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when Arabic language became the Official languge of the Caliphate

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  Quote azimuth Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: when Arabic language became the Official languge of the Caliphate
    Posted: 15-Apr-2006 at 00:47


The areas who had Arabic in them before islam were the Arabian peninsula,and areas which are now part of todays Iraq, Jorden, and  parts of Syria, Lebanon and Palistine and small parts of southern Iran.


After Prophet Muhammed pbuh death the Islamic Empire was controling almost all the Arabian peninsula and parts of Jorden and did not control any significant non-arabic Speaking people.

at the time of the Second Caliph Umar  Egypt, Palistaine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran were under the Control of the Islamic Empire. the Non-Arabic speaker of the Empire increased.

Caliph Umar did not force Arabic language on non-arabs and Letters from different parts of the Empire came in different languages and translators were doing the translating them to arabic.

note that Caliph Umar did encourage the Learning of Arabic but didnt force it on the people

this system stayed the same for several years until the Umayyads took control of the Empire after Caliph Ali's Death.

Note that Umayyads did not control all the Empire , they controled Syria and Egypt only.

there were other rulers of the Arabian peninsula.

Muaweyah the founder of the Umayyad dynasty continued the translation system until the dynasty was changed and the rule of  Marwan sons begun.

Marwanids were branch of the Ummayah trib but not from the blood line of the Umayyads founder Muaweyah.

the first of the Marwanid Dynasty of the Umayyads was Caliph Marwan Bin Al Hakam who united most of the Parts under Umayyads rule but didnt complete all the remaining parts.

its Caliph Abdul Malik Bin Marwan who was born in 646 AD and ruled after his father's death from 685 till his death in 705.

Abd Al Malik united the all Islamic states under Umayyads control making it the largest empire ever existed at his time by adding Lybia, Algeria and parts of Aisia minor and the rest of Iran to his control.

he was the first to Force Arabic language in the states and made the Arabic Language as the Official language of the Empire.

he also re-built the Kaabah in Makkah after it was damaged when his General Al Hajaj attacked it when rulers of Makkah were hiding inside it and that attack was to bringing the Arabian peninsula to the Umayyads control.

After Abdul Malik Bin Marwan's Death his son Al Waleed Bin Abdul Malik continued conquereing North Africa and Conquered the Iberian peninsula from the west and from the East he conquered today's Pakistan and northen parts of Iran. and continued his Father's languge policy.

from that time the Arabic languge became the Official languge of the Empire and that made most of the teaching in those areas in Arabic while the local languages were used unofficially and by time those local languges used less and less.

--------------------------------

so from the Above one of the main reasons Arabic is spoken as first language of more than 20 countries in the world was the order of Abdul Malik bin Marwan by making it official.

Note that he did not ban the use of local languges, all he did is making one lanagule for the Empire to be used officially in governmental business and courts and schools. by doing that the local languges were used less and the Arabic language took over.

the only parts that expilled Arabic as Official language were Spain and iran and the Countries east of Iran.

Iran was speaking Arabic officially for more than 200 years until they had their independence in the Abbisides Caliphate times. and them becomming Shiea which hated the Umayyad rule and naturally wont obey rules from the Umayyads era ,they saved persian Languge  after it was dying.

when iran got its origianl language back they saved the rest of the countries eastern of Iran and they too got back to their languge.

Spanish got rid of Arabic by simply kicking amost all the population to North Africa. and forcing the remaining to convert to Christianity and speak latin or the early spanish languge.

below is the map of the Umayyads under Al Walid

and below it the current Arabic speaking regions in the world

 

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that was simple and brief History of an event took place 1300 years ago.

and my opinion on who countries like Iran and Spain did survive and not speaking Arabic these days.


 



Edited by azimuth
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  Quote Sirius Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Apr-2006 at 01:22
the second map is not accurate. the kurdish speaking area in turkey is not  pointed .
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  Quote Iranian41ife Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Apr-2006 at 11:18

azimuth you are so wrong about the reason why irans language and spains language has survived.

