But the United ARAB Emirates, Qatar and also Arabic countries, and Egypt & Syria used to call themselves the United ARAB Republic. Jordan is officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and the Hashemites are an Arab people. I think Libya calls itself the Libyan ARAB Jamahurayyat. Not sure of the last word's spelling, but it means republic, i.e. no monarchy. I realize the term Arabic is linked to the religion, and is therefore not always used as precisely as the Germans use the word German or the Swedes use the word Swedish.
Of course the others are Arab countries, however, I think you're overstating the extremism in education within those countries, hence why I excluded most of them. However, I forgot Egypt and Yemen which are still pretty backwards in the rural areas.
Jamahirayyat comes from Jamahiriya, which means ruled by the people, or masses, in the literal Arabic translation. Qaddafi changed the word from the original meaning which started with "jum" instead of "jam." "Jum" means public; "Jam" indicates people, or masses.
(Just for the sake of trivia, when you see the words Juma and Madrassa together, it means public school.)
My point was that the traditional system that is used to teach a majority of Muslims was largely based in memorization in a language spoken by virtually none of the locals. That is a tremendous handicap.
I agree on that point. However, in this day and age, the handicap is reversed - most Muslims have to go for special study to read the Qu'ran because they don't understand the language. Further confusing everything is the fact that there is "formal" Arabic and "informal" Arabic that are so extremely different that you have to be educated in both.
Iran, being Shiite, has an entirely different educational tradition, which still retains some of the reforms made under the Shah.
However, in practice, there is still a great deal of extremism in education in Iran - which is why I mentioned them while missing your point about language.
