Point of clarification, Iran is not an Arab country.
Yet in the last decades, Ba’ath party rhetoric has become increasingly littered with religion. Saddam starts and ends all his speeches now with invocations to Allah, and quotes from the Qaran. Most likely a cynical move to keep with the zeitgeist, and rally support from the more fundamentalist Islamic world (so my Arab colleagues say).
Are Arabs generally very religious? Well, they vary a lot. Perhaps it would be true to say that on average, they are more religious than “westerners”. This is partly because many countries are still essentially developing countries, as Coll points out, and because many countries are religious states (to varying extent) not secular.
But there are lots and lots of very non-religious Arabs. I’ll assume you’re mainly talking about muslim Arabs, not christian (or even jewish) Arabs, as they (muslims) constitue the majority of Arabs. Even more so, there are very many moderate muslim Arabs. Generally speaking, the more educated they are, the more travelled they are, the more tolerant/“laid back” they are. Just like “westerners” really. Travel broadens the mind. Though there is a big difference of course between “tolerant” and “non-religious.” Arguably the most devoutly religious guy I work with is also the wisest and most tolerant.
In practical terms, masses of arab muslims I know drink. Many don’t even observe Ramadan, though you tend to find some fasting for sort of “solidarity” (or even health!) reasons even if they aren’t particularly practising.
One thing I have noticed is that - at least to me as a non-muslim - strongly-ultra religious muslims are far more discreet about their religion than strongly-ultra religious christians. They pray privately, they slip away for their prayer times without a big fuss, they don’t comment on people drinking, or extra-marital sex, or any of that stuff. They never seem to “witness”, but most are extremely happy to discuss their beliefs and knowledge of Islam if you are interested. It gives them pride to share this knowledge, but they are not didactic. Males are extremely apologetic if they have just abluted and can’t shake your hand because they are off to prayer. All this sort of thing.
Well, it depends where you live in America. Here in South Texas, is not unsual to pepper their speeches “May God Bless You” or “Adios”.
One conversation is a good example of Evangelical conversation. This lady asked me to use my office phone and said “Sure, go ahead.”
(After three minutes rattling off to her friend about her financial problems)
Lady-God! He will help me! I have so many financial problems and debts that they are occupying my mind 100%
(Then what sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher)
Lady-Oh, yes, of course, only Jesus! occuppies my mind 100% [with nervouse voice], but you know these debts are really vying for my attention.
So alot depends on the region in the US.
i had always heard that most US “Christian” cults were more devout than most christians, and i even believed it till i went to a cult church to check them out. same as everywhere…devout ones, less devout, there for their parents, there because it was a cheap date on sunday mornings, etc…
Watch out when the shortened-pants boys show up. This is a specific indicator of Wahhabism. The other things you mentioned are sort of general Islam. But it was the Wahhabis in Arabia who started wearing their robes shortened to midcalf as a sign of Wahhabi fanaticism.
It’s an exaggeration based on a hadith where the Prophet says, “Anything below the ankles is in hellfire.” What he meant by that is the arrogant rich who wore ostentatiously long robes that dragged in the dirt, and refused to help the poor. He was trying to encourage modesty, humbleness, and social egalitarianism, the point of these being to soften the heart and make people be gentle toward one another. This is the way classical Islam has always understood it.
The Wahhabis don’t know and don’t care about the inner meaning of the Prophet’s teachings. They are literalists. They enforce only the literal and thereby lose the whole point. Because no one is more arrogant and hard-hearted than them.
To change the subject a bit and return to the OP, there is this totally cool Egyptian movie titled Destiny. Anybody interested in the Arab world should definitely see it. It’s about the Spanish Arab philosopher Averroës and his moderate, open-minded, tolerant, rational understanding of Islam. And how it was threatened and attacked by a Wahhabi-like cult. (Averroës lived in the 12th century, and Wahhabism wasn’t invented until the 18th century, but the director’s intention to counterpose the moderate side of Islam against the contemporary harsh fundamentalism is transparent.)
This movie shows brilliantly how the easygoing approach to life is more true to Islam’s essence than the fundamentalist aberration. Averroës defeats the fundies’ arguments by quoting from the Qur’ân to show the value of reason and tolerance. He also has a Christian disciple from France who had to leave his country because the Christians were burning philosophers at the stake and burning their books. In those days Spain was a civilization where Muslims, Christians, and Jews all shared peace and harmony and contributed to each other’s civilizations. It was destroyed by Christian fanatics in the Reconquista. This movie gives a poignant sense of how fragile our little humanistic civilization, reason, and beauty are when fanaticism enflames the society.
The guy who I had the “shortened pants” conversation definitely wasn’t fanatical. He didn’t have his own pants shortened for example. But he noticed that someone else did, and gave him some psychic credit for the deed. the term I used, “extra credit”, was his. i.e. he wasn’t saying he expected anybody to wear short pants, or that that was required to get into heaven or something. He was just saying that you got brownie points for it.
As a side note, I had a serious conversation with him at the time and listened carefully to the explanations on why short pants were good, but in the back of my mind I couldn’t help but crack up thinking of the movie The Life of Brian, where everybody casts off one of their sandles.
BTW, for those who pointed out that Pakistan (and Iran) aren’t Arab countries, my take on the OP was that the real question was on Muslim countries, not Arab countries, and that it just wasn’t phrased correctly. Kind of like if someone asks if people are more religious in the south in the US, I take that to mean are Christians more religious there.
You’ll never get the regular guys to admit that they think Islam/Christianity/Judaism/whatever is bullshit. They’ll go to church every Sunday or bow to Mecca every day and still think it’s bullshit. Just another damn chore they gotta do.
It’s just like prostitution, pornography, strip clubs, gambling, etc. There’s never been a powerful business lobby for any of these activities in the U.S., and very rarely anywhere. But they keep cropping up. Why? Because the regular guys like 'em. The regular guys will never voice so much as a word in support of them to their wives, the politicians or the preists, but they will lay their money down for them, yes they will.
The regular guys will never say a word against religion. But they still think it’s bullshit.
I had a roomate in college from Saudi Arabia and he wasn’t particularly religious. He’d drink and acted and dressed just like any other college student. He had a group of buddies who would come over and they’d eat in a circle on the floor eating with thier right hands and talk a lot while eating sometimes. I joined them on quite a few occasions, but found it a little tough as I’m a lefty.
Test - go to any mall, interview a teenage girl on any subject that may cause strong views (war in Iraq, animal cruelty, is Justin Timberlake hot) and count how many times you hear “like…oh my god”.
This is a bit off topic, but I remember a story about Leonid Brezhnev and Jimmy Carter meeting at a summit. Carter heard Brezhnev say (through an interpreter) that “God will not forgive us if we fail (in nuclear disarmament)”.
Carter, the devout Baptist was initially excited that the ‘atheist’ Brezhnev said such a thing - until some other Soviet reminded him that it was just a ‘linguistic expression’ of the Russian language.
People have mentioned some Christian-based idioms in the English language, but there are so many of them, I wonder if a non-Christian observer would be startled by phrases like “bless you” (after a sneeze); “god willing” (meaning hopefully); “thank God” (in relief); “God knows” (in uncertainty); “God help you” (to someone in trouble); “Amen” as agreement; “Christ”, “Jesus”, “Goddamn”, and more elaborate, as swearwords. Even terms like “goodbye” is a shortened form of “god be with you”.
A lot of these are said as conventional things or even as curses without any religious import, which is obvious from tone of voice, but the average English speaker would be unable to tell how an Arab or Moslim’s tone of voice was meant.