THE ARAB IDENTITY
Sadek Jawad Sulaiman
Chairman of Al-Hewar Center’s Advisory Board, Mr.
Sadek Sulaiman, was invited to make the following
presentation at DC International Connection, an
organization that helps bring together people from all over
the world to discuss a broad range of topics. The event was
held at DC International’s, Fireplace Mansion in
Washington on February 3, 2007. Mr. Sulaiman is the
former Ambassador of Oman to the United States.
Thank you for inviting me to make this presentation. I
shall speak primarily to the question of Arab identity and
the Arabic culture from which it derives. I shall conclude
with a comment on the state of the contemporary Arab
world and the aspirations many Arabs hold for a more
united, democratic, and progressive future.
The Arabs are defined by their culture, not by race; and
their culture is defined by its essential twin constituents of
Arabism and Islam. To most of the Arabs, Islam is their
indigenous religion; to all of the Arabs, Islam is their
indigenous civilization. The Arab identity, as such, is a
culturally defined identity, which means being Arab is
being someone whose mother culture, or dominant culture,
is Arabism. Beyond that, he or she might be of any
ancestry, of any religion or philosophical persuasion, and a
citizen of any country in the world. Being Arab does not
contradict with being non-Muslim or non-Semitic or not
being a citizen of an Arab state.
In the context of the definition I just outlined, let me
speak first to the essential mutuality between Arabism and
Islam. To begin with, the two are inseparably intertwined. It
is hard to define the one without considering the other. It is
hard to de-couple the two, historically, culturally, or
intellectually. It is easy to see how incomplete either one
would be without incorporating the other. It is easy to see,
when viewed separately, how each loses an integral part of
itself. Outside its Arabic repository, Islam is left with little
form or substance; emptied of its Islamic content, Arabism
is reduced to a culture devoid of intellectual and moral
moorings.
What is Arabism? As it has evolved historically under
Islam, Arabism is one of many national cultures that were
augmented by the advent and spread of Islam. However,
since Arabism was the culture that received and gave
expression to the Islamic message at inception, it became,
and remains to this day, distinctively the authoritative
repository of Islamic creed and thought. The Qur’an
describes itself as Arabic, notably where it appeals to
reason, knowledge, and morality as requisites in the inquiry
for truth and the effort for self improvement. This is
because the Arabs of the time, though cognizant of these
values, as evidenced by some of their pre-Islamic literature,
ignored them, and remained mired in tribal rivalry and an
arrogant lifestyle. Islam called upon the Arabs to reinstate
ethics, reason, and brotherhood in their life; beyond that, it
prodded them to rise to a culture that transcended tribalism
and race and opened up to humanity at large.
Al-Hewar/The Arab-American Dialogue
Thus, the Arabism, that Islam nurtured as the purveyor of
its message to humankind was cultural, ethical, rational,
and inclusive, for an Arabism based on racial particularity,
indifferent to morality, and defiant of reason would have illfitted a universal Islam that emphasized ethics, appealed to
reason, transcended race, rejected social stratification, and
addressed itself to people everywhere. It was this cultural,
ethical, rational, and inclusive character of Arabism, as
prompted by Islam, that attracted peoples of other races and
religions. As these other peoples embraced Islam and took
to studying it through learning Arabic and reading the
Qur’an, they became Arabized, in much the same way as
people of various ethnic backgrounds embracing the
American experience and learning the English language
become Americanized.
One remarkable outcome of the Arabization trend was
that many scholars of non Arab descent became proficient
in Arabic and authored their intellectual product in it, rather
than their native languages. They became members of an
Arabic intellectual community which, though cosmopolitan
in race, native tongue, and even religion, related to a
common world view and a common cultural language in
which they held learned discourse and authored their
pioneering works of literature and science. They thus
became part of a common culture, Arabism, that, like Islam,
indeed, because of Islam, rejected discrimination among
people based on ethnic background. Notwithstanding the
environment in which these scholars lived and labored,
which was despotic and often turbulent, the intellectual and
moral thrust of Islam and the richness and versatility of the
Arabic culture moved their souls and energized their pursuit
of knowledge far beyond the social and political mores of
their time.
Our scholars traversed the vast Islamic world, using in
what they wrote, debated, and taught, the Arabic language,
thereby enriching it all the more. Through their enterprise,
uninterrupted through five centuries, Arabism and Islam,
providing culture and thought, coalesced. As a result, a yet
unprecedented wealth of recorded knowledge was
commonly generated and shared throughout the Muslim
world in the Arabic language, and, subsequently, through
translation, shared with Europe as well. Generations of
intelligentsia followed in that integrative tradition, blurring
the racial and accentuating the cultural, the moral and the
intellectual in the Arab/Islamic experience. In time few
would look back on Bukhari or Razi or Farabi or Ibn Sina
or Salahuddin Al Ayoubi, all notables of non-Arab lineage,
or indeed on Salman Al Farisi, the Persian companion of
the Prophet, who the Prophet adopted as a member of his
family, as anything but Arab.
