Middle East: Oriental Mosaic
Elie D. Wardini
An Oriental Mosaic
by Elie Dib Wardini, Department of Semitic Studies,
University of Oslo, Norway
An Arab is someone who has Arabic as a mother tongue, identifies himself
with the Arab cultural heritage and considers himself to be an Arab. This is
the common definition of an Arab. The following is a critique of it.
Problematic
Nearly all lectures or books about the Middle East deal at some time with
the question about who is an Arab. Why should it be so difficult? It is
clear that it is always difficult to define ethnic, cultural or linguistic
groups, but as far as the term "Arab" is concerned it is extra difficult.
An Arab can be a bedouin, one who speaks Arabic, a citizen of a country
which is a member of the Arab League or one who comes from the Arabian
Peninsula. Arabic can refer to that which is not European (e.g. bread,
clothes, food, music etc.), to that which is Semitic as contrasted to that
which is for example Turkish, Persian etc. or of course that which is
related to the Arabian Peninsula.
A New Problem
The problem with defining the term "Arab" is new. If we go back the
Arab-Islamic expansion we will find that it was then very clear who an Arab
was. Bernard Lewis puts it this way: "During this first period in Islamic
history, when Islam was purely an Arab religion and the Caliphate an Arab
kingdom, the term Arab came to be applied to those who spoke Arabic, were
full members by descent of an Arab tribe and who, either in person or
through their ancestors, had originated in Arabia. It served to mark them
off from the mass of Persians, Syrians, Egyptians and others, whom the
great conquests had brought under Arab rule..." (Lewis p.13). This
definition remained valid with only small variations up to the nineteenth
century.
Arab Nationalism
In the nineteenth century and as a reaction to movements that aimed at
creating a Islamic empire, the Christians, in order to protect their
interests, used the Arabic language as a basis for a secular Arab
nationalistic movement. The Arabic language was what they had in common
with many of the Muslims in the Middle East. The aim was that by defining
themselves as "Arabs" and their culture as "Arabic" they would be able to
claim equality with the Arabic speaking Muslims. Based on language they
claimed that "All Arabs are equal". They knew very well that a Christian
would never be considered as equal to a Muslim in an Islamic kingdom.
Arab nationalism was not the only method the Christians used in order to
protect their interests. In addition to local nationalistic movements there
existed those who forwarded the theory of "Syrian" nationalism. They
claimed that "the Syrians were not Arabs but the people whose natural home
had been Syria since prehistoric times. The Syrian nation is the ethnic
fusion of the 'Canaanites, Akkadians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Aramaens,
Hittites, and Mitannis'... when the Arabs arrived in the seventh century
the Syrian character had already been formed." (Mansfield p.226).
The Muslims on the other hand did not want to dismantle the Ottoman
(Islamic) empire. They wanted to reform it. For them it was the Islamic
factor that counted most. Their loyalty was with the Caliph (Muhammad s
successor) even though he was a Turk. It was only after that the Turks had
started turning the Ottoman empire into a Turkish and Turkish dominated
empire (around 1909, see Mansfield p.157) that the Arabic speaking Muslims
started seriously joining the Arab nationalist movement. With the
abolishment of the Caliphate in 1924 much of the loyalty which the Arabic
speaking Muslims had for Turkey faded away. Now that Muslims formed a
majority in the Arab nationalist movement there was laid less emphasis on
secularism, and opposition to Pan-Islamism became weak. (see Saliba p.157).
Arab Superiority
It was not only the Christians who wanted to identify themselves with that
which is Arabic. It was (and still is) especially important for the rulers
of the different countries in the Middle East to prove that they come
originally from Arabia. This way they would be able to, somewhat,
legitimize the fact that they were in power. It would be still better if
they could prove that they are relatives of the Prophet. It was also
important for individuals to prove that they originated from Arabia.
"Peoples who were brought under Arab rule and who wished to have a part in
the preferential position of the Arabs before all other races in the
Islamic world easily invented Arab genealogies for themselves." (Goldziher,
1966, p.134). This fits well with the claim that the Arabs were (and still
are) a superior and proud people. Was it not to the Arabs that God sent the
Prophet? Was not the Prophet an Arab? Was not the Qoran written in Arabic?
