TheArab world (Arabic:اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّal-ʿālam al-ʿarabī), formally theArab homeland (اَلْوَطَنُ الْعَرَبِيُّal-waṭan al-ʿarabī),[7][8][9] also known as theArab nation (اَلْأُمَّةُ الْعَرَبِيَّةُal-ummah al-ʿarabiyyah), theArabsphere, or theArab states,[10] comprises a large group of countries, mainly located inWest Asia andNorth Africa. While the majority of people in the Arab world are ethnicallyArab,[11][12] there are also significant populations of other ethnic groups such asBerbers,Kurds,Somalis andNubians, among othergroups.[13]Arabic is used as thelingua franca throughout the Arab world.[14][15][16][17][18][19]
The Arab world is at its minimum defined as the 19 states whereArabs form at least aplurality of the population.[20][21] At its maximum it consists of the 22members of theArab League, an international organization,[6] which on top of the 19 plurality Arab states also includes theBantu-speakingComoros, and theCushitic-speakingDjibouti andSomalia. The region stretches from theAtlantic Ocean in the west to theArabian Sea in the east, and from theMediterranean Sea in the north to theIndian Ocean in the southeast.[6] The eastern part of the Arab world is known as theMashriq, and the western part as theMaghreb.
According to theWorld Bank, the Arab world has a total population of 456 million inhabitants and agross domestic product of $2.85 trillion, as of 2021.[2] The region is economically quite diverse, and includes some of the wealthiest as well as poorest populations in the world.[21]
In page 9 ofBest Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions, 10th century Arab geographerAl Maqdisi used the termArab regions[a] to refer to the lands of theArabian Peninsula (Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen). He also considered Iraq, alongsideUpper Mesopotamia (Iraq, Syria and Turkey),Ash-Sham (Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Turkey), Egypt and the Maghreb (Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia and Western Sahara Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic) to be part of the Arab regions.[25]
Malta, an island country inSouthern Europe whosenational language derives from Arabic (throughSicilian Arabic), is not included in the region. Similarly,Chad,Eritrea andIsrael recognize Arabic as one of their official or working languages but are not included in the region because they are not members of the Arab League.
Definition
The linguistic and political denotation inherent in the termArab is generally dominant overgenealogical considerations. In Arab states,Standard Arabic is used by the government. Localvernacular languages are referred to asDarija (الدَّارِجَة "everyday/colloquial language"[26]) in theMaghreb orAammiyya (ٱلْعَامِيَّة "common language") in theMashreq. The majority of the vocabulary in these vernaculars is shared with Standard Arabic; however, some of them also significantly borrow from other languages, such asBerber,French,Spanish andItalian in the Maghreb.[27]
Although no globally accepted definition of the Arab world exists,[6] all countries that aremembers of theArab League are generally acknowledged as being part of the Arab world.[6][28]
The Arab League is aregional organisation that aims, among other things, to consider in a general way the affairs and interests of the Arab countries and sets out the following definition of an Arab:
An Arab is a person whose language is Arabic, who lives in an Arab country, and who is in sympathy with the aspirations of the Arab people.[29]
This standard territorial definition is sometimes seen to be inappropriate[30] or problematic,[31] and may be supplemented with certain additional elements (seeancillary linguistic definition below).[32]
As an alternative to,[33] or in combination with,[6] the standard territorial definition, the Arab world may be defined as consisting of peoples and states united to at least some degree by Arabic language, culture or geographic contiguity,[34] or those states or territories in which the majority of the population speaks Arabic, and thus may also includepopulations of the Arab diaspora.[6]
When an ancillary linguistic definition is used in combination with thestandard territorial definition, various parameters may be applied[clarification needed] to determine whether a state or territory should be included in this alternative definition of the Arab world. These parameters may be applied[clarification needed] to the states and territories of the Arab League (which constitute the Arab world under the standard definition) and to other states and territories. Typical parameters that may be applied include: whether Arabic is widely spoken; whether Arabic is an official or national language; or whether an Arabic cognate language is widely spoken.
WhileArabic dialects are spoken in a number of Arab League states,Literary Arabic is official in all of them. Several states have declared Arabic to be anofficial or national language, although Arabic is not as widely spoken there. As members of the Arab League, however, they are considered part of the Arab world under the standard territorial definition.
