Mobile Wins Arabia

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

The Arab World

Before we dive deeper into Arab slots … What exactly is the Arab world? It usually refers to countries that fall under the so-called Arab League. This is supposed to bring some unity to this rather large area, which officially includes 22 countries. They come up with a fairly broad definition of an “Arab”: “Someone whose mother tongue is Arabic, who lives in an Arab country and has sympathy for Arab ambitions. This way you end up with a whopping 300 million people.

1001 Night & Arabian Slots

When describing the fairytale atmosphere of the Middle East, we often use the term 1001 nights. Where does this actually come from and what exactly does it mean?

The 1001 Nights are various fairy tales which are often gratefully used as inspiration for Arabic slot machines. The most famous is Aladdin, thanks in part to the great Disney movie, of course. Sinbad the Sailor, and Ali Baba and the 40 robbers are also world famous. Several movies and series have been dedicated to them as well. The same goes for Arabic slots logically.

The first stories that fall under 1001 Nights date back to the fifth century, while Aladdin is only a few hundred years old. An interesting detail that we in the West did not get so much of in our childhood is that many stories from 1001 Nights are erotic in nature. Anyway, not so strange of course … that during 1001 Nights sometimes ‘something happens’, so to speak.

The most famous fairy tale: Aladdin and the magic lamp

Aladdin and the genie’s lamp is the most famous story from the 1001 Night series. In it, the thieving wanderer boy Aladdin finds a magic lamp during a treasure hunt ordered by a magician. Inside the lamp is a djinn: a genie. This one fulfills his wishes. When one day he meets a princess, the daughter of the caliph, he immediately falls in love. He conquers her by fulfilling all her father’s demands, which is easy with such a wonder lamp. However, the magician returns and steals the magic lamp. Fortunately, it all works out in the end, thanks in part to the help of the princess.

Arabic Slots starring Alladin

A story familiar to young and old naturally lends itself perfectly to a wide collection of Arabic slots with Aladdin as the hero on the reels. Think of, for example, Aladdin’s Treasure from Pragmatic Play.

Scheherazade: the origin of 1001 nights

In case you are wondering what this “1001 nights” refers to: it is the story of Scheherazade. According to this tale, the Sultan Shahriar is out for revenge against all women after being cheated on by his wife. He kills not only his own wife, but also every new woman he marries – right after they have spent the wedding night. That way he can never be cheated on again. Since he does this every day, the murder rate goes up quite a bit.

Then comes Scheherazade. She wants to marry the sultan of her own accord and so she does. Before they go to sleep, she starts telling him a story with a good cliffhanger. The sultan pardons her, for a day. Until she finishes her story. She does so the next evening. However, she is smart enough to start another story, with just as exciting a cliffhanger. This goes on and on, for 1001 nights. On night 1001, the Sultan is finally cured of his issues, and they live happily ever after.

The Arabic language

The Arabic language is spoken in the Middle East and northern Africa. Not exactly in a handful of countries, by the way: it is currently the language of communication in 23 countries. For example, it is spoken in Somalia, but also in Morocco and Saudi Arabia. However, this is not the same language. The dialects can differ so much that speakers of Arabic from different areas can barely understand each other. This is because the area in which people speak this language is so large. If you already consider regional dialects in the UK have trouble understanding each other, you can understand that one dialect of Arabic is not at all like the other… One advantage of Arabic slots; you don’t have to know the language for it.

Learning Arabic (for Arabic slots)?

Arabic seems to be a difficult language to learn, because of the script that is obviously quite different from most western alphabets. Nevertheless, this language has the advantage of being written quite phonetically. This allows you to master the language fairly quickly, once you understand the writing. This one has 28 letters and thus sounds, which is not too bad. By comparison, Thai also has a very different script, with as many as 44 letters. The disadvantage is that short vowels are sometimes skipped in the text, risking confusion of meaning. Good to know, if you want to learn Arabic, that you will have to learn some new sounds that many languages do not have. That can be tricky for a while! What is nice is that when chants and cries are used in Arabic slots you will understand it immediately.

Islam

A significant part of the Arab world adheres to Islam as a religion. The most important book in Arabic is, of course, the Qur’an, which contains “the word of God. These words came through revelations to The Prophet Muhammad, who lived from the year 571. The Qur’an contains 114 chapters, called surahs.

Important places in Islam are Mecca and Medina, two places where The Prophet lived and received his revelations. Mecca is not only the place where millions of Muslims go on pilgrimage each year, but also the direction to which Muslims worldwide turn when praying. In 622, The Prophet Muhammad settled in Medina. This year is considered the first year in the Islamic era.

Arab Christians and Jews

By the way, it is a misconception that everyone who speaks Arabic is Muslim – and vice versa. Even though it is the original language of the Quran, the largest Islamic country in the world is Indonesia where they speak Bahasa Indonesia. With a touch of Dutch, though, due to their colonial past.

Conversely, not everyone living in the Arabic-speaking region is Muslim. For example, Arab Christians and Arab Jews live here. Not surprising either, because like Islam, Christianity originated in the Middle East.