Persians aren’t Arabs! These three simple words capture how the Middle East is a complicated, diverse, and misunderstood place. In the United States some terms from the Middle East are moderately well known like Habibi or Akhi if you have some friends with Middle Eastern heritage. Other people who probably aren’t lucky enough to know someone from this area very often demonize the Middle East as an “Arab” War zone with oil, Dubais tall skyscrapers, opium, the desert, and Islam. The truth is however just as an example, there are lush green forests in the Middle East, sun kissed beaches, snowy mountain tops,Syrians and Lebanese,Sudanese and Egyptians,Sunnis and Shiites, Pashtuns and Uzbeks, Palestinians and Israelis.
Youtube anthropologist Massaman says [1] , ” in its loosest sense it (the Middle East) can be expanded to include North Africa, Turkey, Iran, the Caucasus Region, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and the area of Pakistan that lies on the Iranian Plateau. I realize that people that actually live in the region don’t use the term Middle East or Greater Middle East but the term always made sense to me seeing how its in the middle of almost every old world civilization such as Europe, Sub Saharan Africa, East Asia and South Asia. Because of this, the region has been influenced by many different cultures and has also influenced many foreign nations. To state that the people, cultures, religions, and languages, of this region are all the same, is an astronomically false statement, seeing how the area spans a distance
of over 7000 miles, has around 30 countries and contains 600 million people or a little under 10% of the globes population. As such it’s important to learn about these different countries and the people that inhabit them. Especially considering that Middle Eastern migration to the United States is at an all time high and it seems the region is in the news more and more everyday (spoken in 2017) and not for positive reasons”. A couple of the more infamous places in the region would have to be of the countries Afghanistan and Iran which both lie on the Iranian plateau and share many different aspects of culture and language but do they share a common origin?”
The truth is when we classify people as “Arabs” because they practice Islam or live in the Middle East, we are being ignorant and aren’t acknowledging great cultures and people who contributed greatly to human civilization. India is a subcontinent and is not considered to be part of the Middle East, although it is close by distance wise and culturally they are similar in some ways. In fact historically, many Hindu and Buddhist communities lived in Middle Eastern countries and intermarried with indigenous tribes intermixing in places like Afghanistan, Nepal, and Bali.
Some confusion is understandable with the Himalayan and Kush mountains being the widely accepted border however between the three regions of India,Asia, and the Middle East. Countries like Thailand and Indonesia are in Asia but are occasionally considered part of the “Muslim world” due to historical ties with the region through the Silk Road.
This can also be said about countries in Africa. Although these countries are separated by distance from the Middle East, there are cultural, ethnic, and historical connections to these lands. The Silk Road brought people together for trade and spread weapons, goods, technology, and philosophical ideas like religion all across the world.
This post was started as an appreciation post for beautiful Persian and Arabic women. As our writing team tried to learn more about these exotic lands and people, we as Magazine Zwuavé couldn’t help but understand that just like other entities we are a global brand.
We are not a Bay Area Magazine, a hip hop brand, a Latino group or even an American company; we are a global international brand. We love our friends and family all over the world and try to do our part through using our voice to bring communities and people together not fixate on our differences.
The Middle East has had such a heart breaking history with woman’s rights that to know even a little about the tragic history behind Middle Eastern women is to understand I couldn’t comfortably joke, make light of or even be flirty towards women from this area in a blog post. Even though it is no secret Persians and Arabs are good looking people, some would even say they are world famously beautiful.
Alexander the Great had two Iranian wives after all so western civilization like European/American colleges and history books historically have looked at this place highly(and not without good reason the culture and history from here is very prestigious and interesting).
“ The modern people of both Iran and Afghanistan are both believed to have been descended partially from an ancient population known as the protoIndo-Euorpeans which probably originated somewhere around the Caucus Mountain Region and spread to the Iranian Plateau south around Caspian sea… the Central Asians before the arrival of the Mongols where of Indo European stock mostly likely speaking a language that would be considered an intermediary between European and Iranian subfamilies. This groups largely assimilated to the Mongolian conquest however the peoples directly south where comparatively spared despite suffering enormous casualties….Iranian languages today are more actually closely related to Indo-European languages rather then to neighboring Arabic, despite modern Persian being written in the Arabic script.”
This is unlike Africa,Canada, New Zealand and Hawaii, where there was also many centuries of war with the west and humans rights violations. Unfortunately the West (United Kingdom,U.S,Canada Australia etc) doesn’t appreciate the diversity, genius, and beauty of our native/indigenous brothers and sisters from all over the world the way we “appreciate” Eurocentric cultures appearances and contributions to society. The Middle East is beautiful I just wish the same admiration could be shown for other cultures as well.
All women deserve respect but with certain places and times in history; certain topics are for understandable reasons, controversial and sensitive. Some of the living conditions and atrocities women from this part of the world face in addition to the discrimination and prejudice Middle Eastern people in general all over the world face to this day, made our tea expand this article from a Women of the Middle East article, to an article about the Middle East in general.
