Islam is a religion, Arab is a culture. There is a pretty common misunderstanding especially in the west that if you are a Muslim then you must be Arab. People tend to associate Islam with Arab or Middle East, as most of the medias often talk about on their news. Well, not all Muslims are Arabs, but also not all Arabs are Muslims.
Although Islam originated in the Arabian Peninsula, today only 15 percent of the Muslim population is from Arab ethnicity. That includes countries in both the Middle East (i.e. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria, etc.) and in North Africa (i.e. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt). In fact, people in those regions aren’t always Muslim. In Egypt, for example, there are Christian communities. They are Christian Arabs and speak Arabic.
There is a big Muslim population in Africa. Most of them are from African ethnicities, and speak the official language of their country. In Asia, there are Muslims in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, etc, with different ethnicities and languages. Islam also spread as far to Southeast Asia (i.e. Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei). Most of the Bruneian and Malaysians are Malays and do not speak Arabic.
I am from Indonesia, the country with the biggest Muslim population in the world. I am from Javanese ethnic – there are more than 200 distinct ethnic groups with more than 700 distinct local languages in Indonesia. I can only speak Javanese, Indonesian, and English, but not Arabic. Yes, I can read the Koran but I need the translation to understand it.
And of course, there are also many other ethnicities added to Islam, especially of those who convert. They didn’t change their ethnicity when they converted.
As Islam is a universal religion, so it doesn’t mean that all Muslims have and do the same culture. Religion is practiced does not only depend on the religion itself, but also on the culture and social context. That strict Sharia law, like in Saudi Arabia and probably in some certain countries, isn’t always used in all Muslim countries. Muslim countries such as Turkey and Kazakhstan have declared themselves to be secular.
Another misconception is that Muslims are conservatives, extremists, fundamentalists, or even worse, terrorists! Seriously, every time I hear the “Muslims are terrorists” words, I can just give a bitter smile. It’s funny and yet sad. I can’t imagine myself as a terrorist. Well, yes, there are fundamentalist Muslims as there are in other religions, but they do not represent the whole religion. And Muslims don’t hate people from other religions. Again, of course there are extremist people, but how many are they? They are probably only 0.2 % of the whole population. For instance, Muslims in my country are generally moderate and tolerant. Some of my friends are Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and other religions. I asked some of them and they said that living with Muslims are perfectly fine.
So, in different countries, you will find Muslims with different cultures and traditions. By understanding the difference between Arab and Muslim, we can understand many of the issues related to Islam.
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