Arab culture

Language, literature, gastronomy, art, architecture, music, spirituality, philosophy and mysticism are all part of the cultural heritage of the Arabs.

[2] The Arab world is sometimes divided into separate regions depending on different cultures, dialects and traditions, such as the Arabian Peninsula (Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates), Egypt, the Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Jordan), the Maghreb (Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania), Mesopotamia (Iraq), and Sudan.

In 1932, at International Convention on Arabic music held in Cairo, Egypt (attended by such Western luminaries as Béla Bartók and Henry George Farmer), experiments were done which determined conclusively that the notes in actual use differ substantially from an even-tempered 24-tone scale, and furthermore that the intonation of many of those notes differ slightly from region to region (Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Iraq).

Musicians and teachers refer to these in-between notes as "quarter-tones" ("half-flat" or "half-sharp") for ease of nomenclature, but perform and teach the exact values of intonation in each jins or maqam by ear.

It should also be added, in reference to Touma's comment above, that these "quarter-tones" are not used everywhere in the maqamat: in practice, Arabic music does not modulate to 12 different tonic areas like the Well-Tempered Klavier, and so the most commonly used "quarter tones" are on E (between E-flat and E-natural), A, B, D, F (between F-natural and F-sharp) and C. The prototypical Arab ensemble in Egypt and Syria is known as the takht, which includes, (or included at different time periods) instruments such as the 'oud, qanún, rabab, nay, violin (which was introduced in the 1840s or 50s), riq and dumbek.

In Iraq, the traditional ensemble, known as the chalghi, includes only two melodic instruments—the jowza (similar to the rabab but with four strings) and santur—with riq and dumbek.

The suq or marketplace gossip and interpersonal relationships played an important role in the spreading of news, and this form of communication among Arabs continues today.

In the following decades Arab media blossomed due to journalists mainly from Syria and Lebanon, who were intellectuals and published their newspapers without the intention of making a profit.

The internet has brought economic prosperity and development, but bloggers have been incarcerated all around in the Middle East for their opinions and views on their regimes, the same consequence which was once given to those who publicly expressed themselves without anonymity.

This is creating a dilemma that shakes the foundation of Arab culture, government, religious interpretation, economic prosperity, and personal integrity.

[22] A system of media values consists of and is constructed by journalists' and other actors' decisions about issues like what is "newsworthy," how to frame the news, and whether to observe topical "red lines.

"[23] Such a system of values varies over space and time, and is embedded within the existing social, political, and economic structures in a society.

Kuldip Roy Rampal's study of journalist training programs in North Africa leads him to the conclusion that, "the most compelling dilemma faced by professional journalists, increasingly graduates of journalism degree programs, in the four Maghreb states is how to reconcile their preference for press freedom and objectivity with constraints imposed by political and legal factors that point to a pro-government journalism.

[28] Ramprasad and Hamdy's sample of 112 Egyptian journalists gave the highest importance to supporting Arabism and Arab values, which included injunctions such as “defend Islamic societies, traditions and values” and “support the cause of the Palestinians.” Sustaining democracy through “examining government policies and decisions critically,” ranked a close second.

The power of news as political tool was discovered in the early 19th century, with the purchase of shares from Le Temps a French newspaper by Ismail the grandson of Muhammad Ali.

Ami Ayalon argues in his history of the press in the Arab Middle East that, “Private journalism began as an enterprise with very modest objectives, seeking not to defy authority but rather to serve it, to collaborate and coexist cordially with it.

"[29] Media researchers stress that the moral and social responsibility of newspeople dictates that they should not agitate public opinion, but rather should keep the status quo.

Mohamed Zayani and Sofiane Sabraoui state, “Al Jazeera is owned by the government, but has an independent editorial policy; it is publicly funded, but independent minded.”[31] The Al Jazeera media network espouses a clear mission and strategy, and was one of the first news organizations in the Arab world to release a code of ethics.

Hafez states, “The interaction of political, economic, and social environments with individual and collective professional ethics is the driving force behind journalism.”[22] In most Arab countries, newspapers cannot be published without a government-issued license.

People in the Arab world rely on newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the Internet to differing degrees and to meet a variety of ends.

In many parts of the Arab world levels of educational attainment, economic activity, standards of living and internet costs still determine a person's access to life-changing technology.

[42] Further, according to Leo Gher and Hussein Amin, the Internet and other modern telecommunication services may serve to counter the effects of private and public ownership and patronage of the press.

[45] Financed by the Qatar government and established in 1996, Al Jazeera was the first Arabic channel to deliver extensive live news coverage, going so far as to send reporters to "unthinkable" places like Israel.

[55] In Sudan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, production is even now confined to short films or television.

Those same people are also discouraged and blocked from those debates as the differing regimes try to restrict access based on religious and state objections to certain material.

With this access, regimes have attempted to curtail what people are able to read, but the Internet is a medium not as easily manipulated as telling a newspaper what it can or cannot publish.

The difference is that there is a worldwide audience witnessing this crackdown and watching as laws are created and recreated to attempt to control the vastness of the Internet.

Saudi Arabia has stricter practices when it comes to men and women and will even require marriage documents if a woman and man are seen together alone.

In an average Arab household in Eastern Arabia, a visitor might expect a dinner consisting of a very large platter, shared commonly, with a vast mountain of rice, incorporating lamb or chicken, or both, as separate dishes, with various stewed vegetables, heavily spiced, sometimes with a tomato sauce.

Traditional Arab dress features the full length body cover (abaya, jilbāb, or chador) and veil (hijab).