The Arab Athletics Championships () is an event organized by the Arab Athletics Federation. It traditionally occurred every two years. It was not held in 1985 due to the schedule clash with the Pan Arab Games. However, due to the erratic scheduling of the games, both the athletics championships and games athletics competition have been held in the same year on several occasions since 1997. Typically, the championships is rescheduled to earlier in the year as a result. Women's events have been present on the programme since the second edition in 1979. The programme is usually combined although the women competed separately from the men for the tenth edition of the tournament, which was split between 1997 and 1998.