How important is being Arab with being Moslem?

[Verisimilitude]

There are two problems with this theory of yours:

1. Lebanon as created was majority Christian. So it was mostly not Islamic.

Before 630 AD. true.

1. The national language is Arabic, all the historical documents from the people there are in Arabic, and the Christians and Muslims alike pray and live…in Arabic.

After 630 AD true.

Note that your statistic is “95 percent Arab”…that’s just right. And that includes Christians and Muslims, and also the fringe minority that call themselves phoenicians.

You missed reading this part: note: many Christian Lebanese do not identify themselves as Arab but rather as descendents of the ancient Canaanites and prefer to be called Phoenicians.

The only fringe element to your position is you are pro-Moslem/Islam. You want to believe and perpetuate the lie.

Uh, the Arab label is applied because the people all speak Arabic and share Arabic cultural norms. Even the ones taht aren’t Islamic (again, which is most of the people who are Lebanese.)

Uh, thanks for making my point; non-Arab Moslems adopting the Arab label. You might not beleive in the effects of dhimmitude, but I do.

By your standard, even though Lebanese in this world are mostly not Muslim, we must still call them “Islamic”, because to speak Arabic means…to be Muslim, in your view? Or what?

My view suggests when Islam gets a foothold in a society it tries to dominate it in such a way as to wholly erase the mindset of the original culture. Mohamed did this in Arabia itself by making being a Moslem paramount to family, tribe or local deity. Abu Bakr reapplied it in the great Apostasy after Mohamed died. Umar did this in Syria and Lebanon, Babylon, and North Africa.

It is either convert to Islam or if left alive, live a very hard life dominated by Moslems which were the minority in the places the conquered. For the average polytheist, the monotheism of Islam was superior to their own faith, but to the Jews and Christians they often resisted and were killed or severely subjugated until, as the rules established by Umar show…attrition brought more into Islam where the indigenous non-Muslim majority became a persecute non-Muslim minority.

When the now non-Arab Moslem majority in jihad conquered lands; like Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Babylon…they identify themselves with those who conquered them because they are now of them at least in faith, but never were they in ethnicity. Stockholm Syndrome gone wild if you like.

Islam makes no distinction between the political and religious spheres. They say they make no distinction in race, but they do. If Ishmael is the progenitor of Arabs it (Torah) shows he went south into Arabia. Abraham came from Mesopotamia and despite the false Islamic claim, he never went into Arabia to build the Kabba or found the black stone with Ishmael.

If anything, there is no such thing as Arab since Hagar was Egyptian. I think Arabia owes its ancestry to Egypt and should acknowledge it by dropping being called Arab, not the other way around. However, if they insist being Arab is unique and not Egyptian or Syrian, Phoenicians, Babylonians…then applying the Arabness to those regions is just outright false.

My point of all this is how Mohammedism twists everything it touches to include but not limited to the truth.

 

[pro_universal]

Before 630 AD. true.

You need to get your facts in order here-it has been true since Lebanon was declared a country. From the moment there was a Lebanon, the majority of Lebanese were Christian.

many Christian Lebanese do not identify themselves as Arab but rather as descendents of the ancient Canaanites and prefer to be called Phoenicians.

If this is true, how do you get 95 percent Arab in a country that is even now 40 percent Christian??? It is not “many” who do this, but rather a tiny few-and they are the same people as the multitudes who call themselves Arabs.

Uh, thanks for making my point; non-Arab Moslems adopting the Arab label. You might not beleive in the effects of dhimmitude, but I do.

What??? That was the opposite of what I said.

Non-Muslim peoples adopted the Arab label because they speak Arabic.

On the other hand, there is no Muslim country that calls itself Arab only because it is Muslim. Indeed, most Muslim peoples are not Arab.

This is a bizarre claim you are making. Can you please cite one instance of Muslims claiming to be Arabs who are not in fact Arabs?

However, if they insist being Arab is unique and not Egyptian or Syrian, Phoenicians, Babylonians…then applying the Arabness to those regions is just outright false.

