Yes, Arabic is sometimes called “لغة الضاد” or “the language of ض" as it is considered a very important characteristic of Arabic, and almost (I once looked it up) entirely exclusive to it (there are some tribal languages that include the emphatic pharyngealized voiced alveolar stop).
Except that the original (classical) pronounciation is not a (pharyngealized voiced alveolar stop), but a (pharyngealized voiced lateral fricative), which sounds very close to (ظ), and explains why many Arabs merged the two sounds together. The alveolar stop is a new letter, and seems to have come out of Egypt because they had a hard time pronouncing the original latter. See this video about how to correctly pronounce it: https://youtu.be/U0qr9XxJges?t=99
