I was commenting about Arab lineage, and not about other dynasties that have come and gone in the region. Arab do originate from mainly two tribes which I previously mentioned, these tribes came from Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula (modern day Saudi Arabia) or Mecca if you wish, I don’t think anyone can dispute that. Just to let you know I was not indoctrinated by the terrible Saudi School system which withhold information about other cultures as you claim. From grade school forward, I was educated mostly in the west.

It’s funny how people tend to go overboard when they try to be too politically correct!!

That might explain how the holocaust is generally portrayed either as a huge hoax…or as Hitler doing a favour for the Muslims of the world but not quite finishing the job he started…now theres a slant on history that could use some revision in the Arab world.

Genetically Arab, and culturally or linguistically Arab are often overlapping but distinct so the tribes/ cultural influences point to me seems immaterial except for very precise genetic needs (eg. medical).

Khalid–glad to hear that in your experience Saudi education is teaching different civilizations including within Islam, and continental philosophers. I love the latter “lunatics” in whatever language!!!

“Not true, and BTW Islam doesn’t distinguish between Arabs or non-Arabs. ”

So you probably were taught in different Saudi schools than I did, where they taught you about the Egyptians, the Chinese, Assyrians, Babylonians, etc.

History as taught in Saudi schools is divided in 3 parts and those are the primary ones that are taught:
1) The period of the prophet and 4 Kalifas following him
2) All the Islamic empires following until the Ottomans
3) The Saudi family dynasty

Any other culture or groups mentioned in the Saudi history book are only from the prospective that they were the enemy and we defeated them.

Even the focus of the teachings is on power and battles with very minimal information about even the Muslim cultures. If you want to learn about other cultures then you have to get your own books, which are not available in Saudi. You will be lucky to find them in Arabic in places like Egypt or Lebanon if you have the means to do that. Even Islamic culture was taught at the university level as you mentioned, which is too late in my opinion.

This explains the lack of respect of other cultures that most Saudi’s have. It is simply that our education system fails us in presenting a balanced and diverse view of history.

I’m glad to hear that they are teaching that in KSA though I wonder how it is presented.

This Christmas I went to KSA, I met with one of my friends who is taking MA courses at “Um Al Qura Univ”. He is a student at the Islamic Dept. I had a look at the materials he was reading, guess what! he was reading for Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, besides other French philosophers. The books were written in Arabic. I assure you that he knew far far more than what I knew about them despite the fact that I took a course at a North American univ in philosophy. Perhaps, because I’ve read the material in English I had no clue what some of those lunatics were saying — anyway, no one in class had a clue even the prof at sometimes he had no idea what he was saying .. I guess, I shall run away before my prof catch me talking about him in this Blog

I think Aafke is referring to the comment regarding Islamic culture by A Saudi Man. That is the origin of the side line to distract from the main topic of equal treatment for mean and women in Arabic culture.

@A Suadi Man,
“all Arab originated primarily from two tribes Qahtan, and Adnan which is in the Arabian Peninsula (modern day Saudi Arabia) and Yemen. And In case you did not know Iraq happens to be an Arab country.”

That is false. All Arabs did not originate from the peninsula, the Arabic language did and spread with Islam to other regions. Many empires ruled the region which included Iraq throughout history: the Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Romans, etc. Further many Muslim scientists were not of Arabic origin. I guess you may not know all about these other cultures, since in Saudi history of other cultures is not taught.

The arguments that state we had a culture and others did not at a certain snap shot of history are intellectual acrobatics to avoid admitting today’s issues. I think we will do better if we focus on today’s problems with Saudi. We have a major one with how we treat women in our culture and you are trying to avoid addressing that.