Arabs and the Bible by Barie Fez-Barringten

Arabs and the Bible
By Barie Fez-Barringten
www.bariefez-barringten.com

The following are conclusions I have drawn from both our years of experience combined with facts we were able to glean from the Bible, books and the internet. I mean to say I am not a geographer, historian nor Arab scholar. However, I am very grateful for the many conversations I have had with Arab scholars, Arab businessmen and Arab merchants. I write all of this that God may be glorified and the reader be blessed. Obviously we write nothing we believe will in any way diminish , slander or defame the Arabs, nor in particular the Saudi Arabs. We hope that the more that is understood the greater the chance for reconciliation and peace.

Having said that, and referring to the Bible’s Isaiah, Dedan is in the western part of Saudi where now is Mecca and Medina and it is possible that Mohammed was from Keturah. However, Tema is the ninth son of Ishmael is a town within Syria.

Saudi’s do not often succeed in fields, which are not part of their cultural metaphor. So while they are contextually focused within Saudi they tend not to desire and expect themselves or members of their family to enter and succeed in non traditional fields of work, professions and careers. To them the western urban context belongs to westerners and other non-Saudi nationals.

The exception is the the ownership and management of establishments and the suk, which is a node in global trade and independent of the city’s products. The items need not have been manufactured in the city in which the suk is located. Such were the trade cities established in Germany and other countries. Merchant trade markets as cross sections, which then developed into a city. This is also different from cites which have factories and plants manufacturing and predicting products for sale.
Arab mind is Bedouin/rural mind is not an urban mind rooted in city but cosmopolitan based upon international views from suk trade metaphor. Contemporary Arabs live in but not "of" the city. Their expectations are in Bedouin cosmopolitan not city urban. Arabs careers are sheik, trader, transporter, etc. Not urban jobs as engineer, lawyer, doctors, scientist, etc. these metaphors do not match twenty first century systems making the city work; therefore, to make their modern cities work outside urbans are needed. Yet , there are happy exceptions! Hence the dependence of the Saudi’s on western and oriental city operations and management of there new infrastructure and urban cultural apparatus. The Saudi remains a Bedouin expecting cosmopolitan without the city urban. It is an anomaly in our time.

Saudi Arabs and other Arabs differ. Saudi Arabs are culturally nomadic Bedouin anomalies without traditional rural provincial norms and characteristics of other Arabs. Saudi Arab Bedouins are cosmopolitan shepherds, suk traders, and merchants without and urban neither mind nor city infrastructure. In other words, they behave and think universally and with cosmopolitan characteristics without having derived these behaviors from their experience in a city but one of the keys the experiences of cities, trade and commerce on an international network scale. This cosmopolitan deviation from normal Arabs made us compatible on this one important and many believe it is the behavior, attitude and ethics we both understood. City-like, without a city. Urban out of urban context. Anticipating a future network and context. In the case of Saudis biggest cities, cities which grew to enormous size in the twenty years we lived in Saudi.


In less than eighty years the Saudi Arab and his children have migrated from their nomadic Bedouin rural life-style to dwell in villages and newly built cities. The nomad Bedouin and their chiefs are in themselves anomalies amongst rural non-city minded in that they trade and think cosmopolitantly about transportation, trade, and survival. Unlike the urban counterpart, they do not depend on a man made city infrastructure; but as a merchant marine the ebb and flow and currents of winds and its effects on nature. Instead of water, it is the sands and its structure.

Christina and I lived in the biggest city and villages. These were inhabited by all kinds of Arabs. Persons born in the region and those who have migrated to the region. Many have lived in tribes on the desert as children and now own or work in a business in the big city. When we arrived Riyadh was populated by about 350,000 and when we left in 1999 by 3,500, 000 Saudi Arabs.
The Arab’s deviation from most urban minds is significantly rooted in history of universal tradition and culture. Of multinational and international trade and hospitality. Isaiah 20:13+ explain the Arabs comfort and feeding refugees from world strife.

Because he is cosmopolitan, the Arab seems urban, but is dramatically opposed to man-made infrastructure. Owing to collapse under anomic stress, the Saudi Arab suicide rate is one of the world’s highest due to the conflict between traditional and cultural expectations opposed to the realities of the newly emerging urban context. A context inhabited and operated by non-Saudis.
The result for many is a life without expected metaphors in a cosmopolitan mind.

Other Arabs notice that Saudi Arabs and Saudi context is so different from other Arabs contexts. When he first arrived in the kingdom, the US consul Freedman, an Arabist told me that he lived for many years in Morocco and other Arab states but this was not the same. Egyptians, Syrians, Lebanese, Tunisians, Jordanians, and Palestinians all complain of a dysfunctional society and social atmosphere, lifelessness, harshness, curfews, Wahabisms, etc. these places all have a tradition and grew up around there cities. They have infrastructure, urban and cosmopolitan people. Yet there is something very special about the Saudi city and public social context. The other Arabs compare but actually the Saudi Arab urban context has a character of its own; it is not like the others!

Cosmopolitan as urbans, segregate and separate visitors, strangers and relationships as the social attitudes between men and women, parents and children, women in public, privacy and separating visitors from private areas in homes, etc. They say that their Wahabbis, chauvinistic and anomic crisis is apparent and pervasive. Normally, provincial persons migrating from rural communities to urban areas bring social cultural ways to the city. They either recreate their society in neighborhood or ghettos or assume an urban mind and integrate into the city’s anonymity. In either case their social behavior is quite normal and functional.