I guess all those hundreds of millions of Arabs will be convinced now that you’ve laid out the facts…or not

 

[Rodrigo_Bivar]

Speaking of Malaysia, when I visited many years ago, there wasn’t a burqa in sight. Now, when I’m passing through there are frequently women in burqas - and I’m not talking of the Arab tourists but the locals. The more Islamic a country becomes, the more Arab they get.

 

[pro_universal]

Speaking of Malaysia, when I visited many years ago, there wasn’t a burqa in sight. Now, when I’m passing through there are frequently women in burqas - and I’m not talking of the Arab tourists but the locals. The more Islamic a country becomes, the more Arab they get.

The likely scenario here is that you simply did not recognize the traditional malay clothing, and did not recognize a burqa from traditional south asian dress.

What exactly are signs of “arabization”?

 

[Rodrigo_Bivar]

Black, with a face veil covering everything except the eyes, even black gloves. It’s actually called a niqab but the burqa is for Westerners to understand. It’s definitely not the tudung - which by the way, is not traditional malay dress anyway. The traditional Malay dress does not include the head covering.

 

[pro_universal]

Black, with a face veil covering everything except the eyes, even black gloves. It’s actually called a niqab but the burqa is for Westerners to understand. It’s definitely not the tudung - which by the way, is not traditional malay dress anyway. The traditional Malay dress does not include the head covering.

Well, so you say headcovering is not traditional. Certainly the majority of malays disagree with you.

If you saw women with a full niqab, how did you know they were Malaysian and not tourists??? Especially considering the high number of Muslim Indians and Pakistanis?

 

[Rodrigo_Bivar]

How many Arab tourists go live in Malay villages with Malay husbands? How can I differentiate between Arab tourists and Malay muslimahs wearing the niqab? Easy - just look at their husbands.

 

[pro_universal]

How many Arab tourists go live in Malay villages with Malay husbands? How can I differentiate between Arab tourists and Malay muslimahs wearing the niqab? Easy - just look at their husbands.

I guess-it doesn’t sound like you’ve got much of a case for widespread “arabization” there anyway. It’s a highly uncommon mode of dress, and the burqa itself does not originate from Arabia anyway…that would be, when worn by Arabs, an import into Arab culture, not the other way around.

I saw lots of traditional Malaysian clothes, and very few burqas myself. But that’s not relevant anyway, because burqas are not Arab clothing…so how do you equate them with “Arabization”?

 

[Verisimilitude]

You need to get your facts in order here-it has been true since Lebanon was declared a country. From the moment there was a Lebanon, the majority of Lebanese were Christian.

Facts are subjective to the Moslem mind. A lot happened before the Lebanon we know today existed.

If this is true, how do you get 95 percent Arab in a country that is even now 40 percent Christian??? It is not “many” who do this, but rather a tiny few-and they are the same people as the multitudes who call themselves Arabs.

Dhimmitude. Here is a link to understand it.

What??? That was the opposite of what I said.

Non-Muslim peoples adopted the Arab label because they speak Arabic.

On the other hand, there is no Muslim country that calls itself Arab only because it is Muslim. Indeed, most Muslim peoples are not Arab.

Thanks for making my point again.

This is a bizarre claim you are making. Can you please cite one instance of Muslims claiming to be Arabs who are not in fact Arabs?

Lebanon is a prime example.
Which do you believe?
Lebanon’s long and often turbulent history reaches back to the dawn of civilization. Its earliest settlers were the Phoenicians who came from the Arabian Peninsula around 3,500 BC. They established cities at Beirut, Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, and Baalbek and spread their 22-letter Phoenician alphabet throughout the region.
arab.net/lebanon/ln_earlytimes.htm

Came from the Arabian Peninsula around 3,500 BC??? That doesn’t jive with reality.

