Arab World Leaders at the first summit of the League of Arab States (Year:)
The Arab world enjoys such unifying factors as cultural homogeneity, linguistic oneness, common spiritual values, history and civilization. Geographically, peoples of the Arab world inhabit a region characterized by contiguity and is of immense international strategic importance. Over the centuries, this location has enabled the Arab world to make outstanding contributions to the advancement of human life and thought.
It was no mere coincidence that this region was ordained to be the scene of Divine Revelation and the staging point for the dissemination of the three main Heavenly Religions which have nurtured human thought and drew mankind together around the focal concept of the oneness of the Creator, thereby unleashing a principal source of moral, spiritual and ethical values for the enriching human civilization.
Equally, the land of the Arab world has in modern times been endowed with the springing up of energy resources which provide fuel needed to operate modern machines and have become virtually indispensable for the sustenance of everyday life.
The Arab individual was therefore destined to be a bearer and staunch advocate of a magnanimous message that contributed to the enrichment and enhancement of human thought. In modern times, he has made it the target of his struggle to accomplish of progress, national integration and unity so that the Arab nation may advance its political, economic and cultural status among nations of the world.
Since the dawn of history, the Arab world has passed through successive times of eminence and vulnerability but has nevertheless, and despite all challenges, maintained its demographic harmony, cultural homogeneity and linguistic oneness. Such factors helped the Arab world formulate its own distinguishing identity among world civilizations.
By the advent of the 19th Century, the Arab nation had to launch struggle against foreign domination in order to regain freedom and independence and to seek, at the same time, the realization of all-Arab unity. It was therefore one of the priorities of the then independent Arab states to set up a national Arab institution to seek the consolidation of inter-Arab relations, securing a better future for all Arab countries and develop co-operation among them in political and economic fields.
In effect, the governments of the then independent Arab countries entered into consultations which resulted in the appointment of a preparatory committee of the representatives of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. The committee convened its meetings, that later came to be known as the Arab Unity Consultations, in Alexandria City in summer 1944. Those meetings produced a document, the Alexandria Protocol, which laid down the political, legal and institutional frameworks as well as the projected political, economic and social objectives which were later contained in the Charter, the constituent instrument of the League. Shortly after consensus was reached at committee meetings on a final draft version for the Charter, the Heads of Government of the then independent Arab states signed the document on March 22, 1945, thereby signaling the birth and the commencement of the functioning of the League of Arab States.
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