims today are not Arabs; Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria have more Muslims than any Arab country.
Often misunderstood as
That the tradition contradicts itself on whether Ishmael was the ancestor of the Arabs.
What the sources say
The genealogy in Ibn Ishaq makes Ishmael the ancestor of the northern Arabs (the Adnanites), and not of the southern Arabs, who were already there. The two accounts are consistent. The Quran itself says only that Abraham settled some of his descendants “in a valley without crops, by Your sacred House” (14:37). The Prophet taught: “no Arab has any merit over a non-Arab except in righteousness” (Ahmad).