The Saudi’s Wahabbis and anomalous cosmopolitanism yields empty streets, secrets, gossip, lack of transparency, walled streets and home sites, veiled women, men all dressed in identical cloth style, girls schools and facilities veiled behind mashrabia (privacy screens), and intuitive business ethics. Most Saudi businesspeople tend to be private and not involved with these public venues.

Yet, if you go to the big cities you will see hordes of Saudi Arabs mixed with other Arabs and non-Arabs crowding the shopping malls, supermarkets, and souks. The roads are bumper to bumper with auto and truck traffic and construction is every where. The Arab’s deviation from most urban minds is significantly rooted in history of universal tradition and culture.
Of multinational and international trade and hospitality. Isaiah 20:13+ explain the Arabs comfort and feeding refugees from world strife. Because he is cosmopolitan, the Arab seems urban, but is dramatically opposed to man-made infrastructure.

The Saudi Arab suicide rate is one of the world’s highest due to the conflict between traditional and cultural expectations opposed to the realities of the newly emerging urban but contest. A context inhabited and operated by non-Saudis. The result for many is a life without expected metaphors in a cosmopolitan mind. Other Arabs notice that Saudi Arabs and Saudi context is so different from other Arabs contexts. When he first arrived in the kingdom, the US consul Charles Freedman, an Arabist told me that he lived for many years in Morocco and other Arab states but this was not the same. Not to be mistaken with provincialism, the Saudi Arabs reputation is an anomaly amongst other Arabs noting there other religions, regional and demographic differences but unified on urban cosmopolitan thinking.

Cosmopolitan, as urbans, segregate and separate visitors, strangers and relationships as the social attitudes between men and women, parents and children, women in public, privacy and separating visitors from private areas in homes, etc. Wahabism and urbanism seem to be cousins. We have learned that so much of this is rather out of respect and hope to avoid clashes and confrontation. Knowing the underlying Saudi metaphors helps to put the behavior into pleasant perspective. Normally, provincial persons migrating from rural communities to urban areas bring social cultural ways to the city. They either recreate there society in neighborhood or ghettos or assume an urban mind and integrate into the city’s anonymity. In either case their social behavior is quite normal and functional.


One such manifestation is a kind of tangential thinking and means of expression. Tangential thinking in that one does not approach conversation, meeting and discussion frontally (and confrontational) but at a tangent away from the point, topic and goal. One dos not ever delve into the Koran and its meaning or question authority and the words of the Koran, Sharia law, but follows the law. Agreements are negotiable and subject to ad hoc a better and future moment. There is nothing stable and fixed and this is expressed artistically in it invention of probability patterns and statistical math. It thinks as a matrix in multi- directions and will not be closed or limited. It is and unlimited and ever changing society.

Many believe that the Arab will be the last in the bible to be raptured as the biblical "remnant" in the second three and half years of the great tribulation because he defies the Antichrist. The Arab will not be harnessed and obey (PTL). Yes, at some lower mundane and pragmatic level, but not in his ultimate allegiance, loyally and service, he is a sovereign and independent entity. Never owned, subject or loyal to one or another country, kingdom, government, companies family, etc.; every thing is negotiable and subject to the moment’s advantage and subject to blood. Most of the Saudis we have known were Arabs first and then Saudis while in either case keeping Islam above all.

Distrust and Privacy:
Saudi’s do not prefer not to employ nor associate with other Saudis and therefore there are few partnerships inter-tribe/family sub contracting and general association on projects and business enterprises. Yet, there are emerging business associations, chambers of commerce and of course many Madrasah and Mosque affiliations. They are reluctant to hire other Saudis knowing that most are not trained nor willing to work or take orders. They are also reluctant to lend money to each other because to do so is without interest and mostly impossible to sue for repayment. It is this distrust which underlies part of the reason women covers their faces to hide their identity from competing males who may be suspected to bring harm to them. To remove such suspension from the culture all possession is behind walls, bank statement is opaque and women hidden. The mashrabia screens in schools in Jeddah and one way behind which I taught are not for one or another incident but to maintain a culture of secrecy and hidden things in the ultimate private civilization whose norms preempt potential problems by a culture behavior. And there are many such idiosyncrasies which follow such as the censorship of magazines and media to preempt mind and soul contamination to preserve the culture which prefers privacy to openness and promiscuity. The other reason for the covering and uniform dress code is to see who will not conform in dress code may also be identified as a possible dissident. This is one of the basic conflicts between Wahabbis and other cultures.

Below is a chart contrasting characteristics between Arabs and westerners
Basic differences between Arabs and Westerners:
West Arabs
1. Pluralism Limited
2. Future Historical
3. Choice Limited
4. Laise Faire Limited
5. Black and white; Grey

About the plight and condition of women in Saudi Arabia I can tell you a lot. I taught Saudi females for several years behind a one-way glass mirror and knew many other Saudi women.
I believe that all Saudi’s wear the same style and color of white thobs because of Wahabisms influence in the kingdom. It diminishes the identity of the individual and perpetuates an acceptable anomie but with out the stress. It is compensated by sole access to mosques and social acceptability amongst peers. The same can be said for the black abaya worn by females. Yes, both costumes are justified by so many unwritten reasons and seemingly practical reasons. The fact is that all of these reasons and explanations could well be accommodated in many other ways. The fact that the covering is public and veils identity in the public realm means that they have surrendered their identity in the public realm. It took the kingdom a few years to bring their infrastructure into the twenty first century. Arabs are very concerned to do the right thing. They, to, have a sense of righteousness and appropriateness to their traditions and agreed protocols peculiar to their tribes, region, family, and race as Arabs and Muslims, and Wahabbis Arabs.

