Alphabet

• Arab and Persian people speak different languages. The Persians are proud of their language, Farsi, and many refuse to learn Arabic. The two groups nevertheless share the Arabic alphabet. Just as most of the people of Western Europe use the Latin alphabet, or slight variations of it, the Persian, Arab and Urdu people all use the Arabic alphabet, making it the second most widely used alphabet in the world.
  
  

Religion

• Most Persians, like most Arabs, are Muslim although most of Iran is Shia, as opposed to Sunni, Muslim, Persians nevertheless share a great deal of religious history with Arab Muslims. Predominantly Persian countries such as Iran also have Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrians minorities just as all of the Arab states do. It is, in part, the particular Shia view of government that caused Iranians to overthrow their monarchy and create an Islamic republic in the late 1970s.
  
  

Geography

• Persians and Arabs obviously share some geography as both inhabit portions of the Middle East. The Persian people seem to have come from the northern and eastern parts of the region and currently inhabit Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Iran. The Arab people came from the southern and western parts inhabiting the bulk of the Middle Eastern countries and North Africa. However, their geographic proximity to one another and their similar concerns over resources such as oil mean that they frequently have similar regional concerns.
  
  

History

• The Arab and Persian people share a history that predates any known records. Both share history with the Greek and Roman empires and, much later, with European colonialism. The Persians and the Arabs were certainly not always on the same side of history, and there are many bloody chapters between them. However, it would be impossible to tell the story of either people without significant attention to the history of the other.