1) irans language was being preserved even before shia islam came along! have you ever heard of the samanids and the buyids that controlled iran after the arabs? i guess not.  

3) the countries east of iran are all sunni, so by your theory they should still be speaking arabic because the only reason iran stopped speaking arabic was because iranian converted to shia'ism.  personally, i dont believe the arabs were ever successful of forcing their language on the central asian region because of the nomadic lifestyle on most parts. 

2) the arabs had control of spain for 700 years, but alot of spaniards had also fled to the mountains in the north, preserving the language and culture. also many of the spanish still living on mainland iberia also preserved their language and culture due to the fact that the arabs kings controlling spain were more generous and merciful than the ones controlling north africa and iran.

also, you are wrong on the point where you say that the arab caliphs never forced their language and culture on others.

i believe it was you or another arab forumer that told me that i needed to learn how to speak arabic because it is the language of God, in another forum.

the forcing of arabica nd arabic culture onto iranians by the arabs is known, and will never be forgotten.  the massacres took place, the buring of historical iranian texts took place, the destruction of many of irans pre islamic historical monuments took place, etc...

 

 

"If they attack Iran, of course I will fight. But I will be fighting to defend Iran... my land. I will not be fighting for the government and the nuclear cause." ~ Hamid, veteran of the Iran Iraq War
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  Quote azimuth Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15-Apr-2006 at 20:46
Originally posted by Iranian41ife

azimuth you are so wrong about the reason why irans language and spains language has survived.

1) irans language was being preserved even before shia islam came along! have you ever heard of the samanids and the buyids that controlled iran after the arabs? i guess not.  

i didnt say it was not preserved, i said it was used unofficially, by that i meant it was used between the people but not officially so they had Arabic as the second language and Arabic was used more.

and i heard of the samanids and the buyids and that doesnt proove anything, i already mentioned that iran started getting red of arabic after it got its independence from the Abbasides.

Persian language got back as official language under the Shiea Kingdom.

 

Originally posted by Iranian41ife

3) the countries east of iran are all sunni, so by your theory they should still be speaking arabic because the only reason iran stopped speaking arabic was because iranian converted to shia'ism.  personally, i dont believe the arabs were ever successful of forcing their language on the central asian region because of the nomadic lifestyle on most parts. 

no, i said because iran got red of arabic it saved the countries East of Iran, so they dealt with persian as official languge and saw no point in keeping arabic as official langugae so they went back to their local language as official language.

but the Shiea thing is one of the major factors, Sheia are more in favor of the ancient iranian history and iranian culture than sunnies from the fact that their Imams were married to Persian royality and they have huge respect for the zoroasterian man who killed Caliph Umar.

Originally posted by Iranian41ife

2) the arabs had control of spain for 700 years, but alot of spaniards had also fled to the mountains in the north, preserving the language and culture. also many of the spanish still living on mainland iberia also preserved their language and culture due to the fact that the arabs kings controlling spain were more generous and merciful than the ones controlling north africa and iran.

you got the whole issue wrong, meaning you totaly misunderstood what i was talking about.

i said Arabic was forced as official language and LOCAL languges were used unofficially.

that means these languges for sure wre preserved but not use as frequent as Arabic, from that the local languages were effected by the arabic and many of them were lost by time and few words survived.

Spain after the completion of the "reconquesta" did kick amost all Arabs musims and Jews and the Barbr from Spain. there were few who stayed and they had a freedom to stay muslims for the next 5 years or so then were forced to convert and they childern had to be christans with christan names and the arabic language were not used anymore.

actully the languge the spanish used that time was like 40% arabic, today the Spanish languge does has lots of Arabic words still from those days.

