Off-Clock Musings

On Arabs

Arabs are very odd and interesting people. I'm not just saying that because I'm an Arab myself-rather I've studied their history objectively and see what lifestyles they lead. Their culture is rich, and their language is the most thorough and eloquent in my opinion.

I will continue to refer to the Arabs as if I'm not one of them in this piece for the sake of credibility and trust (with the exception of one section).

Here, I describe culture as the religious, political, and linguistic roots of a country or ethnicity. ISIS is not acknowledged here, for they do not represent Arabs as a whole.

Arabs & Religion
Arabs are an ancient people, and they haven't always been referred to as Arabs. What's interesting about them is that they live on lands where all three Abrahamic religions emerged, giving them a very unique position in religious history. They went from being pagans to being Jews, from Jews to Christians, and from Christians to Muslims. Current day Saudis resumed to polytheism even after the spread of Christianity, something soon corrected by Islam in the 7th century. Now millions remain Christian, and a humble amount remain Jew, especially in Yemen. Almost all Arabs are monotheists as of date, the only exception a small number of atheists rising among them. Polytheism is practically nonexistent among Arabs, for that was Islam's number one purpose in spreading: to obstruct the belief in multiple gods.

The fact that Muhammad was an Arab gives the Arabs a slight advantage in learning about their history as it is believed that, of all messengers and prophets known in Islam, four of them were Arab men. The first known, Hud, resided in Yemen with the first Arab nation called A'ad. While they spoke Arabic, it wasn't exactly how Arabs speak today, of course. The language they spoke is known as old Arabic in Islam. It is believed in Islam, though not in archeology, that Hud's people were some of the richest in the world, the most technologically advanced. Some even believe they lived in greens, not deserts, and the deserts only appeared as a punishment from God for not being grateful. Whether the ruins present in Yemen today are from them or not is unknown. Saleh, a descendant of Hud, resided in Yemen, too, in a nation called Thamud. This Islamic story explains how Saleh's nation was thriving, too, until God punished them for not being grateful. Some thousands of years later came the prophet Shu'ayb from a descent nation who met Moses and married one of his daughters to him. Lastly, Muhammad is known for bringing the Arabs back to monotheism. Evidently, Arabs have had a good share of communication with God to fix their mistakes.

Arab culture can sometimes be difficult to distinguish from Islam to an outsider, but Arabs themselves know what is backed by culture and and what is backed by religion. I will provide an example. Contrary to western belief, stoning is not common in the Arab world, and it is not mentioned in the Qur'an as a punishment to be used by anyone. Only in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar is stoning a legal punishment, though a punishment that is not really used. The main source Muslims haste to does not instruct them to use lapidation as a form of punishment, meaning if they were to practice this form of punishment, it would merely be cultural. And this leads me to the next topic.

Cultural Groupings
This sort of confusion about stoning stems from clumping Arab culture with central Asian culture, a mistake that everyone should steer away from. Afghans surely do share some similar cultural characteristics with the Arabs, for example, but the fact of the matter is that their culture is still very distinguishable from Arab culture. Stoning occurs in Afghanistan, sure, but that doesn't mean it occurs in cultures somewhat similar to it. Many people try to claim that Arabs share the same culture as other Asians, such as Iran and Nepal. While I don't doubt there are plenty of similarities, Arab culture still stands alone with specific characteristics. Yes, there are similarities, but the differences are so significant that they sometimes make the similarities seem little. For instance, most Arabs are Sunni Muslims, not Shia Muslims as Iranians tend to be. One observation that can be made here is how Shia women cover up compared to Sunni women. Central Asian languages are a branch of Indo-European languages whereas Arabic is a semetic language, Afro-Asiatic to be exact. Arabs have no history of associating, nor practicing Socialism and Communism unlike some central Asian countries.

Arabs & Pride
Arabs don't exactly teach their children to be proud; they just grow up proud as if it's in their nature. I have not found out what about being an Arab exactly makes Arabs proud, but I suspect they subconsciously know of how abundant their history, language, and blood is. Albeit mixed, they have their own unique genetic bloodline that makes them their own people, speak an old, yet poetic language, and have survived the harsh deserts for thousands of years. Their customs are ones they've developed themselves, things that many other people have copied from them. They were once advanced in the Islamic Golden Age, produced great philosophers and mathematicians. One should not make the mistake that Arabs are proud and believe they are better than others because Muhammad was an Arab. I've noticed non-Arab Muslims hold this notion, but it is far from the truth. Arabs have never taught their children they're some sort of chosen people of God simply because of their ethnicity or because the messenger of Islam was an Arab man. On the contrary, the children of Israel are viewed as the chosen people of God. Most importantly, however, they were controlled by the Ottomans for hundreds of years, lacking independence until very recently.

Arabs & the Ottomans
Throughout my life, I never heard Arabs speaking ill of the Ottomans. When I was taught that they controlled us, it was just that: a history lesson. There was no spite. Personally, I found it uncanny. My father's great uncle was forced to fight in World War I, never to be heard of again. Until this very day, absolutely no one knows whether he lived on and remained in Europe or died. As a teenager, my own grandfather had to act as if he had an intellectual deficit so forceful arms wouldn't grip his own from inside his home and send him to a foreign continent. His family rubbed honey all over his head so the Ottomans could see his disheveled hair and messy clothes and think he wasn't mentally fit to join a war. This is in rural Jordan, a small village that is unnoticed by the world now (and thankfully so). It pains me to know this. My grandfather has gone on to be a hard worker, a useful member to society, a family man. He has fathered children, now even a great-grandfather to several young children. I possibly wouldn't have existed had he been forcefully drafted into the war. Nonetheless, it is what it is. I firmly believe what truly helped unite the Arabs was the little spark in Arab nationalism around the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Arabs hadn't been independent for hundreds of years, so they finally took advantage of the World War to earn their independence. This, I strongly believe, is one of the main reasons Arabs are very proud to be Arabs nowadays. They can breathe at last as a people and ethnicity, though we can all agree the British and French made it difficult for them to gain political independence for a while. Despite that, Arabs have what they have today because of the works of many people around the world helping them rule themselves after so long.