Assyrian

Assyrians are not Arabs racially, ethnically, or culturally. They have their own distinct language called Syriac (which belongs to the same linguistic group as Arabic or Hebrew) and they mainly reside in Mesopotamia. Historically, they have contributed to the rise of the Arabic civilization during the Abbasid period and many scientists and scholars were in fact Assyrian (or Syriac). They have their own rich history which is distinct from the Arabs (in fact, the Assyrians were the first manufactureres of a sophisticated civilization in ancient times and prior to the Islamic expansion they made several breakthroughs in the fields of astronomy, philosophy and medicine) and were builders of the first known world-empire in antiquity under Sargon I that encompassed the western borders of modern-day Iran, all of Syria and Mesopotamia (Iraq), Palestine southeast Anatolia, the Armenian highlands, Egypt and Sudan.