Some Little-Known Truths about Arabs

Lin writes:

To Pranav: …To me, (Sunni) Islam is basically an Arab/pan-Arab civilizational push, or it’s just a veneer over Arabized power. Let me recollect what I posted here before: 1) Arabic is said to be language of Paradise. 2) Arabs are said to be a superior race. Superiority of the race of Arabs over non-Arabs 3) Though faggotry is condemned, large 4) The strictest sect of Islam, the Wahhabi Saudis, allied with the British and French kufirs during WW1 to topple the Ottoman Turk Caliphate, treason of the worst kind I must say, yet they consider themselves guardians of Islam. What a farce and shame. I personally don’t think the Sunni Arabs have much of an economic future (Persians could be an exception that their Shiite Islam is more flexible, like they allowed sex change). I also foresee an Euro/Mediterranean Jihad One, after which the Middle East will be further fragmented…

Most of this is correct. Sunni Islam is indeed an Arab or Pan-Arab civilizational project, and it is also a thin veneer over Arabized power. In addition, it is a vehicle for Arab supremacy. 1 is correct. They do speak Arabic in Paradise, and the only true Qurans are those written in Arabic, for God transmitted the Quran to Mohammad in Arabic. There are many translations of the Quran into all sorts of languages, but many Muslims consider them to be nearly illegitimate, as the only proper Quran is the one written in Arabic. 2 is also correct. If you go to Islamic sites on the web, you will see articles along the lines that Arabs are a superior to non-Arabs. No doubt all of these sites were written by Arabs, but nevertheless, Islam is a sort of an Arab Supremacist religion. 3 is true, but some Islamic countries tolerate it more than others. 4 is sadly true, and it is quite a blight on the Saudis’ claim to be the ultimate in hardline Islamists. Instead they seem traitors to the umma.

I personally don’t think the Sunni Arabs have much of an economic future (Persians could be an exception that their Shiite Islam is more flexible, like they allowed sex change).

I do not know what to say about this. The Sunni Arabs are definitely sitting on a lake of oil and gas that isn’t going away soon. Some of the Gulf countries have started to branch out away from an oil rentier economy. Dubai is now an international port city, one of the largest on Earth. About the rest of the Sunni Arab states, I do not know what to say. Iraq, Syria, and Libya appear to be failed states right now, and Yemen is turning into one awful fast. There is some violence in Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and Lebanon, but state structures appear to be largely intact. Palestine is a war zone and increasingly so is the Sinai. Indeed the Shia do not appear to be going on jihad now or anytime soon. They do not believe in offensive jihad like the Sunnis do, and Shiism is quite a bit more progressive than Sunnism. Like Catholicism with its Pope, Shiism has its clergy. As the Pope and Vatican continue to update Catholicism to keep up with a changing world, the Ayatollahs and clergy in Lebanon and Iran do the same with Islam. The clergy in the latter two lands are surprisingly progressive, but those in Iraq, not so much. I know little about the Houthi Shia in Yemen. The only people involved in the global jihad right now are radical Sunnis. The Shia, instead of being involved in this project, are victims of it, as global jihadists see the Shia as heretics to be killed on sight if not exterminated altogether. So the Shia, like the Arab Christians, are literally fighting for their lives against global jihad and are much more victimized by it than the Christian West is. Almost all terrorism in the world today is committed by Sunnis. In fact, the Shia are responsible for little terrorism outside of attacks on Israelis outside of Israel. There is some state terrorism being practiced by the Shia Iraqi state against Iraqi Sunnis.

I also foresee an Euro/Mediterranean Jihad One, after which the Middle East will be further fragmented…

I have no idea if this is going to occur, but it seems like it already is at a low to high variable level, right? Surely the Tunisian, Libyan, Egyptian, Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian parts of the Mediterranean are heating up, and a few are out and out jihad war zones right now. Turkey is increasingly starting to resemble the beginnings of a war zone. Terrorism in Europe is at a fairly low level, but the few attacks have been spectacular and there is a steady drumbeat of low level attacks happening in the background. Comments along with your own predictions are welcomed.

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13 thoughts on “Some Little-Known Truths about Arabs”

  1. Bob,
    First of all, i must emphasise I have no overall animosity towards Arabs, although I am aware that they’re quite racist against certain Asians. As I said before, their apologetics for their past slave trade is that the Yanks also kept slaves.
    “The Sunni Arabs are definitely sitting on a lake of oil and gas that isn’t going away soon..”
    That’s precisely the problem. The moneybags of Arabs or the Gulf States depend on the oil price which is likely on the course of a intermediate or long-term decline as renewables gain momentum and newer types of nuclear power become reality. How about the poorer Arab countries? Any Arab country on a mad rush to industrialize like China or the smaller ‘tigers’ did? Many of them are facing demographic disaster (Egypt has less arable land/capita than Bangladesh). I suspect it’s too late for them to create jobs by labor-intensive industry because the robots are taking over. You might not be aware of this, and China is still a 3rd World country:
    http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-is-largest-fastest-growing-market-world-wide-for-industrial-robots-1463584169
    I might be a bit far stretched on World Jihad One, but let’s say you live a country with a population explosion, poor economic prospects, religious fanatics running amok, Israelis/Yankee/Turk-supported militia groups fighting for their spoils, and just a few 100 km away is a continent with much higher living and sexually liberated women…What would you do?

