Arab Americans

The Arab World

The Arab world encompasses a vast area across North Africa, through the Arabian Peninsula, and Western Asia (bounded by Turkey to the north and Iran to the east). As such, the commonly used designation of the Middle East captures only a portion of the approximately 5 million-square-mile expanse. This area is populated by approximately 300 million people who can be considered Arabs, although subclassifications may result in certain groups being omitted from this grouping. Strictly speaking, the twenty-two countries that belong to the Arab League (a regional political organization) can be defined as Arab. These countries are Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Although this region has been populated for millennia, the states themselves are comparatively recent, emerging primary post-World War I due to the League of Nations mandates that provided many of the national boundaries seen today.

Given the large area and large number of people in the Arab category, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to identify consistent cultural elements that span all Arabs across region, religion, and nationality. Of course, one element is the Arab language as a primary medium of communication. Although the advent of mass media has resulted in the emergence of Modern Standard Arabic, there can still be drastic divergences in local dialect. This can be more of an issue for those parts of the population who have received limited schooling, meaning that social class also can be an important dividing line among the populations of the Arab world.

Although Islam is the predominant religion in the Arab world, it is by no means the only religion. The vast majority of Arabs belong to one of the three Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—all tracing their lineage to Abraham and worshipping the same god. Thus, despite variations in specific aspects of theological doctrine, all three Abrahamic branches share many common themes and traditions. Thus, the “religious” divide that often is discussed as the root of regional conflict ultimately has more to do with political differences than with religious differences.

[Page 85]A more significant unifying element can be referred to as an Arab consciousness, which refers to a shared sense of belonging to the Arab category. When this consciousness has been strong, it has provided unification in the Arab world. At the same time, when this sentiment ebbs, there is a diminished sense of unity. In its places have emerged other sources of unity, including nationality, social class, and religion (often combined in various permutations). Thus, although Arabness can be an elusive quality to concretely identify and contain, it is nevertheless a real element in the binding of the Arab world.

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