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Karim
To make a long matter short, the concept of race is almost unknown in most Middle Eastern countries. In Egypt, for example, you have people of all shades across all classes and religions. For example, when people consider getting married, they usually don’t notice skin color. The concept of ethnicity and culture is very strong, though. For example, in Egypt the Nubians are a distinct group, not because they are black but because they have a different culture. Note also that Iranians are Indo-Europeans, Turks are Mongols and Arabs are semitic. So these three groups will NEVER identify themselves together under a single grouping. So ethnicity and nationality are important and distinct, race is considered amusing pseudo-science here!