One must exercise great care when undertaking the study of the Middle East in the United States. The perceptions of Americans are coloured by historical biases and relationships, by the media, and by the actions of small groups and individuals in the 1970s which shaped the views of our parents' generation. Perhaps the greatest of these many factors is that of simple difference, or more accurately of perceived difference. "The Arabs, they are Muslims, they're different, they're not like me" might be a common response given by an American. "They're all fundamentalist terrorists" is another. Inadequacies in the American education system often leave even the introduction to the basic principles of Islam and the Arab world to the Model Arab League faculty advisor or head delegate, a task that might seem daunting.
One must start by addressing some of the common misconceptions and stereotypes about the Middle East, the Islamic world, and the Arab world in particular. In the first place, the three are not synonymous. The Middle East is a region called the Near East by the British and Southwest Asia by the US military, and stretches roughly from Turkey in the north to Yemen in the south and from Egypt in the west to Iran in the east. This area contains three non-Arab states, Turkey (which is Turkish and Kurdish), Iran (which is Persian), and Israel, the Jewish state. It also excludes almost half of the 22 member states of the Arab League located in North Africa and further south in northeast Africa. The Arab world is more or less cotermius with an area known as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), although this descriptor excludes Somalia, Djibouti, and the Comoro Islands, three Arab League members. The Islamic world is far wider still, stretching more or less around the world, including most of northern Africa, Central and Southern Asia, Southeast Asia, and even parts of China, in addition to the Middle East. The five-plus million American Muslims will soon overtake Jews as the second-largest religious group in the United States, and Muslims number over one billion worldwide. Muslims are not all Arabs, nor are all Arabs Muslim. There are large numbers of Arab Christians in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, and Iraq, as well as others elsewhere, and even a few Arabic-speaking Jews left in some Arab countries. Indonesia, a non-Arab country in Southeast Asia, is the world's most populous Muslim country, with a population of about 180 million.
A second common misconception is that the Arab world is backward and uncivilized. Anyone who has ever set foot in an Arab country for even a short time will tell you otherwise. The Arabs have a highly-developed culture and civilization, where modern cities mingle with ancient ones from the time of Christ and before, similar to many European cities. During the period of known as the Dark Ages in European history, the Arab-Islamic civilization was flourishing in the Middle East and North Africa, and the Muslim state in Andalusia in southern Spain was the most advanced state in Europe. During this time when Europe had lost most of the Roman and Greek knowledge and texts, the Arabs were translating these works into Arabic and preserved them for future centuries, so that when Europe rediscovered the ancient masters, it did so through the Arabic translations. Today all Arab states have free primary and secondary education and at least one major university, which students can attend at minimal cost. Most Arab states have several universities, and al-Azhar in Egypt and Zaytouna in Tunisia, which developed from mosque schools, are the oldest universities in the world. Throughout the centuries, Arabs have made major contributions to the world. Ibn Khaldoun was the founder of the social sciences, and Ibn Haytham made major contributions in the field of optics. More recently, Naguib Mahfouz of Egypt has won the Nobel Prize in literature, and Boutros Boutros-Ghali, another Egyptian, served as Secretary-General of the United Nations and is currently serving as Secretary-General of La Francophonie, the association of French-speaking states.
Another popular misconception is that the Arab world is dry and completely desert. While large parts of the region are indeed desert, the Middle East and the Arab world possess incredible geographic diversity. The mountains of Lebanon and Syria are covered with vegetation, and some are covered with snow. There are also many river valleys that are lush and green, producing large quantities of wheat and other crops for the region. The Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq and Syria, the Nile in Egypt and Sudan, and the Jordan are among the Arab world's major rivers. However, despite these rivers and the many bodies of water in the region, the Arab world is facing is a critical water shortage. The most important resource in the Middle East, far moreso than oil, it is being depleted at a rapid rate. The tremendous increases in population of the states in the region, combined with external factors, will within a few years leave the Arab states without sufficient water to support their populations and industries.