The Arab world (
Arabic:
العالم العربي
al-ʿālam al-ʿarabī), formally the
Arab homeland (
الوطن العربي
al-waṭan al-ʿarabī),
[7][8][9] also known as the
Arab nation (
الأمة العربية
al-ummah al-ʿarabīyyah), the
Arabsphere, or the
Arab states,
[10] consists of the 22
Arab countries which are members of the
Arab League.
[6] A majority of these countries are located in
Western Asia,
North Africa, and the
Horn of Africa; the southernmost member, the
Comoros, is an island country off the coast of
East Africa. The region stretches from the
Atlantic Ocean in the west to the
Arabian Sea in the east, and from the
Mediterranean Sea in the north to the
Indian Ocean in the southeast.
[6] The eastern part of the Arab world is known as the
Mashriq, and the western part as the
Maghreb.
Arabic is used as the
lingua franca throughout the Arab world.
Definition
The linguistic and political denotation inherent in the term Arab is generally dominant over
genealogical considerations. In Arab states,
Modern Standard Arabic is used by the government. The language of an individual nation is called
Darija, which means "everyday/colloquial language"
[14] or Aammiyya. The majority of Darija's cognates are shared with standard Arabic, but it also significantly borrows from Berber (Tamazight) substrates,
[15] as well as extensively from French, the language of the historical colonial occupier of the
Maghreb. Darija is spoken and, to various extents, mutually understood in the Maghreb countries, especially Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, but it is unintelligible to speakers of other Arabic dialects, mainly for those in Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula.
[16] Standard territorial definition
Although no globally accepted definition of the Arab world exists,
[6] all countries that are
members of the
Arab League are generally acknowledged as being part of the Arab world.
[6][17]The Arab League is a
regional 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 Arabic country, and who is in sympathy with the aspirations of the Arabic people.
[18]Member states of the Arab League
Ancillary linguistic definition
As an alternative to,
[22] 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,
[23] or those states or territories in which the majority of the population speaks Arabic, and thus may also include
populations of the Arab diaspora.
[6]When an ancillary linguistic definition is used in combination with the
standard 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.
While
Arabic 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 an
official 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 and
Somali, both of which belong to the larger
Afro-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 Arabic
loan words.
[24] Similarly,
Djibouti has two official languages, Arabic and
French. It also has several formally recognized national languages; besides Somali, many people speak
Afar, 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.
[25]The
Comoros 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[26] and
Israel 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 part of the Arab world. By some definitions,
[21][27] Arab citizens of Israel may concurrently be considered a constituent part of the Arab world.
Arab League states
Country | Area (Rank) | Area (km2)[Note 1] | Area (sq mi) | Area (% of Total) | Area (Notes) | Population[30][31] (2018) | Pop (World rank) | Density (rank) | Density (/km2) | Density (/mi2) |
Algeria | 1 | 2,381,741 | 919,595 | 18.1% | Largest country in Africa and in the Arab world. | 42,228,408 | 34 | 17 | 16 | 41 |
Bahrain | 22 | 758 | 293 | 0.005% | | 1,569,446 | 155 | 1 | 1,646 | 4,263 |
Comoros | 21 | 2,235 | 863 | 0.01% | | 832,322 | 163 | 4 | 309 | 800 |
Djibouti | 16 | 23,200 | 9,000 | 0.1% | | 958,923 | 159 | 15 | 37 | 96 |
Egypt | 6 | 1,002,000 | 387,000 | 7.6% | Excluding the Hala'ib Triangle (20,580 km2/7,950 sq mi). | 98,423,598 | 16 | 9 | 104 | 269 |
