Based on this, in early Islamic terminology, عرب ʿarab referred to sedentary Arabs, living in cities such as Mecca and Medina, and أعراب ʾaʿrāb referred to the Arab Bedouins, carrying a negative connotation due to the Qur'anic verdict just cited. Following the Islamic conquest of the 8th century, however, the language of the nomadic Arabs came to be regarded as preserving the highest purity by the grammarians following Abi Ishaq, and the term كلام العرب kalam al-ʿArab "language of the Arabs" came to denote the uncontaminated language of the Bedouins.