The Arabic language (丕賱毓乇亘賷丞 / al-'Arab墨yah) belongs to the Semitic language family and is spoken by over 400 million people as their mother tongue, mainly in the Arab world, which includes North Africa and the Middle East. Arabic is the liturgical language of Islam and has immense cultural and religious significance due to the Koran. It is the official language in 22 countries, from Morocco to Iraq, and includes numerous dialects that vary greatly from region to region, with Standard Arabic (Fus'ha) being used in media, education and official communication. Arabic is known for its complex grammar, its right-to-left script and its rich lexical heritage, which has influenced many terms in other languages, particularly in science, mathematics and philosophy.