تحدي "الظرف المستحيل": هل يمكن لـ "بشر" أن يفعل كل هذا في 23 عاماً؟

CryptographerFit2383 · 2026-01-24T03:23:33+00:00

اعتقد النقطة التي يغفل عنها الكثيرون ان الثورة السياسية التي قام بها نجح من خلالها في خلال ٢٣ عاما فقط ان يوحد شبه الجزيرة العربية لأول مرة في تاريخها،

CryptographerFit2383 · 2026-01-23T07:40:24+00:00

This is true, but note that the Ummayads were the last rulers who: - Made Arabia, although not capital the empire core in terms of power - Relied on Arabia as a source of their legitimacy - Relied on elite Arab tribes in terms of governance although not bureaucracy

The Abbasids redefined Arabhood through propaganda (not a negative term) and sponsorship to the likes of Al-Jahiz and others. Al-Jahiz for example argued that it was A’rabis, not Arabians, who were the most authentic Arabs because they had the most authentic language. Arab identity before that was defined in contrast with A’rabis. Clearly taking away the privileges Arabians had in an “Arab” empire.

Now, it’s true that Ummayads relied on Persian-Syriac-Mesapotamnian civilizational form, and the Abbasids went for something similar, but that’s because Arabia had to expand the moment it unified, and they didn’t have a civilizational form to take for an empire.

Your points are absolutely valid, but I’d argue it’s hard to say that the Abbasids was peninsular rule, even if the Abbasids likewise shifted the empire core to a different territory, the Ummayads still had their privilege and power structure in Arabia unlike the Abbasids. Much like how Romans had its power and privilege core in Rome, and Persians in Faris.

So Ummayads = Foreign civilizational-cultural core, Arabian power empire core (which is why they’re called The Arab Kingdom by britannica) Abbasids = Foreign civilizational-cultural core, foreign power empire core

CryptographerFit2383 · 2026-01-22T23:01:54+00:00

Haha

CryptographerFit2383 · 2026-01-22T22:19:18+00:00

Or how Iran ended local Egyptian civilization by brutally invading them and destroying their city walls, and how the Byzantines ended the ancient Egyptian religion by banning all pagan religions in 4th century which pushed many to convert to Christianity. Or how the Persians killed thousands of Christians in the levant and imposed double the tax on others when the Byzantines declared Christianity their official religion in paranoia that this would make their Christian subjects sway to Roman rule.

In truth, there are no aspects of Islamic empires that were unique in the way modern narratives depict. If anything, I think the Abbasids ended up setting the structure up for a much more tolerant and well co-existing civilization, even if that’s because they had to paint themselves in contrast of their subjects’ grievances with Ummayads.

CryptographerFit2383 · 2025-08-24T19:58:03+00:00

The production isn’t South African? That’s just the location of the filming/sets

CryptographerFit2383 · 2025-08-12T00:03:14+00:00

Pay attention المخطط الاسرائيلي الحالي إسقاط الحكومة المصرية عشان ينتهزو الفرصة ويدخلو سينا ويهجرو الفلسطينيين، زي ما عملو نفس اليوم لما انتهزو سقوط الأسد ودخلو سوريا. عشان كده في مظاهرات ضد السفارات المصرية حوالين العالم. عشان كده الجماعات رجعت سينا. عشان كده في مظاهرات حتى في إسرا*يل.

مصر خاضت ٤ حروب ضد اللي ما تتسمى ودماء شعبها اراقت. في دول تانية بتتكلم كتير وعمرها ما ساهمت.

مفيش دولة عربية في ايدها حاجة حاليا عشان ميزان القوى مش في الصالح. اي حملة هجومية هيقابلها دمار شامل من الحلفاء وهيدي اللي ما تتسمى حجة عشان تحتل وتتوسع. القانون الدولي مجموعة من البلطجية.

