Abstract
From the seventh to the eighteenth century, the Arab World has formed a large area regrouping a Muslim population, sharing a common religion and culture. In different parts of the Islamic World, Islam was the bound between the Umma. Since the fourteenth century, the main part of the Arab world had been under the Ottoman domination. The eighteenth century is a turning point in the history of that world. Hourani calls that period "the changing balance of power in the eighteenth century". The Arab World, which had been in expansion from the seventh to the seventeenth century, was not anymore the powerful region it used to be. This century is also the one of the changing of dominant power. The Ottoman domination gave way to the European one. Among European countries, most shared the idea that the strength of a nation was enhanced by the conquest of new territories. The Arab world became a zone of competition between the European powers, which had a lot of influence on the Arab Society. The History of the Arab World is inextricably linked to the domination of a great power, first Ottoman and then European.