Suicide:
One of the earliest scientific information I learned about Saudi Arabia while I lived in Houston was about its’ suicide rate. I read about this in a newspaper. I carried this information with me when several years later I found myself actually there. I did notice the signs of the anomie and dissonance the Saudi’ were experiencing which greatly helped me in my compassion toward them. I had studied about suicide at Columbia so I was educated in the subject. Back in the late seventies the Saudi suicide rate was amongst the highest in the world.

The below is reminiscent of what I had read then:
John V. Whitbeck IHT
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
John V. Whitbeck is an international lawyer who was based in Saudi Arabia. He wrote:
Life and death in Saudi Arabia /Cradle of 'martyrs'
Some of the things the author notes are:
“The ultimate security problem facing Saudi Arabia today may be finding a way to make life more attractive than death for young Saudi Arabian men. It will not be easy.
For the great majority of young Saudi Arabian men, who are not rich, life is truly grim. Even speaking to young girls can, literally, produce a lashing, and they may not be able to afford a wife.
Even the physical aspect of this country is grim. They are not surrounded by beauty. In addition, given Saudi Arabia's staggering birth rate and unemployment rate, they are unlikely to find a job - or, at least, one providing any interest or satisfaction. For frustrated young men facing thwarted lives without pleasure or hope, a spectacular death can seem a magical escape. Aspiring Muslims can believe that "martyrdom" will lead directly to a paradise whose sumptuous and erotic pleasures are the classic fantasies of adolescent dreams”.
I knew a young man who was a very good case in point. Filled with total despair at not being his stepfather’s successor nor gaining any rights and opportunities in the Al-Foadia business. His father‘s uncle being in Chicago offering him opportunity but only if he leaves Saudi and his mother’s side. Finally he left to join his uncle and do business in USA.
In the gymnasium in the Eastern Province I’d lift weights with young men who were noisy and aggressively nasty about sharing the facility with an older American. They tolerated me.
In 2004 the unemployment rate amongst Saudis exceeded a dangerous 30%; In Bahrain in 1995 such high rates led to riots and rebellion only quelled by arrests and sanctions.
These is an increasing use of drugs and vices as Saudi’s resort to diversions from hopelessness and lack of opportunity; in a society which touts male success and conquest as a means to identity and righteousness within the family.

In 1992 when King Khalid died, may he rest in peace, ARAMCO issued checks for full month’s salary. My check was for over $4,000. Much later, I was contracted to serve as a major company’s lead juror until I responded to a request for my resume, which included a very loose association with a certain company. Mohammed had invited me to his apartment in the original building designed by the world famous Doxiades and because I was the head of the AIA he had used my advise as to how to set up a jury to award design for a building. He called me to confirm my association and then summarily dismissed me with out an explanation. Mohammed was the company’s property engineer for and an Egyptian national. Years later one of the couples at first Assemblies of God‘s son in was on the board of this very same company and we visited him in his palatial office on Park Ave. just off of the Pan Am building.

Below there are 6 footnotes derived for various sites on the world wide web. You will see these notes in italics.
Footnote: #1 (Arabians)
Saudi; Saudi Arabs
The Arabians are the nomadic tribes inhabiting the country east and south of Palestine, who in the early times of Hebrew history were known as Ishmaelite and decedents of Keturah.
A member of a Semitic people originally inhabiting Arabia, who spread throughout the Middle East, N Africa, and Spain during the seventh and eighth centuries A.D and in the 14th Century: from Latin Arabs, from Greek Arabs, from Arabic `Arab. One of a swarthy race occupying Arabia, and numerous in Syria, Northern Africa, etc
Presently more than 200 million Arabs are living mainly in 21 countries; they constitute the overwhelming majority of the population in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, and the nations of North Africa. The Arabic language is the main symbol of cultural unity among these people, but the religion of Islam provides another common bond for the majority of Arabs.


There is no doubt that Islam has played a major part in shaping Arab culture. The prophet of Islam was an Arab and Arabic is the language of its holy book, the Qur'an; the Arab people were the nucleus for the expansion of Islam. But it would be wrong to assume that Muslims are mainly Arabs or that Arabs are necessarily Muslims. Today, there are almost a billion Muslims worldwide; the largest group live in the Indian sub-continent, and only 20% of the total are Arabs. Among the Arabs, there are substantial Christian communities in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. Many of the older Arab cities also have a Jewish quarter, though the number of Jews today is small. It is complex and complicated by messy geography and compounded by westerner ignorance and inability to comprehend. Western, non-Arabs are seeking a simplistic box in which to place the Arabs and Islam and it does not exist.
Sati Husri says:
“An Arab is whoever speaks Arabic,
wishes to be an Arab
and calls himself an Arab.”

Shared language is generally recognized as one of the defining characteristics of Arabs. The word "Arab" may be derived from a verb which means to "speak clearly" (i.e. be easily understood by other Arabs). However, many Arabs speak local dialects, which are not always mutually intelligible. Within the Arab world there are also distinct groups - the Berbers, the Kurds, etc - whose main language is not Arabic, though they may have absorbed some of the prevailing Arab culture.
Maxime Rodinson says that those who belong to the Arab ethnic group, the Arab people or the Arab nation speak a form of Arabic and consider it their "natural" language; regard the history and cultural characteristics of the Arabs as their inheritance; assert an Arab identity or consciousness. We have found Arabs indignant at assertive about their Arab identities and culture. Many we knew practice dressing, eating, walking, meeting, praying, and congregating in a style and manner distinctive and different from others that may inhabit their country. They are terrorized by the attack upon the potential neutralization of their cultural practices and traditions.