Somalia has two official languages, Arabic andSomali, whileSomaliland has three, Arabic, Somali andEnglish.[35] Both Arabic and Somali belong to the largerAfro-Asiatic language family. Although Arabic is widely spoken by many people in the north and urban areas in the south, Somali is the most widely used language, and contains many Arabicloan words.[36]
Similarly,Djibouti has two official languages, Arabic andFrench. It also has several formally recognized national languages; besides Somali, many people speakAfar, which is also an Afro-Asiatic language. The majority of the population speaks Somali and Afar, although Arabic is also widely used for trade and other activities.[37]
TheComoros has three official languages: Arabic,Comorian and French. Comorian is the most widely spoken language, with Arabic having a religious significance, and French being associated with the educational system.
Chad,Eritrea[38] andIsrael all recognize Arabic as an official or working language, but none of them is a member-state of the Arab League, although both Chad and Eritrea are observer states of the League (with possible future membership) and have large populations of Arabic speakers.
Israel is not a part of the Arab world. By some definitions,[32][39]Arab citizens of Israel may concurrently be considered a constituent part of the Arab world.
Arab expansion is due to theearly Muslim conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries.Iraq wasconquered in 633,Levant (modern Syria, Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon) wasconquered between 636 and 640 CE.Egypt wasconquered in 639, and gradually Arabized during the medieval period. A distinctivelyEgyptian Arabic language emerged by the 16th century. TheMaghreb was alsoconquered in the 7th century, and gradually Arabized under theFatimids.Islamwas brought toSudan from Egypt during the 8th to 11th centuries. The culture of Sudan today depends on the tribe, some have a pure Nubian,Beja, or Arabic culture and some have a mixture of Arab andNubian elements.[44]
TheMutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen also seceded directly from the Ottoman Empire in 1918.Oman, apart from brief intermittent Persian and Portuguese rule, has been self-governing since the 8th century.
The Arab League was formed in 1945 to represent the interests of the Arabs, and especially to pursue the political unification of the Arab world, a project known asPan-Arabism.[23][24]There were some short-lived attempts at such unification in the mid-20th century, notably theUnited Arab Republic of 1958 to 1961.The Arab League's main goal is to unify politically the Arab populations so defined. Its permanent headquarters are located inCairo. However, it was moved temporarily toTunis during the 1980s, after Egypt was expelled for signing theCamp David Accords (1978).
Pan-Arabism has mostly been abandoned as an ideology since the 1980s, and was replaced byPan-Islamism on one hand, and individual nationalisms on the other.
The Al-Saud had been in exile inOttoman Iraq since 1893 following the disintegration of the Second Saudi State and the rise ofJebel Shammar under theAl Rashid clan. In 1902, Ibn Saud recapturedRiyadh, the Al Saud dynasty's former capital. He went on to subdue the rest ofNejd,Al-Hasa,Jebel Shammar,Asir, andHejaz (location of theMuslim holy cities ofMecca andMedina) between 1913 and 1926. The resultant polity was named theKingdom of Nejd and Hejaz from 1927 until it was further consolidated with Al-Hasa andQatif into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.
TheIran–Iraq War (1980–1988) killed more than 500,000 people before a UN-brokered ceasefire ended it
TheIran–Iraq War (also known as the First Gulf War and by various other names) was an armed conflict between the armed forces of Iraq and Iran, lasting from September 1980 to August 1988, making it the second longest conventional war of the 20th century. It was initially referred to in English as the "Gulf War" prior to the "Gulf War" of 1990.
The war began when Iraq invaded Iran, launching a simultaneous invasion by air and land into Iranian territory on 22 September 1980 following a long history of border disputes, and fears of Shia Islam insurgency among Iraq's long-suppressed Shia majority influenced by the Iranian Revolution. Iraq was also aiming to replace Iran as the dominant Persian Gulf state. Although Iraq hoped to take advantage of the revolutionary chaos in Iran (seeIranian Revolution, 1979) and attacked without formal warning, they made only limited progress into Iran and were quickly repelled by the Iranians who regained virtually all lost territory by June 1982. For the next six years, Iran was on the offensive.
TheLebanese Civil War was a multifaceted civil war in Lebanon, lasting from 1975 to 1990 and resulting in an estimated 120,000 fatalities. Another one million people (a quarter of the population) were wounded,[citation needed] and today approximately 76,000 people remain displaced within Lebanon. There was also a mass exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon.
TheWestern Sahara War was an armed struggle between the Sahrawi Polisario Front and Morocco between 1975 and 1991, being the most significant phase of the Western Sahara conflict. The conflict erupted after the withdrawal of Spain from the Spanish Sahara in accordance with the Madrid Accords, by which it transferred administrative control of the territory to Morocco and Mauritania, but not the sovereignty. In 1975, Moroccan government organized the Green March of some 350,000 Moroccan citizens, escorted by around 20,000 troops, who entered Western Sahara, trying to establish Moroccan presence.