Thus, historically, Arabism, like Islam, transcended race
and ethnic origin. People from all over the known world
who came in contact with and lived the Arabic cultural
experience became Arabized. "Whoever lives with a people
for forty days becomes one of them," became an axiom.
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And a Prophetic hadith was often cited, defining as Arab
any one who conversed in Arabic. This is how the extended
Arab nation, today counting some 325 million people living
predominantly in twenty-two separate states and comprising
one fourth of the Muslim population worldwide, historically
came to be formed. And thus, then as now, to be Arab is not
to assert a racial lineage or a religious affiliation. Rather, it
was and is to affirm affinity with a great culture that
received, lived, and conveyed to the world a great religion.
The culture and the religion coalesced to offer humankind
one of her greatest civilizations.
And what is Islam, the other twin constituent of the
Arabic culture from which the Arab identity derives?
As both a religion and a civilization, Islam's basic
perspective may be comprehended at three distinct levels:
the conceptual, the moral, and the practical.
At the conceptual level Islam is centered in the core
concept of Tawheed, affirming God as One, Absolute,
Ultimate, Eternal, Matchless, Transcendent. Tawheed, in
the words of the late Professor Ismail Farouqi, is Islam's
first determinant of reality, of truth, of the world, of space
and time, of human history. It pervades and unifies all the
various elements in Islamic thought. At the human level,
Tawheed embodies three major ideas: Unity, Freedom, and
Rationalism.
From Tawheed unity flows the precept that God being
One, all creation is one, governed by the selfsame laws of
nature; the divine message is one, and humanity is one as
well. No civilization can arise without unity. No culture can
evolve to civilization unless the various elements
constituting it -- political, economic, social, educational,
moral -- coalesce in harmony and as an integral whole,
produce coherent and progressive movement forward.
Tawheed, as such, harmonizes, orders, and integrates all
that is Islamic in a civilizational whole.
Tawheed freedom establishes the precept that a human's
ultimate allegiance is to none other than God: subservient to
God alone, a person is freed from subservience to any
fellow human; hence, all humans are created equal and
must be treated as such. There is no compulsion in religion,
as people have been shown both paths, the right path and
the wrong path, and so it is up to each person to find his/her
own convictions. In the final analysis, God knows best who
amongst us is more rightly guided.
Tawheed rationalism cognizes human reason and
empirical observation as the proper means of
comprehension. It rejects suppression of verified
knowledge. It is open to new and or contrary evidence. It
denies inherence of contradictions in nature. Where
contradictions appear, final judgment should wait until a
more thorough examination of the facts has resolved the
contradiction and revealed the underlying harmony, which
is the natural state of affairs. By the same token, Tawheed
rationalism does not admit of contradiction between
Revelation and reason.
The second core concept in Islam is Nubuwwah, or
Prophethood. Simply stated, it affirms that guidance for
humankind, i.e. the moral direction sustaining the human
experience and moving it forward, has come from God,
historically through prophets, who were human themselves.
Al-Hewar/The Arab-American Dialogue
The defining difference between an ordinary human and a
prophet human is that truth is cognized in the prophet’s
consciousness through divine revelation as distinct from
cognition through observation, reasoning, or intuition. The
Prophethood concept acknowledges that which was
revealed to each prophet in his time as part of the one
eternal divine message to humankind. And it stipulates that
no nation was left without a prophet to show the right path.
Prophet Mohammad was the last of the prophets.
The third core concept in Islam is Ma'ad, or Return. It
means returning after completing a life cycle on earth, and
accounting for one's conduct in life. Ma'ad, as such,
indicates transformation rather than termination of an
individual human's existential experience. The Qur’anic
verse oft cited in the face of temporal adversity: “To God
we belong, and unto Him we return” encapsulates the
Ma’ad concept.
Islam’s moral framework comprises four principles that
are deemed essential to the development of a wholesome
society.
The first is Justice. God being innately just, justice must
be upheld in every human activity. Without justice no
human transaction is essentially valid or beneficial. The
accumulation of injustice leads to the disintegration of
society. Conversely, with justice societies are helped to
endure and prosper.
The second principle is Equality. Being equal before
God, we simply cannot be unequal among ourselves.
Discrimination by gender, race, or creed is rejected, and
claims to autocratic authority or privilege are held invalid.
The third is the principle of Human Dignity. Humanity is
divinely endowed with dignity, hence human beings, as
distinct from human actions, should not be humiliated or
condemned.
The fourth principle in the Islamic moral code is Shura,
or consultative governance. While Shura did not historically
evolve in Islam as a democratic process, nor was it given
significant weight in Islamic governance, it, however, has
never been denied or challenged as a constitutional ideal.
The Qur’an depicts Shura as the natural order of decision
making on public matters in the community of the faithful.
In the Islamic perspective, all human rights and
obligations -- personal, familial, national, and international
-- ensue from these four cardinal principles of Justice,
Equality, Human Dignity, and Shura.