History
The site of the ancient maritime city-state of Phoenicia, the area later fell to successive Middle Eastern powers. Christianity was introduced under the Roman Empire and persisted even after the coming of Islam with the Arab conquest (7th cent.). In the late 11th cent. Lebanese Christians aided the Crusaders in the region. The area came under the Ottoman Turks in the 16th cent., and after the Turkish defeat in World War I it became part of a French mandate known as Greater Lebanon.
hejleh.com/countries/lebanon.html

What do you think it means by Arab conquest? From within?

I guess all those hundreds of millions of Arabs will be convinced now that you’ve laid out the facts…or not

We can only hope, but the first step would be to correct the lie you keep spreading as truth.

 

[MugenOne]

Rodrigo Bivar is right. There is no way in hell a Joe Malay would get to marry an Arab woman. First, Arabs are racist toward to Southeast Muslims. I feel sorry for them. They’re too blind to realize that. Second, Arabs still practice marrying cousins (tribal) and dowry.

How many Arab tourists go live in Malay villages with Malay husbands? How can I differentiate between Arab tourists and Malay muslimahs wearing the niqab? Easy - just look at their husbands.

 

[ABalch]

I don’t know about being a Muslim that one has to be an Arab. There are Indonesian and Malaysian Muslims who act like they are Arab. They try to immolate their Mohammed. They all walk around with white ghost suit and a long beard in the middle of the tropic. All those stuff make them smell like @#$ if you ask me.

I don’t want to be the spelling teacher here, but I feel I should correct you on something you said in the quote above. You said that “They try to immolate their Mohammed.”

I believe the word you were wanting to use is emulate.
1 a**:** to strive to equal or excel b**:** imitate; especially : to imitate by means of an emulator2**:** to equal or approach equality with

not immolate
1**:** to offer in sacrifice; especially : to kill as a sacrificial victim2**:** to kill or destroy often by fire

 

[pro_universal]

Verisimilitude,

You are totally confused about Lebanon. I am saying the exact opposite of what you are saying-namely, that despite being majority Christian, the population there identifies as Arab. It is absurd in the extreme to claim that they call themselves Arabs and speak Arabic because they are all Muslims, because the fact is that they are mostly not Muslims.

On top of this you have a total misread of the history-Lebanon went to Muslim conquerors because of family ties between the semitic tribes that ruled Arabia and Lebanon both. It was not “phoenician” anymore than Germany at that time was Celtic.

Lebanon is a prime example.

Again, the example I was asking for was of Muslim peoples claiming to be Arabs, who don’t speak Arabic and don’t share any Arab culture.

You need to reread these posts carefully. You keep saying “You make my point!” when I’ve said precisely the opposite.

 

[Isa_Almisry]

Actually maybe a better analogy is that the Arabs are Arabs the way the Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italians are Latins. In fact, the population is descended mostly from the Germanic invaders, the Celtic and Basque substratum, etc. in the Romance countries.

 

[Rodrigo_Bivar]

I guess-it doesn’t sound like you’ve got much of a case for widespread “arabization” there anyway. It’s a highly uncommon mode of dress, and the burqa itself does not originate from Arabia anyway…that would be, when worn by Arabs, an import into Arab culture, not the other way around.

I saw lots of traditional Malaysian clothes, and very few burqas myself. But that’s not relevant anyway, because burqas are not Arab clothing…so how do you equate them with “Arabization”?

I told you I used the word burqa as a generalization for Westerners here. Don’t get hung up on the word. I have clarified it for you as niqab because I knew you were going to split hairs.

The Islamization of Malaysia is very clear to an outside observer. Before the 1970s, very few Muslimahs even wore the tudung. The traditional Malay dress did not have head covering for their women - if they did, as with the Sarong Kebaya, they used a long lace scarf - very pretty. But that is only for more formal ocassions. Most of the time the Malay women did not wear head coverings.

With the Islamization of Malaysia beginning in the 1970s Malay women started to wear the tudung which they previously only wore on Fridays and during prayers.