While at first met with just minor resistance by the Polisario, Morocco later engaged a long period of guerilla warfare with the Sahrawi nationalists. During the late 1970s, the Polisario Front, desiring to establish an independent state in the territory, successively fought both Mauritania and Morocco. In 1979, Mauritania withdrew from the conflict after signing a peace treaty with the Polisario. The war continued in low intensity throughout the 1980s, though Morocco made several attempts to take the upper hand in 1989–1991. A cease-fire agreement was finally reached between the Polisario Front and Morocco in September 1991.
TheNorth Yemen Civil War was fought in North Yemen between royalists of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen and factions of the Yemen Arab Republic from 1962 to 1970. The war began with a coup d'état carried out by the republican leader, Abdullah as-Sallal, which dethroned the newly crowned Imam al-Badr and declared Yemen a republic under his presidency. The Imam escaped to the Saudi Arabian border and rallied popular support.
TheSomali Civil War is an ongoing civil war taking place inSomalia. It began in 1991, when a coalition of clan-based armed opposition groups ousted the nation's long-standing military government.
Various factions began competing for influence in the power vacuum that followed, which precipitated an aborted UN peacekeeping attempt in the mid-1990s. A period of decentralization ensued, characterized by a return to customary and religious law in many areas as well as the establishment of autonomous regional governments in the northern part of the country. The early 2000s saw the creation of fledgling interim federal administrations, culminating in the establishment of theTransitional Federal Government (TFG) in 2004.[45]
In 2006, the TFG, assisted by Ethiopian troops, assumed control of most of the nation's southern conflict zones from the newly formedIslamic Courts Union (ICU). The ICU splintered into more radical groups, notablyAl-Shabaab, which have since been fighting the Somali government and itsAMISOM allies for control of the region. In 2011, a coordinated military operation between the Somali military and multinational forces began, which is believed to represent one of the final stages in the war's Islamist insurgency.[45]
Thepopular protests throughout the Arab world of late 2010 to the present have been directed against authoritarian leadership and associatedpolitical corruption, paired with demands for more democratic rights. The two most violent and prolonged conflicts in the aftermath of the Arab Spring are the Libyan Civil War and Syrian Civil War.
While the Arab world had been of limited interest to the European colonial powers, theBritish Empire being mostly interested in theSuez Canal as a route toBritish India, the economic and geopolitical situation changed dramatically after the discovery of largepetroleum deposits in the 1930s, coupled with the vastly increased demand for petroleum in the west as a result of theSecond Industrial Revolution.
ThePersian Gulf is particularly well-endowed with this strategicraw material: five Persian Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar, are among the top ten petroleum or gas exporters worldwide. In Africa, Algeria (10th world) and Libya are important gas exporters. Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia, and Sudan all have smaller but significant reserves. Where present, these have had significant effects on regional politics, often enablingrentier states, leading to economic disparities between oil-rich and oil-poor countries, and, particularly in the more sparsely populated states of the Persian Gulf and Libya, triggering extensive labor immigration. It is believed that the Arab world holds approximately 46% of the world's total proven oil reserves and a quarter of the world's natural-gas reserves.[46]
Islamism andPan-Islamism were on the rise during the 1980s. TheHezbollah, a militant Islamic party inLebanon, was founded in 1982.Islamic terrorism became a problem in the Arab world in the 1970s to 1980s. While theMuslim Brotherhood had been active in Egypt since 1928, their militant actions were limited to assassination attempts on political leaders.
The invasion of Kuwait by Iraq forces, led to the 1990–91Persian Gulf War.Egypt,Syria andSaudi Arabia joined a multinational coalition that opposed Iraq. Displays of support for Iraq byJordan andPalestine resulted in strained relations between many of the Arab states. After the war, a so-called "Damascus Declaration" formalized an alliance for future joint Arab defensive actions between Egypt, Syria, and the GCC states.[48]
A chain of events leading to the destabilization of the authoritarian regimes established during the 1950s throughout the Arab world became apparent during the early years of the 21st century. The2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq led to the collapse of theBaathist regime and ultimateexecution of Saddam Hussein.
