Arabs in Turkey

Turkish Arabs (Turkish: Türkiye Arapları, Arabic: عرب تركيا‎) refers to the 1.5-2 million citizens and residents of Turkey who are ethnically of Arab descent. They are the second-largest minority in the country after the Kurds, and are concentrated in the south. Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011, millions of Arab Syrian refugees have sought refuge in Turkey.

Turkish Arabs
Türkiye Arapları
عرب تركيا
Total population
1,500,000 - 2,000,000 (2011)[1][2] (Pre-Syrian Civil War Arab minority) 4,000,000 - 5,000,000 (2017)[3][4][5][6][4][7][5][8] (Including Syrian refugees)
Regions with significant populations
Mainly Southeastern Anatolia Region
Languages
Arabic, Turkish[9]
Religion
Predominately Sunni Islam Minority Alevism, Orthodox Christianity and Judaism [10]
Related ethnic groups
Arab diaspora

Background

Besides the large communities of both foreign and Turkish Arabs in Istanbul and other large cities, most live in the south and southeast.[11]

Turkish Arabs are mostly Muslims living along the southeastern border with Syria and Iraq in the following provinces: Batman, Bitlis, Gaziantep, Hatay, Mardin, Muş, Siirt, Şırnak, Şanlıurfa, Mersin and Adana. Many Bedouin tribes, in addition to other Arabs who settled there, arrived before Turkic tribes came to Anatolia from Central Asia in the 11th century. Many of these Arabs have ties to Arabs in Syria, especially in the city of Raqqa. Arab society in Turkey has been subject to Turkification, yet some speak Arabic in addition to Turkish. The Treaty of Lausanne ceded to Turkey large areas that had been part of Ottoman Syria, especially in Aleppo Vilayet.[12]

Map from 1911 showing the ethnic composition of Turkey and the Levant area

Besides a significant Shafi'i Sunni population, about 300,000 to 350,000 are Alawites[13] (distinct from Alevism). About 18,000 Arab Christians[10] belong mostly to the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch. There are also Arab Jews in Hatay and other Turkish parts of the former Aleppo Vilayet, but this community has shrank considerably since the late 1940s, mostly due to migration to Israel and other parts of Turkey.

Demographics
Arab-speaking population in Turkey[14]
Year As first language As second language Total Turkey's population % of Total speakers
1927 134,273 - 134,273 13,629,488 0.99
1935 153,687 34,028 187,715 16,157,450 1.16
1945 247,294 60,061 307,355 18,790,174 1.64
1950 269,038 - 269,038 20,947,188 1.28
1955 300,583 95,612 396,195 24,064,763 1.65
1960 347,690 134,962 482,652 27,754,820 1.74
1965 365,340 169,724 533,264 31,391,421 1.70

According to a Turkish study based on a large survey in 2006, 0,7% of the total population in Turkey were ethnically Arab.[15] The population of Arabs in Turkey varies according to different sources. A 1995 American estimate put the numbers between 800,000 and 1 million.[2] According to Ethnologue, in 1992 there were 500,000 people with Arabic as their mother tongue in Turkey.[16] Another Turkish study estimated the Arab population to be between 1.1 and 2.4%.[17]

In a 2020 interview with Al Jazeera, the prominent Turkish politician Yasin Aktay estimated the number of Arabs in Turkey at nine million (or 10% of Turkey's population), half of them from other countries.[18]

Notable people

See also

References
  1. "Arabs: Turkey's new minority". Al-Monitor. 12 September 2014.
  2. Helen Chapin Metz, ed. Turkey: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1995.
  3. (UNHCR), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. "UNHCR Syria Regional Refugee Response". UNHCR Syria Regional Refugee Response. Archived from the original on 2018-03-05. Retrieved 2016-06-20.
  4. http://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/11298 The Iraqi Refugee Crisis and Turkey: a Legal Outlook
  5. "Turkey's demographic challenge". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved 2016-12-18.
  6. "UNHCR Syria Regional Refugee Response/ Turkey". UNHCR. 31 December 2015. Archived from the original on 5 March 2018. Retrieved 17 January 2016.
  7. "The Impact of Syrian Refugees on Turkey". www.washingtoninstitute.org. Retrieved 2016-12-18.
  8. Ozdemir, Soner Cagaptay, Oya Aktas and Cagatay. "The Impact of Syrian Refugees on Turkey". Soner Cagaptay.
  9. Lahdo, Ablahad (2009). "The Arabic Dialect of Tillo in the Region of Siirt" (PDF). Uppsala Universitet, Department of African and Asian Languages. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  10. Christen in der islamischen Welt – Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte (APuZ 26/2008)
  11. Die Bevölkerungsgruppen in Istanbul (türkisch) Archived February 3, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  12. Translation of the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). The original text was in French.
  13. Die Nusairier weltweit und in der Türkei (türkisch) Archived 2011-12-17 at the Wayback Machine
  14. Fuat Dündar, Türkiye Nüfus Sayımlarında Azınlıklar, 2000
  15. "Toplumsal yapı araştırması 2006" (PDF). KONDA Research and Consultancy. 2006. pp. 15–16. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 15, 2017. Retrieved May 10, 2012. .(in Turkish)
  16. Tu. Turkey: Languages. Accessed on 19 September 2013.
  17. Ali Tayyar Önder: Türkiye'nin etnik yapısı: Halkımızın kökenleri ve gerçekler. Kripto Kitaplar, Istanbul 2008, ISBN 605-4125-03-6, S. 103. (in Turkish)
  18. Al-Jazeera.net, 2020. مقابلة مع الجزيرة نت.. مستشار أردوغان: 10% من سكان تركيا عرب وهذه أوضاعهم. Accessed on 16 June 2020.
  19. "Mrs Erdogan's many friends", The Economist, 12 August 2004
  20. Yaklaşık 5-6 milyon Türk-Kürt evliliği var, Sabah, 2010
  21. "Murat Yıldırım: 'Annem Arapça, babam Kürtçe konuşur'". Akşam. 3 February 2014. Retrieved 2 March 2017.
  22. "Kürt değilim, kökenim Arap".

Further reading
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