It was also claimed that Arabic poetry was superior to all other poetry.
The Arab empire was one of the mightiest in history.
It was only after that the Arab empire was transformed into an Islamic
empire (after 750 AD. during the Abbasid period) and after that religion
had become more important than ethnic affiliation that reactions against
Arab superiority began to appear. There arose everywhere in the Islamic
empire movements whose aim was to show that other cultures, peoples and
languages were just as good if not better than the Arabs and Arabic. These
were known as the "Shu'ubiyya movements". (see Ignaz Goldziher 1966, 1899).
Nevertheless, these groups were not able to do much with the fact that many
found out that the only way to protect oneself was to join the mightiest.
*Speaks Arabic
Back to our definition: "Those who have Arabic as a mother tongue are
Arabs." In connection with this, it important to note that the Middle East
has seen many language shifts.
The first great shift (from approximately 500 BC.) took place when Aramaic
replaced the local languages (Akkadian, Hebrew, Phonecian etc.) as the
language of Culture in the Middle East. Even the Arabic kingdoms in Petra
and Palmyra (Tadmor) used Aramaic as their written language. With time
Aramaic became the mother tongue of the majority of the people living in
the Middle East. The second shift was from Aramaic to Arabic after the
Arabo-Islamic expansion. Though Aramaic remained the mother tongue of some
(In some areas in Lebanon people continued to speak Aramaic up to the
17th-18th century, and in Syria, Turkey and Iraq there still are areas and
villages where people have Aramaic as their mother tongue), the far
majority of the people shifted to Arabic.
These shifts in language did not, however, cause a shift in identity. As
we mentioned above, it was clear who was an Arab, even after that Arabic
had become the language of culture. Non-Arab Muslims were known as
"Mawali", Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, ahl al-kitab, were known as
"Dhimmi". Moreover and according to the North African historian of the 14.
century, Ibn Khaldun, Arabs were not happy with the fact that their pure
Arabic language was becoming corrupted because of their contact with
non-Arabs.
Ibn Khaldun also says: "The Prophet was an Arab. Therefore, it is
necessary to avoid using any language but Arabic in all the provinces of
(Islam).
"This may be exemplified by 'Umar s prohibition against using the idiom
native among non-Arabs. He said that it is khibb, that is "ruse" and
"deceit."... Use of the Arabic language became a symbol of Islam and of
obedience to the Arabs...
"When non-Arabs, such as the Daylam and, after them, the Saljuqs in the
East and the Zanath and the Berbers in the West, became the rulers and
obtained royal authority and control over the whole Muslim realm, the
Arabic language suffered corruption. It would almost have disappeared, if
the concern of the Muslims with the Quran and the Sunnah, which preserve
Islam, had not (also) preserved the Arabic language... But when the Tatars
and Mongols, who were not Muslims, became the rulers in East, this element
in favor of the Arabic language disappeared, and the Arabic language was
absolutely doomed. No trace of it has remained in these Muslim provinces:
the Iraq, Khurasan, the country of Fars (southern Persia), Eastern and
Western India, Transoxania, the northern countries, and the Byzantine
territory (Anatolia)." (Ibn Khaldun, vol.2 pp.306,307).
This shows that the fact that the Arabic language survived actually had
nothing to do with Arabism. It was the desire to preserve Islam that
preserved the Arabic language. Notice that the most important grammarians,
Sibawayhi, Zamakhshari etc. were from the beginning non-Arabs (mainly
Persians, see Ibn Khaldun vol.3 p.311).
The Dialects and the Literary Language
When one speaks of the Arabic language, one is speaking about many things.
As far as the dialects are concerned there are great differences from the
Atlantic in the west to the Indian Ocean in the East. There are still
greater differences between these dialects and the literary language.
Educated Arabic speaking people would be able to communicate with other
Arabic speaking people across country borders by the use of the literary
language. Yet those with little or no education (and they form the
majority) would have big difficulties.
