Introduction to the Arab League

Lebanon’s Riad Bey Solh (2L), Egypt’s Mahmoud Hafmy Nokrashi (4L), Syria’s Jamil Mardam Bey (fore 3R) and Haj Amin El Husseini (fore 2R) attending the first Arab League meeting in 1948.

The Arab World enjoys such unifying factors as common spiritual values, a similar unique history, and a timeless civilization. Geographically, peoples of the Arab world inhabit a region characterized by contiguity and 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.

Parts of the Arab world in modern times have been endowed with energy resources which provide fuel needed to operate modern machines and have become virtually indispensable for the sustenance of everyday life.

Nevertheless, since the dawn of history, the Arab world has passed through successive times of eminence and vulnerability but has, despite all challenges, maintained its demographic harmony, cultural homogeneity, and linguistic oneness. Such factors helped the Arab world formulate its own distinguishing identity among other civilizations.

By the advent of the 19th Century, Arab states had to launch struggle against foreign domination in order to regain freedom and independence. 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.