Difference Between Arab and Muslim | All Arabs are Muslims?

What Is The Difference Between Arab and Muslim? 

Here you can find out What is Arab? What is a Muslim? And what is the difference between Arabs and Muslims? All Arabs are Muslims? Arab vs non Arab Muslims, Arab religion, are Syrians considered Arab, middle eastern people, Arab culture, are Arabs white? Arabian, Arabic language, facts about Arabs history.

Muslim and Arab. Arab and Muslim. These terms are used interchangeably in the media as if they had the same meaning. They have very different meanings. By looking at most people wearing Hijab would assume that they are Arabs or Muslims. One is, in fact, an Arab. The other Muslim. He is an Arab from Egypt and he is Coptic Christian. While she is Brazilian and a Muslim. So what do Arab and Muslim mean? 

Let’s find out. Arab is an ancient term. Much older than Muslim. It was first used in the 9th century BC. It was used to refer to the Semitic people that inhabited the Arabian peninsula. The Arab identity evolved before Islam arrived. There were Christian Arab kingdoms and even Jewish Arab Tribes. The Arabs spread out from the Arabian peninsula and under the Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbasid Islamic Caliphates created one of the largest empires on Earth. Spreading from France to China. However, that was the historical Arab world. 

What about the modern one? What even is the Arab world? There is no setlist of Arab nations but if we use the Arab League as an example, then there are 22 Arab countries today, Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. The Arab world stretches for 13 millionkm², from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Horn of Africa and the Indian Ocean in the southeast. All of these countries use Modern Standard Arabic in their governments, however many local languages exist. 

The major language difference within Arabic is Maghrebi in the west and Mashriqi in the east. Some countries use local languages along with Arabic such as Somali in Somalia, Comorian in Comoros, some such as Morocco even use French to an extent. These are seen as the defining parts of being an Arab. 

Being born in, or descended from someone who was born in, one of these nations. And usually using Arabic as your first language. Although all Arab states have Arabic as an official language, there are many non-Arabic-speaking populations native to the Arab world. Such as Berbers, Toubou, Nubians, Jews, Kurds, Armenians. 

You may have noticed that Iran-Pakistan-and Afghanistan are not in the Arab League, while they are usually associated with the other nations and are sometimes referred to as Arabs in everyday speech. They are not Arabs. They use Persian and Hindi based languages and only use Arabic in the same was as Christians would use Latin. Oddly enough if you look up the Arab league you will see Brazil has semi-membership. And this is because Brazil has 12m Arabs living there. 

Latin America actually has the largest Arab population outside of the Arab World, between 17-30 million. While we normally think of the Arab world as being in the middle-east. North Africa is actually the most populous Arab area. And includes the 2nd largest African countries, Algeria and Sudan. Arabs are a huge ethnic group, totalling 422 million. 

The second-largest ethnic group on earth after the Han Chinese. Arab is an ethnic term and is independent of religion or politics. Arabs follow different religions and denominations. Arab Muslims primarily belong to the Sunni, Shiite, Ibadi, Alawite, Druze and Ismaili denominations. There are many Christian adherents in the Arab world, particularly in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, and Palestine. 

Arab Christians generally follow one of the eastern Christian Churches, such as Coptic or Greek. However, 97% of Arabs are Muslim. But only 20% of Muslims are Arabs. So while the Arab world is huge and populous the Muslim world is much larger. 

There are 1.7 billion Muslims worldwide and while we normally think of Muslims and the Middle-East together. There are 50 Muslim majority countries worldwide and many more with large Muslim populations. Located across South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, North Africa and the Balkans. 

Indonesia is actually the world's largest Muslim nation, at over 200 million. There are x6 as many Muslims in India as there are in the entire Arabian peninsula. China even has 22 million Muslims. Famous Empires such as the Ottomans were Muslim, but not Arabic. 

A Muslim is anyone that accepts the 5 pillars of Islam. The religion started by Muhammad in the 7th century. Much like its followers, Islam is a diverse religion. There are many different sects. Sunni and Shia being the two largest. Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, and Bahrain are the only Shia majority states but Lebanon, Yemen and Kuwait have large Shia minorities. The rest are mostly Sunni. Bar Oman who are Ibadi. Islam means submission or acceptance and Muslim is the person who submits. Unlike Arab, you can choose to be Muslim if you wish. 

You are born as an Arab, in the same way, someone is born Latino. It is an ethnic category and means nothing else other than that. Muslim however, is a religious category. Something that denotes a person's beliefs, like being a Christian. And that's the difference. While all of these people can be Muslims, only these are Arabs. 

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