American female student falls in love with Saudi Culture

[al-Hasani]

Well, it just extremely foolish and ignorant to group the Arab world into one given its amazing diversity. Nor KSA as one for that matter or Yemen just to take two examples.

Of course there are similarities after all we are all Arabs but that was not the point at all.

That is your own generalization and most people I have talked too have the exact opposite opinion. Besides as I told then Saudi Arabians cannot be grouped as one given the diversity of the country and huge size and regions that are separated by over thousands of km. unlike Emiratis which just number 1 million or so and all live in a small geographical area and they are all Arabs from Eastern Arabia - what you would call Khaleejis today. More or less all of them are originally from modern day Najd including the ruling families. Well, a significant minority are also originally from Yemen and to a smaller extent Hijaz. But there are so few of them that they only number like a few percent of all Arabs in the world.

In fact they are known today due to their small numbers and great wealth (Emiratis, Kuwaitis and Qataris) as the most rude and arrrogant of all Arabs. Just ask actual Arabs or foreigners. That's from a personal observation being an Arab myself and being there many times a year and having interacted with people from there and Arabs who live there. Besides one of my sisters is married to an Emirati Arab. Obviously not all but quite a lot. That's what immense wealth does to you. Besides UAE is hardly an Arab country anymore with only 15% of it's native population being Arabs. If you want to see "real" ancient Arab culture then go to KSA, Yemen or Oman if you want to stay on the beautiful Arabian Peninsula. Certainly not Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

Well,Arab has a powerful culture,beautiful heritage and brilliant constructions in past and present.Arab was one of those nations who enjoyed ruling almost 3/4 area of World,brilliantly.
If anyone tries to study Arabs in neutral manner,with clear heart will definitely fall in Love with Arabs.
Attempts such as demonizing Arabs and middle east will not change the fact.

 

[Slav Defence]

Since I happen to be interested in Pakistan, I came across lots of simililarities between both cultures.
Culture of Pakistan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Definitely there is resemblance,as Arabs conquered Sindh,and Muhammed bin Qasim defeated Raja Dahir,and we were blessed by Allah,our souls were enlightened by noor of Islam via Arab concurrence,I wonder what if I were born as polytheist,what would be I considered as?shudar?noway..what a nightmare for me

 

[Irfan Baloch]

Saudi governance , the patriotism and the loyalty to the crown and unity is enviable

wish Saudis had conducted the Lal Masjid and Abbotabad raid and no "true Muslims" would have dared to object to it and instead would have praised the raid and all this TTP fitna would have been over.

on topic

beyond the Burka, KSA has thousands of years of very rich history and you have to be there to believe it. I spent 2 best years of my life in the military towns of Khamis and Sharurra.

for the US student her liking must be so intense that she is willing to ignore the local customs that are traditionally seen as repressive by the west

 

[Yzd Khalifa]

a globalist much?

It is beyond me as to why someone would want to live in distant disease infested past. Contemporary age is the best one for living.

 

[Slav Defence]

Well, it just extremely foolish and ignorant to group the Arab world into one given its amazing diversity. Nor KSA as one for that matter or Yemen just to take two examples.

Of course there are similarities after all we are all Arabs but that was not the point at all.

That is your own generalization and most people I have talked too have the exact opposite opinion. Besides as I told then Saudi Arabians cannot be grouped as one given the diversity of the country and huge size and regions that are separated by over thousands of km. unlike Emiratis which just number 1 million or so and all live in a small geographical area and they are all Arabs from Eastern Arabia - what you would call Khaleejis today. More or less all of them are originally from modern day Najd including the ruling families. Well, a significant minority are also originally from Yemen and to a smaller extent Hijaz. But there are so few of them that they only number like a few percent of all Arabs in the world.

In fact they are known today due to their small numbers and great wealth (Emiratis, Kuwaitis and Qataris) as the most rude and arrrogant of all Arabs. Just ask actual Arabs or foreigners. That's from a personal observation being an Arab myself and being there many times a year and having interacted with people from there and Arabs who live there. Besides one of my sisters is married to an Emirati Arab. Obviously not all but quite a lot. That's what immense wealth does to you. Besides UAE is hardly an Arab country anymore with only 15% of it's native population being Arabs. If you want to see "real" ancient Arab culture then go to KSA, Yemen or Oman if you want to stay on the beautiful Arabian Peninsula. Certainly not Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

I have find all colors of middle east as impressive,beautiful,it is the land of my forefathers,if I generalize simply ya-akhi,when we share a common religion,then it effects on our culture somehow,that it is modified into decency,simplicity and beauty.
Many members here are not understanding that culture should be studied without dragging political relationships and social behavior,and once they realize that, they will stop demonizing their own forefathers,blood,directly or you can say indirectly

 

[al-Hasani]

Saudi governance , the patriotism and the loyalty to the crown and unity is enviable

wish Saudis had conducted the Lal Masjid and Abbotabad raid and no "true Muslims" would have dared to object to it and instead would have praised the raid and all this TTP fitna would have been over.

on topic

beyond the Burka, KSA has thousands of years of very rich history and you have to be there to believe it. I spent 2 best years of my life in the military towns of Khamis and Sharurra.

for the US student her liking must be so intense that she is willing to ignore the local customs that are traditionally seen as repressive by the west

Sir, I know that most South Asians call the Niqab a Burqa but those two things are separate. It is not the same thing. Besides people do not wear Burqas in the Arab world. It is mostly an Afghan thing or Pashtun thing to be precise.

Check this out my friend:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2E6JArMcfc&feature=player_embedded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRat8xLYsH8&feature=player_embedded

Especially the last video.

 

[Irfan Baloch]

Sir, I know that most South Asians call the Niqab a Burqa but those two things are separate. It is not the same thing. Besides people do not wear Burqas in the Arab world. It is mostly an Afghan thing or Pashtun thing to be precise.