    1. Hi Lin. I love your comments, but you must start capitalizing properly, ok? I fixed all your stuff here, but if you want me to keep running your great comments, you have to start using capitalization.
      TIA.

  2. One more point:
    The Sunni-Shiite split is another evidence of the Arab powercentric nature of Sunni Islam. It’s a split between 2 camps.
    1) Ali, the son-in-law of the prophet, who wanted to establish a Muhammad dynasty.
    2) Abu Bakr, father-in-law of and the chief of the tribe Muhammad belonged to. I read that the Saudi authority has been demolishing archeological remnants of Muhammad, like graves of his relatives.
    Obviously Shiite Islam which was adopted by Persians has been a great dilution of Arab power and is greatly resented. Other than the succession issue, theological differences actually are quite mundane and alone don’t justify such mortal hostility.

  3. “Some little known truths about the Arabs” sounds like the title of a comedy skit making fun of bigotry.
    The actual blog post is perfectly reasonable commentary so it may be best to come up with a better title. Such as “Sunni Islam is mainly a vehicle for propagating Arab culture.”
    This central point is a perfectly defensible position when looking at the history of Islam, and the strongest arguments for this is not even brought into the post.
    One obvious supporting argument is that the Koran itself is basically a really long poem written in Arabic. Because its poetry, there has never been a really satisfactory translation. Plus in the ninth century AD, Sunni Islam settled on the doctrine that the Koran is the literal word of God, in other words what God literally said to Mohamed, and even itself uncreated and divine. This both implies that it is impious to translate it and that God normally speaks Arabic! Note that some modern Christians quite hereticallly have a similar attitude to the Bible.
    (Sunni) Arab scholars amassed a large group of sayings and doings of Mohamed called the Hadith, which is a closer approximation to the Christian Bible than the Koran, and is often confused with the Koran by non-Muslims. This is not the literal word of God, and a great deal of Muslim scholarship has gone into determining the authenticity of various parts of the Hadith. But it does seem that alot of standard desert Arab cultural practices got into the Hadith, which were presented as ways a pious Muslim should behave. Again keep in mind that the Koran itself, being a long and somewhat untranslatable poem, is not particularly prescriptive.
    Once Mohamed and his followers left Mecca for Medina, there was a long war between the two cities. The war was settled by a compromise where Mohamed was allowed to visit Mecca again (he didn’t move back there permanently) and the Meccans declared themselves to be followers to Mohamed, but Mohamed declared that all Muslims should visit the Kaaba in Mecca at least once in their lifetimes -the pagan idols that had been there were at least removed from public view if not destroyed- and the Meccan elite, which had been trying to destroy Mohamed and Islam- became the elite of the new religion. This is all recounted in Muslim histories and set Islam on the path away from being a universal, culturally neutral religion more like Christianity and Buddhism.
    After the death of Mohamed there was a lengthy and complicated power struggle over who should succeed him and what the status of that individual should be. This was won by the family which had been Mohamed’s leading opponents during his lifetime! The adherents of the losing faction formed what became the Shia. The point is that the Shia are the losers in the decisive early power struggle over how “Arab” Islam would turn out to be. Over time, as other dynasties took over, Sunni Islam became somewhat less Arab, but at the start they were even discouraging non-Arabs from converting to Islam.
    The Wahabbist version of Islam propagated by Saudi oil money is also very much a “Islam for the Arabs” type of ideology.
    Also, many people have noted that Islam in Indonesia, which is historically the Muslim country least influenced by Arab or even Persia culture, is really quite different in practice from what non-Muslims think Islam is.

    1. Yea but Indonesia banned Hinduism as soon as it got independence. All abrahamic ideology is a plague which restricts religious freedom.

    2. Ed,
      Bismullah, Ir rahman Ir rahim…
      I overall focus on the Middle East Arab/Muslim but the fact that far away Indonesia also follows Islam, modified it might be, points out the enormous success Arabs had been through Islam from small tribes in the Persian Gulf to big time. Arabs could never do without Sunni Islam because it’s the only powerful pillar of its civilization and without which Arabs will be culturally naked.
      Some other obvious points I would like to make:
      1) Halal diet, burqa, Arabic prominence, cousin marriage…to Muslims in non-Muslim countries are like waving a placard: “Kufirs, listen, I’m a Muslim and I’m not going to be assimilated.” Muslims claim burqas protect Muslim women from sexual predators, but I doubt sex crimes against Muslim women will jump if they give up the burqa. Islam as well as Judaism emphasizes on symbolism more than say Protestant Christianity. My guess is the Muslims would protest if one deletes electronic Koran a million time on a public computer screen.
      2) The Jihadists are better promoter of atheism than Shaitan.
      3) The early history of Islam you mentioned can hardly be undone. Sunni Islam stands what it is today: A vehicle of Arab power/civilization.
      4) An optimistic prediction is that the Al Mahdi will come and reform the religion. Here ‘Al Mahdi’ I refer to a leader who manages to score some early victory against the kufirs in the coming Global Jihad One.

