[krick]

It really isn't fair to compare Cyrillic script with Arabic. Cyrillic is basically the same script as Latin, even characters are alike. Hell, even something like Japanese hiragana is pretty much the same stuff as Latin alphabet, even though it looks nothing like that and is built upon syllables, not letters. And hence it is a bit harder to learn, but not by much.

However Arabic script is a whole different thing. It has a whole lot of diacritics, characters change their shape depending on the position within a word, characters are notably less distinctive for an unaccustomed European than Latin letters, Cyrillic letters, hiragana or runes.