Did the Saracens Get Their Name from the Biblical Sarah?

That's what the rumor is. The truth about the ancient Arabic-speaking tribe is a little different.

Brenda Rossini writes:

The word “Saracen” has me puzzled. It’s said to be traceable to the time of the Crusaders and to the Arabic verb saraqa, to steal, but I’ve also read that it’s been derived from the biblical Sarah, the Saracens supposedly being an Arabian tribe descended from her.
How did Arabs become descendants of Sarah?

This is a timely question, given that we have just finished reading about the lives of Sarah and Abraham in the Torah portions of the last several weeks. Brenda Rossini is certainly right to be puzzled. “Saracen,” my Random House dictionary says, refers to

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Brenda Rossini writes:

The word “Saracen” has me puzzled. It’s said to be traceable to the time of the Crusaders and to the Arabic verb saraqa, to steal, but I’ve also read that it’s been derived from the biblical Sarah, the Saracens supposedly being an Arabian tribe descended from her.
How did Arabs become descendants of Sarah?

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