GEO1000 TEST 4 MIDDLE EAST AFRICA ISRAEL MIDDLE EAST In 1 000 B C One night a young Shepard was gazing at the stars in modern day Saudi Arabia when he saw a giant flaming meteor heading towards the earth This massive black rock believed to be sent down by a greater power This black rock began the major site of religious pilgrimage and worship for every individual This created the practice of religion This became known as the Kabba and this land became known as Mecca KEY Oceans Seas Rivers Canals Straits Estuaries Mountains Landscapes Valleys Plains Archipelagos Deserts Plateaus Cities Capitals Important locations Ethics Religion Culture Kabba In Mecca Built by Abraham to sacrifice his son Giant Black Slab Hashen o Sheriff to Mecca o Takes care of Kabba Mohammad o To submit means Islam o One who submits means Muslim o People didn t believe God talked to Mohammad like he prophesized so he was driven out of Mecca to Medina o In Medina he creates the Quran the religious text of Islam o Still receives messages from God Five Pillars of Islam 1 The saying There is only one God 2 Pray five times a day 3 Alms 20 to charity 4 Fast During the Holy Month of Ramadan 5 Pilgrimage To the Kabba in Mecca Leader and Succession in Islam Mohammad dies in 632 AD Leaves no son a successor Ali o Mohammad s cousin o Next male heir Sunni o The majority o Rejected the succession of Ali o Believed successor should be chosen by the Majority Shia o The minority o Insisted Ali become succession o Shia believed successor should be related to Mohammad Sunni vs Shia o This creates a divide o Shia do not like the U S MIDDLE EAST Social Construction Five stans Turkey Africa o Stan means land of o Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Uzbekistan Turkmenistan Named after the people that inhabit them Unbroken land o No natural borders Common geomorphology o Land looks the same Common political unit Common history Common Climate o Rarely rains Common culture o Islam o Alphabet Arabic o Philosophy o Great sense of Tribalism Economics o Rentier states But not always the same language o One expansive empire French English drew borders Resources they can sell Ex Oil o Resources Oil Phosphate strategic location Ex Turkey US Military Israel Strategic Rent Egypt Suez Canal Colonialism o Every country was a colony of England Conflict with the West o Jesus Jihad a k a The Crusades Common Enemy o Israel o Western Colonialism The French and English drew the boundaries Gulf Cooperation Council GCC Kuwait Qatar U A E Oman Saldaya Bahrain Yemen Gets a good amount of rain strong agriculture Weak central government Intensely Tribal Sanaa Aden o Ancient city walled city o Home of the first skyscrapers o Great Seaport o Bab el mandeb and the port of Africa o British city 25 Kuwait 70 foreign workers Kuwait City Kuwait Bahrain Archipelago Oil ran out Now banking center and oil refinery from Saudi Arabia Manama o Fleet of U S here 85 Shia Muslim 15 Sunni Muslim Shia majority population that is underclass that are poor Want equality which the U S does not favor Qatar 90 desert Doha o 95 of people in Qatar live there o 70 not Qatarian Al Jazeera created by liberal Emir of Qatar a Muslim fundamentalist sympathetic of U S Saudi Arabia Mecca Medina Jeddah o Where Muhammad created the Quran o Primary access point o Oldest city Riyadh The Empty Quarter Rub Al Khali Desert o One of the Largest deserts in the World East side of Saudi Arabia Along the Persian gulf o 40 of world s oil Afghanistan Graveyard of Empires Kandahar o Headquarters of the Pashtuns Devotees of the Sunni Muslims In the Middle East Not South Asia Patriarchal family and tribe much more important than Home of Sunni and Shia Most country covered by mountains country Kabul Shite Descendents of Mongols Many different tribes Pashtuns Tajiks Hazaras Uzbeks Khyber Pass next to Kabul The U S used a mobilization of Muslims to fight Russians in Afghanistan to defeat communism Hindu Kush Mountains o Between central Afghanistan and Northern Pakistan Khyber Pass Tajikistan Mostly Mountains o Tien Shen Very poor o People mostly Kazik but huge Russian population o Russia wanted to split up Kazakhstan instead Kazakhstan agreed to give them Astana o Biggest export is gold Dushanbe Kyrgyzstan Kazakhstan Bishkek Mostly Steppe Tien Shen mountains along border Country is very rich in resources o Oil Gold Natural gases Minerals Potential for great wealth Astana Almaty o Primeape city o Business center o Along Tien Shen Aral Sea o Filled by Amu Darya River o High degree of salt o 25 the size of what it was o Chemically polluted Baikonur Cosmodrome o Only place to launch space shuttles o Russia s number one space launch cite Turkey Bosporus Strait o Key Navigational Chokepoint Istanbul Ankara o On both sides of the Bosporus Strait o Sits on Anatolian Plateau o Bunnies cats and cloth Mount Ararat o Noah Oil Pipeline of Azerbaijan o Location where oil Pipeline of Azerbaijan and oil Oil Pipeline of Iraq Adana pipeline of Iraq o U S military here o Major Seaport Iraq 1923 Northern part of Iraq Kurdish Valley at the bottom of the plateau of Iran Tigris and Euphrates make the valley o Together they make an estuary called the shatt al Arab o There is LOTS of oil here o Western Europeans created Iraq Because of oil 1923 Deposits Kurds o Considered a minority everywhere they live Russia Iraq Iran o Kurds argue for a country to call their own o Kurds are Sunni Muslims Mosul Kirkuk o City of Nineveh o Arabic s and Kurds live here o Mostly Kurdish o Oil capital of Northern Iraq Baghdad o All racial groups o On Tigris river Basra o Mostly Shi a Arab o Very old and poor o Largest seaport Iran North of Persian Gulf Accompanied with U A E Saudi Arabia and Kuwait obtains half the worlds oil Iranian Plateau also known as the Persian Plateau Iranian Turkish Plateau dominated most of the Middle East o Iranian Plateau Persian Plateau Turkish Plateau Anatolia Problems o Tremendously split by race and religion o Kurds vs Sunni Arab vs Shi a Arab o 1950 Iraq elected democratic Mohammad Mosaddegh He nationalized British and United States Petroleum oil returning Iran s oil to its people Britain and the U S Engineered a Coue de taw to depose Mosaddegh and empower Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi He began a campaign to westernize Iran o 1953 o 1979 People of Iran overthrew the Shaw Exiled Ayatollah Khomeini becomes leader Iranian Plateau o Close racial relatives of the Russians They are Aryan fair skin American Swedish Big country with