Why does Egypt have “Arab” in the official name of the state?
Egypt is Egyptian, not Arab. The word “Arab” appeared, for purely ideological and poltical reasons, for the very first time in the name of the country in 1958. In 1958, the Republic of Egypt and the Syrian Republic became the “United Arab Republic.” Since then, the name has stuck: the “Arab” Republic of Egypt and the Syrian “Arab” Republic. A lot of people in the West think that “Arab” = Arabian = Muslim = Middle Eastern, or thinking it some kind of “ancestry” or “race.” If you ask an actual Arabian from Arabia, are Egyptians Arabs? The answer would be “Not all! Egyptians are not ethnic Arabs, they are Arabized Copts!” “ Among the tribes of Arabia today the term ʿarab seems to signify people with a genealogy or belonging to a lineage connecting them with certain forebears. This traditional definition is probably a heritage from the early Islamic period when the term was given this sense . A modern definition of “Arab” was first advanced by the ideolo...