I would tell my students to design a building and they would clad western boxes in flimsy western cliches for Arabic architecture. The fact is they had no idea what is the Arabic style nor its inherent metaphoric cultural identities. Its just anomie’s urging protest to reify and proclaim the status quo.
The most important element of Arab nationality is culture. The desert nomadic culture is found to varying, although always-important degrees, in all the Arab land. Arabic is also spoken throughout and is a vital element of shared cultural identity and transmission. Ethnicity is next. While Arabs from all the Arab lands will recognize each other and be recognized by others ethnically, this is a varying element, and Arabs can also tell where they are from based on detailed ethnic cues. Religion is least important. Islam is the dominant religion, but Arabs were distinctly and positively Arab prior to Islam, where many were Christians and Hebrews and adherents of other faiths, but still quite Arab.
Bedouins are Rural, living in the desert, from the French: “Bawd” which means desert where Bad is to live in the desert and to lead a nomadic life. A Bedouin is o of the nomadic Arabs who live in tents and are scattered over Arabia, Syria, and northern Africa.


They are people who wander the desert regions in Iraq and northern Africa and are known as Bedouins. Although central Iraq is the native home of the Bedouin Arabs, they also live in Iran, Israel, and Jordan. The Bedouins live by roaming the deserts with their flocks and herds. They live in tents made of skins. Every three or four week they move on camel back to seek more water or better pasture for their animals. The Bedouins fight the unbearable heat of the desert during the day and the bitter chill during the night by wearing clothes made of camel hair, sheepskin, and goatskin.

The desert sun has turned the Bedouins a dark, brownish color. They actually are members of the white race. A mixture of races has also caused some of the darker color.
A Wahabbis is a follower of Abdel Wahhab (b. 1691; d. 1787), a reformer of Mohammedanism. His doctrines prevail particularly among the Bedouins, and the sect, though checked in its influence, extends to most parts of Arabia, and also into India.
First empowered and authorized in Mecca/Medina by the Sunni Arabs and dominates the practice of Islam in Saudi Arabia.


Footnote: #2 Who are the Arabs? The Holy Bile is very Descriptive
It is in the bible where we can find a clear definition of the Arabs. The reader will then understand the Arabs and by understudying them the context in which we lived and worked for nearly twenty years.
Genesis 16 introduces Hagar and her son Ishmael
1 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
6 "Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.
10 The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count."
11 The angel of the LORD also said to her:
"You are now with child
and you will have a son.
You shall name him Ishmael, [1]
for the LORD has heard of your misery.


12 He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone's hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward [2] all his brothers."
And Genesis 17 adds
20 And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation.
And further in Genesis 21:
9 But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, 10 and she said to Abraham, "Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac."
13 I will make the son of the maidservant into a nation also, because he is your offspring."



14 Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba.
15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. 16 then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she thought, "I cannot watch the boy die." And as she sat there nearby, she [3] began to sob.
17 God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. 18 Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation."
19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.
20 God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. 21 While he was living in the Desert of Paran (In the east central region of the Sani Peninsula, bordering the Arabah and the Gulf of Aqaba), his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.
And Paul in Galatians 4: 23His (Abraham’s) son by the slave woman (Hagar) was born in the ordinary way; but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a promise (by god to Abraham about Isaac). 24 These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. 25Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. 26But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. 27For it is written:
"Be glad, O barren woman, who bears no children;
break forth and cry aloud, you who have no labor pains;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
Ishmael is the first of who are the Arabs and Esau the second. Both derive them from the seed of Abraham and akin to the Jews.Genisis25:
21 Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. The LORD answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. 22 The babies jostled each other within her and she said, "Why is this happening to me?" So she went to inquire of the LORD.
23 The LORD said to her,

"Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you will be separated;
one people will be stronger than the other,
and the older will serve the younger."
24 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. 25 The first to come out was red, and his whole body was like a hairy garment; so they named him Esau. [5] 26 After this, his brother came out, with his hand grasping Esau's heel; so he was named Jacob. [6] Isaac was sixty years old when Rebekah gave birth to them.
27 The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was a quiet man, staying among the tents. 28 Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob.
29 Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. 30 He said to Jacob, "Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I'm famished!" (That is why he was also called Edom. [7])
31 Jacob replied, "First sell me your birthright."
32 "Look, I am about to die," Esau said. "What good is the birthright to me?"
33 But Jacob said, "Swear to me first." So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.
34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left.
So Esau despised his birthright.
Geneisis27:
1 When Isaac was old and his eyes were so weak that he could no longer see, he called for Esau his older son and said to him, "My son."
"Here I am," he answered.
2 Isaac said, "I am now an old man and don't know the day of my death. 3 Now then, get your weapons-your quiver and bow-and go out to the open country to hunt some wild game for me. 4 Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my blessing before I die."
5 Now Rebekah was listening as Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau left for the open country to hunt game and bring it back, 6 Rebekah said to her son Jacob, "Look, I overheard your father say to your brother Esau, 7 'Bring me some game and prepare me some tasty food to eat, so that I may give you my blessing in the presence of the LORD before I die.' 8 Now, my son, listen carefully and do what I tell you: 9 Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, so I can prepare some tasty food for your father, just the way he likes it.
\10 Then take it to your father to eat, so that he may give you his blessing before he dies."
11 Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, "But my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I'm a man with smooth skin. 12 What if my father touches me? I would appear to be tricking him and would bring down a curse on myself rather than a blessing."
13 His mother said to him, "My son, let the curse fall on me. Just do what I say; go and get them for me."
14 So he went and got them and brought them to his mother, and she prepared some tasty food, just the way his father liked it. 15 Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob. 16 She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins. 17 Then she handed to her son Jacob the tasty food and the bread she had made.
18 He went to his father and said, "My father."
"Yes, my son," he answered. "Who is it?"
19 Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game so that you may give me your blessing."

