The account in 1 Kings 10:15 matching 2 Chronicles 9:14 is traditionally vowellized to read "kings of the ʿerev ". The people in question are understood to be the early Nabateans who do indeed appear to have been a mix of different tribes. The medieval writer Ibn an-Nadim, in Kitab al-Fihrist, derived the word "Arab" from a Syriac pun by Abraham on the same root: in his account, Abraham addresses Ishmael and calls him uʿrub, from Syriac ʿrob, "mingle".