10 Things to Know About the Middle East

1. Who are the Arabs?

Arab peoples range from the Atlantic coast in northwest Africa to the Arabian peninsula and north to Syria. They are united by a common language and culture. Though the vast majority are Muslim, there are also sizable Christian Arab minorities in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Palestine. Originally the inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula, the Arabs spread their language and culture to the north and west with the expansion of Islam in the 7th century. There are also Arab minorities in the Sahel and parts of east Africa, as well as in Iran and Israel. The Arabs were responsible for great advances in mathematics, astronomy and other scientific disciplines, while Europe was still mired in the Dark Ages.

Though there is great diversity in skin pigmentation, spoken dialect and certain customs, there is a common identity that unites Arab people, which has sometimes been reflected in pan-Arab nationalist movements. Despite substantial political and other differences, many Arabs share a sense that they are one nation, which has been artificially divided through the machinations of Western imperialism and which came to dominate the region with the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th and early 20th century. There is also a growing Arab diaspora in Europe, North America, Latin America, West Africa and Australia.

2. Who are the Muslims?

The Islamic faith originated in the Arabian peninsula, based on what Muslims believe to be divine revelations by God to the prophet Mohammed. Muslims worship the same God as do Jews and Christians, and share many of the same prophets and ethical traditions, including respect for innocent life. Approximately 90 percent of Muslims are of the orthodox or Sunni tradition; most of the remainder are of the Shi'ite tradition, which dominate Iran but also has substantial numbers in Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen and Lebanon. Sunni Islam is nonhierarchical in structure. There is not a tradition of separation between the faith and state institutions as there is in the West, though there is enormous diversity in various Islamic legal traditions and the degree to which governments of predominately Muslim countries rely on religious bases for their rule.

Political movements based on Islam have ranged from left to right, from nonviolent to violent, from tolerant to chauvinistic. Generally, the more moderate Islamic movements have developed in countries where there is a degree of political pluralism in which they could operate openly. There is a strong tradition of social justice in Islam, which has often led to conflicts with regimes that are seen to be unjust or unethical. The more radical movements have tended to arise in countries that have suffered great social dislocation due to war or inappropriate economic policies and/or are under autocratic rule.

Most of the world's Muslims are not Arabs. The world's largest Muslim country, for example, is Indonesia. Other important non-Arab Muslim countries include Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and the five former Soviet republics of Central Asia, as well as Nigeria and several other black African states. Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in the world and scores of countries have substantial Muslim minorities. There are approximately five million Muslims in the United States.

3. Why is there so much violence and political instability in the Middle East?

For most of the past 500 years, the Middle East actually saw less violence and warfare and more political stability than Europe or most other regions of the world. It has only been in the last century that the region has seen such widespread conflict. The roots of the conflict are similar to those elsewhere in the Third World, and have to do with the legacy of colonialism, such as artificial political boundaries, autocratic regimes, militarization, economic inequality and economies based on the export of raw materials for finished goods. Indeed, the Middle East has more autocratic regimes, militarization, economic inequality and the greatest ratio of exports to domestic consumption than any region in the world.