20 Isaac asked his son, "How did you find it so quickly, my son?"
"The LORD your God gave me success," he replied.
21 Then Isaac said to Jacob, "Come near so I can touch you, my son, to know whether you really are my son Esau or not."
22 Jacob went close to his father Isaac, who touched him and said, "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau." 23 He did not recognize him, for his hands were hairy like those of his brother Esau; so he blessed him. 24 "Are you really my son Esau?" he asked.
"I am," he replied.
25 Then he said, "My son, bring me some of your game to eat, so that I may give you my blessing."
Jacob brought it to him and he ate; and he brought some wine and he drank. 26 Then his father Isaac said to him, "Come here, my son, and kiss me."
27 So he went to him and kissed him. When Isaac caught the smell of his clothes, he blessed him and said,
"Ah, the smell of my son
is like the smell of a field
that the LORD has blessed.
28 May God give you of heaven's dew
and of earth's richness-
an abundance of grain and new wine.
29 May nations serve you
and peoples bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
and may the sons of your mother bow down to you.
May those who curse you be cursed
and those who bless you be blessed."
30 After Isaac finished blessing him and Jacob had scarcely left his father's presence, his brother Esau came in from hunting. 31 He too prepared some tasty food and brought it to his father. Then he said to him, "My father, sit up and eat some of my game, so that you may give me your blessing."
32 His father Isaac asked him, "Who are you?"
"I am your son," he answered, "your firstborn, Esau."
33 Isaac trembled violently and said, "Who was it, then, that hunted game and brought it to me? I ate it just before you came and I blessed him-and indeed he will be blessed!"

34 When Esau heard his father's words, he burst out with a loud and bitter cry and said to his father, "Bless me-me too, my father!"
35 But he said, "Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing."
36 Esau said, "Isn't he rightly named Jacob [1] ? He has deceived me these two times: He took my birthright, and now he's taken my blessing!" Then he asked, "Haven't you reserved any blessing for me?"
37 Isaac answered Esau, "I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I possibly do for you, my son?"
38 Esau said to his father, "Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!" Then Esau wept aloud.
39 His father Isaac answered him,
"Your dwelling will be
away from the earth's richness,
away from the dew of heaven above.
40 You will live by the sword
and you will serve your brother.


But when you grow restless,
you will throw his yoke
from off your neck."
Jacob Flees to Laban
41 Esau held a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. He said to himself, "The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob."
42 When Rebekah was told what her older son Esau had said, she sent for her younger son Jacob and said to him, "Your brother Esau is consoling himself with the thought of killing you. 43 Now then, my son, do what I say: Flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran. 44 Stay with him for a while until your brother's fury subsides. 45 When your brother is no longer angry with you and forgets what you did to him, I'll send word for you to come back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?"
46 Then Rebekah said to Isaac, "I'm disgusted with living because of these Hittite women. If Jacob takes a wife from among the women of this land, from Hittite women like these, my life will not be worth living."
27:36 Jacob means he grasps the heel (figuratively, he deceives).

The Arabs do not accept this story of deceit. And is the basis of there dislike of the decedents of Jacob.
Geneisis28: 5 Then Isaac sent Jacob on his way, and he went to Paddan Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, who was the mother of Jacob and Esau.
6 Now Esau learned that Isaac had blessed Jacob and had sent him to Paddan Aram to take a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he commanded him, "Do not marry a Canaanite woman," 7 and that Jacob had obeyed his father and mother and had gone to Paddan Aram. 8 Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac; 9 so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had.
Genisis36 describes and names Esau's Descendants
1 This is the account of Esau (that is, Edom).
2 Esau took his wives from the women of Canaan: Adah daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Oholibamah daughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon the Hivite- 3 also Basemath daughter of Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth.

4 Adah bore Eliphaz to Esau, Basemath bore Reuel, 5 and Oholibamah bore Jeush, Jalam and Korah. These were the sons of Esau, who were born to him in Canaan.
6 Esau took his wives and sons and daughters and all the members of his household, as well as his livestock and all his other animals and all the goods he had acquired in Canaan, and moved to a land some distance from his brother Jacob. 7 Their possessions were too great for them to remain together; the land where they were staying could not support them both because of their livestock. 8 So Esau (that is, Edom) settled in the hill country of Seir.
9 This is the account of Esau the father of the Edomites in the hill country of Seir.
10 These are the names of Esau's sons:
Eliphaz, the son of Esau's wife Adah, and Reuel, the son of Esau's wife Basemath.
11 The sons of Eliphaz:
Teman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam and Kenaz.
12 Esau's son Eliphaz also had a concubine named Timna, who bore him Amalek. These were grandsons of Esau's wife Adah.
13 The sons of Reuel:
Nahath, Zerah, Shammah and Mizzah. These were grandsons of Esau's wife Basemath.
14 The sons of Esau's wife Oholibamah daughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon, whom she bore to Esau:
Jeush, Jalam and Korah.
15 These were the chiefs among Esau's descendants:
The sons of Eliphaz the firstborn of Esau:
Chiefs Teman, Omar, Zepho, Kenaz, 16 Korah, [1] Gatam and Amalek. These were the chiefs descended from Eliphaz in Edom; they were grandsons of Adah.
17 The sons of Esau's son Reuel:
Chiefs Nahath, Zerah, Shammah and Mizzah. These were the chiefs descended from Reuel in Edom; they were grandsons of Esau's wife Basemath.
18 The sons of Esau's wife Oholibamah:
Chiefs Jeush, Jalam and Korah. These were the chiefs descended from Esau's wife Oholibamah daughter of Anah.
19 These were the sons of Esau (that is, Edom) and these were their chiefs.
The Rulers of Edom
31 These were the kings who reined in Edom before any Israelite king reigned [5]:
And Edom is described in Genisis25: 30 He said to Jacob, "Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I'm famished!" (That is why he was also called Edom.
3 Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom
27 Jacob came home to his father Isaac in Mamre, near Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron), where Abraham and Isaac had stayed. 28 Isaac lived a hundred and eighty years. 29 Then he breathed his last and died and was gathered to his people, old and full of years. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.