When one today uses the pride people have in the Arabic language as a sign
of Arabic identity, one should not underestimate the influence of the claim
that the Arabic language is a perfect (divine) language. "The national
vanity of the Arabs had bred no more favorite prejudice than that according
to which Arabic was the most beautiful sounding, richest and best of all
languages of mankind, a belief which was raised by the influence of Islam
to almost religious significance even amongst the orthodox non-Arabs, as it
concerned the language in which the divine revelation was expressed in the
Koran." (Goldziher 1966, p.191). Jews (see Roths 1983), Persians and others
who were confronted with this view had to try hard, and often in vain, to
show that their languages were just as good as Arabic. That Arabic is a
beautiful, rich and perfect language is something one learns already on the
first day in school. Arabic is a language one has to be proud of, and one
has to avoid the other "barbaric" languages. Persian and Turkish managed to
overcome this view, but most of the other languages in the Middle East,
Aramaic, Kurdish, Berber etc., have suffered and continue to suffer under
pressure from Arabic.
*The Arab Cultural Heritage
What is this cultural heritage one identifies himself with? and is it
Arabic? These questions have to be answered before one can say that someone
"identifies himself with the Arab cultural heritage".
That which one calls "the Arab cultural heritage" is called Arab because
and only because it is written in Arabic. In his book, A Literary History
of the Arabs, Nicholson makes this remark: "... in the palmy days of the
Abbasid Empire, the Arabs pur sang contributed only a comparatively small
share to the literature which bears their name... It may be said that the
work of Persians (who even nowadays are accustomed to use Arabic when
writing on theological and philosophical subjects) cannot illustrate the
history of Arabian thought, but only the influence exerted upon Arabian
thought by Persian ideas." (pp.xxviii,xxix).
Ibn Khaldun says in his book Introduction to History: "It is a remarkable
fact that, with few exceptions, most Muslim scholars both in the religious
and in the intellectual sciences have been non-Arabs. When a scholar is of
Arab origin, he is non-Arab in language and upbringing and has non-Arab
teachers. This is so in spite of the fact that Islam is an Arabic religion,
and its founder was an Arab." (vol.3 p.311).
Some of the best "Arabic" works are translations from other languages. The
best examples are A Thousand and One Nights and Kalila and Dimna, both were
translated from Persian. About the first Nicholsen says: "The modern title,
'Arabian Nights' tells only a part of the truth. Mas'udi (died 956 AD.)
mentions an old Persian book, the Hazar Afsana ('Thousand Tales') which "is
generally called the Thousand and One Nights; it is the story of the king
and his Vizier, and of the Viziers s daughter and her slave-girl: Shirazad
and Dinazad"... Evidently, then, the Hazar Afsan was the kernel of the
'Arabian Nights', and it is probable that this Persian archetype included
the most finely imaginative tales in the existing collection... As time
went on, the original stock received large additions which may be divided
into two principle groups, both Semitic in character: the one belonging to
Baghdad... the other having its center in Cairo... But apart from these
three sources, the 'Arabian Nights' has in the course of centuries
accumulated and absorbed an immense number of Oriental folk-tales of every
description, equally various in origin and style." (Nicholson pp.456-458).
About the second he says: "The Persian Ruzbih, better known as Abdullah
Ibnu 'l-Muqaffa'... made several translations from Pehlevi or Middle
Persian literature into Arabic. We posses a specimen of his powers in the
famous Book of Kalia and Dimna, which is ultimately derived from the
Sanskrit Fables of Bidpai. The Arabic version is one of the oldest prose
works in that language, and is justly regarded as a model of elegant style,
though it has not the pungent brevity which marks true Arabian eloquence."
Nicholson p.346).
In his book History of the Arabs, Hitti says: "When we therefore speak of
"Arab medicine" or "Arab philosophy" or "Arab mathematics" we do not mean
the medical science, philosophy or mathematics that are necessarily the
product of the Arabian mind or developed by people living in the Arabian
Peninsula, but that body of knowledge enshrined in books written in the
Arabic language by men who flourished chiefly during the caliphate and were
themselves Persians, Syrians, Egyptians or Arabians, Christian, Jewish or
Moslem and who may have drawn some of their material from Greek, Aramaean,
Indo-Persian or other sources." (Hitti pp.240,241).
