The Muslims and the Arabs: two ummas

Abstract

The article follows up on the topic explored through the author’s research efforts, as detailed in multiple publications . Drawing upon a thorough-going and consolidated notion of the evolution underlying various systems of group solidarity adhered by the Arabs, the author has developed a new approach, set out in a concise manner herein, which is based on the idea of co-existence between the Muslim umma that unites all Muslims, whether Arabs or non-Arabs, and the Arab umma that unites all Arabs, regardless of their creed. These two communities are shown to have overlapped and interacted with each other, especially during the process of building inde-pendent national states in the Middle East. Within the framework of this approach, the etymology of the term umma and its strain throughout vari-ous stages of the Arab history is reviewed. It is noted that this term is one of the most polysemic in the Arab-Muslim cultural vocabulary. This is illus-trated by the examples showing its usage in the Qu’ran - the holy book for Muslims. Special emphasis is laid on the usage of this term with reference not only to the community of humans, but also animals, both in the Qu’ran and the Hadiths. The article concentrates on the analysis of various um-maist theories developed on the basis of conceptualization of the term um-ma, where a significant part is played by feelings and emotions, particular-ly, love as one of the structural elements of such theories. Serious attention is paid not only to the different interpretation options of this term, particu-larly by the Arab nationalism ideologists, but also manipulations with it carried out on behalf of these or those political forces.