  4. Originally Muslims would pray in Jerusalem’s direction but after Muhammed was cheated by Jews he turned to Mecca’s direction, I think the change was made to make Islam a Arab-centric religion (Mecca was already Holy to Pagan Arabs), I think Muhammed understood the flaws in Christianity in putting Jews into a privileged spot as “chosen people”, Jews already controlled the commerce in the Arab peninsula at that period.

  5. This is a tad harsh and non-PC, but on point.
    I’ve visited many Muslim Arab nations. The peoples I’ve encountered have been warm, loving, and kind. Obviously, take or leave my opinion, as I’m a very unscientific sample size of one.
    The Islamic Golden Age turned into a self-imposed golden shower due to rejecting knowledge that was deemed “irrelevant” hundreds of years ago.
    Generations of Arab Muslim inbreeding (cousin marriage) due to following the “perfect example of Muhammad” has led to an IQ of 85.
    Couldn’t not find exact numbers that collectively noted Arab Muslim cousin marriage. But, did find information that puts worldwide Muslim cousin marriage at 50%, and breaks out some numbers by country. I could not find Syria. Perhaps it’s lower due to the 10% Christian population?
    In event event, cousin marriage:
    67% Saudi Arabia
    64% Jordan
    60% Iraq
    I’m in no way equating one’s worth to one’s intelligence. Liberty for all, and respect, kindness and love towards all.
    That said, let’s mush on.
    An average IQ of 85 means that HALF of all Arab Muslims have an IQ of LESS THAN 85. Scary. See any problem with 1 million 1st generation Arab Muslim immigrants integrating with their European host countries? Past that, see any problem, even if a blank slate, educating their young?
    Bio 101. Inbreeding promotes genetics defects, low IQ, and imbecility at higher rates. Case in point. Muslim Pakistanis are 3% of the English population, and yet 30% of genetic defects in newborns are attributed to this population. 50% of Muslim Pakistani men are married to their 1st cousin, or perhaps worse, to their blood niece.
    Raw data on what percentage of their children require special education?
    Will Europe promote the same self destructive dysgenic programs (Medicaid) that financially reward parenthood to those who cannot afford new children, and those with low IQs?
    When children of these Arab Muslim in Europe begin to be “under represented” in college admissions16 years or so from now, I wonder if Europe will adopt “Affirmative Action” programs to correct this “unjustness”. Diversity is a moral good, right?
    I wonder when a disproportionate number of Arab Muslims fail their written entrance exams for police departments, government jobs, and teaching positions, if they, and White liberals, will scream “discrimination!”
    Western civilization, China, and Japan were built by those with an average IQ of 100 to 105. Therefore, a similar group IQ is required to prosper in these societies.
    Arab Muslim lands will drag, regardless of the adoption of Western models of human rights, free trade, and the questioning of religious mysticism.

  6. You are spot on about the lack of offensive Jihad in Shia Islam. While conquest began under Muhammad, primarily in the Levant, much of the territorial acquisition occurred under the Rashidun and Umayyads. Ali was too caught up in suppressing the Kharwaji to engage in conquest, and apparently (in a Shia hadith) criticized the previous three caliphs for their oppression of Dhimmis.
    It is also worth noting that Shia have a much more laced view of traditions and narrations. They don’t assign near the weight to narrations that Sunnis do, believing that with the passage of time comes alterations or downright fabrications (they accuse the Umayyads of issuing fabricated hadiths to diminish or insult Ali). In Sunni Islam, most of the barbarism is to found in the books of hadith, and by taking up a cynicism, one can circumvent a great deal of stupidity which may or may not have been authentic.
    There are two further principles which make Shia Islam more capable big conforming to modernity:
    Firstly, Shia are encouraged to refrain from that which gives Islam a bad image. This is generally agreed to include prescriptions found in Hadith but not in the Quran. For example, the punishment of stoning adulterers is only found in narrations, and thus Iran has found it within their liberty to temporarily suspend the use of such punishments.
    Secondly, the Usuli (the mainstream school of Shia Islam) are much like Jews in that they stress that while the laws remain the same, their interpretation and circumstances surrounding them change.
    However, in some ways, Shia is undoubtedly more extreme. For example in the case of apostasy, the Sunni schools believe that only the state can try and execute apostates, but in Shia Islam, the duty can fall upon civilians as well (the same is true of blasphemy). This causes a great many problems for obvious reasons.
    And whereas in Sunni Islam, no differentiation is made between those apostates born to a Muslim father (Murtad Fitri) and one who converts and then apostasizes (Murtad Milli): both are asked to rejoin Islam, with a potential waiting period. In Shia Islam the former is killed regardless of their repentance, and the latter is given one opportunity and no waiting period.
    The predictions are fairly accurate, although I wouldn’t call Syria a failed state. I am certainly committed to the idea that the future of Islam is interred in the West.
    t. agnostic Shia

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