Furthermore Hitti says: "In Syria Moslem architecture was influenced by
the pre-existent Christian Syro-Byzantine style with its native and Roman
antecedents. In Mesopotamia and Persia it was affected by the Nestorian and
Sasanid forms based on earlier native tradition. In Egypt many decorative
motifs were supplied by the local Copts. Thus there gradually developed a
number of distinct schools of Arab art: (1) Syro-Egyptian, following the
Greco-Roman and native precedents; (2) Iraqo-Persian, based on Sasanid and
ancient Chaldaean and Assyrian styles; (3) Spanish and North African,
showing native Christian and Visogothic influence and often called Moorish
or Maghribi; and (4) Indian, bearing clear marks of the Hindu style. In
China the mosque is almost a replica of the Buddhist temple." (Hitti
p.260).
Oriental
That which the Christians in their theories about Arab nationalism called
"the Arab cultural heritage" is in fact that which we can call "Oriental"
(sharqiy). The Near East represents a collection of many peoples,
languages, cultures and religions. Should one list them all, they would
fill many pages, but here is a sample: Arabs, Persians, Turks, Cherkess,
Kurds, Berber (bedouins and mountain dwellers, white and black etc.),
Copts, Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardi Jews, Falasha Jews, Aramaeans, Assyrians,
Canaanites, Byzantine (rum, Greek Orthodox and Catholics), Greeks,
Italians, gypsies, Ethiopians, Armenians, Sudanese, bedouins, farmers,
merchants, mountains dwellers, Maronites, Greek Orthodox and Catholics,
Syriac Orthodox and Catholics, Druse, Sunni, Shia, Ismaili, Zoroastrians
etc. etc.
Identifies Oneself with this Cultural Heritage
Is it then so that when one reads, for example A Thousand and One Nights
in Arabic, one will identify himself with the Arabs and when one reads it
in Persian one will identify himself with the Persians? NO! That which A
Thousand and One Nights describes is the Orient, the Oriental human nature
and Oriental feelings all these told in a typical Oriental manner. Either
one reads it Arabic or any other language, the Oriental reader will
identify himself with it!
The fact that much of the Oriental literature is written in (translated
into) Arabic hasactually nearly nothing to do with the matter. The language
used is the classical language, a language which only those with high education
can
read and understand. The culture of ordinary folk which is transmitted from
generation to generation is the spoken language and not the literary one
(even though the spoken language has borrowed from the literary language).
Indian, Persian, Aramaic, Hebrew etc. tales are told every where in the
Near East. It is this culture one identifies himself with.
Not a Question of Definition
Arabic vs Oriental is not a question of definition. It is neither a
question of nostalgia. It is a question of human rights. A question of
discrimination. Arabic nationalism has deprived peoples from their past.
Goldschmit for example considers only Arabic and Islamic history in his
book A Concise History of the Middle East. He believes that he can condense
more that six thousand years of Middle Eastern history by telling us about
the last one thousand five hundred! Hitti manages to say: "The Babylonians,
the Chaldaeans, the Hittites, the Phoenecians were, but are no more. The
Arabians and the Arabic-speaking peoples were and remain." (Hitti p.6).
Today it's only Arabs/ Muslims that count. Those who identify themselves with
Phonecians, Assyrians etc. are considered as historical curiosities.
Arabism has consequences for the present and the future. All who do not
partake in "Arabism" or "Arabo-Islamism" become marginalised and reduced to
traitors, separatists or isolationists. They are considered as minorities
in their own countries and homes. 8-10 million Copts in Egypt are
considered as minority. They are not allowed to play the role that they
have, being the biggest Christian group in the Middle East. 20-25 million
Kurds are also considered as a minority, even though they form a majority
in the areas where they live. The same is true for the Berber in North
Africa.
This fits perfectly with the systems that were used earlier: Dhimmi and
Millet systems. Under these systems, religious, ethnic and linguistic
"minorities" were tolerated on condition that they be content with limited
rights. They usually lose control over their own future.
