Future issues of AWG will contain papers on post-Apartheid South Africa and slums in Bangladesh and Nigeria, topics that have various parallels and analogues in the Arab world. A potential comparative dimension is central to geographic inquiry as an international discipline. The Arab World Geographer wishes to make clear right from the outset that the journal does not aim to legitimize or delegitimize perceptions about Arab and Moslem people and their places. We have no partisan agenda. Nor do we agree with any blinkered notion that reduces the Arab world to nothing but the victim of Western domination.
Realities are far more complex.
Islam as a religion and civilization continues to have a great impact in shaping the geography of the region. On the eve of the millennium, it is time we overcome the vestiges of insularity and organize to communicate our work to the global community, striving to renew the ancient legacy of Arab geographers who were pioneers in the field from the 7th to 14th centuries, spearheading the development of the science in a then global context. References Makki, M. S. 1984. Population geography . Shair, I., and Al-Hasan, I. 1993.