The first confrontation is explained in Numbers20:
Edom Denies Israel Passage

14 Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, saying:
"This is what your brother Israel says: You know about all the hardships that have come upon us. 15 Our forefathers went down into Egypt, and we lived there many years.
The Egyptians mistreated us and our fathers, 16 but when we cried out to the LORD, he heard our cry and sent an angel and brought us out of Egypt.
"Now we are here at Kadesh, a town on the edge of your territory. 17 Please let us pass through your country. We will not go through any field or vineyard, or drink water from any well. We will travel along the king's highway and not turn to the right or to the left until we have passed through your territory."
18 But Edom answered: "You may not pass through here; if you try, we will march out and attack you with the sword."
19 The Israelites replied: "We will go along the main road, and if we or our livestock drink any of your water, we will pay for it. We only want to pass through on foot-nothing else."
20 Again they answered: "You may not pass through."
Then Edom came out against them with a large and powerful army. 21 Since Edom refused to let them go through their territory, Israel turned away from them. 6 This is what the LORD says: "For three sins of Gaza,
even for four, I will not turn back my wrath.
Because she took captive whole communities
and sold them to Edom,
7 I will send fire upon the walls of Gaza
that will consume her fortresses.
8 I will destroy the king of Ashdod
and the one who holds the scepter in Ashkelon.
I will turn my hand against Ekron,
till the last of the Philistines is dead,"
says the Sovereign LORD.
9 This is what the LORD says: "For three sins of Tyre,
even for four, I will not turn back my wrath.
Because she sold whole communities of captives to Edom,
disregarding a treaty of brotherhood,
10 I will send fire upon the walls of Tyre
that will consume her fortresses."
11 This is what the LORD says: "For three sins of Edom,
even for four, I will not turn back my wrath.




Because he pursued his brother with a sword,
stifling all compassion,
because his anger raged continually
and his fury flamed unchecked,
But we must remember Noah’s decendents named in Geneisis10 are both the Arabs and the Jews:
22 The sons of Shem:
Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud and Aram.
23 The sons of Aram:
Uz, Hul, Gether and Meshech.
24 Arphaxad was the father of Shelah,
and Shelah the father of Eber.
25 Two sons were born to Eber:
One was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided; his brother was named Joktan.
26 Joktan was the father of
Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 27 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 28 Obal, Abimael, Sheba, 29 Ophir, Havilah and Jobab. All these were sons of Joktan.
30 The region where they lived stretched from Mesha toward Sephar, in the eastern hill country.
31 These are the sons of Shem by their clans and languages, in their territories and nations.
In summary the Egyptian’s (Hagar) are Mizraims (the two Egypt’s/red soil), Ham’s decendents
Ur (Sumer, Sumarians) of the Chaldeas (Cush tribes from which comes Assyrians and Iraq’s Babylonia)
Abraham was a Shem living in Ur but not a descendent of Cush. He knew the Ham/Cush well but he was a descendent of Shem.
Gen10: 21: Shem was the ancestor of all the sons of Eber.
25 Two sons were born to Eber:
One was named Peleg,] because in his time the earth was divided; his brother was named Joktan.
26 Joktan was the father of
Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 27 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 28 Obal, Abimael, Sheba, 29 Ophir, Havilah and Jobab. All these were sons of Joktan.


30 The region where they lived stretched from Mesha toward Sephar, in the eastern hill country.
(And the Joktanites are where many of the Arabs living are now Yemen.)
The Ishmaelite appears to have entered the Peninsula from the Northwest is asserted by the Arabs themselves. The Arabs say little of the decedents of Keturah. The Keturans seem to have settled in the north of Arabia from Palestine to the Persian (Arabia) gulf. In the northern and northwestern parts of Arabia are the decedents of Amelek, the decedents of Esau.
The decedents of Hagar and Abraham are a mixture between the Ham of Hagar and the Shem of Abraham.
1chron:1:3232 The sons born to Keturah, Abraham's concubine:
Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah.
The sons of Jokshan:
Sheba and Dedan.




33 The sons of Midian:
Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida and Eldaah.
All these were descendants of Keturah.
Isa21: A Prophecy Against Arabia
13 An oracle concerning Arabia:
You caravans of Dedanites,
who camp in the thickets of Arabia,
14 bring water for the thirsty;
you who live in Tema,
bring food for the fugitives.
15 They flee from the sword,
from the drawn sword,
from the bent bow
and from the heat of battle.
16 This is what the Lord says to me: "Within one year, as a servant bound by contract would count it, all the pomp of Kedar will come to an end. 17 The survivors of the bowmen, the warriors of Kedar, will be few." The LORD, the God of Israel, has spoken.

