Most Westerners know very little about the Middle East and the people that live there. This lack of knowledge hurts our ability to understand, and engage in intelligent discussion about, current events.

For example, frighteningly few know the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims, and most think the words “Arab” and “Muslim” are pretty much interchangeable. They aren’t. So here’s a very brief primer aimed at raising the level of knowledge about the region to an absolute minimum.

Basics

1. Arabs are part of an ethnic group, not a religion. Arabs were around long before Islam, and there have been (and still are) Arab Christians and Arab Jews. In general, you’re an Arab if you 1) are of Arab descent (blood), or 2) speak the main Arab language (Arabic).

2. Not all Arabs are Muslim. There are significant populations of Arab Christians throughout the world, including in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Northern Africa and Palestine/Israel.

3. Islam is a religion. A Muslim (roughly pronounced MOOSE-lihm) is someone who follows the religion. So you wouldn’t say someone follows Muslim or is an Islam, just as you wouldn’t say someone follows Christian or is a Christianity.

4. Shia Muslims are similar to Roman Catholics in Christianity. They have a strong clerical presence via Imams and promote the idea of going through them to practice the religion correctly. Sunni Muslims are more like Protestant Christians. They don’t really focus on Imams and believe in maintaining a more direct line to God than the Shia.

5. People from Iran are also known as Persians, and they are not Arabs.

6. Arabs are Semites. We’ve all heard the term anti-Semitism being used — often to describe Arabs. While antisemitism does specifically indicate hatred for Jews, the word “Semite” comes from the Bible and referred originally to anyone who spoke one of the Semitic Languages.

7. According to the Bible, Jews and Arabs are related [Genesis 25]. Jews descended from Abraham’s son Isaac, and Arabs descended from Abraham’s son Ishmael. So not only are both groups Semitic, but they’re also family.

8. Sunni Muslims make up most of the Muslim world (roughly 90%). ¹

9. The country with the world’s largest Muslim population is Indonesia. ²

10. The rift between the Shia and Sunni started right after Muhammad’s death and originally reduced to a power struggle regarding who was going to become the authoritative group for continuing the faith.
    
    The Shia believed Muhammad’s second cousin Ali should have taken over (the family/cleric model). The Sunni believed that the best person for the job should be chosen by the followers (the merit model) and that’s how the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, was appointed.
    
    Although the conflict began as a political struggle it now mostly considered a religious and class conflict, with political conflict emanating from those rifts.

Sunni vs. Shia | Arab vs. Non-Arab

Here’s how the various Middle Eastern countries break down in terms of Sunni vs. Shia and whether or not they are predominantly Arab. Keep in mind that these are generalizations; significant diversity exists in many of the countries listed.

• Iraq Mostly Shia (roughly 60%), but under Saddam the Shia were oppressed and the Sunni were in power despite being only 20% of the population. Arab.

• Iran Shia. NOT Arab.

• Palestine Sunni. Arab.

• Egypt Sunni. Arab.

• Saudi Arabia Sunni. Arab.

• Syria Sunni. Arab.

• Jordan Sunni. Arab.

• Gulf States Sunni. Arab.

Conclusion

What’s depressing is the fact that this only took me 30 minutes to write, and you 2 minutes to read. Yet most people in the West (and especially in the United States) lack even this cursory level of knowledge about the region.:

References

¹The CIA World Fact Book | Field Listing - Religions

²The CIA World Fact Book | Field Listing - Indonesia

Wikipedia | Sunni Muslims

Wikipedia | Shia Muslims

Wikipedia | Arabs

A provoking argument about the effects of agriculture.

Links

[ The Worst Mistake | awok.org ]

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

“As we peer into society’s future, we-you and I, and our government-must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage.”

“Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.”

“Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose difference, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.”

“We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

This is an extraordinary read. Please take the time.

[ The Road to War and Dictatorship ]

If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that? — David Ben Gurion

It just keeps getting more absurd. Following the same line as my first two posts in this series (I and II), here’s another sign of just how stupid our society has become. The DVD releases of the original Sesame Street have strong warnings on them. They indicate that the content should not be viewed by children.

From the warning:

These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.

We’re nerfing our kids, and life isn’t nerfed. We are not helping anyone by treating our children this way.:

[ New York Times Article on Sesame Street ]

My post titled That Was Then, This is Now has received quite a reaction. I can’t really take any credit, however, as all I did was post an anonymous email forward. Still, it’s interesting that the post stirred so many emotions.

The concept is essentially that things have changed drastically in the last 40 years, and that many of these changes have been for the worse. Just today I received the worst comment in the whole thread from an Italian teacher, and it speaks to the point quite poignantly:

I am a (male) high school teacher and I have a daughter. If I see a child or (worse) a pre-teen crying on the beach I change my direction and put as much distance as possible between us. It’s too dangerous even to take a picture, imagine TOUCHING them!

The sad thing is that I’m not joking; I never touch my students and I couldn’t even imagine touching one of my daughter’s little friends.

Sad. To think that one of his daughters’ friends could skin a knee in the back yard playing and that it would be a bad idea for him to clean the wound and put a bandaid on it. It’s just insane.

The people commonly called “gypsies” are the Romani people. They’re originally from India.

This should keep you busy for a few minutes.

Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric make up the trivium.: