The Formation of the Arab World as a Mappable Territorial Entity - Essay Example

The Arab World Number Department How the History of The Formation of the Arab World as a ‘Mappable’ Territorial Entity contributed To the Definition of Arabness Today The history of the formation of the Arab world as a mappable territorial entity has contributed to the manner in which Arabness is presently being perceived. Particularly, the concept of the ‘mappability’ of the Arab world has its underpinnings in the Arab world being distributed in a nucleated manner. As such, countries that are considered part of the Arab world stretch in an uninterrupted file from West and North Africa, right into the Middle East. This is to the effect that the Arab League of Nations comprises 22 states that border one another in a continuous chain. Secondly, the concentration of these Arabic countries in the Middle East means the absence of other Arabic states outside the Middle East. It is this concept that has emboldened the idea of the Arab world being mappable. The notion of the Arab world being mappable has in turn gone a long way in propounding Arabness as being concentrated in the Middle East. Since the dominant religion in the Middle East, particularly, in the Arab League of Nations has largely been Islam, Arabness has closely or almost inextricably been associated with Islam. The concentration of Islam in the Middle East has its underpinning in the history of Islam, since it started in the Arabian Peninsula and spread outward to the entire Middle East, North and West Africa through conquests. Another way in which the notion of the mappability of the Arab world has shaped the definition of Arabness is the distribution of Arab language. Although there are several languages in the Middle East, yet Arabic language remains the most dominant language that is spoken therein. Partly, the dominance of Islam in the Arab world propounds the use and spread of Arab language since the language of the Quran is Arabic, and the same Quran is cast in stone. This state of affairs has over time reinforced the notion that to be an Arab, one has to speak Arabic. 2) Whether Geography Or Territory Alone Defines Arabness The concept of Arabness is too complex to be limited to be adequately defined along geographical territories, just as the same case applies to other ethnic groups. The fact of the matter herein is underpinned by the fact that there is an array of factors that are considered when defining ethnicity. For one, globalisation and technological advancement particularly in the fields of transport, and IT have made transnational travel gain a more rapid and persistent mien. This makes it virtually impossible to relegate the Arab population to a given geopolitical sphere such as West and North Africa and the Middle East. Secondly, the aforementioned forces such as globalisation, technological development and modernity have increasingly and virtually rendered the world, multicultural. This means that most countries or states in the world comprise a mixture of people from different races, tribes, language, religion, ideology and nationalities. The converse of this is that there are also Arabic states which are graced by other races such as the Africans, Caucasians and Cushites. By this virtue, Arabness is a concept and a reality that has suffused every part of the world and therefore by far pervades and resists the definition or description that is limited to the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula and pockets of West and North Africa. Stewart (1968, 90) makes an estimation to the effect that about 35% of the Arab world is in the Diaspora. Thirdly, it is a fact that Arabness is a concept that defies the limitations or characteristics of physical identity. It is against this backdrop that there are cases such as the Arab being classified as Caucasian in America, while the there are variations of Arabs such as Afro-Arabs and he Central Asian Arabs. The import of this is that physical traits are mainly distributed along geopolitical units, yet the Arab is dispersed in a manner that defies border restrictions and territoriality. Again, it is important to remember that several factors make up or define Arabness. These factors include language, religion, ideology, a common culture and heritage. These elements are too diverse, fluid and dynamic to be contained within a given country. Thus, it is impossible to use geography to define Arabness. 3) Whether Arab is an 'ethnos' It is a fact that the term Arab is by all means and definitions an ethnic group. The term ethnos is a Greek lexicon that experts such as Fenton (2010, 75) speak of dating back to as far as 1486. The term was used as a noun, to loosely denote, a multitude of people (or even animals) living together. Over time, the word began to be substantively used to refer to a multitude of individuals that share in the same nature by virtue of being from the same human family, tribe, people-group or nation. Thus, the term ethnos has been used as the parent word for the English noun phrase, ethnic group. In itself, an ethnic group refers to a group of people whose members are identifiable through a common trait. The common trait in this case has also over time made to include a common culture, a common heritage, a shared language or dialect, or even a common history. It is also not uncommon to find that ethnic groups have also a definitive ideology which is emphatic on a common ancestry and religion. The foregoing clearly brings out the Arab as an ethnic group. Scholars such as Banks (1996, 11) point out that the ethnogenesis of the Arab people started with Abraham and his elder son, Ishmael. Again, the Arabic people share common physical traits such as dark hair, brown eyes, medium light skin, though there are Arabs who are black or even blond. However, it is important to acknowledge the fact that the ethnicity of is a concept that transcends physical traits. Kayyali (2006, 61) points out for instance that despite the fact that the classification of Arabs among the world’s races varies, yet the distinctiveness of the Arab remains profound. For instance, in America, Arabs are being classified as Caucasian, yet his original identity remains known by the world outside America. In the same wavelength, there are Afro-Arabs, who are still considered as no less Arabs, compared to their light-skinned counterparts. This underscores the fact that Arabness and its ethnicity is a concept that transcends physical traits and is further underpinned by other matters such as language, culture and ideology. Likewise, Arabs have their language, the Arabic language. Given that majority of the Arab race lives in West and North Africa, and the Middle East, the presence of Arabness is mainly profound therein. However, it is important to acknowledge the fact that with the unbridled advent of globalisation, a significant part of the Arab world is represented by the Arab in Diaspora. At the same time, though it is true that Islam is a religion independent of racial or ethnic monopolisation, yet, the Arabic culture has a great overlap with the Arabic culture. This is because; over 70% of the Arab population is Muslim (Barakat, 1993, 12). It is this Islamic tradition and religion that also largely defines the ideological persuasions of the Arab. The aspect of common ancestry is underscored by the Arab having his ancestry traceable back to Ishmael and then to Abraham. As a matter of fact, given that Arabness readily invokes an array of shared constructs such as linguistic, cultural, religious and racial features (as opposed to other ethnic groups that share in one feature); Arabness is seen as being macro-ethnic. This is because Arabness carries with it, broader ethnic categories and more distinctive features, in contrast to other ethnic groups that may be rightly considered micro-ethnic. 4) How the Remapping of the "Arab World" Necessitates Re-Writing of Its History The idea that of remapping the Arab world, particularly, Palestine, has by far necessitated the need to re-write the history. The need for the remapping Palestine is necessitated by the need to legitimise the Palestinian Arabs’ claim to the right over Palestine. This Palestinian Arab-Israeli struggle dates as far back as May 15th, 1948, immediately Israel became a state (Black, 2000, 25). In turn should the Arab world win over the struggle over Palestine, the need to re-write history may be inevitable for the Arab. This is because, for one, the topography of Palestine has become significantly layered with religious, strategic and political strata to an extent that majority of the onlookers presently lacks a coherent mental map that should be defining the territory. The underpinning of this state of affair is Israel’s position of not having been able to control these images or maps of Palestine. Ajami (1992, 99) contends that the depiction of the Palestinian Arab as the landless party in the Arab-Israeli tussle over the land has also gone a long way in reinforcing the legitimacy of Israel’s military occupation, and the inequality and segregation that this state of affair has bred over time. In redrawing the map, the Palestinian Arab will clearly be rewriting history. 5) The role of Arabic language and Islam in shaping the‘re-written’ history Islam and Arabic language have played a pivotal role in shaping the re-written history. Particularly, given that Islam is the dominant religion among Arabs, attempts to portray it as the most superior of all Abrahamic religions have been unrelenting. The rationale herein is that if the Muslim deity is the true Supreme Being, then simple logic would have it that the people this deity has interacted with should be better off, to show for the benevolence of this deity. Conversely, the need to re-write history because of Islam is underpinned by the very nature and claims of Islam. Of all the Abrahamic religions, Islam is the youngest, with its origin dating back to about 620 AD. As the youngest of these religions, Islam borrows greatly from the Judeo-Christian traditions. For instance, all the Old Testament patriarchs such as Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David and Solomon are incorporated in the Quran. The same goes for New Testament icons such as Jesus (the Christ), Mary (the mother of Jesus), Zechariah and John the Baptist. However, the need to re-write history is underpinned by the factual inaccuracies that are of historical import. For instance, while secular and Judeo-Christian history treat these Old Testament patriarchs and the New Testament icons as Jews who lived in Israel, the Quran mentions them as having lived in Saudi Arabia. Similarly, Islamic traditions also speak of these characters as having been devout Muslims, yet this is not the case. For instance, Abraham is said to have built the Kiblah with his son Ishmael, yet this is not the case. These types of instances have motivated the attempt to re-write history, in order to authenticate claims being made by sources of Islamic traditions. By insisting that Jesus was an Arab who preached and practiced Islam, Jewish history is denied and the legitimacy of Christianity challenged. In a closely related wavelength, it is important to take stock of the fact that Islam’s motivational role in the re-writing of history has its underpinnings in the antagonism over the land of Israel between the Palestinian Arab and the Israeli. The struggle over the land of Israel has also had Islamic religious traditions being used to legitimise the claim over the right to land in Israel. For instance, there have been attempts to describe Israel as Muslims’ holy cite. The crux of the matter herein is that Islamic traditions rendered Mecca the holiest cite of Islam, followed by Medina. Attempts to declare Israel as Islam’s third holiest place has nevertheless been treated as implausible, given the clarity of history on Mohammed not having visited Israel, while he was alive. Instead, there have been attempts to sell the myth that Mohammed rode over Jerusalem in a chariot, though history is clear about Mohammed’s activities being limited to the Arabian Peninsula. Another attempt at re-writing history has been made to the effect that there is no connection between the present day Israelis and the ancient generation of Jews. Likewise, there have been attempts to downplay, repudiate or to even distort the Holocaust. There have also been attempts at denying Jewish history and the connection that the Jew had with ancient Israel. It is also given that the Arabic language is shaping the‘re-written’ history. Particularly, not so many in the world are acquainted with the Arabic language. The import of this is that it becomes possible to redefine and revise history without meaningful detection by the non-Arabic world. In this case, those who are to detected changes in history or deliberately penned down historical inaccuracies have to be literate in Arabic language to get the gist of the changes. Conversely, those who mainly detect these changes are usually Arab-speakers who view the changes either as harmless or as championing for their cause. In this light, because of the language barrier between the non-Arabic world and the Arabic world, the Arabic language has shaped re-writing of history by making this exercise more Arabic-oriented (Shah, 2008, 270). 6) The possibility of arguing that notions of Arabness' dictated that ways in which the 'Arab World' is mapped It is possible to argue that the notion of Arabness shaped not the ways the Arab world is mapped. This standpoint will argue that the concept of Arabness is vast, being multi-coloured, and having different historical and political designations. This is to agree with the previously mentioned rendition (in question 3) that Arabness is too complex to be conclusively defined or constrained in a given geopolitical sphere or unit. For this reason, there could not have been the drawing of the map to define the Arab world as belonging to a given geopolitical territory or regional block. In a different wavelength, Rodinson (1981, 36) maintains that it is important to take stock of the fact that the concept of Arabness is very ancient, to the point of even predating the concept of states. As a matter of fact, as early as 6th century BC, Arabic language was already in use, while the concept of states came about with the Westphalian State model and sovereign equality dates back to only as far as 1648. In this sense, the anachronistic relation between the existence of Arabness and the mapping of the Arab world spans over a millennium and therefore could not have been having a one-to-one correlation. The foregoing is clearly underscored by the distribution of the Arab world into different continents- the African and the Asian. The Arab world is distributed even into North and West Africa, yet the mapping of the entire Africa was motivated by the Scramble and Partition for Africa, by European states. This was done in 1885, in Berlin Conference, to stave off the possibility of a looming war that the scramble and partitioning for African colonies was bringing. This means that Europe in its clamour for colonies neither factored the interests of the autochthones in Africa, nor considered the interests of the Arab world which controlled swathes of land in North and West Africa. At the same time, there are scholars such as William (2005, 57) who point out that the concept of Arabness is very ancient and therefore predates other overlapping and parallel identities such as Islam. These scholars contend that as a matter of fact, Islam and Arabness only intermingled later on, to take on a supranational Islamic identity. During this mingling, Islam and Arabness used the Arabic qualifier to make a distinction between themselves and other Muslims. The import of this is that even if one is to argue that colonialism, the Scramble and Partition for Africa were also driven by the need to stop the spread of Islam, yet it is an indisputable fact that neither is Islam Arabness, nor is Arabness Islam. To show for this fact, there are Hellenised Arabs, Christian Arabs and even Arabs who practice Judaism. It is against this backdrop that one can cogently conclude that if at all there were attempts to partition Africa as a way of containing Islam, yet, it was Islam that was being contained, and not Arabness. 7) The Implications of the Above Answers to These Questions Have On Personal Understanding of 'Arabness' The answers to the questions tackled and the foregoing discussion serve as an eye-opener to the reality of ethnicity, courtesy of Arabness being an ethnic group. Particularly, the study shows that ethnicity is too complex a matter to be given a straight definition. More interestingly, belonging to a given race is seen as being fundamentally underpinned by identifying with the ideology, fears, expectations and aspirations that hold together, the we-feeling among a specific people that make up an ethnic group. From then on, other constructs such as having a common culture, heritage, religion and ancestor may ensue. Thus, it may be wanting of an individual to run along with one of the construct as the sole factor that identifies him with the Arab for instance. One of Arabic descent who ashamed of such an identity because of racial stereotyping such as being known in history for being Bedouins is superseded by an Arab proselyte who has is unwavering of his newly acquired identity and has made Arabic ideology, fears, expectations and aspirations, in Arabness. Another important aspect that stems from this discussion is the fate of ethnic identities, in the face of multiculturalism that has become profoundly pronounced globally. The question that is left lingering in my mind as a scholar in the making is the fate of ethnic groups, Arabness included. The crux of the matter herein is that as multiculturalism continues to render the globe a cultural melting pot; intermarriages have become almost inevitable, leading to miscegenation. Presently, it is a fact that miscegenation is gradually replacing pure biological or physical identity and definition of ethic groups. Extrapolating this development to the next 700 years for instance leaves a critical observer wondering if there will be any plausibility in claiming to be purely of one ethnic group. This will definitely have a bearing on ethnic identity. Ruminations on the yardstick that will be being used to define an individual’s ethnic identity are thus, also inevitable. References Ajami, Fouad. 1992. The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice since 1967. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Banks, Marcus. 1996. Ethnicity: Anthropological Constructions. Oxford: OUP. Barakat, Halim. 1993. The Arab World: Society, Culture, and State. London: Longman. Black, Jeremy. 2000. Maps and Politics. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press. Fenton, Steve. 2010. Ethnicity. Oxford: OUP. Ismael, Y. Tareq. 1976. The Arab Left. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Kayyali, A. Randa. 2006. The Arab Americans. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Rodinson, Maxime. 1981. The Arabs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stewart, Desmond. 1968. The Arab World. Oxford: OUP. Shah, Mustafa. 2008. The Arabic Language. New York: London: Routledge. William, R. Polk. 2005. The Arab World Today. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Read More