Did you know that Arabs cover 22 countries on the Earth? Well, if not I am going to increase your knowledge about Arabs which might be presently covered in sheer ignorance and imagination. Contrary to what the layman thinks an Arab is not only a citizen living in Saudi Arabia or some other country.
An Arab is actually any person on the Earth who simply embraces the Arabic language. He/she may be a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew it does not matter and you may well be surprised to know about this. Arabic is as you may well know the official and only language in which the Qu'ran, the holy book of Islam was written.
Like being American is not restricted to race, being an Arab is more reflective of culture than of race or religion. There are around 200 million Arabs spread over all over the world. This is why you may be surprised to know, and there is wide-spread misconception about this anyway, that there exist substantial number of Arab Christians in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, and in Iraq. However, Arabs make up only about 15 to 18 percent of the Muslim population.
Therefore, every Muslim is not an Arab and vice versa. Contrary to expectations, Arabs have a highly developed culture. So, what if some cities in the Arab world are ancient in their architecture, whereas some lead the race in modernization. An average layman elsewhere may think of the Arab world as an oasis in the middle of one big desert area, but this simply is not true. The Arab people live in geographically diverse countries and areas spread all over the world.
Moreover, not all Arabs are Sheikhs, not in the real sense of the term. There are much more poor Arabs in the world as are Sheikhs in Saudia Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Brunei, or Dubai. Although Islamic countries do bind their womenfolk in veils, it is not so in all the Arabian speaking countries. This if you want to see, you can in Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria especially.
Another aspect is in the diversity of clothing that Arabs in different countries wear. Although you will find many Arabs wearing jeans and T-shirts today, the traditional dress wear for Arabs is still the long flowing robe and the almost ubiquitous and uniquely symbolic head dress. There is good reason for this. You see, many Arabs live in areas where the Sun shines hot for most of the year, so this sort of dress keeps the body and head cool. Although evocative of Arab culture today, this was the reason the Arabs wore such a different looking dress in olden times.
The color of the checkered head dress of Arabs reflects the origin of the Arab. If it is red and white, it shows that the man is originally from Jordan, while for the black and white checkered head dress is strongly evocative of Palestinian descent. Hope the above insights increased your knowledge about Arabs and generally dispelled the cover of ignorance that shrouded your mind.
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