Re: The GZG Digest V1 #507

But the Islamic Federation was under Saudi hegemony, not
Turkish, so names should be Arabic, not Turkish.  Okay,
maybe a few Turks in there, but mostly not.

A few turks?  Maybe not in the ruling class - but it kinda depends on
who
ended up being incorporated into the IF.  Arabs, per se, are a minority
among Islamic folk - there's way more Iranians, Turks and Egyptians than
Saudis, Jordanians, Iraqis, Palastinians and Syrians (and of the last 4
only
a certain percentage are actual "arabs").  Compared to the older states
of
Turkey, Egypt, Iran, the Arab states are alot less densely populated.
That's one reason why early 80's revolutionary Iran was seen as such a
menace and led to things like US support for Saddam Hussein.  Iran
outnumbered all its arab neighbors combined (45 mil to 15 mil in the
case of
Iran/Iraq).  The modern IF may be sort of like Egypt through most of the
middle ages, the ruling class may be Arabs, but the commonfolk are
anything
but homogenous.

				-M