A growing class of young, educated, secular citizens with access to modern media such asAl Jazeera (since 1996) and communicating via theinternet began to form a third force besides the classical dichotomy of Pan-Arabism vs. Pan-Islamism that had dominated the second half of the 20th century. These citizens wish for reform in their country's religious institutions.[49]
In Syria, theDamascus Spring of 2000 to 2001 heralded the possibility of democratic change, but the Baathist regime managed to suppress the movement.
The Arab World stretches across more than 13,000,000 square kilometres (5,000,000 sq mi)[citation needed] ofNorth Africa and the part of North-East Africa and South-West Asia. The eastern part of the Arab world is called theMashriq. Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania are theMaghreb orMaghrib.[citation needed]
The term "Arab" often connotes[according to whom?] the Arabian Peninsula, but the larger (and more populous) part of the Arab World is North Africa. Its eight million square kilometers include two of the largest countries of the African continent,Algeria (2.4 million km2) in the center of the region andSudan (1.9 million km2) in the southeast.[citation needed] Algeria is about three-quarters the size ofIndia, or about one-and-a-half times the size ofAlaska, the largest state in the United States. The largest country in the Arab West Asia isSaudi Arabia (2 million km2).[citation needed]
At the other extreme, the smallest autonomous mainland Arab country isLebanon (10,452 km2), and the smallest island Arab country isBahrain (665 km2).[citation needed]
Every Arab country borders a sea or ocean, with the exception of the Arab region of northern Chad, which is completely landlocked.[citation needed] Iraq is actually nearly landlocked, as it has only a very narrow access to the Persian Gulf.[citation needed]
Historical boundaries
The political borders of the Arab world have wandered, leaving Arab minorities in non-Arab countries of theSahel and theHorn of Africa as well as in the Middle Eastern countries ofCyprus,Turkey andIran, and also leaving non-Arab minorities in Arab countries. However, the basic geography of sea, desert and mountain provides the enduring natural boundaries for this region.[citation needed]
The Arab world straddles two continents, Africa and Asia. It is mainly oriented along an east–west axis.[citation needed]
The West Asian Arab region comprises theArabian Peninsula, most of theLevant (excluding Cyprus and Israel), most of Mesopotamia (excluding parts of Turkey and Iran) and the Persian Gulf region. The peninsula is roughly a tilted rectangle that leans back against the slope of northeast Africa, the long axis pointing towardTurkey andEurope.[citation needed]
Arab North Africa comprises the entire northern third of the continent. It is surrounded by water on three sides (west, north, and east) and desert or desert scrubland on the fourth (south).[citation needed]
In the west, it is bounded by the shores of theAtlantic Ocean. From northeast to southwest,Morocco,Western Sahara (mostly unilaterallyannexed by Morocco), andMauritania make up the roughly 2,000 kilometers of Arab Atlantic coastline. The southwestern sweep of the coast is gentle but substantial, such that Mauritania's capital,Nouakchott (18°N, 16°W), is far enough west to share longitude withIceland (13–22°W). Nouakchott is the westernmost capital of the Arab World and the third-westernmost in Africa, and sits on the Atlantic fringe of the southwestern Sahara. Next south along the coast from Mauritania isSenegal, whose abrupt border belies the gradient in culture from Arab to indigenous African that historically characterizes this part ofWest Africa.[citation needed]
Arab Africa's boundary to the north is again a continental boundary, theMediterranean Sea. This boundary begins in the west with the narrowStrait of Gibraltar, the thirteen kilometer wide channel that connects the Mediterranean with the Atlantic to the west, and separates Morocco fromSpain to the north. East along the coast from Morocco are Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, followed by Egypt, which forms the region's, and the continent's, northeastern corner. The coast turns briefly but sharply south at Tunisia, slopes more gently southeastward through the Libyan capital ofTripoli, and bumps north through Libya's second city,Benghazi, before turning straight east again through Egypt's second city,Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile. Along with the spine ofItaly to its north, Tunisia marks the junction of western and eastern Mediterranean, and a cultural transition as well: west of Egypt begins the region of the Arab World known as theMaghreb include (Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania).[citation needed]
Historically the 4,000-kilometer Mediterranean boundary has fluttered. Population centers north of it inEurope have invited contact and Arab exploration—mostly friendly, though sometimes not. Islands and peninsulas near the Arab coast have changed hands. The islands ofSicily andMalta lie just a hundred kilometers east of the Tunisian city ofCarthage, which has been a point of contact with Europe since its founding in the first millennium BCE; both Sicily and Malta at times have been part of the Arab World. Just across the Strait of Gibraltar from Morocco, regions of the Iberian peninsula were part of the Arab World throughout theMiddle Ages, extending the northern boundary at times to the foothills of thePyrenees and leaving a substantial mark on local and wider European and Western culture.[citation needed]
The northern boundary of the African Arab world has also fluttered briefly in the other direction, first through theCrusades and later through the imperial involvement ofFrance,Britain,Spain, andItaly. Another visitor from northern shores,Turkey, controlled the east of the region for centuries, though not as a colonizer. Spain still maintains two small enclaves,Ceuta andMelilla (called "Morocco Espanol"), along the otherwise Moroccan coast. Overall this wave has ebbed, though like the Arab expansion north it has left its mark. The proximity of North Africa to Europe has always encouraged interaction, and this continues with Arab immigration to Europe and European interest in the Arab countries today. However, population centers and the physical fact of the sea keeps this boundary of the Arab World settled on the Mediterranean coastline.[citation needed]
To the east, theRed Sea defines the boundary betweenAfrica andAsia, and thus also between Arab Africa and Arab West Asia. This sea is a long and narrow waterway with a northwest tilt, stretching 2,300 kilometers fromEgypt'sSinai peninsula southeast to theBab-el-Mandeb strait betweenDjibouti in Africa andYemen in Arabia but on average just 150 kilometers wide. Though the sea is navigable along its length, historically much contact between Arab Africa and Arab West Asia has been either overland across the Sinai or by sea across the Mediterranean or the narrow Bab al Mendeb strait. From northwest to southeast, Egypt, Sudan, and Eritrea form the African coastline, with Djibouti marking Bab al Mendeb's African shore.[citation needed]
Southeast along the coast from Djibouti is Somalia, but the Somali coast soon makes a 90-degree turn and heads northeast, mirroring a bend in the coast of Yemen across the water to the north and defining the south coast of the Gulf of Aden. The Somali coast then takes a hairpin turn back southwest to complete the horn of Africa. For six months of the year themonsoon winds blow from up equatorial Somalia, past Arabia and over the small Yemeni archipelago ofSocotra, to rain onIndia. They then switch directions and blow back.
The east- and especially southeast-coast boundary of Arab Africa has historically been a gateway for maritime trade and cultural exchange with bothEast Africa and the subcontinent. The trade winds help explain the presence of the Comoros islands, an Arab-African country, off the coast ofMozambique, nearMadagascar in theIndian Ocean, the southernmost part of the Arab World.[citation needed]
The southern boundary of Arab North Africa is the strip of scrubland known as theSahel that crosses the continent south of the Sahara.[citation needed]
States and territories
For the states and territories constituting the Arab world, see definition above.
Different forms ofgovernment are represented in the Arab World: Some of the countries aremonarchies: Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The other Arab countries are allrepublics. With the exception of Lebanon, Tunisia, Iraq, Palestine, and recently[when?] Mauritania, democratic elections throughout the Arab World are generally viewed as compromised, due to outright vote rigging, intimidation of opposition parties, and severe restraints on civil liberties and political dissent.
Later and current Arab Nationalist leaders includeMuammar al-Gaddafi of Libya,Hafez al-Assad andBashar al-Assad of Syria. The diverse Arab states generally maintained close ties but distinct national identities developed and strengthened with the social, historical and political realities of the past 60 years. This has made the idea of a pan-Arab nation-state increasingly less feasible and likely. Additionally, an upsurge in political Islam has since led to a greater emphasis on pan-Islamic rather than pan-Arab identity amongst someArab Muslims. Arab nationalists who once opposed Islamic movements as a threat to their power, now deal with them differently for reasons of political reality.[50]
Modern boundaries
Many of the modern borders of the Arab World were drawn byEuropean imperial powers during the 19th and early 20th century. However, some of the larger states (in particularEgypt andSyria) have historically maintained geographically definable boundaries, on which some of the modern states are roughly based. The 14th-century Egyptian historianAl-Maqrizi, for instance, defines Egypt's boundaries as extending from theMediterranean in the north to lowerNubia in the south; and between theRed Sea in the east and the oases of the Western/Libyan desert. The modern borders of Egypt, therefore, are not a creation of European powers, and are at least in part based on historically definable entities which are in turn based on certain cultural and ethnic identifications.