Recently, in the past 10 years or so, this was considered insufficient for some Malays - who went the whole hog and imitated their Arab masters - by wearing niqab. Even some Malay men now emulate their Arab masters by wearing Arab flowing dress.

For someone who’s visited Malaysia from time to time over the past 20 years I can see that. When I first went to Malaysia the Malay women hardly wore the tudung, but now almost every Malay woman wears it. It is even mandated for the public service.

This is not to say that the niqab is widespread - it is not. But it is becoming more popular. Before that, the men already began arabization as the male Arab attire is more conducive to Malaysian weather while the niqab is not. It is actually plain silly to wear the niqab in a tropical country.

 

[Verisimilitude]

Verisimilitude,

You are totally confused about Lebanon. I am saying the exact opposite of what you are saying-namely, that despite being majority Christian, the population there identifies as Arab. It is absurd in the extreme to claim that they call themselves Arabs and speak Arabic because they are all Muslims, because the fact is that they are mostly not Muslims.

One of us is confused and/or wrong to be sure.

The majority of Christians are the minority in Lebanon to the Moslems. It is the majority that have adopted the Arab label inappropriately.

Why was this unclear the first time?

Uh, thanks for making my point; non-Arab Moslems adopting the Arab label. You might not beleive in the effects of dhimmitude, but I do.

The minority Christian population are more accurate:
note: many Christian Lebanese do not identify themselves as Arab but rather as descendents of the ancient Canaanites and prefer to be called Phoenicians.

Who are they?

Canaanites: 1. Ethno-Cultural & Linguistic Origins

While the origins of the Sumerians, whose language appears related to no known linguistic family, remain a mystery, the other people of the region were chiefly Semites - Canaanites (the Levant), Amorites (southwestern desert people), Akkadians and Assyrians (Mesopotamia), Arameans, Habiru (Hebrews) and Bedu (Beduin Arabs of the southern desert). The languages of these groups are closely related, and also related more distantly to Hamitic languages, which include ancient Egyptian, Coptic, and Ethiopian.

Throughout the Bronze Age there was a sporadic influx of nomads from Arabia into the area, hostile at first, but soon incorporated into the existing culture.
geocities.com/soho/lofts/2938/histcult.html#ethno

Or this to get a larger view:

In Genesis 9:18 and 9:22, Ham appears as the father of Canaan…
With a few exceptions the Biblical writers seem to indicate by this name at the least, the whole of Western or cis-Jordanic Palestine…
Genesis 10:15-18 enumerates as the descendants of Canaan a series of tribes, most of which, and originally perhaps all, were settled outside Palestine proper and up to Northern Syria…
Even before the tribes who are introduced to us as Canaanites in the Bible penetrated into Palestine (between 3000 and 2500 B.C.) there must have lived for many centuries an older population, dwelling there partly in caves, but also possessing their primitive “towns” surrounded by earthen walls. This period is characterized especially by stone instruments and very primitive earthenware. **The Canaanite tribes who gradually took their place came from the north and were for **…

Arab influence is little to none.

On top of this you have a total misread of the history-Lebanon went to Muslim conquerors because of family ties between the semitic tribes that ruled Arabia and Lebanon both. It was not “phoenician” anymore than Germany at that time was Celtic.

They are all Semite with respect to most of these peoples are recorded as descendants of Noah’s son Shem which is the only family tie that is of most import. Ishmael lived around 1800 BC who may or may not be claimed as Arab. What other family tie are you refering to if any?

Arab does not trump Semite unless you are saying Jews are also Arab which I would reject because that would conflict with the oft Arab/Moslem nationalist claim that the Jews stole Palestinian Arab Muslims land called modern day Israel.

Is it; Palestine belongs to Arabs(race) not the Jews(race), or Palestine belongs to Muslims(Religion) not the Jews(Religion)?

Again, the example I was asking for was of Muslim peoples claiming to be Arabs, who don’t speak Arabic and don’t share any Arab culture.

