Origins

The territory of the Arab world extends from the Arabian Gulf in the east through North Africa to the shores of the Atlantic ocean in the west. It covers an area of over thirteen million square kilometres and has a population of well over 240 million (1993). The twenty-one countries of the Arab world include, in the Fertile Crescent: Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Iraq; in the Gulf and Arabian peninsula: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen; in North Africa: Mauritania, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco; and in other parts of Africa: Sudan, Somalia, and Djibouti. These countries are joined in an alliance, known as the League of Arab States, which was formed in 1945.

The modern Arab world is a product of a long historical process that started with the advent of Islam and the Arab-Islamic conquests of the seventh century C.E., followed by the formation of the Arab Empire (caliphate) in the eighth century. Language, culture, and religion were critical factors in the development of an Arab-Islamic civilization and in the survival of Arab identity through history. Language, in particular, has traditionally served as both a symbolic and functional element of Arab cultural unity. Arabic is a Semitic language, and, although it is divided into three broad dialectical groups (some of which at the extreme ends of the Arabic speech area differ significantly from each other), it does have a single literary standard that had developed towards the end of the eighth century. Using its own distinct script written from right to left, the Arabic literary language has remained practically unchanged and is still used throughout the Arab world. Knowledge of this cultural heritage and of the prodigious Arab contributions to Western civilization are components of a distinct identity shared by Canadians of Arab descent as well as by Arabs in their ancestral lands.

Although Islam is the predominant religion throughout the region, not all Arabs are Muslims. There are also sizeable Arab Christian communities, such as the Copts of Egypt, the Maronites of Lebanon, the Melkites and the Orthodox, among other Eastern Christian churches and Protestant groups. The overwhelming majority of the first Arab immigrants to Canada were Christian, and it was not until after World War II that Muslim immigrants began to arrive in larger numbers. Thus, in contrast to the homeland, where Muslims comprise well over 95 percent of all Arabs, in Canada they account for only 40 percent of the group.