At other times, kings,emirs orsheikhs were placed as semi-autonomous rulers over the newly creatednation states, usually chosen by the same imperial powers that for some drew the new borders, for services rendered to European powers likethe British Empire, e.g.Sherif Hussein ibn Ali. Many African states did not attain independence until the 1960s from France after bloody insurgencies for their freedom. These struggles were settled by the imperial powers approving the form of independence given, so as a consequence almost all of these borders have remained. Some of these borders were agreed upon without consultation of those individuals that had served the colonial interests of Britain or France. One such agreement solely between Britain and France (to the exclusion of Sherif Hussein ibn Ali), signed in total secrecy untilLenin released the full text, was theSykes-Picot Agreement. Another influential document written without the consensus of the local population was theBalfour Declaration.
As former director of the Israeli intelligence agencyMossad, Efraim Halevy, now a director at the Hebrew University said,
The borders, which if you look on the maps of the middle-east are very straight lines, were drawn by British and French draftsmen who sat with maps and drew the lines of the frontiers with rulers. If the ruler for some reason or other moved on the map, because of some person's hand shaking, then the frontier moved (with the hand).[51]
He went on to give an example,
There was a famous story about a British consul, a lady namedGertrude Bell who drew the map between Iraq and Jordan, using transparent paper. She turned to talk to somebody and as she was turning the paper moved and the ruler moved and that added considerable territory to the (new) Jordanians.[51]
Without that imperial carve-up, Iraq would not be in the state it is in today...Gertrude Bell was one of two or three Britons who were instrumental in the creation of the Arab states in the Middle East that were favourable to Britain.[52]
As of 2006, the Arab world accounts for two-fifths of the gross domestic product and three-fifths of the trade of the widerMuslim world.[citation needed]
The Arab states are mostly, although not exclusively, developing economies and derive their export revenues from oil and gas, or the sale of other raw materials. Recent years have seen significant economic growth in the Arab World, due largely to an increase in oil and gas prices, which tripled between 2001 and 2006, but also due to efforts by some states to diversify their economic base. Industrial production has risen, for example the amount of steel produced between 2004 and 2005 rose from 8.4 to 19 million tonnes. (Source: Opening speech of Mahmoud Khoudri,Algeria's Industry Minister, at the 37th General Assembly of the Iron & Steel Arab Union, Algiers, May 2006). However even 19 million tons pa still only represents 1.7% of global steel production, and remains inferior to the production of countries likeBrazil.[53]
The main economic organisations in the Arab World are theGulf Cooperation Council (GCC), comprising the states in the Persian Gulf, and the Union of the Arab Maghreb (UMA), made up of North African States. The GCC has achieved some success in financial and monetary terms, including plans to establish a common currency in the Persian Gulf region. Since its foundation in 1989, the UMA's most significant accomplishment has been the establishment of a 7,000 km highway crossing North Africa fromMauritania toLibya's border withEgypt. The central stretch of the highway, expected to be completed in 2010, will crossMorocco,Algeria andTunisia. In recent years a new term has been coined to define a greater economic region: theMENA region, standing for "Middle East and North Africa", is becoming increasingly popular, especially with support from the current US administration.
As of August 2009 it was reported that Saudi Arabia is the strongest Arab economy according to World Bank.[54]
Saudi Arabia remains the top Arab economy in terms of total GDP. It is Asia's eleventh largest economy, followed byEgypt andAlgeria, which were the second and third largest economies in Africa, afterSouth Africa, in 2006. In terms of GDP per capita,Qatar is the richest developing country in the world.[55]
The total GDP of all Arab countries in 1999 was US$531.2 billion.[56] The total Arab world GDP was estimated to be worth at least $2.8 trillion in 2011.[57] This is only smaller than the GDP of the US, China, Japan and Germany.
In the Arab world,Modern Standard Arabic, derived fromClassical Arabic (symptomatic of Arabicdiglossia), serves as an official language in the Arab League states, andArabic dialects are used as lingua franca. Various indigenous languages are also spoken, which predate the spread of the Arabic language. This contrasts with the situation in the widerIslamic world, where, in contiguous Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, thePerso-Arabic script is used and Arabic is the primary liturgical language, but the tongue is not official at the state level or spoken as avernacular.Arabs constitute around one quarter of the 1.5 billionMuslims in the Islamic world.[58]
This article needs to beupdated. The reason given is: Relating to the Arab world survey conducted by the BBC. (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48703377). Please help update this section to reflect recent events or newly available information.(June 2019)
The majority of people in the Arab world adhere toIslam, and the religion has official status in most countries.Shariah law exists partially in the legal system in some countries (especially in theArabian Peninsula), while others are legislativelysecular. The majority of the Arab countries adhere toSunni Islam.Iraq andBahrain, however, areShia majority countries, whileLebanon,Yemen, andKuwait have large Shia minorities. InSaudi Arabia, Ismailite pockets are also found in the eastern Al-Hasa region and the southern city of Najran.Ibadi Islam is practiced inOman, where Ibadis constitute around 75% of Muslims.
