"The Arab Mind" by Raphael Patai

• All those who have made first-hand observations of Arab family life agree that the incidence and severity of corporal punishment administered to Arab children is much greater than is the case in the Western world.
• Local and individual variations aside, the general situation in the Arab family is that it is the father who is severe, stern and authoritarian, while the mother is, by contrast, loving and compassionate.
• The overwhelming desire of all parents is to have sons.
• The idea that it is humiliating to beget daughters has managed to survive in conservative Arab circles down to the present.
• The young wife’s position in her husband’s family (where, in conservative circles, she is treated initially more or less like an unpaid servant) improves only if she gives birth to a son.
• In both child and adult, the verbally stated which, intention, or demand is expected to bring about realization without any additional action.
• The characteristic Arab male attitude to women: that the destiny of women in general, and in particular of those within the family circle, is to serve the men and obey them.
• Arab sexual mores assume that wherever and whenever a man and women of suitable age happen to find themselves alone, they will be irresistibly driven to having sexual union even if they had never before seen each other, and even if the consequences could be most disastrous. The only way to prevent such occurrences is to practice strict segregation, calculated to make it impossible for a man and woman ever to be alone, unless, of course, they are married or are first-degree blood relations.
• Who is an Arab? is usually answered, One whose mother tongue is Arabic. This is the answer many Arabs themselves give; nor has any other valid answer been found.
• Throughout the vast Arabic language area, people hold with relative uniformity that Arabic is superior to other languages because it is beautiful and has a strong appeal, especially for the recitation of classical poetry and for formal or semi-formal oratory. Arabic speakers also hold that Arabic surpasses other languages in beauty because of its inherent qualities.
• For speakers of English, the effect their languages has on them is very different from that of great music. Yet the speakers of Arabic react to both language and music in a basically similar manner, except that their reaction to the language is probably deeper, more intense, and more emotional.
• In the course of learning to speak, Arab children acquire not only the Arabic vocabulary and grammar, but also style, including the specific stylistic devices known as [exaggeration] and [over-assertion].
• When the average Arab uses exaggeration and overemphasis, he actually is either not at all aware, or only barely, aware of employing these specific stylistic devices. In his mind, as well as the mind of his Arab interlocutors, exaggeration and overemphasis register as simple statements.
• Conditioned by the childhood experience of frequent threats often not carried out, the adult Arab makes statements which express threats, demands, or intentions, which he does not intend to carry out but which, once uttered, relax emotional tension, give psychological relief and at the same time reduce the pressure to engage in any act aimed at realizing the verbal goal.
• The intention of doing something, or the plan of doing something, or the initiation of the first step toward doing something -- any one of these can serve as a substitute for achievement and accomplishment.
• In the Arab mentality words often can and do serve as substitutes for acts.
• As anybody who has lived among Arabs can testify, they are much less concerned with time than Westerners.
• The concept of punctuality does not exist in traditional Arab culture.
• Lateness for appointments or not showing at all has remained to this day a fairly common phenomenon in Arab life.
• The Bedouin temper is characterized by sudden flare-ups, which can easily lead to violence and even murder, followed by remorse and long periods of tranquility, inactivity, almost apathy.
• Aversion to manual labor, in particular work that involves dirtying one’s hands is another Bedouin attitude that has widely influence the Arab mind.
• In the Arab world, the greatest dishonor that can befall a man results from the sexual misconduct of his daughter or sister.
• The marital infidelity of a wife, on the other hand, brings to the Arab husband only emotional effects and not dishonor.
• The conviction that the only acceptable method of resolving conflict is mediation by a third party, who serves literally as a go-between, commuting back and forth between the two sides until he gets them to accept his solution, influences and, in fact, determines the behavior of Arab leaders also in relation to non-Arab adversaries.
• It has long been a customary feature of Arab psychology to vent one’s anger on the bearer of bad tidings.
• In historical perspective, the Arabs see the West as a young disciple who has overtaken and left behind his erstwhile master, medieval Arab civilization.
• Almost all Arab thinkers agree that the West is responsible for Arab stagnation in modern times.
• The one form of war permissible in Islam is the jihad, the holy war, which consists of military action for the purpose of defending or expanding the “House of Islam.” It is a collective Muslim duty to convert to Islam all unbelievers, except for the Jews, Christians, and the Zoroastrians, who are “people of the book,” and must merely be made to submit to the political authority of Islam, and pay the [poll tax], and the [land tax].