Major Geographic Qualities of North

Major Geographic Qualities of North

Africa/Southwest Asia

1. North Africa and Southwest Asia were the scene of several of the world’s great ancientcivilizations, based in its river valleys and basins.

The first full civilization emerged by 3500 B.C. in the Tigris-Euphratesvalley in the Middle East. Relatively soon thereafter civilization developedalong the Nile in Egypt, and later spread to other parts of the Middle Eastand one region in Africa. The advent of civilization provided a framework formost of the developments in world history. Additionally, the specific earlycivilizations that arose in the Middle East and Africa had several distinctivefeatures, in political structure and cultural tone, for example. Thesefeatures secured the evolution of these societies until the partial eclipse ofthe river-valley civilizations after about 1000 B.C. The early civilizationsin the Middle East and North Africa served as generators of a number ofseparate and durable civilization traditions, which can still be found incivilizations around the Mediterranean, in parts of Europe, and even acrossthe Atlantic.

Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent

Mesopotamia, meaning “land between rivers,” is located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.Neolithic pottery found there has been dated to before 7000 BCE. Humans in this area urbanized as early as 5000 BCE. People were settling in the Mesopotamia region, building magnificent cities, anddeveloping their sense of human culture. Mesopotamia gave rise to a

Historicalcradle of civilization that included the Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian, and AkkadianEmpires, all established during the Bronze Age (about 3000 BCE or later). Famous cities such as Ur,Babylon, and Nineveh were located in the Mesopotamia region. The control of water and the abilityto grow excess food contributed to their success. The human activity in this area extended around the region all the wayto the Mediterranean Sea, which is where the term Fertile Crescent comes from. Various ancient groups were well established on the eastern side of the Fertile Crescent along the Mediterranean coast. The cities of Tyre and Sidon were ports and access points for trade and commerce for groups like the Phoenicians who traded throughout the Mediterranean. Ancient cities such as Damascus and Jericho became established in the same region and were good examples of early human urbanization during the Bronze Age. These cities are two of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world.

Nile River Civilization

Human civilization also emerged along the Nile River valley of what is now Egypt. The pyramids and the Sphinx in the Giza Plateau just outside Cairo stand testimony to the human endeavors that took place here. Spring flooding of the Nile River brought nutrients and water to the land along the Nile Valley. The land could produce excess food, which subsequently led to the ability to support a structured, urbanized civilization. The Nile River is the lifeblood of the region. In the fifth century BCE, the ancient Greek historian Herodotus suggested that Egypt was “the gift of the Nile.” The dating for the beginning of the civilization along the Nile River is often in question, but Egyptologists estimate the first dynasty ruled both Upper and Lower Egypt around 3100 BCE. Upper Egypt is in the south and Lower Egypt is in the north because the Nile River flows north. The terms “Upper” and “Lower” refer to elevation. Geologists, using the erosion patterns of the Sphinx, estimate that it was constructed about 10,000 BCE.

2. From this realm’s culture hearths diffused ideas, innovations, and technologies that changed the world.

As the remarkable civilizations emerged within the regions of North Africa and Southwest Asia, ideas, innovations and technologies also sprang up.

In the Mesopotamian civilization, they were able to develop extensive irrigation systems. Large grain storage units were necessary to provide the civic structure and to develop a military to protect and serve the city or empire.

Also, along the Nile River, the ability of humans to harness the potential of the environment set the stage for technological advancements that continue to this day. The Egyptian civilization flourished for thousands of years and spawned a legacy that influenced their neighbors in the region, who benefited from their advancements.

The human activities that created the civilizations in Mesopotamia and along Egypt’s Nile River gave humanity a rich heritage to help us understand our history. Many of our legends, stories, and myths have their origins in these cultures. One example of a Sumerian myth is “Gilgamesh and the Netherworld”. It assumes that the gods and the universe already exist and that once a long time ago the heavens and earth were united, only later to be split apart. Later, human kind was created and the great gods divided up the job of managing and keeping control over heavens, earth and the Netherworld. (Spar, 2009)

The cultural developments of these civilizations provided the basis for much of the Western world’s religious beliefs and early philosophical ideas. The engineering feats needed to create the magnificent temples and pyramids have by themselves been studied and analyzed over the centuries to give modern scientists and scholars a reason to pause and recognize the high level of organization and structure that must have gone into developing and managing these civilizations.