Originally posted by Iranian41ife

also, you are wrong on the point where you say that the arab caliphs never forced their language and culture on others.

i believe it was you or another arab forumer that told me that i needed to learn how to speak arabic because it is the language of God, in another forum.

the forcing of arabica nd arabic culture onto iranians by the arabs is known, and will never be forgotten.  the massacres took place, the buring of historical iranian texts took place, the destruction of many of irans pre islamic historical monuments took place, etc...

no they didnt force the languge.

as i said Caliph Umar did encourage the Learning of Arabic, that because he said its part of your religion ( from that muslims were encouraged to learn arabic) christans were not, some Assyrians who converted to Christianity in Iraq still speak aramaic in their Churches, Egyptians still Speak Koptic in their churches.

people saying muslims should speak arabic are the ones talking about the connection of the language to the religion , NOTE they didnt say dont speak your local language and they didnt say its forbidin to use your local language.

they only encourage muslims to at least know arabic. and thats their opinion.

-----

and the burning of historical places and ancient books and stuff has nothing with the language, they destroyed the ancient arabic idols and their worship places , does that mean they hated arabic languge?

thats religion thing has nothing to do with forcing the languge on people, as i said it was not forced untill Caliph Abdul Malik. who made Arabic official.

obviosly he had no contorl over people's daily lives so the people kept talking with their mother langugae but used less in schools and governemnts and courts.

 

 

 

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  Quote Iranian41ife Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Apr-2006 at 01:15

what are you talking about? the arab invaders DID force their language and culture onto the iranians.

infact, they even destroyed scientific texts, poetry, etc... anything that wasnt arabic. that is why today we have almost nothing left of our pre islamic history.

dont make excuses for what those barbarians did to our country. how would you feel if i started portraying the british as saints? you wouldnt like that would you?

the fact is that arabic was forced onto us, the persian language was made ILLEGAL! that is why ferdowsi had to write everything in secrete.



Edited by Iranian41ife
"If they attack Iran, of course I will fight. But I will be fighting to defend Iran... my land. I will not be fighting for the government and the nuclear cause." ~ Hamid, veteran of the Iran Iraq War
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  Quote azimuth Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Apr-2006 at 05:32

to be honest i dont know what are you talking about?

this topic about how arabic became official languge in the Caliphate, the destruction of non-islamic texts had nothing to do with persian languge it has to do with that they were not islamic.

persian language was written in the governments till the time of Caliph Abdul Malik, and he ordered that that should be changed to ARabic and arabic to be used officially.

i didnt potray anybody as saint or anything

what i wrote is what i mean please dont make up stuff yourself and accuse me of saying or meaning. if you are confused you need to just ask.

 

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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Apr-2006 at 23:02

@azimuth... 1st thanks for the article... very interesting indeed...

 

2nd Could I have the source for that article please?



Edited by 1001nights
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  Quote Omar al Hashim Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Apr-2006 at 04:25
2) the arabs had control of spain for 700 years, but alot of spaniards had also fled to the mountains in the north, preserving the language and culture. also many of the spanish still living on mainland iberia also preserved their language and culture due to the fact that the arabs kings controlling spain were more generous and merciful than the ones controlling north africa and iran.

Actually the spanish populace didn't speak arabic. They spoke Andaluthian, which is an arabised version of latin. I think this dialects still exists, even in places such as Argentina (at least, a lot of Argentine slag comes from Andaluthian). Arabic was the offical language probably.


what are you talking about? the arab invaders DID force their language and culture onto the iranians.

infact, they even destroyed scientific texts, poetry, etc... anything that wasnt arabic. that is why today we have almost nothing left of our pre islamic history.

dont make excuses for what those barbarians did to our country. how would you feel if i started portraying the british as saints? you wouldnt like that would you?

the fact is that arabic was forced onto us, the persian language was made ILLEGAL! that is why ferdowsi had to write everything in secrete.

Well the whole of central asian fine arts was in Persian, to be educated you had to speak persian. If the Iranis for some reason weren't using persian then it wasn't due to the Arabs. Although I can't claim that no scientific texts were destroyed, a huge amount of Irani science was transmitted to the rest of the world purely because of the Arab Empire.