At the practical level, Islam places great emphasis on
time tested values that are universally beneficial, that is,
irrespective of race, culture, or creed. Some such values are:
knowledge, cooperation, prosperity, compassion, faith,
integrity, and physical as well as mental well-being. These
values are by no means exclusive to Islam; Muslims call
them Islamic only in the sense that Islam has underscored
them as well, as essential to the healthy development and
ultimately the survival of human society.
Although the foregoing is a very compressed exposition
of Arabism and Islam and their historical mutuality, I have
offered it by way of shedding some light on the core
intellectual and moral moorings of the Arabic culture from
which the Arab identity derives. This is because I believe
that to understand the Arab identity, and to be able to
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explain it as well, it is important to understand at some
depth the Arabic culture by which it is has been shaped and
formed.
I have offered it to show as well that there is nothing
about the Arabic culture that is averse to peace and
progress, indisposed to cooperation with the others, or
indifferent to the life preserving and enhancing principles
and values shared universally by humankind. Indeed,
nothing could be more antithetical to the essence of
Arabism and Islam, the twin constituents of the Arabic
culture, than political and social mores that reject peaceful
coexistence and cooperation, defy morality, impede good
governance, and violate human dignity.
With such a rich civilization her heritage, why has the
Arab nation lagged behind the other great nations in the
modern era? In many soul-searching discussions across the
Arab world I have heard various reasons offered: lack of
freedom, mediocrity of the educational system, despotic
governance, religious and social strictures, estrangement
from authentic Islam, and the more pervasively cited
reason: foreign influence backing reactionary national
regimes in stifling the unity impulse and thwarting
democratic and progressive evolution.
All of which, I agree, are valid, though only as secondary
reasons. To me, none of these factors by itself, nor all of
them taken together, offers a satisfactory explanation for
the Arab hiatus. That explanation comes to me more
convincingly from the underlying sad reality that the Arab
intelligentsia, upon whose expertise both the Arab
governments and people have relied, the former for their
loyalty, the latter for their leadership, have yet to
sufficiently appreciate the crucial importance to their nation
of uniting, democratizing, and moving progressively ahead.
The Arab intelligentsia have been more prone to follow or
reflect or even amplify the trend and mood of the day than
to elucidate, educate, and lead. As a result, hardly anywhere
in the Arab world, as yet, equal citizenship rights,
democratic governance, and comprehensive human
development comprise top priorities of governments or
paramount public demands.
Early in the second half of the twentieth century, with the
advent of considerable oil wealth, the build-up of
professional cadres, and a popular impulse for unity,
opportunities arose before the Arabs to unite, democratize,
and invest substantially in human development across their
entire homeland. But the opportunities came and went,
withering away in the face of parochial selfishness, petty
inter-state quarrels, inadequate understanding of the modern
world, and generally a less than an enlightened interest at
the leadership and intelligentsia level in the welfare and
destiny of the nation as a whole. As a result, contrary to
popular aspirations aired fervently at the time, neither the
Sudan became the granary of the Arab world, nor did the
waters of the Shat-al-Arab irrigate the Arabian desert, nor
did the Arab common market see the light of the day, nor
were the Palestinian national rights reclaimed. If anything,
the very idea of one consolidated, federal, democratic,
progressive Arab state, for all intents and purposes,
vanished into thin air.
Ultimately, the stark dichotomy between a proud, rich
Al-Hewar/The Arab-American Dialogue
past and a fragmented and debilitated present bred deep
frustration in the Arab psyche. The frustration continues to
confuse reason and invoke emotional responses. It creates a
tendency to act and react without due deliberation and
diligence in dealing with external challenges and remedying
internal shortfalls. It prompts more of placing the blame
without, and less of pinpointing the responsibility within. It
inclines more to winning rhetorical arguments than
achieving practical results. And it perpetuates a feeling of
apathy at a time most needed are rectitude and the resolve
to pull oneself up by the bootstraps and exert a sustained
collective effort to achieve unity, democracy, and progress
as paramount pan-Arab objectives.
Yet, notwithstanding the adversity, debilitating and
demoralizing as it is, the Arab identity, defined by the
Arabic culture with its twin constituents of Arabism, and
Islam, still stands distinctively as one of the outstanding
identities in the human matrix. By the same token, though
deficient and frustrated, the Arab nation is by no means
defeated or disabled beyond a realistic potentiality for unity
and renaissance. I find it hard to concede that this great
nation, once so rich, vibrant, and productive, and still
pregnant with ample vigor and talent, would not again join
the ranks of great nations.
The Arabs once gave the world a full fledged civilization
that enhanced many national cultures; they can yet
contribute significantly to the human enterprise. They can
yet rise to take their proper place under the sun and play
their part in augmenting human progress. That kind of
opportunity is never denied by history to a nation that finds
her soul and works her will with unity, industry, integrity,
and wisdom. The Arabs, too, have that opportunity before
them. Proud of their identity and culture, and if intent as
well on rising up the ranks of nations, they must pull
together and claim that opportunity before long.
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