Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
Savvy Traveler: Arab vs Muslim
It is a little frightening how many people use the terms "Arab" and "Muslim" interchangeably. Shows how much we know about that region of the world even after years of being intimately involved with the Middle East.One often hears that people say "Arabs" when referring to Iranians. They are actually not Arabs; they are primarily Persians. Yes, they might practice Islam but that's another story. Iraqis, on the other hand, are primarily Arabs. Afghanistan is not an Arabic state.
Just last week, I heard somebody describing a person as "looking Muslim." People don't generally look Muslim, just like they generally don't look Christian. They might look Arab, but even that's questionable because there are many races that live in the Arab world. Needless to say, Muslims in the Middle East look different than Muslims in Africa or Indonesia.
Arab refers to somebody from an ethnic group that shares a culture, history and language. Muslims are people who practice Islam. The Arab world covers most of Northern Africa and part of the Middle East. Many Arabs practice Islam, but many are also Christians, Jews, etc. Arab world is only a part of the Muslim world.
List of Arab Countries:
- Algeria
- Bahrain
- Djibouti
- Egypt
- Iraq
- Jordan
- Kuwait
- Lebanon
- Libya
- Mauritania
- Morocco
- Oman
- Palestine
- Qatar
- Saudi Arabia
- Sudan
- Syria
- Tunisia
- United Arab Emirates
- Western Sahara
- Yemen
Filed under: Arts and Culture, Africa, Asia, Egypt, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Savvy Traveler
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jesse Anderson Aug 24th 2007 10:22PM
Yes some of us who never taken the time to learn, would learn, and the Iran are the persians who cause most of the problem in the middle east.
O Aug 25th 2007 1:51PM
actually it is typically the U.S. that causes problems in the middle east, as they tend to do in most parts of the world. people think that muslims and arabs are out to get everyone, and convert them to their ways of life, but actually they are quite tolerant of others. when muslims occupied spain, everyone from jews to athiests were living in relative peace and coexisting without any problems. so don't go passing blame on to the iranians, or any other nation because u don't seem to know anything.
PickledEel Sep 10th 2007 10:33AM
Now just to confuse the issue, but to reinforce the point you are making - that simple labels, whether "Arab" "Jew" "Viking" "American" Roman" "Chinese" or any other only reflect our lack of insight and betray our biases - did you know that in the 1967 and 1973 wars the Israeli Army comprised about 60% Arabs. (Source: General Sharon). There is never a clear cut answer or rationale to any facet of conflict is there?!
http://pickledeel.blogspot.com