So, as some of you may not know- ok none of you know- I've been studying Arabic culture, language since the summer-its probably been the most rewarding attempt to learn anything I've ever engaged in. I've learned a lot, and I'm not even a third of the way through the language program (ok, I know like nothing, really) but a few things I've been delving into this summer have really stuck with me.

1) People have no idea what Arabs are. All the title really refers to is the language-thus an arab is a speaker of arabic. So, and I feel not enough people know this, no Iranian is an Arab (culturally speaking) and the vast majority of Afghanis speak Persian dialects-which are closer related to Hindi (and thus english) than arabic is. There are something like 20 different dialects, some of which are almost unrecognizable to arabic-speakers of other regions. Racially, "Arabs" are nearly indistinguishable from many middle eastern/asian people. Which leads me to my next point.

2) Being racist about Arabs is 99% cool in the US-but again, nobody knows what it is-really its racism against browner people and especially against Islam. I've found this to be really true. People I thought were completely open-minded aproach you differently when you tell them you are studying it. Maybe its like studying Russian during the cold war or something.

3) Arabic is intensely beautiful. Arabic spread with the Koran, which is really the foundation of the language, and the words of the Quaran are really poetry, AABB poetry, which seeks to reveal the glory of God(Allah just means God) not only through words, but through the power and beauty of the poetry itself which carries implicit divine power. Translations of the Koran are not really considered to be legitimate, as the word of God was revealed to Muhammed (supposedly illiterate, accent on the supposedly) in Arabic.

Interestingly enough, the Koran has suprisingly less problems than the bible. With the bible you find descrepencies all over the place, scribes inserting passages (the "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" story, for example doesn't appear in earlier greek manuscripts) copies upon copies were made, tons destroyed, and you have a translation history that goes from aramaic to latin, latin to english and all of the weird quirks of translation means that there are passages all over the place that could mean different things. The Koran, read in Arabic, is considered to be a fairly authentic text-scholars mostly agree that it was fully compiled in its final form about 20-30 years after the death of Muhammed, and though there are of course disagreement about interpretation, it just doesn't compare to the bible.

Arab poetry, especially Sufi poetry (I'm very in to Rumi at the moment) is gorgeous and blows any notion you have of pegging Islam as conservative out of the water. Half of them are drunken, lascivious and just about everything that conservative clerics-which get a hell of a lot of press-think is antithetical to Islam. Pegging Islam as a conservative, reactionary religion makes as much intellectual sense as comparing this permiscuous, but beautiful, catholic girl I know (with fantastic tits) to Pope Pius II. But its done all the time.

Another thing-something like 80-90% of Arabs are muslim, but less than a quarter of muslims are arab (think indonesia).

4) The Arabic culture is inextricably linked to the rise and progression of Western culture, and the links are deep and important. While the europeans were in the dark ages, Arabic civilization was going through a renaissance of its own which had major advances in mathamatics, philosophy-pick any field. Arab philosophers drew heavily from the Greeks, though some later rejected their influence, and many of the works of Socrates, Plato, etc. found their way back to the West through arabic translations.

Western education has a lot of us thinking that philosophy and higher learning flowed from the greeks, to the romans, and to modern europe-in that order, but it was Arabs who were keeping the record alive while a lot of Europe was out of the game. Little interesting words work their way into english-Jebra, if I remember correctly, worked out the rules for algebra. The "Alphabet" is actually the first three letters of arabic, alif, baa, taa put together.

Arabic influences on western culture are everywhere. Don't forget that the Europeans came to power to a great extent through trade with the East, and from their the wealth started flowing with luxury goods (think china plates, silk, damasc, sugar, tea, coffee, and the like) that originated in the East and in Arabic lands. Church architecture, those archs that look like the inverted ribs of a spanish galleon, was inspired to a great extent from the fantastic mosques of Arabic antiquity.

When watching a documentary, I think it was the ben kingsley one, I remember it showing a renaissance painting of the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus in her arms. She had a beautiful silken shawl and written all around it in flowing script was "Allahu Akbar"-God is great. The painter had used a model wearing a garment from out of Arab lands, and had painted the script into his work without knowing.