About Us

About Us

The Arab Orient Center for Strategic and civilization studies

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The Arab Orient Center for Strategic and civilization studies aspires to represent an integral and distinct strategic presence (ideologically and intellectually) that participates in bridging a gap in contemporary Arab discourse, taking on the top of its agenda:

Offering strategic visions with regard to Arab and Islamic region in general, and the Arab orient (Region of the Levant ) in particular, through the position of an authentic forward-looking.

Careful reading of the facts of modern history, its forms, and impacts on the reality of the nation and its future...

Focusing on (human) and formulating the features and dimensions of cultural identity (for individual) and (society), and to stand in the face of the threats, and call for guarding and sponsoring these values.

Giving a special care to development in all its aspects, and preaching political and social systems that are able to achieve public justice in all its spectrums.

Persevering dialogue with the ever-present companion, participant, or dissent thought in a frame of observations and reviews to expand the common vision of Arab intellectual.

Even though the Center of Arab Orient is a pure intellectual center, its discourse involves three ranges: decision-maker, educated people, and Arab public in a constructive positive manner.

The Center introduces its abilities as a frame to all the people who are interested in dialogue such as intellectuals and writers. The writers who introduce their publications to the center undertake the responsibility of their opinions and thoughts.

The Arab Orient

Primary file

The Arab orient is our living space, with emphasis on our absolute belonging to both Arabic and Islamic systems, which in turn belong to a universal cultural frame that has its pros and cons in a wide arena of constructive competition and of destructive struggle in all its moral and material means. Moreover, our commitment to focus on the issues of Arab Orient is a priority that would never divert us from dealing with nation and human issues all over the world.

Geographically, The Arab Orient represents the land between the east of Mediterranean, west of Iraq , south of Turkey , and north of Red Sea and Al-Arish. Politically, it represents four Arab countries: Syria , Jordan , Lebanon , and Palestine . This region has also been known historically as the Levant . The Zionist project has been based on fragmenting this region, degrading its humans, and wasting its resources, according to specific schemes that we aspire to refer to in the frame of the work of this center in order to clarify their dimensions and dangers.

The first strike this region has received was on the hands of Al-Itihad Wa Al-Taraqi men, who prepared to unload Islamic Caliphate of its contents first, and then destroyed it to achieve the Zionist dream and made it a viable project.

The second strike was by detouring around the project of Sharif Hussein, the Sharif of Mecca –mercy upon him-, who led the Arab Revolt against the Itihadeen in order to establish the state of the United Arab East with its strategic depth represented by Iraq. So the Arabic quest was thwarted, Sharif Hussein was exiled, and the territory was fragmented according to (Sykes-Picot) Agreements.

Then came the third strike by planting the Zionist Entity in the center of the territory ( Palestine ). This strike has formed and still forming the stumbling block in the face of humans of the territory, since it has crippled their abilities, impeded their progress, and stolen their freedom and fortunes. At the same time, it was a pretext for patterns of political despotism.

The concerns of the Arab Orient Center will be focused on:

· Confronting Zionist project in all of its civilization, ideological, cultural, and economic dimensions.

·   Syrian Arab Republic that lives the phase of labor to be released in the spaces of progress and freedom.

·  The developments of Palestinian case, as it represent the central case of the nation with its Arabic and Islamic regional dimensions.

In human aspect Arab Orient inhabitants approximates three million, one sixth of them are Palestinian and live in the neighboring states of the territory, or in Diaspora.

Ethnic Composition

90% of the territory’s population is Arabs, while Kurds, Turkmens, who live in the north of Syria , and Circassia , who emigrated in two successive immigrations represent the completeness of the territory’s ethnic composition.

Those, with most of the territory’s Arabs, forms Muslim majority that lives in it, beside those; there is a minority (ethnic-religious) that is the Armenian minority that has migrated from Armenia, and localizes in the north of Syria and Lebanon in particular.    

85% of the territory’s population areMuslims and Christianity is considered as the second religion. Those Christians are represented by the remainders of Arab Ghassanids, and they are also represented by the remainders of migrants who had accompanied Crusades. Christians spread evenly to all regions of the territory, and belong mostly, especially rural areas and those of Arab origin, to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Christians localize in the highest rate in Lebanon , which was founded to comply with its especial ethnic situation.

On the land of Palestine a group of Jewish strangers lives, who have immigrated to Palestine since the late nineteenth century and during the twentieth century, according to Zionist settlement project. Those Jews, and because of their expatriation, represents a strange newcomer that Arab body works hard to eject and get rid of it.

In the structure of the same Islamic belonging, there is a collection of sectarian affiliations that are considered most of the times as an extension of historical and cultural isolation cases. These sectarians can be listed as:

·   Sunni Muslims, who are the origin of the territory’s population, and represent 80% of the Muslims of the territory.

·    Al-Jaafari Shiite, who are stationed in Lebanon and scattered areas of Syria .

·   Alawites northwest Syria , one of the Imams extremists

·   Druze: ( Lebanon , Palestine , southern Syria ) from the remnants of Fatimid

·  Ismailis live in the middle of Syria , and they belong to the Seventh extremists Shiites who follow the (Aga Khan) living in the west.

Language:

Arabic is the language of the general population of the territory. Kurds speak Kurdish in their regions. Armenians, as well, preserve their mother tongue. In addition, (Aramaic) is still dominant in more than a village in the countryside of Damascus .

Terrain:

The territory consists of a bar of coastal plains, and then a series of eastern and western mountains and between them the rift of  (Al-Inhidam Al-Kabeer) that rifts the territory from north to south (the Red Sea ), and  there is also the lowest spot of land below sea level. Then there are extensions of the interior plains, the plains of Huran, Al-Ghotah, Al-Mantiqa AL-Wosta, and the plains of Al-Jazeerah.

Rivers:

There are many major rivers that penetrate the territory, the most important are:

 Euphrates, Tigris, Asi, Litani, Sharia ( Jordan ) Yarmouk, Barada, and Hasbani.

Capitals and major cities:

Damascus , Amman , Beirut , Al-Quds,

Aleppo , Irbid, Tripoli , Jaffa ,

Homs , Al-Zarqa, Sidon , Haifa

Lathekia, Sur, Gaza , and Aqaba.

The territory of Levant, or the territory of Arab Orient, is considered as one of the relatively rich territories in the abilities of its people and in its agricultural and mineral resources, beside its unique strategic location in the meeting spot between the Near and Far East and then between the East and the West. The territory also represents a distinct civilization existence in the Mediterranean countries, where studies have proved that it is in (Ras Shumra) on the Syrian Coast the first alphabet charts in the world have been drawn.

It is known now that Arabic Alphabet has been transmitted to most of the world languages, including the Greek Language, and the European and Indian Language… Latin letters are still following according to the first Arabic alphabet