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  Quote Iranian41ife Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21-Apr-2006 at 20:47

697: the Arabs force the Persians to abandon the Pahlavi alphabet in favor of the Arabic script

 

"If they attack Iran, of course I will fight. But I will be fighting to defend Iran... my land. I will not be fighting for the government and the nuclear cause." ~ Hamid, veteran of the Iran Iraq War
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  Quote Decebal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Apr-2006 at 09:53

I would point out that all the areas that speak Arabic now, are also places which spoke Semitic languages before the conquest. Semitic languages were spoken in Egypt, Syria and Iraq. The great exception of course is North Africa, but the ethnic composition of those regions was greatly modified in the 8th century when the Banu Hilal tribes migrated there from Arabia. My point is that people who spoke Semitic languages would have had a much easier time learning Arabic, and the local colloquial language would borrow more and more from the official language of the empire, until it became identical (or very close). It is my understanding that popular Arabic varies from country to country, and I would advance the hypothesis that these variations are due to the mixing with the local semitic language, whether it be Coptic in Egypt, or Aramaic/Phoenician in Syria. Contrast these regions with places like Central Asia, Spain or Pakistan, also conquered by the Arabs, but which spoke languages from the Indo-European and Altaic families, and hence where the common people would have a much harder time learning Arabic.

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  Quote Iranian41ife Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Apr-2006 at 11:00

your getting your time line mixed up.

from the time when persia first conquered the near east region to the time of the islamic invasions (500 B.C to 650 C.E) more than 1000 years had passed. those civilisations you are talking about died out, iraq had was mostly linguistically iranian by the time, egypt was more influenced by greek and roman culture than anything else (greece, then rome, then byzantium).

its very easy to get the timelines mixed up, but the fact is that by the arab invasions, the region was different, and that arabic was forced on the iranians, and probably the former peoples of the Persian Empire, whether iranic or not.

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  Quote Decebal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Apr-2006 at 12:03
Originally posted by Iranian41ife

your getting your time line mixed up.

from the time when persia first conquered the near east region to the time of the islamic invasions (500 B.C to 650 C.E) more than 1000 years had passed. those civilisations you are talking about died out, iraq had was mostly linguistically iranian by the time, egypt was more influenced by greek and roman culture than anything else (greece, then rome, then byzantium).

its very easy to get the timelines mixed up, but the fact is that by the arab invasions, the region was different, and that arabic was forced on the iranians, and probably the former peoples of the Persian Empire, whether iranic or not.

While the aristocracy in Egypt were Greeks or Romans, the common people still spoke Coptic or Demotic. The language has survived until the 18th century, so why shouldn`t it be very much alive by the time of the Arab invasions? There is a common misconception of equating the language of the aristocracy and that of administration, with the language of the common people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_Language 

As for Iraq, again, it had been under Persian dominance for a thousand years (with interruptions of course). But to my knowledge the Achemenids , the Parthians and the Sassanians never attempted to impose their language (which did not resemble the language of the people which was Aramaic) upon the populace. The Iranians were more tolerant in this respect than the Arabs after them. The common people spoke Aramaic until the Arab conquest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_languages

Read the "Common Era" section in the link above. And read up more on Aramaic below, particulary the Middle Aramaic sections.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_language

As a rule of thumb, don't let yourself be fooled into thinking that just because a certain empire or culture dominates an area, that immediately means that the common people who live far from the court and who have never even heard of the great poets and artists, would speak the same language as the elite. Throughout history, societies have tended to be multilingual and multicultural more often than not; and on countless occasions aristocracies speaking a certain language have ruled over populations who spoke a different language altogether.

