Transcript 120-10-11-N Africa

Today
• North Africa and Southwest Asia
Culture
Religion
Language
Ethnicity
Ancient lands, new countries
Political problems
© T. M. Whitmore
Last Time
• North Africa and Southwest Asia
Role of the geography (location &
situation) of
Resources and settlement
Populations & demography
© T. M. Whitmore
Religion — A source of
commonality and division
• Islam (Muslim)
Sunni
Shíite
Fundamentalists
• Judaism
• Christianity
© T. M. Whitmore
Arab traders and other empires spread Islam to Turkey and central
Europe, North and East Africa, and Central, South and Southeast Asia.
© T. M. Whitmore
Note the the
presence of
religious
minorities
such as Jews,
Christians,
and
Zoroastrians
and other
Islamic sects
such as
Ibadism and
Wahhabism.
Purple areas
include the
Druze and
Bahai.
Religion is an important part of everyday life throughout the region, more so than in
most other parts of the world.
© Bret Wallach
Language — also a source of
commonality and division
• 4 language groups (several languages)
Semitic languages
 Arabic
 Hebrew
Turkic languages
Persian languages
 Farsi
 Kurdish
Hamitic languages
 in the Sahara
© T. M. Whitmore
Ethnicity
• Arab — what is an Arab?
• Turks
• Kurds
• Saharan groups
• Persians in Iran
© T. M. Whitmore
Kurdish language
Culture – is complex
• Religion
• Language
• Ethnicity
• Lifestyles
© T. M. Whitmore
Ancient Lands — New countries
• “Fertile Crescent”
• Roman empire
• Rise of Islam — 600s-700s AD
• Mongol conquest — Genghis Khan et al. in
•
•
•
•
•
the 1250s
Ottoman empire 1400s - 1920s
European colonial interest
Role of WW I
Between the World Wars
Post WW II
© T. M. Whitmore
Ancient Cities in the Fertile Crescent
Islamic Caliphates 622-750
1154 world map
by Moroccan
Cartographer/
Geographer al-Idrisi
Earliest printed
example of a
classical T & O
map by
Guntherus Ziner,
Augsburg, 1472
Limits to Mongol control ~ 1300
1914 (pre WWI) Colonial Boundaries
1939 (pre WWII) Colonial Boundaries