Arabization or Arabicization is a sociological process of cultural change in which a non-Arab society becomes Arab, meaning it either directly adopts or becomes strongly influenced by the Arabic language, culture, literature, art, music, and ethnic identity as well as other socio-cultural factors. It is a specific form of cultural assimilation that often includes a language shift. The term applies not only to cultures, but also to individuals, as they acclimate to Arab culture and become "Arabized". Arabization took place after the Muslim conquest of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as during the more recent Arab nationalist policies toward non-Arab minorities in modern Arab states, such as Algeria, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, and Sudan.
Caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705) established Arabic as the sole official language of the Umayyad Caliphate in 686 CE
Sassanian weaponry, 7th century.
Banu Hilal, Emir of Mascara in western Algeria, 1856
Arabic is a Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The ISO assigns language codes to 32 varieties of Arabic, including its standard form of Literary Arabic, known as Modern Standard Arabic, which is derived from Classical Arabic. This distinction exists primarily among Western linguists; Arabic speakers themselves generally do not distinguish between Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, but rather refer to both as al-ʿarabiyyatu l-fuṣḥā or simply al-fuṣḥā (اَلْفُصْحَىٰ).
Safaitic inscription
The Namara inscription, a sample of Nabataean script, considered a direct precursor of Arabic script.
Arabic from the Quran in the old Hijazi dialect (Hijazi script, 7th century AD)
The Qur'an has served and continues to serve as a fundamental reference for Arabic. (Maghrebi Kufic script, Blue Qur'an, 9th–10th century)