Unfortunately besides being the victims of unpunished war crimes, ignored, refused help, and discriminated against, people from this part of the world are paradoxically fetishized at the same time. To know about some of the horrors going on to women in places like Africa and the Middle East and to be anything less than completely respectful when interacting with anybody but women in particular from these places is ignorant, childish, and hurtful.
With the United States being more or less in conflict in the Middle East since the [2] 1982 Multinational Force In Lebanon (between Lebanon and Syria another conflict in the area) Middle Eastern people have been depicted as the “bad guys” for 40 years. The 1986 Bombing of Libya followed the 1982 conflict, as well as battles in Somalia Iran,Iraq,Bosnia, and Croatia. The countries formerly known as Yugoslavia aren’t in the Middle East but have high Muslim populations.
Youtube anthropologist Massaman can be quoted as saying in one of his videos [3] titled:What Race are People From the Middle East and North Africa, “Macroethnicities are a larger group that contains several different ethnic groups that have a relation to or descend from one another. They range from the Iranian peoples on the Iranian Plateu not to be confused with Persians who are a distinct ethnic group, from Iranian peoples, the Semitic peoples of the Arabian peninsula not to be confused with Jews(ish people). The Turkic people of Anatolia and the Berbers peoples from the Maghreb. Pretty much all these groups I just mentioned over whelmingly follow Islam so it is understandable to an extent for why someone might think that “Muslim” was a race at first when but theirs plenty of people out their that should know better but still use the term “Muslim” when referring to someones race or ethnicity.
When the United States military withdrew from Afghanistan this past summer it marked the 20 year anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 attacks. The U.S. withdrawing put the worlds eyes on the Afghan people. People all over the world are wondering how a remote not very big or wealthy country like Afghanistan could go toe to toe with, and even best; what was considered the most powerful military in the world. With Americas war ships, technology, and airplanes many people truly believed in American exceptionalism.
The idea that we are totally and completely dominant and that nobody could beat America. Unfortunately history has shown that no one is truly unbeatable in war. Some people aren’t aware that powerful countries like China,Russia,Pakistan and Saudi Arabia many times provide funding to extremist groups in places like Afghanistan through providing money and supplies for war against their shared ally of the United States.These are just conflicts the U.S was involved with in the area.
The Moors over the last few years have been widely brought to public attention in many social media posts. These “Moors” actually existed and have a large connection to Spain and Portugal. The Moors where closer to Asia than Europeans where and had connections to Sub Saharan Africa as well through African kings, traders, and warriors who converted to Islam as it spread out from Saudi Arabia. Africa is actually connected to Saudi Arabia by land it is only for political and cultural purposes that history doesn’t include the Holy
Sites like Mecca as part of Africa.
From math,[4]to the invention of eye glasses, to watch making techniques, to castle building knowledge, to Arabian horses the Moors and Arabs brought an incredible amount of knowledge from the great empires in Africa and Asia. Many historians believe that because Spain and Portugal battled the Moors for 700 years , those European countries where the first after ancient Greeks and Romans to mix these global technology into their own otherwise isolated culture.
The Persians are big in shaping Greek history and where even written about in the Bible. Many people see the Bible as the written word of God so to have these ancient people be mentioned really adds to how exotic and almost magical to outsiders this area is. Some say the Persians came from Egyptians who overthrew the Assyrians and freed the Hebrews from slavery. Darius the Great was an ancient king who promoted religious tolerance and coexistence. This region has undoubtedly touched the world and is interesting to read about. It also makes meeting and getting to know people from this region that more magical because you get to know a little bit about their history.
[1]
Are Modern Afghans and Iranians Related?Genetics of the Persian People
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z26S0XgduYc
[2]
1982 Multinational Force in Lebanon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multinational_Force_in_Lebanonhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFmpQBfjfGg
[3]
What Race are People From the Middle East and North Africa
[4]
Mathematics in Medieval Islam
[4] On the work done by Al-Khwarizmi, J. J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson said:[8]
"Perhaps one of the most significant advances made by Arabic mathematics began at this time with the work of al-Khwarizmi, namely the beginnings of algebra. It is important to understand just how significant this new idea was. It was a revolutionary move away from the Greek concept of mathematics which was essentially geometry. Algebra was a unifying theory which allowed rational numbers, irrational numbers, geometrical magnitudes, etc., to all be treated as "algebraic objects". It gave mathematics a whole new development path so much broader in concept to that which had existed before, and provided a vehicle for the future development of the subject. Another important aspect of the introduction of algebraic ideas was that it allowed mathematics to be applied to itself in a way which had not happened before."
-MacTutor History of Mathematics archive
[5]
Darius the Great Wikipedia page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius_the_Great
In the lands that were conquered by his empire, Darius followed the same Achaemenid tolerance that Cyrus had shown and later Achaemenid kings would show. He supported faiths and religions that were "alien" as long as the adherents were "submissive and peaceable", sometimes giving them grants from his treasury for their purposes. He had funded the restoration of the Israelite temple which had originally been decreed by Cyrus, was supportive towards Greek cults which can be seen in his letter to Gadatas, and supported Elamite priests. He had also observed Egyptian religious rites related to kingship and had built the temple for the Egyptian god, Amun.
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