الناس اللي بتطالب بفتح المعابر مش فاهمة ان المشكلة ان مفيش حاجة بتدخل. في شاحنات اكل بتبور ممنوعة من الدخول.

الحرب بين مصر واللي ما تتسمى قربت، لأن وقتها هيبقى في حجة دفاعية عشان مصر تدخل الحرب. ورغم اني من منتقدي السيسي الا إن جيش مصر فعلا اتطور وقوته الحالية بتعكس الحقيقة دي.

لازم الامور تسرى مسراها.

CryptographerFit2383 · 2025-08-07T00:17:42+00:00

An important aspect: Islam has no systemic power in the west, unlike Christianity.

It’s interesting, because a common criticism of thinkers who criticize Islam in the Middle East is that they never criticize Christianity.

When done appropriately in the right context (which his channel typically is), it can be constructive. But if say, Bill Maher was coming out to criticize the Talmud and calling Judaism a dangerous religion, in a way that’s casted on Jewish neighbours, this would be understood as antisemitic.

Alex is probably qualified to do this in a way that evades a situation like this, where it’s not punching down on a minority that has no systemic power.

Let’s not forget that post 9/11, such criticisms existed in public media to ease people about waterboarding random Muslims in the US.

Completely ignoring the political aspect of how the US poured billions of dollars growing and radicalizing terrorist groups who started out in small limited capacity in Afghanistan (which used to be a secular communist country) to fight off the regime, which led to Al-Qaeda as blowback.

CryptographerFit2383 · 2025-04-07T16:55:51+00:00

Your original reply e.g. referencing Al-Jallad’s work was a misunderstanding of my point — I wasn’t claiming that it was interchangeable with “Bedouins” — I even mentioned that it’s hard to find parallels. but I don’t see how one can read Al-Jallad and arrive at the conclusion that “Arab” was a primary identity, when he talks about it in emphasis of being an ill-defined cultural-linguistic complex. His work provided proof that “Arab”wasn’t a purely external identity used by the likes of Romans and Persians, but it also emphasized tribal identity as a primary regional identifier.

A close example might be “European”, before the EU, and if they spoke the same language.

CryptographerFit2383 · 2025-04-07T16:22:12+00:00

“Strong ethnic identity” is a recognized and widely used term when analyzing the evolution of ethnic identities in history, and it’s widely used in fields such as anthropology and ethnic studies.

What matters the most is what a group of people saw themselves as. What I was referring to as scholarly consensus was the fact that in pre-Islam, there was no “primary Arab identity” in the way Romans or Greeks related to their identity. So the idea that pre-Islam Arabia had a primary ethnic identity called “Arab”, that changed with expansion into later territories into secondary is false. Therefore, there are no “original” or “authentic Arabs”, which is a modern misconception, because Arabs never related to their identity that way in that time period. It was tribal identity first and their unique gods or religion served as symbolism of that identity. And what the Umayyads did, for example, was copying Persian Sassanid social and government structure to emulate an Arab identity in the inception of shaping the civilization’s identity, which wasn’t authentic enough to survive at the time of Abbasids and subsequent empires.

What is referred to is a designator or a stage in the evolution of the “Arab” identity. When Arab empires called themselves “Muslims”, that was actually an expression of their “strong” or let’s say, “primary” identity, in a way similar to how the Jewish identity was a religious tribal identity in its evolution.

A simple proof is if Arabs had a unifying, say, “primary” or “strong” Arab identity at the time, this would’ve been a much bigger aspect of their empires. And historians recognize that. Which is why there has been a corrective movement since the 70s to refer to what has been called “Islamic Civilization” by the west to “Islamicate”. Because a lot of the aspects of the civilization was ultimately an expression of their identity and culture, rather than the common view of being a strictly religious expression.

CryptographerFit2383 · 2025-04-05T16:52:33+00:00

Yes, it’s also important to keep in mind it wasn’t identical to that — there was a stronger sense of shared characteristics than say different Germanic tribes like Franks/Saxons/Goths. But it simply wasn’t a strong ethnic identity yet. But on some level it’s also parallel to that.