Smaller ethno-religious minorities across the Arab League include theYezidis,Yarsan andShabaks (mainly in Iraq), theDruzes (mainly in Syria and also in Lebanon, Jordan)[78] andMandaeans (in Iraq). Formerly, there were significant minorities ofJews throughout the Arab World. However, theArab–Israeli conflict prompted their massexodus between 1948 and 1972. Today small Jewish communities remain, ranging anywhere from just 10 inBahrain, to more than 400 in Iraq and Syria, 1,000 inTunisia and some 3,000 inMorocco.
According toUNESCO, the average rate ofadult literacy (ages 15 and older) in this regionis 78%. In Mauritania the rate is lower than the average, at less than 50%.Bahrain,Palestine,Kuwait,Qatar, andJordan record a high adult literacy rate of over 95%.[79] The average rate of adult literacy shows steady improvement, and the absolute number of adult illiterates fell from 64 million to around 58 million between 1990 and 2000–2004.[80]
Overall, the gender disparity in adult literacy is high in this region, and of the illiteracy rate, women account for two-thirds, with only 69 literate women for every 100 literate men. The average GPI (Gender Parity Index) for adult literacy is 0.72, and gender disparity can be observed in Egypt, Morocco, and Yemen. Above all, the GPI of Yemen is only 0.46 in a 53% adult literacy rate.[80]
Literacy rate is higher among theyouth than adults. Youth literacy rate (ages 15–24) in the Arab region increased from 63.9 to 76.3% from 1990 to 2002. The average rate ofGCC states was 94%, followed by theMaghreb at 83.2% and theMashriq at 73.6%.[81]
TheUnited Nations published anArab human development report in 2002, 2003 and 2004. These reports, written by researchers from the Arab world, address some sensitive issues in the development of Arab countries: women empowerment, availability of education and information among others.
Women in the Arab world are still deniedequality of opportunity, although their disenfranchisement is a critical factor crippling the Arab nations' quest to return to the first rank of global leaders in commerce, learning and culture, according to aUnited Nations-sponsored report in 2008.[82]
There is no single description ofArab cinema since it includes films from various countries and cultures of the Arab world and therefore does not have one form, structure, or style.[83] In its inception, Arab cinema was mostly an imitation of Western cinema. However, it has and continues to constantly change and evolve.[83] It mostly includes films made inEgypt,Lebanon,Syria,Iraq,Kuwait,Algeria,Morocco, andTunisia.[83] Egypt is a pioneer in the field,[84] but each country in the region has its own unique cinema.[83]
Elsewhere inNorth Africa and theMiddle East, film production was scarce until the late 1960s and early 1970s when filmmakers began to receive funding and financial assistance from state organizations.[83] This was during the post-independence and is when most Arab cinema took root.[85] Most films produced at that time were funded by the state and contained a nationalistic dimension. These films helped to advance certain social causes such as independence, and other social, economic and political agendas.[85]
A sustained film industry was able to emerge inEgypt when other parts of the Arab world had only been able to sporadically produce feature-length films due to limited financing.[83]
Arabic cinema is dominated by films fromEgypt. Three quarters of all Arab movies are produced in Egypt. According to film critic and historian Roy Armes, thecinema of Lebanon is the only other in the Arabic-speaking region, beside Egypt's, that could amount to a national cinema.[86]
While Egyptian and Lebanese cinema have a long history of production, most other Arab countries did not witness film production until after independence, and even today, the majority of film production in countries like Bahrain, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates is limited to television or short films.[87]
There is increased interest in films originating in the Arab world. For example, films fromAlgeria,Lebanon,Morocco,Palestine,Syria andTunisia are making wider and more frequent rounds than ever before in local film festivals and repertoire theaters.[88]
Arab cinema has explored many topics from politics, colonialism, tradition, modernity and social taboos.[89] It has also attempted to escape from its earlier tendency to mimic and rely on Western film devices.[89] In fact, colonization did not only influence Arab films, but it also had an impact on Arab movies theaters.[90] Apart from the history of Arab cinema, recently the portrayal of women became an important aspect in the production of Arab cinema. Arab women shaped a great portion of the film industry in the Arab world by employing their cinematic talents in improving the production of Arab films.[90]
The production of Arab cinema has declined in the last decades and many filmmakers in theMiddle East gathered to hold a meeting and discuss the current state of Arab cinema.[91]
^abcdefgFrishkopf: 61: "No universally accepted definition of 'the Arab world' exists, but it is generally assumed to include the twenty-two countries belonging to the Arab League that have a combined population of about 280 million (Seib 2005, 604). For the purposes of this introduction, this territorial definition is combined with a linguistic one (use of the Arabic language, or its recognition as critical to identity), and thereby extended into multiple diasporas, especially the Americas, Europe, Southeast Asia, West Africa, and Australia."