When did you add that qualifier of not speaking the language? Islam is not a culture? Islam is supposed to be everything for every moment of the day.

You need to reread these posts carefully. You keep saying “You make my point!” when I’ve said precisely the opposite.

Funny isn’t it? Hopefully this post clears up your confusion. I read and answer very carefully being mindfull of history and how it affects us today.

You exhibit a very Moslem trait if not Arabic. You don’t answer questions that could have reasoned the answer earlier?
Was Abraham Arab…Moses…David…Jesus Christ?

Is every Semite an Arab except Jews?

I think it is safe to say Arab does not equal Muslim, but Moslem does equal Arab.

 

[Rodrigo_Bivar]

See this blog by Malaysians bemoaning the Arabization of their country.

malaysia-today.net/Blog-e/2005/08/malaysias-clash-of-cultures.htm

 

[Rodrigo_Bivar]

Jamila Hussein says some Malay students in Malaysia wear niqab.

Jamila Hussein: Well at the Islamic University in Malaysia where I used to teach, I admit I did have some difficulty with the students who wore niqab -

Stephen Crittenden: So you’ve actually had this experience?

Jamila Hussein: Yes. Because they were very friendly, very nice students, but I couldn’t tell one from the other because they all looked the same. They all had brown eyes, and they all wore black niqab, and it was very hard to know who was talking to you. But at exam time, as part of my job as an invigilator, was to go and ask the girls who wore nikab to remove it, for my eyes only, so that I could check if they were in fact the same students who were supposed to be sitting for the exam.

abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2006/1767486.htm#

It’s happening - the more Islamic the more Arab they become. You just have to go visit Malaysia and open your eyes. The Arab tourists are rich and are only found in the tourist areas, not the Malay villages around Kuala Lumpur.

 

[pro_universal]

Rodrigo,

Your flurry of posts misses one important fact: Neither the burqa nor the niqab originated in Arabia. So how on earth does this represent “Arabization”? Surely, if there is a tendency to impose Arab culture, you would see signs of well…Arab clothing, and not clothes from other parts of the world like the Burqa and Niqab.

The Islamization of Malaysia is very clear to an outside observer.

Uh, Malaysia has been Islamic for what, 1000 years? This was not the topic of the thread. You are being deliberately misleading when you try to shift the topic to “Islamization” from Arabization.

The question is whether being more Islamic means being more Arab-you have yet to provide a single instance of the adoption of specifically Arab clothing or even norms in this thread.

who went the whole hog and imitated their Arab masters - by wearing niqab.

Again, the problem being that the niqab is an import into Arab culture-hence the thesis that Islam forces people to Arabize is not proven by this factoid.

Before that, the men already began arabization as the male Arab attire is more conducive to Malaysian weather while the niqab is not.

Again, what “male Arab attire” is commonly worn in Malaysia? Please name the Arab garment that you think is being worn there.

Your points are moot on this thread so far. Naming garments from Central and South Asia, commonly worn in Malaysia, does not constitute proving that Arab-ness is important to being Muslim

 

[pro_universal]

I think it is safe to say Arab does not equal Muslim, but Moslem does equal Arab.

Again, so in what way are the Indonesians, Malaysians, Pakistanis, Afghanistanis, Iranians, Turks, Somalians, Tajiks, Khazaks, Uzbeks, Krgyz, and Bosniak peoples Arabs? Can you please provide one shred of evidence to support the conclusion that any of these people (the vast majority of the Muslim world) are in any meaningful way “Arab”?

I am responding only to the above because the rest of your post is just bizarre. Five minutes on google will show you that Lebanon was created as a majority Christian country-and that historically it has always had a Christian majority (now down to 40 percent after the civil war of the 80’s)

 

[pro_universal]

Actually maybe a better analogy is that the Arabs are Arabs the way the Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italians are Latins. In fact, the population is descended mostly from the Germanic invaders, the Celtic and Basque substratum, etc. in the Romance countries.

Very good comparison, if you ask me.