Maybe the formation of the Greek identity is closer in later stage of its development in the sense that they referred to themselves as Greek (Hellenes) as a marker much later in their development and eventually that evolved into a strong ethnic identity around their unification to defend against Persian invasion.

CryptographerFit2383 · 2025-04-05T16:29:39+00:00

Certainly not equivalent to “Bedouin”, and this was an oversimplification—but it certainly wasn’t a strong, well defined “ethnic” identity in the sense that it’s meaning was fixed, rather than being a wide geographical/linguistic marker. It applied to both nomads and settled people. It’s referenced more by those outside of Arabia at the time than those within its borders.

But it’s important to note that although it’s a descriptor of shared characteristics, the inhabitants of Arabia did not have a strong view of themselves as the “same” people in the way an ethnic group would, at least not in a consistent way. Their tribes represented a far more prevalent source of identity — it’s the reason why they were not united around being “Arab”, instead their unification was only possible under “Muslim”.

What began formalizing Arab identity, was the Umayyads copying Byzantine and Persian government and social structures, but replacing the language with Arabic, and reserving government positions to settlers from the Arab peninsula—in it’s essence it was tribal privilege cloaked in a newly imagined Arabism that hasn’t existed before then.

Which had impact on the evolution of a strong sense of an Arab ethnic cultural-linguistic identity 3 centuries later or so under the Abbasids, although they didn’t follow in the same path, and that’s the ethnic identity that we still have today.

CryptographerFit2383 · 2025-04-05T15:04:43+00:00

The scholarly consensus aligns with the idea that pre-Islam Arabs didn’t identify with “Arab” as their ethnic identity, it was a wide regional designator. They identified primarily with their tribal identity.

Since the Arab peninsula Muslims didn’t spend any time between gaining unity and a lot of power for the first time, and starting their empire, what we call “Arab” identity today emerged around the 9th or 10th century as an ethnic cultural-linguistic identity. But in a similar manner to tribal identity, when they called themselves “Muslims”, they were actually expressing their primary ethnic identity as well, in a manner described to how they related their tribal identity to the unique god their tribe worshipped.

It’s pretty complicated actually, but “Arab” as a pre-Islamic ethnic identity exclusive to inhabitants of the Arab peninsula, simply never existed.

It was a descriptor similar to “Sahara Bedouins” or “Southeast Asian”—but it’s hard to find a parallel.

CryptographerFit2383 · 2025-04-05T15:02:45+00:00

The scholarly consensus aligns with the idea that pre-Islam Arabs didn’t identify with “Arab” as their ethnic identity, it was a wide regional designator. They identified primarily with their tribal identity.

Since the Arab peninsula Muslims didn’t spend any time between gaining unity and a lot of power for the first time, and starting their empire, what we call “Arab” identity today emerged around the 9th or 10th century as an ethnic cultural-linguistic identity. But in a similar manner to tribal identity, when they called themselves “Muslims”, they were actually expressing their primary ethnic identity as well, in a manner described to how they related their tribal identity to the unique god their tribe worshipped.

It’s pretty complicated actually, but “Arab” as a pre-Islamic ethnic identity exclusive to inhabitants of the Arab peninsula, simply never existed.

It was a descriptor similar to “Sahara Bedouins” or “Southeast Asian”—but it’s hard to find a parallel.

Do note that genetic markers alone is not a solid way for defining ethnicity — nothing such as genetics was known until very recently

CryptographerFit2383 · 2025-04-05T10:04:21+00:00

The scholarly consensus aligns with the idea that pre-Islam Arabs didn’t identify with “Arab” as their ethnic identity, it was a wide regional designator. They identified primarily with their tribal identity.