Iraq | 10 | 435,244 | 168,049 | 3.3% | | 38,433,600 | 40 | 12 | 70 | 181 |
Jordan | 14 | 89,342 | 34,495 | 0.7% | | 9,965,318 | 106 | 11 | 71 | 184 |
Kuwait | 17 | 17,818 | 6,880 | 0.1% | | 4,137,312 | 134 | 5 | 200 | 518 |
Lebanon | 19 | 10,452 | 4,036 | 0.08% | | 6,859,408 | 125 | 3 | 404 | 1,046 |
Libya | 4 | 1,759,540 | 679,360 | 11.4% | | 6,678,559 | 103 | 21 | 3.6 | 9.3 |
Mauritania | 5 | 1,025,520 | 395,960 | 7.8% | | 4,403,313 | 138 | 22 | 3.2 | 8.3 |
Morocco | 9 | 446,550 | 172,410 | 3.3% | including Western Sahara (266,000 km2/103,000 sq mi). | 36,029,093 | 35 | 10 | 82 | 212 |
Oman | 11 | 309,500 | 119,500 | 2.4% | | 4,829,473 | 139 | 20 | 9.2 | 24 |
Palestine | 20 | 27,000 | 10,000 | 0.05% | | 4,862,979 | 126 | 2 | 687 | 1,779 |
Qatar | 18 | 11,586 | 4,473 | 0.08% | | 2,781,682 | 149 | 6 | 154 | 399 |
Saudi Arabia | 2 | 2,149,690 | 830,000 | 16.4% | Largest country in Western Asia. | 33,702,756 | 45 | 19 | 13 | 34 |
Somalia | 7 | 637,657 | 246,201 | 5.0% | Longest Coastline in Africa and the Arab League. | 15,008,226 | 80 | 18 | 14 | 36 |
Sudan | 3 | 1,861,484 | 718,723 | 14.2% | Formerly the largest country in Africa. | 41,801,533 | 39 | 16 | 16 | 41 |
Syria | 12 | 185,180 | 71,500 | 1.4% | Including the part of the Golan Heights (1,200 km2/460 sq mi) currently occupied by Israel. | 16,945,057 | 55 | 7 | 118 | 306 |
Tunisia | 13 | 163,610 | 63,170 | 1.2% | | 11,565,201 | 77 | 13 | 65 | 168 |
United Arab Emirates | 15 | 83,600 | 32,300 | 0.6% | | 9,630,959 | 93 | 8 | 99 | 256 |
Yemen | 8 | 527,968 | 203,850 | 4.0% | | 28,498,683 | 49 | 14 | 45 | 117 |
Arab League total | # | 13,130,695 | 5,069,790 | # | # | 406,691,829 | |
Demographics
In the Arab world,
Modern Standard Arabic, derived from
Classical Arabic (symptomatic of Arabic
diglossia), serves as an official language in the Arab League states, and
Arabic 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 wider
Islamic world, where, in contiguous Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the
Perso-Arabic script is used and Arabic is the primary liturgical language, but the tongue is not official at the state level or spoken as a
vernacular.
Arabs constitute around one quarter of the 1.5 billion
Muslims in the Islamic world.
[32] Religion
This article needs to be
updated. The reason given is: Relating to the Arab world survey conducted by the BBC. (
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-48703377). Please update this section to reflect recent events or newly available information.
(June 2019)The majority of people in the Arab world adhere to
Islam, and the religion has official status in most countries.
Shariah law exists partially in the legal system in some countries (especially in the
Arabian peninsula), while others are legislatively
secular. The majority of the Arab countries adhere to
Sunni Islam.
Iraq and
Bahrain, however, are
Shia majority countries, while
Lebanon,
Yemen, and
Kuwait have large Shia minorities. In
Saudi Arabia, Ismailite pockets are also found in the eastern Al-Hasa region and the southern city of Najran.
Ibadi Islam is practiced in
Oman, where Ibadis constitute around 75% of Muslims.
There are also
Christian adherents in the Arab world, particularly in
Egypt,
Syria,
Lebanon,
Iraq,
Jordan, and
Palestine.
Coptic,
Maronite and
Assyrian Christian enclaves exist in the Nile Valley, Levant and northern Iraq respectively. There are also
Assyrian,
Armenian,
Syriac-
Aramean and
Arab Christians throughout Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan.
Smaller ethno-religious minorities across the Arab League include the
Yezidis,
Yarsan and
Shabaks (mainly in Iraq), the
Druzes (mainly in Syria and also in Lebanon, Jordan) and
Mandaeans (in Iraq). Formerly, there were significant minorities of
Jews throughout the Arab World. However, the
Arab–Israeli conflict prompted their mass
exodus between 1948 and 1972. Today small Jewish communities remain, ranging anywhere from just 10 in
Bahrain, to more than 1,000 in
Tunisia and some 3,000 in
Morocco.
