Is religious indentity or ethnic identity more salient in the Middle East?

Question

While I'm interested in your personal opinion, I would also like your opinion BACKED by an expert opinion (i.e. a professor or a dissertation/scholarly journal article).

Answer 1

I wouldn't overgeneralise. As in some other places (e.g. the Balkans), the two often combine to form a person's culture of loyalty.

Ask most M/Eastern Muslims and they will tell you that they are all brothers/sisters under Allah. Get to know them well and you will find that there are splits and factions everywhere, many of them with ethnic dimensions e.g. Palestinians vs indigenous Kuwaitis or Bedu vs urban Jordanians.

In some countries ethnic identity is strong.... for example an Iranian Christian will likely feel closer to Iranian Muslims than to Iraqi Christians. Similarly, I knew fairly well a Zoroastrian from Tabriz. He readily self-identified as "Iranian", while making clear that he was Azeri, not Persian, in much the same way as a Briton from Scotland wants to be known as Scottish, not English.

It's my impression that Coptic Christians likewise self-identify as Egyptians as fully as do the Arab majority.

In other places, religious identity is stronger. For example, a Turkish Jew will likely feel closer to a Bulgarian Jew than to a Muslim Turk.

Answer 2

I know you are looking for someone to do your research for you but all I can say is that I think the prevailing problem is lack of education, lack of real media, lack of information and the consequences: ignorance. In countries of incredible wealth there is little education beyond the upper middle class and of course the ruling people. People just don't know much of anything and are fertile ground for "clerics" who can convince these pour souls to do anything, mostly out of fear or desire for a better life. The best their society has to offer is suicide

Answer 3

Islam split the old Roman Empire and they have kept this conservative culture since. Their are differences in Language and sect as well. In mesopotamia there are the Kurds, Armenians. In Algeria there are the Berbers and in Sudan it's the Blacks. They are not all a Monolithic Arab culture.

Answer 4

No.