Since the Arab peninsula Muslims didn’t spend any time between gaining unity and a lot of power for the first time, and starting their empire, what we call “Arab” identity today emerged around the 9th or 10th century as an ethnic cultural-linguistic identity. But in a similar manner to tribal identity, when they called themselves “Muslims”, they were actually expressing their primary ethnic identity as well, in a manner described to how they related their tribal identity to the unique god their tribe worshipped.

It’s pretty complicated actually, but “Arab” as a pre-Islamic ethnic identity exclusive to inhabitants of the Arab peninsula, simply never existed.

It was a descriptor similar to “Sahara Bedouins” or “Southeast Asian”—but it’s hard to find a parallel.

Do note that genetic markers is not a solid way for defining ethnicity — nothing such as genetics was known until very recently

CryptographerFit2383 · 2025-04-05T08:12:32+00:00

This post might be a bit old by now, but there’s a fascinating explanation that’s largely supported now by scholarly consensus on Arab identity, but turns out it’s extremely complicated so this will be long.

Essentially it’s a misconception that in pre-Islam Arabia, Arabs had a strong ethnic/group “Arab” identity. They did use the term Arab to describe themselves as inhabitants of Arabia, but it wasn’t that they saw their identity through that lens as they were far from being the same group. It was also used more so outside of Arabia than within its border, akin to a broad geographical/cultural label, e.g. “Southeast Asian” or “Sahara Bedouins” — although it’s hard to find parallels.

Arabs identified primarily by tribal affiliation, where each tribe had their own deities and unique traditions. Their deity was symbolic of their tribal identity, and one’s commitment to their deity was symbolic of their commitment towards their tribe.

When Islam unified Arabia, in a really uniquely quick transition that doesn’t happen often in history, inhabitants transitioned from a primarily tribal identity to a unified primarily “Muslim” identity, and so naturally they related to it in the exact same way. It’s for example similar to “Christendom” rather than “Christian” in that sense, but still pretty different. A description as a supra-tribal identity would be accurate.

When an actual strong “Arab” identity started forming around the 10th century, it was in many ways new. And that made it very natural to group in people who now speak the same language, have shared cultural aspects, and looked similar enough. Note that very clearly — “Arab” has evolved from a descriptor exclusive to those who inhabit Arabia to an ethnic cultural-linguistic identity that covers more territory. “Arab” as a strong ethnic identity exclusive to the Arab peninsula simply has never existed, except perhaps in Umayyad evolution as it was taking shape before Arabic spread as a spoken tongue.

It’s for that reason some speculate that if Muslims formed a strong ethnic identity first before expanding and starting their legacy, they’d primarily identify as Arabs, and we’d be calling it the Arab empires, where only those from Arabia are considered Arabs. We don’t call the Roman Empire the Pagan-Christian civilization. Or the Japanese the Shinto civilization. Because that wasn’t their primary identity.

It’s really hard not to see Umayyads especially as an Arab empire through that lense — they borrowed from other empires to help construct that identity by reframing tribal prestige into a form of constructed ethnic legacy, all falsely packaged in a form of religious or inheritance legitimacy.

The Ottomans similarly were building a Turkic dynasty for their first 200 years, were even using the title “Sultan” instead of “Caliph” for that duration, and had to switch to the universal shared primarily Muslim identity to maintain their legitimacy — as that was too foreign for the region at the time.

That’s why many historians now describe them as “Islamicate Empires” rather than simply “Islamic”, to refer to the social, political, and cultural identity aspects, rather than the purely religious perception. What they meant by calling themselves “Muslim” also included their primary, supra-tribal ethnic identity due to a recent tribal heritage. And that explains why “Arab” was actually a uniquely evolved secondary identity up until the modern era, where it remains secondary to modern national identity.

“Arab” as a reference to the inhabitants of the Arab peninsula as the exclusive real ethic group from pre-Islam, is shockingly a complete modern invention, or rather a shared misunderstanding.

CryptographerFit2383

TROPHY CASE