Arab Contemporary

"The Arab world consists of 24 countries bound together by the shared principal language Arabic, but otherwise exhibiting great differences and many exceptions - from Beirut to Sana'a, from Baghdad to Cairo, and from Dubai to Marrakesh. Other religions than Islam are practiced, and Islam itself is practiced in a multitude of ways; there are other landscapes than the desert and other languages than Arabic. Nevertheless one can point to certain common features that have survived from past to the present, and which mean that we can speak of a distinctive culture"--Back cover.