Beirut's al-Hariri mosque.
Photo by study abroad student Sarah Johnson.
The Arab Studies program at American University endeavors to capture the complexity, heterogeneity, and importance of the region through diverse courses of study, including Study Abroad. Students in the undergraduate Minor and Certificate Programs have the opportunity to study the region from numerous perspectives and to gain proficiency in the Arab language. The program draws on distinguished faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of International Service, and the School of Public Administration.
The Arab World stretches from Morocco on the Atlantic Coast in the West to Iraq and the Persian Gulf in the East. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq and the Nile River in Egypt were sites of the two of the world's oldest civilizations. For centuries, the region was the center of the transit trade between China, India and the Spice Islands in the east and Europe in the west. Most of the world's known oil reserves lie under the sands of Arabia, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Iraq and the waters of the Gulf. Straddling the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, the region's strategic location has made it a prize, sought after by empire builders across the centuries.
The Arab world that exists today came into being with the emergence of Islam in the Arabian peninsula in the seventh century. The Muslim armies that conquered the older civilizations of Byzantium and Persia spread not only the faith but the Arabic language as well. A succession of Islamic civilizations created great cities, fostered a distinctive style of Islamic art and architecture and contributed to the world's knowledge of science and mathematics. The era of sprawling, dynamic Islamic civilizations gave way in the modern period to the modern nation states that we know today.
It would be a mistake, however, to assume that the contemporary Arab world is a monolith. Linked by its long history, a common and dominant language and the Muslim faith of the majority of its people, it is also heterogeneous with distinctive regional cultures and local Arabic dialects. Although most inhabitants are Arabs and Muslim, there are Jewish and Christian communities as well as ethnic minorities such as the Berbers, Kurds and Nubians.