Education
According to
UNESCO, the average rate of
adult literacy (ages 15 and older) in this region
is 76.9%. In Mauritania and Yemen, the rate is lower than the average, at barely over 50%.
Syria,
Lebanon,
Palestine and
Jordan record a high adult literacy rate of over 90%.
[citation needed] 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. 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.
[35] According to a UN survey, in the Arab world, the average person reads four pages a year and one new title is published each year for every 12,000 people.
[36] The
Arab Thought Foundation reports that just above 8% of people in Arab countries aspire to get an education.
[36]The
United Nations published an
Arab 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.
Gender equality and women's rights Child marriages
According to the United Nations, 14% of Arab girls are married by the age of 18.
[38]Violence
Rapists are often treated leniently or acquitted in the Arab region if they marry their victims. 37% of Arab women experienced violence in their lifetime but the numbers may be higher according to indicators. In some countries, the share of women experiencing violence and abuse by intimate partner reaches 70%.
[38]Largest cities in the Arab world
Rank | Country | City | Population | Founding date | Image |
1 | Egypt | Cairo | 16,225,000 | 969 AD | |
2 | Iraq | Baghdad | 6,960,000 | 762 AD | |
3 | Saudi Arabia | Riyadh | 6,030,000 | 100–200 AD | |
4 | Sudan | Khartoum | 5,345,000 | 1821 AD | |
5 | Jordan | Amman | 4,995,000 | 7250 BC | |
6 | Egypt | Alexandria | 4,870,000 | 331 BC | |
7 | Kuwait | Kuwait City | 4,660,000 | 1613 AD | |
8 | Morocco | Casablanca | 4,370,000 | 768 AD | |
9 | Saudi Arabia | Jeddah | 3,875,000 | 600 BC | |
10 | United Arab Emirates | Dubai | 3,805,000 | 1833 AD[40] | |
History
Early history
Egypt was conquered in 639, and gradually Arabized during the medieval period. A distinctively
Egyptian Arabic language emerged by the 16th century.
The
Maghreb was also conquered in the 7th century, and gradually Arabized under the
Fatimids. Islam was brought to
Sudan 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 and
Nubian elements.
[43]Ottoman and colonial rule
The
Mutawakkilite 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.
Rise of Arab nationalism
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 as
Pan-Arabism.
[12][13] There were some short-lived attempts at such unification in the mid-20th century, notably the
United 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 in
Cairo. However, it was moved temporarily to
Tunis during the 1980s, after Egypt was expelled for signing the
Camp David Accords (1978).
Pan-Arabism has mostly been abandoned as an ideology since the 1980s, and was replaced by
Pan-Islamism on one hand, and individual nationalisms on the other.
Modern conflicts
Unification of Saudi Arabia
The
Iran–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 (see
Iranian 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.
Lebanese Civil War
The
Lebanese 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.
Western Sahara conflict
The
Western 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.
North Yemen Civil War
The
North 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.
Somali Civil War
The
Somali Civil War is an ongoing civil war taking place in
Somalia. 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 the
Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in 2004. In 2006, the TFG, assisted by Ethiopian troops, assumed control of most of the nation's southern conflict zones from the newly formed
Islamic Courts Union (ICU). The ICU subsequently splintered into more radical groups, notably
Al-Shabaab, which have since been fighting the Somali government and its
AMISOM 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.
[44]Arab Spring
The
popular protests throughout the Arab world of late 2010 to the present have been directed against authoritarian leadership and associated
political 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.
Petroleum
While the Arab world had been of limited interest to the European colonial powers, the
British Empire being mostly interested in the
Suez Canal as a route to
British India, the economic and geopolitical situation changed dramatically after the discovery of large
petroleum deposits in the 1930s, coupled with the vastly increased demand for petroleum in the west as a result of the
Second Industrial Revolution.
The
Persian Gulf is particularly well-endowed with this strategic
raw 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. In addition Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia, and Sudan all have smaller but significant reserves. Where present, these have had significant effects on regional politics, often enabling
rentier 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.
[45]Islamism and
Pan-Islamism were on the rise during the 1980s. The
Hezbollah, a militant Islamic party in
Lebanon, was founded in 1982.
Islamic terrorism became a problem in the Arab world in the 1970s to 1980s. While the
Muslim Brotherhood had been active in Egypt since 1928, their militant actions were limited to assassination attempts on political leaders.