Politically, Arabism has serious consequences. For example when
200,000-300,000 people demonstrated in Algeria in support of Saddam
Hussain, the world accorded them much more attention than when 500,000
people demonstrated in the same country and at the same period (27.12.90)
against a law that prohibits the use of any other language than Arabic in
official matters. The former demonstrations were considered as
representative of the opinion of the "Arab masses" (who heard of the
European or American masses), when the latter were considered as a struggle
of a Berber minority demanding their rights to use their own language.
Arabism is a decisive factor in determining which national decisions a
country will/ can take, regardless of whether these decisions are for the
good of that country or not. For example when Egypt decided that it was
best to sign a peace treaty with Israel, it was expelled from the Arab
League and all Arab countries broke diplomatic relations with it. Big and
important countries like Egypt would be able to survive such an action, but
what can smaller and not so important countries do to face such pressure?
*Consider Himself to be an Arab
The last part of our definition is what makes it so difficult. When people
want to call themselves Arabs and want to identify themselves with that
which is Arabic, why should I then insist that it is best to use the term
"Oriental"? Of course, people must be allowed to call themselves what they
wish. They must also be allowed to find their own solutions to their own
problems. My contribution is to draw a more accurate and shaded picture of
the Middle East. A picture that comes so near reality as possible. I would
like to show that to say "I am an Arab" can mean so many things. When an
Egyptian says "I am an Arab", it means something quite different from when
a Saudi says the same thing. Or when a Berber says "I am an Arab", it means
something quite different from when a Greek Orthodox says the same. When
people identify themselves with Arabism, they identify themselves with
their own definition of the term. This definition most often reflects their
own picture of themselves or that which they strive to become. It can also
reflect the fears that they have. In my opinion, these definitions are not
shades of what it is to be an Arab. They are often definitions that exclude
one another (e.g. secularism and Islamism) or they refer to completely
different things. I see the Middle East as a kaleidoscope constantly
changing colors and patterns. If one is to understand the Middle East, he
can not be color blind. Man must not see only a limited amount of patterns.
Oriental Mosaic
I suggest as a conclusion that we (again) begin to use the term "Oriental"
instead of "Arab". This way we would stop contributing to the confusion
concerning this term, and more important we would stop contributing to the
negative discrimination that this term caused. The use of the Arabic
language as a guaranttee for the security of the Christians was not
successful. Even Saddam Hussein, the great secularist?!, admitted that:
"Islam and Arabism can only be one and the same solution." (Pierre Martin,
Liberation 13.8.90). Even a Berber who calls himself an Arab does not have
the right to give his child an education in the Berber language. Arabism
has not prevented discrimination against non-Muslims, it has rather
contributed to the discrimination against non-Arabs be they Muslims or not.
By using the term "Oriental" we will express in a better way and more
actively support the mosaic that the Middle East represents.
Bibliography:
Golgschmit, A.; A Concise History of the Middle East, 1988.
Goldziher, I.; Muslim Studies, vol.1, New York, 1966.
" , "Die Su'ubijja unter den Muhammedanern in Spanien", Zeitschrift
der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, 1899 Leipzig.
Hitti, P.; History of the Arabs, London 1970.
Ibn Khaldun; The Muqaddimah, An Introduction to History, London 1958.
Lewis, B.; The Arabs in History, New York.
Mansfield, P.; The Arabs, Penguin Books, 1985.
Martin, P.; "L Iraq et sa legitimite", Liberation 13.8.90, p.12.
Nicholson, R.; A Literary History of the Arabs, Cambridge 1969.
Roth, N.; "Jewish reactions to the Arabiyya and the renaissance of Hebrew
in Spain" Journal of Semitic Studies, vol.28, N 1, 1983.
Saliba, K.; The Modern History of Lebanon, London 1965.
Notes:
Lewis, Hitti and Mansfield are acknowledged historians in the field of
Middle Eastern history.
Ibn Khaldun is one of the most important Arab historians from the Middle
Ages.
Goldziher is a central figure in the field of Islamic studies.