Footnote: #3 (Work Ethic in Saudi Arabia)
Years ago, PK Abdul Ghatour of the Arab News noted that absenteeism was rampant amongst the employees of the Saudi Government. He noted that over 60% stayed away from work with out a good reason while another 54% came late according to a study by the Saudi public Administration.
We all have noticed this over the years, particularly noting the students as KFU who had no interest in either the subject nor attending school. The Saudi Professors and staff were even worse, many not attending classes or carrying out their administrative duties. I believe this has now changed where faculty and students are now motivated and active in their school.

The same was true every where I worked and visited. You’d see Saudis sitting and drinking coffee totally oblivious and disinterested in the work, ministry company etc. This attitude pervaded the kingdom and its people because many had a Bedouin rural mind while the context their asked to serve is urban and cosmopolitan. By the time we departed much of this had changed for the better. This was certainly not true of proprietors, owners and entrepreneurs. It was time of transition and acclimation.

Another kind of logic
One of the things I have noticed over the years which I had in my fair city of New York was a way of converting what I would consider a wrongful deed to one’s own favor.
For example, the way in which one bids on a service contract keeping the price below the competitors, to then raise the price after winning to provide the actual service, and the customer paying the extra. Committing errors on contract work and being paid to correct the errors.
Hiring people and telling them one thing and then requesting another when in kingdom, and believing this is correct. On the other hand most Saudi employers will keep non-performers and train them. In a traffic accident assuming that both parties share liability. E.g. the person who is hit by a person from the rear is also at fault because he should have taken steps to prevent or he must have had some role in the reason the rather person hit him. Proselytizing your religion by even carrying a bible or wearing a cross may provide temptations to the natives and therefore is forbidden. A woman was guilty because she tempted the man and if she was caught without her abaya was condoned.
As in most commercial settings, a business owner is perfectly right to get as much for his services as he can. All of this is carried out in a very gentlemanly way and we were always treated well.
The most important element of Arab nationality is culture. The desert nomadic culture is found to varying, although always-important degrees, in all the Arab land. Arabic is also spoken throughout and is a vital element of shared cultural identity and transmission. Ethnicity is next.
While Arabs from all the Arab lands will recognize each other and be recognized by others ethnically, this is a varying element, and Arabs can also tell where they are from based on detailed ethnic cues. Religion is least important. Islam is the dominant religion, but Arabs were distinctly and positively Arab prior to Islam, and many are Christian, Jewish, and adherents of other faiths, and still quite Arab.

Many Arabs exude a confidence and wisdom of which comes from close family relations and experience in the desert and amongst tribesman. In addition to Muslims, Arabs are Arabs!
They are indigenous people of the desert. They have many superstitions and, like American Indians listen and see things in nature and the behavior of people which westerners would ignore. They have a keen sense of the supernatural and respect signs and wonders. Although discouraged by there religion, they never the less believe, practice and exude an awareness of the supernatural. Even if they have no knowledge of something they will teach you about that thing in terms of the nature and character of their understanding. For this reason, they can venture into the desert and find their way. For this reason have they been able to assimilate twenty-first century world while being in there fifteenth century. Keep in mind most of the adult population were nomads and Bedouins till recently and their children are still living in there homes. Because of all these characteristics I have enjoyed my work and living in Saudi Arabia. These comments are not meant as criticisms but to describe to the reader, as best I can the unique nature of the people we lived amongst for so many years.
Their self-confidence is awesome!

One of the nomadic Arabs who live in tents, and are scattered
over Arabia, Syria, and northern Africa, ESP. In the deserts.
Pertaining to the Bedouins; nomad.
They are people who wander the desert regions in Iraq and northern Africa and are known as Bedouins. Although central Iraq is the native home of the Bedouin Arabs, they also live in Iran, Israel, and Jordan.
The Bedouins live by roaming the deserts with their flocks and herds. They live in tents made of skins. Every three or four week they move on camelback to seek more water or better pasture for their animals.
The Bedouins fight the unbearable heat of the desert during the day and the bitter chill during the night by wearing clothes made of camel hair, sheepskin, and goatskin.
The desert sun has turned the Bedouins a dark, brownish color. They actually are members of the white race. A mixture of races has also caused some of the darker color.




Stereotypes:
Saudi’s stereo type westerners and specific nationalities in order to adjust, cope, and deal with the type and variety of outside people living in their kingdom.
Therefore they often presume that westerners are prone to violence, immorality, vulgarity, simplistic thinking, and materialism.
All things commercial, industrial, technological comes from the west and is intimidating.
Yes, although they reap, enjoy use, and covet their western technological toys they realize that the society producing such things is remarkably different from there own.


They also see western values as decadent and dipterous to a good life. For example they intentionally marry members of their own family so that deaths will occur, so that whoever survives will be strong and superior.
They want us to bring our products, management techniques, and technologies but leave our faith, desires, wisdom, and manners.
Just picture the stereotype of where western culture was 470 years ago and our believes and superstitions.
It is 1534 and the renaissance we in the west experienced has not yet begun.
It is medieval and most of the western world is in Europe ruled by feudal lords called kings ruling over kingdoms.
Americas was being explored and settled and the thirteen colonies were not even heard of. Elizabethan England thought we in England, divide our people commonly into four sorts, as gentlemen, citizens or burgesses, yeomen, and artificers or laborers. Of gentlemen the first and chief (next the king) be the prince, dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, and barons; and these are called gentlemen of the greater sort, or (as our common usage of speech is) lords and noblemen: and next unto them be knights, esquires, and, last of all, they that are simply called gentlemen. So that in effect our gentlemen are divided into their conditions, whereof in this chapter I will make particular rehearsal.
In Germany the aftermath of the Luther was being digested
The violent attempt by the Melchiorite Anabaptists in 1534/35 to establish the "New Jerusalem" in the city of Münster represents one of the most bizarre events of the Reformation. The whole crisis is often construed as an extreme outworking of some latent tendencies within Reformation thought. Luther's widespread influence had greatly diminished the role of the priest as a mediator between the layman and God, thereby increasing the importance of the Bible and personal conscience in directing the layman's spiritual journey. The outcome of this change was that many laymen gave birth to radical interpretations of scripture -- interpretations that often carried dangerous social and political implications.

