From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed 15 Feb 2006 - 11:21:43 GMT
>From: Derek Gatherer <d.gatherer@vir.gla.ac.uk>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>Subject: Re: Culture's effect on Genetics
>Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2006 10:23:32 +0000
>
>So who is supposed to be descended from Abraham's first wife, the one he
>expelled from his tent with Ishmael? I realise that the modern term Semite
>is a reference to Shem, but I thought the implication of the Genesis story
>was that the Arabs are Ishmaelites? (and do they not claim to be so based
>on the Koran?)
>
How long have Arabic beduin been roaming the deserts of Arabia? Do they
predate Ishmael?
The Ka'aba had pre-Muslim pagan roots, though it may have some ahistorical
mythology surrounding it now. How long had people been making pilgrimages
there before the advent of Islam or the story of Ishmael?
The post-Muhammed Arabs did a bit of travel so I'd assume their genetic (and
ideological influence) had extended across Africa into Spain and certainly
into Palestine/Israel. Sure Jews and Arabs should be more closely related
given their geographic proximity on so called Biblical times. The Diaspora
and the Arab conquest are events that must muddy the picture a bit. In what
is now Israel and the occupied territories there are people self-identifying
as Arab who could have ancestors that are Jewish and converted to Islam or
Christianity. But there's gotta be some who descended from Arabs who
migrated from the region now known as Saudi Arabia too. Not sure if they
all actually stem from Ishmael.
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