Summary: The short answer to that question is no, they arenrsquo;t. Although Islam is the predominate religion among Arabs, there are a number of Christians and Jews who are, in fact, Arab. The term, Arab, is a tricky one. Like the ldquo;Hispanicrdquo; label here in the United States, the ldquo;Arabrdquo; label refers to peoples of myriad backgrounds. The ldquo;Arabrdquo; world stretches from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. As you can imagine, in a region that vast, there are a lot of differences. But, there are three signposts that help Arabs define themselves: The first is genealogy ndash; this means a person calling him or herself an Arab is descended from people whorsquo;ve lived there for decades or centuries. The second is language ndash; Arabs speak Arabic as their native tongue. The third is political identity ndash; the simple fact that someone is born in an Arab country and speaks Arabic makes them Arab. Religion, in no way, comes into the definition of ldquo;Arabrdquo;. Arab Muslims tend to be Shia, Sunni, Sufi or Druze. There are also a number of branches of Christianity in the Arab world ndash; there are the Coptic Christians of Egypt as well as populations in places like Lebanon and Syria that follow teachings of the Orthodox Church. And, while Arab Jews no longer classify themselves as that, they still exist. Although they are now found mostly in Tunisia, Morocco and Iraq.