Check this out my friend:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2E6JArMcfc&feature=player_embedded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRat8xLYsH8&feature=player_embedded

Especially the last video.

Niqab is a beautiful word and more complete & bearing more meaning than burka, I used the more common word which is understood by the world.

 

[p(-)0ENiX]

There is nothing wrong with admiring the good attributes of Arab culture or any particular culture for that matter, but to love or in some odd cases even adopt it as your own sounds weird to me. In her case it may be due to a lack of perceived culture or unique values back home. It could also stem from a lack of pride in her own culture. Besides, based on the article, it doesn't seem that she has enough experience with Arab culture to truly make an informed judgement. Visiting a land as a tourist doesn't really help you learn about others as much as living with them for an extended period of time does.

From my experience, I have observed that most cultures have their own set of good & bad traits. In rare cases, the bad traits outweigh the good. In the case of Arab culture, I like their unity & the amount of pride they have in their civilizations provided that pride doesn't turn in to arrogance. However, in the case of hospitality for instance, I have noticed that all people regardless of where they are from try their utmost to be hospitable to guests. Food is another aspect of culture, & while I like Arab & Italian cuisine, I can't see myself preferring it permanently over Pakistani cuisine. I guess the phrase "there's no place like home" applies here. It's always better for a person to be proud of themselves & their own people or they aren't going to be respected by anyone else either.

Since I happen to be interested in Pakistan, I came across lots of simililarities between both cultures.
Culture of Pakistan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yeah, there are lots of similarities. Some of those similarities exist because of religion & its influence over culture. Other similarities exist because of the influence of other civilizations that arose & fell in our parts of the world.

Definitely there is resemblance,as Arabs conquered Sindh,and Muhammed bin Qasim defeated Raja Dahir,and we were blessed by Allah,our souls were enlightened by noor of Islam via Arab concurrence,I wonder what if I were born as polytheist,what would be I considered as?shudar?noway..what a nightmare for me

You could convert to Islam even if you were born as a non-Muslim. Not only does Islam encourage conversion, but it simplifies the conversion process over all other religions.

 

[al-Hasani]

Niqab is a beautiful word and more complete & bearing more meaning than burka, I used the more common word which is understood by the world.

Irfan I saw your private message 7abibi but somehow I cannot reply to you due to this message below which I find very strange because normally you should be able to write private messages:

To be able to send PMs your post count must be 100000 or greater.

You currently have 2529 posts and you can send PMs to following users only:
blain2, Zakii, TaimiKhan, Elmo, Oscar, WebMaster, Awesome, Rafael, ANTIBODY, Aeronaut, Adios Amigo, T-Faz, Jungibaaz, nuclearpak, WDN, Loki, Hu Songshan, Deno, Serpentine, Neptune

Anyway let me write it here.

عليكم السلام ورحمة الله وبركاته

You are very much welcome and I wish you a blessed Ramadan too to your family, friends and all of Pakistan.

I do not think that you have to excuse yourself. This is a free forum and you are a Pakistani and have the right to criticize everyone. I do know that most people are able to distinguish between people and their governments.

Thank you once again and you are very welcome again.

Sorry for the off-topic.

 

[Slav Defence]

There is nothing wrong with admiring the good attributes of Arab culture or any particular culture for that matter, but to love or in some odd cases even adopt it as your own sounds weird to me. In her case it may be due to a lack of perceived culture or unique values back home. It could also stem from a lack of pride in her own culture. Besides, based on the article, it doesn't seem that she has enough experience with Arab culture to truly make an informed judgement. Visiting a land as a tourist doesn't really help you learn about others as much as living with them for an extended period of time does.

From my experience, I have observed that most cultures have their own set of good & bad traits. In rare cases, the bad traits outweigh the good. In the case of Arab culture, I like their unity & the amount of pride they have in their civilizations provided that pride doesn't turn in to arrogance. However, in the case of hospitality for instance, I have noticed that all people regardless of where they are from try their utmost to be hospitable to guests. Food is another aspect of culture, & while I like Arab & Italian cuisine, I can't see myself preferring it permanently over Pakistani cuisine. I guess the phrase "there's no place like home" applies here. It's always better for a person to be proud of themselves & their own people or they aren't going to be respected by anyone else either.



Yeah, there are lots of similarities. Some of those similarities exist because of religion & its influence over culture. Other similarities exist because of the influence of other civilizations that arose & fell in our parts of the world.



You could convert to Islam even if you were born as a non-Muslim. Not only does Islam encourage conversion, but it simplifies the conversion process over all other religions.

You don't understand my point Mr.Phoenix,by that I mean to say that Arabs are used as a 'vector' to introduce Islam to sub continent

 

[notsuperstitious]

This is a great day for Saudi Arabia

 

[Gautam]

yeah.. every culture is unique. I like arabic food, their women look sexy to me (dont like thin iranis or turks )... also like sheesha..

You don't like Iranis? Are you sure of that?

I find them most beautiful. But like I said, every culture is lovable in its own way, same goes yo women too. I can fall in love with almost every women in this world lol

 

[T-123456]

A good ambassador for arab culture and the KSA.

 

[angeldude13]

You don't like Iranis? Are you sure of that?

I find them most beautiful. But like I said, every culture is lovable in its own way, same goes yo women too. I can fall in love with almost every women in this world lol

lol have you ever seen those irani tourists in india?they are not good looking.i mean they are really good people but there looks are not world class.
maybe you are judging them by iranian cinema or something.

 

[Yzd Khalifa]

This is a great day for Saudi Arabia

She must fall in love with our epic King

A good ambassador for arab culture and the KSA.

You bet Turk