Various aspects of science and the arts were being developed by these ancient people. Writing, mathematics, engineering, and astronomy were becoming highly advanced. Artifacts such as clay tablets and hieroglyphs are still being discovered and interpreted and shed additional light on the advancements of these civilizations and their contribution to our collective human civilization.

Furthermore, water is very important within this realm, thus, the people were able to innovate ways on how to acquire their needed supply. They were able to drill and dug water sources and built aquifers and dams to store water and in the case of the Nile river to prevent flood from destroying the communities and their plants.

In the Middle East after 4000 B.C, emerged the invention of writing. Some historians and anthropologists urge againstfocusing too much on the development of writing, because concentrating only onthis aspect, albeit important, can leave out some civilizations, such as thecivilization of the Incas in the Andes region of South America that producedsignificant political forms without this intellectual tool. We now appreciatethe sophistication societies can attain without writing, and rate the divisionof early human activities between hunting and gathering and agriculture asmore fundamental than the invention of writing.

3. The North Africa/Southwest Asia realm is the source of three world religions: Judaism,

Christianity, and Islam.

Figure 8.9 Traditional Succession of the Three Main Monotheistic Religions of the Middle East:

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

It’s important to keep in mind that monotheist belief was not new: Christianity had been around for more than six hundred years. Judaism and Zoroastrianism in Persia had been around for centuries before Christianity. The principles of Islam and Muhammad’s teachings are a continuation of Judaism and Christianity. All three traditions assert a faith in a divine creator, with important messages coming through prophets or holy messengers. All three religions acknowledge Abraham as a founding patriarch. Muslims believe that Moses and Jesus were Major Prophets and that Muhammad was the greatest and final prophet. All three religions have stories about creation, Adam and Eve, the flood, and other similar stories that have been adapted to the traditions and characters of each religion.

Religion is a part of culture. The religions that emerged out of the Middle East absorbed many of the existing cultural traits, traditions, or habits of the people into their religious practices. Early Islam adapted many Arab cultural traits, styles of dress, foods, and the pilgrimage and folded them into its principles. Early Christianity and Judaism also adopted cultural traits, holidays, styles of dress, and cultural traditions.

The early religions of this region were based on a belief in many gods linked to natural phenomena, but several thousand years ago, monotheistic belief systems emerged; those based on one god. Thus, the region is the birthplace of three major world religions: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

Judaism:This religion was founded approximately 2000 years ago. According to their tradition Judaism was begun by the patriarch Abraham, who led his followers from Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) to the shores of the eastern Mediterranean, the modern Israel and Palestine (Pulsipher, L.M., and Pulsipher, A. (2008).Jewish religious history is recorded in the Torah (the Old Testament of the Bible) and is characterized by the belief in one God, Yaweh. After the Jews rebelled against the Roman Empire at the Masad fortress on the Dead Sea in A.D. 73, they were expelled from the Eastern Mediterranean and migrated to other lands (Pulsipher, et. Al, 2006). This movement is known as the Diaspora (the dispersion of an originally homogenous people). Many Jews moved to North Africa, Iberian Peninsula, Eastern and Central Europe, to some parts of Asia and to Americas. These Jews fled to various parts of the world experienced ruthless discrimination especially in Eastern Europe, where villagers were murdered in pogroms (episodes of ethnic cleansing). This oppression culminated in the Nazi era before and during World War II, when more than 6 million Jews across Europe were rounded up, imprisoned, made to work as slaves, and eventually killed in gas chambers in what has become to be known as the Holocaust (Pulsipher, L.M., and Pulsipher, A. (2008).People left in the eastern Mediterranean converted to Islam shortly after the Prophet Muhammad founded the religion around A.D. 622.

Christianity:This religion is based on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew, who gathered followers in the area of Palestine about 2000 years ago. Jesus whom is also known as Christ, taught that there is only one God, whose relationship to the humans is one through love and support, but who will judge those who do evil. After his execution in about A.D. 32, his teachings spread and became known as Christianity. By A.D. 400, Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire (Pulsipher, L.M., and Pulsipher, A. (2008).