Recent history
The invasion of Kuwait by Iraq forces, led to the 1990–91
Persian Gulf War.
Egypt,
Syria and
Saudi Arabia joined a multinational coalition that opposed Iraq. Displays of support for Iraq by
Jordan and
Palestine 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.
[47]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. The
2003 invasion of Iraq led to the collapse of the
Baathist regime and ultimate
execution of Saddam Hussein.
A growing class of young, educated, secular citizens with access to modern media such as
Al Jazeera (since 1996) and communicating via the
internet 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.
In Syria, the
Damascus Spring of 2000 to 2001 heralded the possibility of democratic change, but the Baathist regime managed to suppress the movement.
States and territories
For the states and territories constituting the Arab world, see definition above.
Forms of government
Different forms of
government are represented in the Arab World: Some of the countries are
monarchies: Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The other Arab countries are all
republics. With the exception of Lebanon, Tunisia, Palestine, and recently 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.
After
World War II,
Pan-Arabism sought to unite all Arabic-speaking countries into one political entity. Only
Syria,
Iraq,
Egypt,
Sudan,
Tunisia,
Libya and
North Yemen considered the short-lived unification of the
United Arab Republic. Historical divisions, competing local nationalisms, and geographical sprawl were major reasons for the failure of Pan-Arabism.
Arab Nationalism was another strong force in the region which peaked during the mid-20th century and was professed by many leaders in Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Syria, and Iraq. Arab Nationalist leaders of this period included
Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt,
Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria,
Michel Aflaq,
Salah al-Din al-Bitar,
Zaki al-Arsuzi,
Constantin Zureiq and
Shukri al-Kuwatli of Syria,
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr of Iraq,
Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia,
Mehdi Ben Barka of Morocco, and
Shakib Arslan of Lebanon.
Later and current Arab Nationalist leaders include
Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya,
Hafez al-Assad and
Bashar 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 some
Arab Muslims. Arab nationalists who once opposed Islamic movements as a threat to their power, now deal with them differently for reasons of political reality.
[48]Modern boundaries
Many of the modern borders of the Arab World were drawn by
European imperial powers during the 19th and early 20th century. However, some of the larger states (in particular
Egypt and
Syria) have historically maintained geographically definable boundaries, on which some of the modern states are roughly based. The 14th-century Egyptian historian
Al-Maqrizi, for instance, defines Egypt's boundaries as extending from the
Mediterranean in the north to lower
Nubia in the south; and between the
Red 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 or
sheikhs were placed as semi-autonomous rulers over the newly created
nation states, usually chosen by the same imperial powers that for some drew the new borders, for services rendered to European powers like
the 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 until
Lenin released the full text, was the
Sykes-Picot Agreement. Another influential document written without the consensus of the local population was the
Balfour Declaration.
As former director of the Israeli intelligence agency
Mossad, 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).
[49]He went on to give an example,
There was a famous story about a British consul, a lady named
Gertrude 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.
[49]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.
[50]Modern economies
As of 2006, the Arab world accounts for two-fifths of the gross domestic product and three-fifths of the trade of the wider
Muslim 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 like
Brazil.
[51]The main economic organisations in the Arab World are the
Gulf 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 7000 km highway crossing North Africa from
Mauritania to
Libya's border with
Egypt. The central stretch of the highway, expected to be completed in 2010, will cross
Morocco,
Algeria and
Tunisia. In recent years a new term has been coined to define a greater economic region: the MENA 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.
[52]Saudi Arabia remains the top Arab economy in terms of total GDP. It is Asia's eleventh largest economy, followed by
Egypt and
Algeria, which were also the second and third largest economies in Africa (after
South Africa), in 2006. In terms of GDP per capita,
Qatar is the richest developing country in the world.
[53] The total GDP of all Arab countries in 1999 was US$531.2 billion.
[54] By grouping all the latest GDP figures, the total Arab world GDP is estimated to be worth at least $2.8 trillion in 2011.
[55] This is only smaller than the GDP of US, China, Japan and Germany.
Geography
The Arab World stretches across more than 13,000,000 square kilometres (5,000,000 sq mi) of North Africa and the part of North-East Africa and South-West Asia. The eastern part of the Arab world is called the
Mashriq. Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania are the
Maghreb or
Maghrib.
