page_title: Arabization
section_title: History of Arabization
hierarchical_section_title: Arabization / History of Arabization
context_page_description: Arabization or Arabisation describes both the process of growing Arab influence on non-Arab populations, causing a language shift by their gradual adoption of the Arabic language and their incorporation of the culture, as well as the Arab nationalist policies of some governments in modern Arab countries toward non-Arab minorities, including Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Mauritania, Algeria, Libya, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
  Historically, aspects of the culture of the Arabian Peninsula were combined in various forms with the cultures of conquered regions and ultimately denominated "Arab". After the rise of Islam in the Hejaz, Arab culture and language were spread outside the Arabian Peninsula through conquest, trade and intermarriages between members of the non-Arab local population and the peninsular Arabs. The Arabic language began to serve as a lingua franca in these areas and dialects were formed. Although Yemen is traditionally held to be the homeland of the Arabs, most of the Yemeni population in fact did not speak Old Arabic prior to the spread of Islam, but South Semitic languages instead.
caption: Arab conquests 622 AD to 750 AD