Quote:
Originally Posted by smc
Why is it Jews and Arabs and not Jews and followers of Islam? You are confounding a religious identity with an ethnic identity.
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I am confounding nothing. The peoples of ancient Mesopotamia clearly could not identify with Islam, as they did not share the same time frame.
My intention was for this thread to focus on ethnic and linguistic origins, but as I included as a secondary consideration a religious element, since other posts had shown an interest in the worship of deities in Middle Eastern antiquity.
Having said that, I realise that I have no control over the directions in which this thread may take. If it should veer towards a later discussion of Islam it would likely start to duplicate discussion material from the Arab Spring thread.
In view of your remark in your post, perhaps the title of the thread would better have been " Hamites, Semites and their neighbours in the Middle East ".
This would enable a rigorous discussion of the origins of Jews, Arabs, Phoenicians, Arameans etc., should the membership be prepared to take it up.
