Ethnic Group: Group of People Whose Members Identify with Each Other, Through a Common

Ethnic Group: group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage or tradition

Culture group:is a self-defined group of people who share a commonality; example in deaf culture, hip-hop crowd

Religious group: people who share in common a religion; ex: Christians, Hindus, Judaism, Muslim, etc…

Theocracy: government where a religious ruler has power; ex: Ayatollah of Iran

Scarcity: insufficient resources to fulfill wants and needs of a society; ex: water in a desert

Oasis:a fertile or green area with water, such as a well, or a pond filled by an aquifer in an arid region like a desert

Arid:excessively dry area having insufficient rainfall to support agriculture

Arable:land fit for or used for growing food crops

Arab:member of an Arabic-speaking people of the Arabian Peninsula(ethnic group)

Persian:member of ancient Iranian descent(ethnic group)

Kurd:member of a pastoral and agricultural people who inhabit a plateau region in adjoining parts of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, and Azerbaijan(ethnic group)

Abundance:an ample quantity, large amount of a resource; ex: petroleum (oil)

Petroleum: oil

Monotheistic: belief in one God

Polytheistic: belief or worship in more than one God

Judaism: religion developed by the Hebrews with belief in one monotheistic God who revealed himself to Abraham, Moses and the Hebrew prophets; Jewish culture

Islam:religious faith of Muslims including belief in Allah as one, monotheistic God and in Muhammad as his prophet

Christianity:religion derived from Jesus

Muslim: person who practices the Islam as their religion

Torah: holy text of Judaism; Jews

Bible: holy text of Christians

Quran or Koran: holy text of Islam; Muslims

Sunni:the Muslims of the branch of Islam that follows the orthodox tradition and acknowledges the first four caliphs as rightful successors of Muhammad

Shia:the Muslims of the branch of Islam that believe Ali and the bloodline of Muhammad are the rightful leaders of the Islamic faith

Literacy rate: the rate at which people can read and write

Standard of Living: a measure of quality of life

Muhammad: prophet of Allah; received the word of God for the Islamic faith

Jesus:Jewish religious teacher whose life, death, and resurrection as reported by the Evangelists are the basis of the Christian message of salvation

Abraham: Hebrew leader that began to believe in one God (monotheism), father to Ishmael and Isaac

Caliph:title used by rulers of the Muslim community until 1924

Caliphate:the office of the Caliph

Prophet:one who tells divinely inspired revelations

Anti-Semitism: isprejudice against or hostility towards Jews

Zionism:The Jews moving to all parts of the world to Israel to claim their “Promised Land”.

Balfour Declaration:The British promised the Jews that lived across Europe that if they fought on Britain’s side during WWI then Britain would establish a state for them. Didn’t fulfill their promise until after WWII!