diff --git a/contrib/CHANGES.txt b/contrib/CHANGES.txt
index 46491524357..39ccb82a682 100644
--- a/contrib/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/contrib/CHANGES.txt
@@ -10,6 +10,11 @@ Changes in backwards compatibility policy
 
 Changes in runtime behavior
 
+ * LUCENE-1963: ArabicAnalyzer now lowercases before checking the stopword
+   list. This has no effect on Arabic text, but if you are using a custom
+   stopword list that contains some non-Arabic words, you'll need to fully
+   reindex.  (DM Smith via Robert Muir)
+
 API Changes
 
  * LUCENE-1936: Deprecated RussianLowerCaseFilter, because it transforms
diff --git a/contrib/analyzers/common/src/java/org/apache/lucene/analysis/ar/ArabicAnalyzer.java b/contrib/analyzers/common/src/java/org/apache/lucene/analysis/ar/ArabicAnalyzer.java
index 0f54ee4f6c8..b5c1d57a2f7 100644
--- a/contrib/analyzers/common/src/java/org/apache/lucene/analysis/ar/ArabicAnalyzer.java
+++ b/contrib/analyzers/common/src/java/org/apache/lucene/analysis/ar/ArabicAnalyzer.java
@@ -142,13 +142,13 @@ public final class ArabicAnalyzer extends Analyzer {
    * Creates a {@link TokenStream} which tokenizes all the text in the provided {@link Reader}.
    *
    * @return  A {@link TokenStream} built from an {@link ArabicLetterTokenizer} filtered with
-   * 			{@link StopFilter}, {@link LowerCaseFilter}, {@link ArabicNormalizationFilter}
+   * 			{@link LowerCaseFilter}, {@link StopFilter}, {@link ArabicNormalizationFilter}
    *            and {@link ArabicStemFilter}.
    */
   public final TokenStream tokenStream(String fieldName, Reader reader) {
     TokenStream result = new ArabicLetterTokenizer( reader );
-    result = new StopFilter( result, stoptable );
     result = new LowerCaseFilter(result);
+    result = new StopFilter( result, stoptable );
     result = new ArabicNormalizationFilter( result );
     result = new ArabicStemFilter( result );
 
@@ -165,7 +165,7 @@ public final class ArabicAnalyzer extends Analyzer {
    * in the provided {@link Reader}.
    *
    * @return  A {@link TokenStream} built from an {@link ArabicLetterTokenizer} filtered with
-   *            {@link StopFilter}, {@link LowerCaseFilter}, {@link ArabicNormalizationFilter}
+   *            {@link LowerCaseFilter}, {@link StopFilter}, {@link ArabicNormalizationFilter}
    *            and {@link ArabicStemFilter}.
    */
   public TokenStream reusableTokenStream(String fieldName, Reader reader)
@@ -174,8 +174,8 @@ public final class ArabicAnalyzer extends Analyzer {
     if (streams == null) {
       streams = new SavedStreams();
       streams.source = new ArabicLetterTokenizer(reader);
-      streams.result = new StopFilter(streams.source, stoptable);
-      streams.result = new LowerCaseFilter(streams.result);
+      streams.result = new LowerCaseFilter(streams.source);
+      streams.result = new StopFilter(streams.result, stoptable);
       streams.result = new ArabicNormalizationFilter(streams.result);
       streams.result = new ArabicStemFilter(streams.result);
       setPreviousTokenStream(streams);
diff --git a/contrib/analyzers/common/src/test/org/apache/lucene/analysis/ar/TestArabicAnalyzer.java b/contrib/analyzers/common/src/test/org/apache/lucene/analysis/ar/TestArabicAnalyzer.java
index e26d3026fe7..d44b1e3d41f 100644
--- a/contrib/analyzers/common/src/test/org/apache/lucene/analysis/ar/TestArabicAnalyzer.java
+++ b/contrib/analyzers/common/src/test/org/apache/lucene/analysis/ar/TestArabicAnalyzer.java
@@ -72,4 +72,13 @@ public class TestArabicAnalyzer extends BaseTokenStreamTestCase {
     assertAnalyzesTo(new ArabicAnalyzer(), "English text.", new String[] {
         "english", "text" });
   }
+  
+  /**
+   * Test that custom stopwords work, and are not case-sensitive.
+   */
+  public void testCustomStopwords() throws Exception {
+    ArabicAnalyzer a = new ArabicAnalyzer(new String[] { "the", "and", "a" });
+    assertAnalyzesTo(a, "The quick brown fox.", new String[] { "quick",
+        "brown", "fox" });
+  }
 }