^Jastrow, Otto O. (2006), "Iraq", in Versteegh, Kees; Eid, Mushira; Elgibali, Alaa; Woidich, Manfred; Zaborski, Andrzej (eds.),Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, vol. 2,Brill Publishers, p. 414,ISBN978-90-04-14474-3
^Simeone-Sinelle, Marie-Claude (2005). "Arabic Lingua Franca in the Horn of Africa".Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics.2 – via Academia.edu.
^al-Muqaddasī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad (2001).The best divisions for knowledge of the regions. Garnet publ.ISBN1-85964-136-9.OCLC469513651.
^Wehr, Hans:Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic (2011); Harrell, Richard S.:Dictionary of Moroccan Arabic (1966)
^Tilmatine Mohand, Substrat et convergences: Le berbére et l'arabe nord-africain (1999), in Estudios de dialectologia norteaafricana y andalusi 4, pp 99–119
^Benjamin Hätinger,The League of Arab States, (GRIN Verlag: 2009), p.2.
^Dwight Fletcher Reynolds,Arab folklore: a handbook, (Greenwood Press: 2007), p.1.
^Egypt's Bid for Arab Leadership: Implications for U.S. Policy, By Gregory L. Aftandilian, Published by Council on Foreign Relations, 1993,ISBN0-87609-146-X, pages 6–8
^Corzine, Phyllis (2005).The Islamic Empire. Thomson Gale. pp. 68–69.
^Saud Al-Oteibi; Allen G. Noble; Frank J. Costa (February 1993). "The Impact of Planning on Growth and Development in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 1970-1990".GeoJournal.29 (2): 163.Bibcode:1993GeoJo..29..163A.doi:10.1007/BF00812813.
^Reimer, Michael (2016)."Alexandria".Encyclopedia Britannica.
^"Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada". Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. 30 June 2015. Archived fromthe original on 15 July 2021. Retrieved17 January 2022.there is an estimated 20,000 to 100,000 evangelical Christians in Algeria, who practice their faith in mainly unregistered churches in the Kabyle region
^Carnes, Nat (2012).Al-Maghred, the Barbary Lion: A Look at Islam. University of Cambridge Press. p. 253.ISBN9781475903423.. In all an estimated 40,000 Moroccans have converted to Christianity
^Shaw, Jeffrey M. (2019).Religion and Contemporary Politics: A Global Encyclopedia [2 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p. 200.ISBN9781440839337.
^Held, Colbert C. (2008).Middle East Patterns: Places, People, and Politics. Routledge. p. 109.ISBN9780429962004.Worldwide, they number 1 million or so, with about 45 to 50 percent in Syria, 35 to 40 percent in Lebanon, and less than 10 percent in Israel. Recently there has been a growing Druze diaspora.
^Global Education Monitoring Report Team (2015).Regional overview: Arab States (Report). UNESCO. ED/EFA/MRT/2015/RO/02 REV 2. Retrieved23 November 2023.
^abShafik, Viola (2007).Arab cinema : history and cultural identity (New rev. ed.). Cairo, Egypt: The American University in Cairo Press.ISBN978-9774160653.
^Asfour, Nana (2000). "The Politics of Arab Cinema: Middle Eastern Filmmakers Face up to Their Reality".Cinéaste.26 (1):46–48.ISSN0009-7004.JSTOR41689317.
Hourani, Albert (1983).Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939. Rev., with a new preface. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press. x, 406 p.ISBN0-521-27423-0 pbk.
Tausch, Arno.A Look at International Survey Data About Arab Opinion (31 January 2014). "A look at recent (2013) international survey data about Arab opinion", Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Fall 2013), 57–74.SSRN2388627
Tausch, Arno (2015).The political algebra of global value change: General models and implications for the Muslim world, with Almas Heshmati and Hichem Karoui (1st ed.). Nova Science Publishers, New York.ISBN978-1-62948-899-8.
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