The term "Arab" often connotes 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 km
2) in the center of the region and
Sudan (1.9 million km
2) in the southeast. Algeria is about three-quarters the size of
India, or about one-and-a-half times the size of
Alaska, the largest state in the United States. The largest country in the Arab Western Asia is
Saudi Arabia (2 million km
2).
At the other extreme, the smallest autonomous mainland Arab country is
Lebanon (10,452 km
2), and the smallest island Arab country is
Bahrain (665 km
2).
Notably, every Arab country borders a sea or ocean, with the exception of the Arab region of northern Chad, which is completely landlocked. Iraq is actually nearly landlocked, as it has only a very narrow access to the Persian Gulf.
Historical boundaries
The political borders of the Arab world have wandered, leaving Arab minorities in non-Arab countries of the
Sahel and the
Horn of Africa as well as in the Middle Eastern countries of
Cyprus,
Turkey and
Iran, 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.
The Arab world straddles two continents, Africa and Asia. It is mainly oriented along an east–west axis.
Arab Africa
Arab 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).
In the west, it is bounded by the shores of the
Atlantic Ocean. From northeast to southwest,
Morocco,
Western Sahara (
mostly unilaterally
annexed by Morocco), and
Mauritania 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 with
Iceland (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 is
Senegal, whose abrupt border belies the gradient in culture from Arab to indigenous African that historically characterizes this part of
West Africa.
Arab Africa's boundary to the north is again a continental boundary, the
Mediterranean Sea. This boundary begins in the west with the narrow
Strait of Gibraltar, the thirteen kilometer wide channel that connects the Mediterranean with the Atlantic to the west, and separates Morocco from
Spain 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 of
Tripoli, 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 of
Italy to its north, Tunisia thus 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 the
Maghreb include (Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania).
Historically the 4,000-kilometer Mediterranean boundary has fluttered. Population centers north of it in
Europe have invited contact and Arab exploration—mostly friendly, though sometimes not. Islands and peninsulas near the Arab coast have changed hands. The islands of
Sicily and
Malta lie just a hundred kilometers east of the Tunisian city of
Carthage, 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 the
Middle Ages, extending the northern boundary at times to the foothills of the
Pyrenees and leaving a substantial mark on local and wider European and Western culture.
The northern boundary of the African Arab world has also fluttered briefly in the other direction, first through the
Crusades and later through the imperial involvement of
France,
Britain,
Spain, and
Italy. 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 and
Melilla (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.
To the east, the
Red Sea defines the boundary between
Africa and
Asia, and thus also between Arab Africa and Arab Western Asia. This sea is a long and narrow waterway with a northwest tilt, stretching 2,300 kilometers from
Egypt's
Sinai peninsula southeast to the
Bab-el-Mandeb strait between
Djibouti in Africa and
Yemen 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 Western 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.
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 the
monsoon winds blow from up equatorial Somalia, past Arabia and over the small Yemeni archipelago of
Socotra, to rain on
India; they then switch directions and blow back. Hence the east- and especially southeast-coast boundary of Arab Africa has historically been a gateway for maritime trade and cultural exchange with both
East Africa and the subcontinent. The trade winds also help explain the presence of the Comoros islands, an Arab-African country, off the coast of
Mozambique, near
Madagascar in the
Indian Ocean, the southernmost part of the Arab World.
The southern boundary of Arab North Africa is the strip of scrubland known as the
Sahel that crosses the continent south of the Sahara.
Arab Western Asia
The Western Asian Arab region comprises the
Arabian Peninsula, most of the
Levant (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 toward
Turkey and
Europe.
See also
Notes
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Further reading
- Ajl, Max. Imperialism and Class in the Arab World (September 2016), Monthly Review
- Ayalon, Amy (1987). Language and change in the Arab Middle East: the evolution of modern political discourse Studies in Middle Eastern history. Oxford University Press US. ISBN 978-0-19-504140-8.
- Hourani, Albert (1983). Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939. Rev., with a new preface. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press. x, 406 p. ISBN 0-521-27423-0 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. SSRN 2388627
- 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. ISBN 978-1-62948-899-8.
External links
Last edited on 10 April 2021, at 23:42
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