Anatolian Arabic

This people's roots trace back to Arab communities that already inhabited northern Mesopotamia long before the modern Turkish state was formed. As empires rose and fell in the region, these families remained fixed to the same lands, between the Tigris and the Euphrates.

The Treaty of Lausanne, in 1923, redrew the map of the Middle East and cut this people's direct political ties with relatives who ended up on the Syrian and Iraqi sides, within a new territorial layout. This did not erase the community's Arab identity, but it placed them within a country whose language, culture, and national project are predominantly Turkish.

Much of the community lives off the land, growing cotton, pistachios, and strawberries on the fertile plains of southeastern Turkey, alongside trade and logistics tied to the proximity of Syria and Iraq. In the cities, many work in local commerce and urban trades, while families of tribal origin keep habits closer to herding on the plains of Şanlıurfa and Harran.

At home, Arabic is still the language of the heart, but Turkish dominates public life, schooling, and the job market. Younger generations tend to speak Arabic fluently in conversation but without the same command of reading and writing, a sign of how Arab identity endures even under the strong influence of the surrounding Turkish culture.

Nearly the entire people professes Sunni Islam, but follows the Shafi’i school of jurisprudence, unlike the Hanafi orientation adopted by the Turkish state and closer to the Islamic tradition of their Kurdish neighbors. This difference marks a distinct religious identity within the Turkish mosaic.

The region is also a well known center of Islamic mysticism, with a strong presence of the Naqshbandi and Qadiriyya Sufi orders. The small town of Tillo, in Siirt, has been recognized for centuries as a hub of Islamic study and spirituality, drawing pilgrims and students from Sufi traditions across the region. Its old madrasas and the tombs of venerated Sufi masters there continue to receive visitors seeking blessing and connection to this spiritual heritage.

The New Testament has already been translated into the Mesopotamian Arabic spoken by this people, and the Jesus film is also available in the same dialect, with audio recordings that help bridge the gap between everyday speech and the written form. A complete Bible, however, does not yet exist in this Arabic variety, and most of the people still have no direct contact with these resources.

Being Arab in this region is deeply tied to being a Sunni Muslim, and the Islamic faith functions as a mark of belonging to both family and local community. The strong Sufi tradition further reinforces this bond between religion and identity, making any change of faith seen as a rupture with one’s own origin. Added to this is the fact that they are an ethnic minority within a Turkish majority state, which also makes it harder for Christians who speak the same language and know their culture closely to reach them.

The community faces challenges tied to the region’s agricultural economy, a shortage of educational material in Arabic in rural schools, and constant pressure to assimilate into Turkish culture and language, which threatens the future of Arab identity among the younger generations. There is also a deep shortage of Christian resources adapted to the people’s spoken, oral reality, and of brothers and sisters in the faith who can walk alongside the few who already believe in Jesus. Families of Bedouin tradition, who speak the shawi dialects of the Şanlıurfa and Harran plains, face an even wider gap, with far less material translated into their speech than for the qeltu Arabic speakers of the cities.