Hey @RPers ; it’s @kalon here and today we’re going talk about creating and RPing Arab chracters. I want to consistently make these posts so I’m going to call it episode one of the “How to Create and RP” series hehe. Hopefully writers find this helpful and hopefully we get more Arab representation in our roleplays because of it!
The Arab World
The Arab World consists of 22 Countries within the Middle East and North Africa which includes: Algeria, Bahrain, the Comoros Islands, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
Arabs by definition are: a member of a Semitic people, originally from the Arabian peninsula and neighboring territories, inhabiting much of the Middle East and North Africa (see above countries)
While the Arab world has become synonymous with Islam; that’s not always the case. In fact, according to statistics, must Muslims live in Indonesia, Pakistan and India. Only 20% of Muslims originate from the Middle East. What other religions ae within the middle east? There are Druze Arabs, Christian Arabs, Jewish Arabs, Atheist Arabs, the list goes on and on.
In addition Arab immigrants were mainly Christian in the early times, it wasn’t until later when there was an influx of Arab Muslims came to the US around 1965 – majority were still Christian.
Naming Arab Characters
Right off the bat gonna knock some stuff out of the way, surprise not everyone is called Mohamad. I know, shocking 
Seriously though the Arabic language and countries hold such beautiful names so like 
let’s not make another Mohammad.
Religious names are awesome but lets get creative, some of the most common Arab names tend to be Khadija, Hassan, Abdullah, Elias and Amal. (Surprised at Elias? Reminder of the Christian Arabs within the middle east.)
(If the character is Muslim please be aware to not name it after spirits, gods, etc. since that indicates servitude to another creature other than Allah and that is a no-no)
Culture
Now, I literally cannot walk through all 22 eastern countries and detail their culture and their modern values so I will point you here: https://culturalatlas.sbs.com.au/. Please recall that people often confuse an Arabs faith with their culture and vice versa. However there are some common denominators:
Hospitality however is a very key cornerstone within the Arab culture, offering food and trying to please your guest is very important to them across all the countries and you can find good hospitality in almost every Arab home you go to.
Family, the emphasis on family is very important to Arab characters and you can find that to be a really important value within Arab settings and culture.
Clothing
Arabians are not monolith nor one person, and like I said not all of them follow the Islamic faith so clothing really differs here (unless your applying a faith system!) So, the clothing can vary here! I know Arabs who enjoy modest clothing and others who re comfortable showing some more skin.
Stereotypes
(the below is not from myself)
This is not about specific cultures of the Middle East, rather, this is for the writer who wants to learn about what stereotypes there may be so they can have a To Don’t List to complement their research.
You may be happy to start with ArabStereotypes.Org. An introductory post on the website says the following:
“…media analyst Jack Shaheen reviewed more than 1,000 movies, from Hollywood’s earliest days through the present, in his book Reel Bad Arabs. Of all the films, just 50 portrayed Arabs even-handedly, and only 12 contained positive Arab depictions.”
His book is definitely worth getting. If you don’t get this book, then at least do consider this: if you have a character who is Arab, do consider that Arab characters in movies are villains or stereotypes over 90% of the time. Do something different.
Arab Stereotypes also draws attention to some good books (links are to Amazon and Google Books) in some of their blog posts:
- Reel Bad Arabs by Jack Shaheen (there’s also a documentary directed by Sut Jhally)
- Orientalism by Edward W. Said
- The Colonial Harem by Malek Alloula - this traces the imagery which eroticizes/fetishizes women in the Middle East.
- Through The Hebrew Looking Glass: Arab Stereotypes In Children’s Literature by Fouzi El-Asmar.
- And they provide a book and movie list for curricula on stereotypes.
If you go to TVTropes to find stereotypes, here are some of them.
- “Arab Equals Muslim”: Muslim and Arab tend to be synonymous in the West. This is not the case. Most Muslims are NOT Arab. The figures are different in the various articles that cite a number but it is always less than 25%. According to PBS, only 12% of Muslims are Arab and Indonesia has more Muslims than in all Arab countries combined. What else is there? There are Druze Arabs, Christian Arabs, Jewish Arabs, Atheist Arabs, the list goes on and on.
- “The Arab Oil Sheikh”: If you want to make your character a super rich, sure thing, but do beware the The Arab Oil Sheikh, who usually is ”brought in to teach a character An Aesop about putting his friends before monetary gain. This often involves the Sheikh innocently offering said character a large reward for a task that involves stepping on the character’s friends in order to succeed.”
- “The Bodice Ripper”: If you want to involve your character in a romance, awesome, just be aware that there is an Arab stereotype in romance literature responsible for the term “Bodice Ripper.” As TVTropes puts it in the Arab Oil Sheikh article, the stereotype is “…dark, brooding, passionate and ruling everything he surveys in his desert kingdom with the same tenacity as he takes the woman. Sheikh romance actually gave us the term "bodice ripper” due to the common kidnap-r-pe-love plots where the Arab can get away with being beyond normal constraints in how he treats the heroine due to his exoticness. He’ll still have the education of Lord Nelson though and the manners of a prince which is kind of the point: these books want someone who lives in the closest thing to a modern lavish royal court and acts like the Black Death hasn’t gone out of fashion. He will also turn up as a villain trying to buy or kidnap the female lead for his harem.”
I hope as a starting point this is helpful to someone. Again, I recommend those books above. Thanks for reading.
Sourced from here !! follow the blog if you can, it’s so helpful!!
Folklore
If you’re someone looking for Arab folklore or mythos for your RP character, before giving you these resources and information I implore you to make the character to be an Arab one and in addition to research further than these few links.
- https://theculturetrip.com/middle-east/united-arab-emirates/articles/10-fascinating-arabian-myths-and-legends/
- https://fairytalez.com/region/arabic/
- https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/Arabian_mythology
(Please realize that this does not correlate with Islam, and instead focuses of Arab folklore and the Arabian mythology that was pre-Islamic)
Faceclaims
Laila Ezzat
Vazifa
Flamur Ukshini
Conclusion
Hope this small guide helps out a bit~
Make sure to do more research on your own!!