1 The prophetic claims of the two principal prophets at Münster, Jan Matthys and Jan Bockelszoon van Leiden, support this view. Both men drew an enormous amount of prophetic authority from scripture and wielded it with disastrous social and political consequences.
Comparing the Hidra/Grgorian Calendar Our January 18, 2004 is equivalent to Islam’s Hidra Ziqa’ad 18, 1424; a 470 year; four century difference. The Muslim calendar is updated every month by the sighting of the new moon. As people in the sixteenth century in the west were prone to mysticism, gross exaggerations and misunderstandings, so are the Saudi Arabs when faced with there own realities and the comparison of our realities with there own.

Footnote: #5: Women in Saudi Arabia

Layla Ahmad Al-Ahdab, Al-Watan in the Arab News, Female Emancipation Need of the Hour writes that “women are nothing but pawns in the game between extreme conservatives and Westernized liberals.
Backward traditions combined with various religious beliefs such as the non-Islamic concept of original sin and Eve’s role in the fall of Adam have all contributed to the suppression of women here. The Wahabi pomp and scapegoatism has compounded chauvinism to its most miserable suppressions and victimization of women.
Women are given a lesser share of the inheritance only because they have the sole right to that money, Wahabism (A member of a Muslim sect founded by Abdul Wahhab (1703-1792), known for its strict observance of the Koran and flourishing mainly in Arabia.
Wahabism is the at the crux of the complaints and it is really anti-Wahabism that Layla preaches. Wahabism is neither Arabistic nor is it is Islamic but a kind of chauvinism and a way of Scapegoating. I taught my female students what I had seen of the women in the west, orient and mid-east to be professional, take a stand, and think as a free women and not a bondwomen. The problem is they have all accepted the role of Hagar and not Sarah. Some do break the mold and opt for “liberty.”

Undoubtedly, rejuvenation of real 7th century Islam has taken it’s ugly roots among all Muslim countries including Bangladesh and century old Sufi-mixed peaceful benign Islam has evaporated from Bangladesh and elsewhere in South East Asia. So it is not correct to claim that Muslims in Bangladesh and other Muslim majority countries of the world have no idea what Wahabism is until after September 11th”. September 11th episode was only the visible cardinal sign exhibited by the soldiers of Allah inspired by pure (Wahabi) Islam. The malignant signs of this so called Wahabism (pure Islam) was also taken it’s roots among the Muslim expatriates around the world which is clearly visible by the courtesy of intense religiosity (Ummabazi, various Islamic organization, hijab culture among the Muslim women who never used hjab/burkha in their own land before coming to this western infidel lands. All of these above changes among the Muslims in general are the direct effects/influence of the propagation of 7th century pure Islam under the false banner of so called Wahabism”.
In Saudi there are people, though rare, who are remarkably anti-Wahabi and shun society and the general public and stay by them self’s out of the cities and villages. They stay away from the mosques and schools and away from the government. They say that Wahabism depersonalizes, unifies, and makes everyone a combatant. Impersonalized non-distinct beings have little intellectual tenacity to resist control. Wahabism is the enemy of women and the root of the dissonance between today’s Arab and the west. Islam does have its differences with Christianity and Judaism but it is Wahabisms that bring the differences to combat and confrontation. It is the contrast with the west and Christians those Arab women in Wahabi context become neutralized and marginalized. Men are dressed as uniformed social warriors, a kind of army of negotiators, representatives, and advocates. A commission of severe authoritarian figures of rule and law.
1. Militant devotion to and glorification of one's country; fanatical patriotism.
2. Prejudiced belief in the superiority of one's own gender, group, or kind: “the chauvinism... of making extraterrestrial life in our own image” (Henry S.F. Cooper, Jr.).
Chauvinism is so called after Nicolas Chauvin who was a legendary French soldier famous for his devotion to Napoleon and later became synonymous with fanatical patriotism (jingoism, super patriotism, and ultra nationalism)
It later became extrapolated with activity indicative of belief in the superiority of men over women (male chauvinism, anti feminism)
It is blind and absurd devotion to a fallen leader or an obsolete cause; hence, absurdly vainglorious or exaggerated patriotism”.
So wrote: Layla Ahmad Al-Ahdab, Al-Watan.

Footnote: #6: Chauvinist and Wahhabis

Prof. H. Tuttle says that to “have a generous belief in the greatness of one's country are not chauvinism. It is the character of the latter quality to be wildly extravagant, to be fretful and childish and silly, to resent a doubt as an insult, and to offend by its very frankness.
Indeed, such people are Chauvinist of which Wahhabis are the mid-east counterparts.
The affects of this ideology on women are demeaning and grossly suppressive. As women battle chauvinism in the west they must resist Wahabism in the mid-east. This ideology is unprofitable to society and flies in the face of society righteousness and goodness. For that reason Wahabism is kept hushed and silent. As chauvinism it is and undercurrent of shame and humiliation, not a point of a societies pride and victory”.,Arabs, cosmopolitan, Dedan, Doxiades, Ishmael, Keturah, Lebanese, mashrabia, metaphor