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  Quote Ahmed The Fighter Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Apr-2006 at 15:14
Originally posted by Iranian41ife

697: the Arabs force the Persians to abandon the Pahlavi alphabet in favor of the Arabic script

 

the Samanid dynasty was the first who used Arabic alphabet to write persian language.
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  Quote Iranian41ife Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Apr-2006 at 15:30
Originally posted by Decebal

While the aristocracy in Egypt were Greeks or Romans, the common people still spoke Coptic or Demotic. The language has survived until the 18th century, so why shouldn`t it be very much alive by the time of the Arab invasions? There is a common misconception of equating the language of the aristocracy and that of administration, with the language of the common people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coptic_Language 

i never said that the egyptian language was greek or roman, i meant they were more influenced culturally by the greeks and romans by the time the arabs had come.

the greek and roman influence is obvious in egypt by the way the later dynasties built their statues and drew their pictures and their architecture.

Originally posted by Decebal

As for Iraq, again, it had been under Persian dominance for a thousand years (with interruptions of course). But to my knowledge the Achemenids , the Parthians and the Sassanians never attempted to impose their language (which did not resemble the language of the people which was Aramaic) upon the populace. The Iranians were more tolerant in this respect than the Arabs after them. The common people spoke Aramaic until the Arab conquest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_languages

Read the "Common Era" section in the link above. And read up more on Aramaic below, particulary the Middle Aramaic sections.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic_language[/quote]

the iranian language was dominant in the region, however, i never said that it was the only language. again, you are misunderstanding me.

and by the way, many iraqi's still spoke the persian language in many parts of iraq until saddams arab nationalism got rid of the last bit of iranian influence left in the country.

many iraqi's can actually trace their roots back to iran. iraq back then was an integral part of the persian empire,a dn many iranic lived there.

and if we even want to go deeper, many emirati's can also trace their roots back to iran (the ajami's), the same for some yemeni's and omani's.

for example, Mira himself has said that he has persian blood. he is an emirati. the same for many iraqi's.

 

Originally posted by Decebal

As a rule of thumb, don't let yourself be fooled into thinking that just because a certain empire or culture dominates an area, that immediately means that the common people who live far from the court and who have never even heard of the great poets and artists, would speak the same language as the elite. Throughout history, societies have tended to be multilingual and multicultural more often than not; and on countless occasions aristocracies speaking a certain language have ruled over populations who spoke a different language altogether.

yes exactly i know all of that, we just had a misunderstanding.

Originally posted by Ahmed The Fighter

[QUOTE=Iranian41ife]

697: the Arabs force the Persians to abandon the Pahlavi alphabet in favor of the Arabic script

 

the Samanid dynasty was the first who used Arabic alphabet to write persian language.

yes, there is still today some arabic influnce left, like words, the script, etc...

the occupation lasted for 222 years, so ofcourse somethings are still with us. infact, arabic has a lot of iranian influnces also.



Edited by Iranian41ife
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  Quote Maju Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Apr-2006 at 17:17
Actually North Africa, Egypt included, was Shia (Fatimid) for a long time. I don't think this has affected negatively the arabization of North Africa. The main factor that has helped it is the lack of a literary tradition in the Berber culture and the association of old Egyptian (Coptic) to Christianity.

In any case, Arabic evidently just expanded over other Afroasian languages and was not so efficient (for whatever reason) when in Indo-European territory. Turkish instead was more efficient there though.

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  Quote azimuth Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23-Apr-2006 at 04:11

to 1001nights

you are wellcome,

about the sources, i wrote that article after quick reading through historical books i have in my PC, didnt copy this article from any site.

the first part about the distribution of the Arabic language in the region before islam is a common knowledge and you can find it in many places, just an example from the script thread i had here there are some pre-islamic arabic scriptures were found in Palestine and Syria.

about the part of the size of the Islamic Caliphate, its also a common knowledge you can find in almost all historical islamic books.

the only part which i gave my own opinion is the last part about how Iran and the countries east of it kept their languages and how spain got red of Arabic.

---------

Maju

north africa's sheia were/are not like the Iranian ones, also they cam in the 900s, more than 200 years after the orders of Abdul Malik to make arabic official.

 

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