Fellah (from Arabic فَلَّاح fallah, ploughman, derived from the verb فلح / falaḥa / ‘to plough, literally: to make [the soil] rough’; plural فلاحون / Fallāḥūn) is the name given to peasants in the Near East, and more specifically in Egypt, Syria and Palestine. They are tenant farmers, i.e. those who do not own the land.
Since the spread of Islam in the Near East, this term has been used to distinguish between Arabs belonging to the Arabian Peninsula and those of Egyptian origin.