In A.D. 1054, Christianity split into the Western tradition associated with Rome and Eastern, or Orthodox, tradition headquartered in Constantinople (Istanbul). Christianity in its various forms gained its strongest foothold in Europe and Orthodox Christianity was introduced by Greeks to Russia. However, with the spread of Islam after A.D. 622, Christianity only remained in the Eastern Mediterranean, in North Africa and elsewhere in Asia. During the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, European Christians launched several military ventures known as the Crusades to retake what they regarded as the Holy Land (Eastern Mediterranean) from the Muslims. Christianity was later spread through European colonization and missionary activity to the Americas, and parts of Africa and Asia.

Islam:This is now the dominant religion in North Africa and Southwest Asia. Islam emerged in the 7th century when the archangel Gabriel revealed the principle of the religion to the Prophet Muhammad. This is according to their book the Qur'an (Koran). The followers of Islam are called Muslims, and they believe in one God referred to as Allah. The interpretations vary widely among the separate countries and from individual to individual. This religion birthed in Jerusalem where it is believed that Muhammad to have ascended into heaven. (Pulsipher, L.M., and Pulsipher, A. (2008).

All these three religions have always been in conflict with each other considering that important events in all these three religions occurred in Jerusalem. Additionally, all these want to control the city because they consider the same places as holy then they fight over them.

4. Islam, the last of the major religions to arise in this realm, transformed, unified, andenergized a vast domain extending from Europe to Southeast Asia and from Russia to East

Africa.

One characteristic that brands the region is the emergence of the majority of Muslim believers. Today, Jews and Christians are only a small percentage of the population in the region, but followers of these two religions want to protect places they believe to be holy or sacred so they follow and sometimes get involved in what is going on inNorth Africa/Southwest Asia.(The Geoverse, 2010).

Muslim acts as more than just a religion. It also serves as a strong cultural force that has historically unified or divided people. The divisive nature of the religion has often resulted in serious political confrontations within the realm between groups of different Islamic ideologies. Concurrently, the religion of Islam is also a unifying force that brings Muslims with similar beliefs together with common bonds. Islam provides structure and consistency in daily life. The faith can provide comfort and a way of living. The holy cities of Mecca and Medina are located in Saudi Arabia. Other holy cities for other divisions of Islam include Jerusalem and the two cities holy to Shia Muslims: Karbala and Najaf in Iraq. Islam dominates the realm, but other religions are significant in various regions. Israel is a Jewish state, and Christianity is common in places from Lebanon to Egypt. There are also followers of the Baha’i faith, Zoroastrianism, and groups such as the Druze, just to name a few.

The Spread of Islam. Located in the mountains of western Saudi Arabia, the city ofMecca(also spelled Makkah) began as an early trade center for the region and a hub for camel caravans trading throughout Southwest Asia and North Africa. According to Islamic tradition, the patriarch Abraham came to Mecca with his Egyptian wife Hagar and their son Ishmael more than two thousand years before the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (born 571 CE

The nomads of the Arabian Peninsula were among the first group of people to convert to Islam. They were already spreading the faith and creating Islamic influence by the time of Muhammad’s death. The next century was described as Islamic armies’ extension (Arab-Islamic Empire) over most of Southwest Asia through Iran, North Africa and then Spain. The empire continued to penetrate and started the link between the government and religion (Islam). Thus, the government was administered by Islamic rules particularly on system of laws and policy. On the other hand, Muslim scholars traveled extensively throughout Asia and Africa. Arab traders linked many parts of Asia such as China, Philippines, Indonesia, Burma and India with the Mediterranean. By the tenth century, people throughout the Arab-Islamic empire’s former territories had gradually converted to Islam and many embraced the Arabic language (Pulsipher, L.M., and Pulsipher, A. (2008).

Another significant event happened that strengthen the Islam religion is the establishment of the Ottoman Empire (known as the greatest Islamic empire the world has ever known). By the 15th century, the Ottoman Muslims had defeated the Christian Byzantine Empire (successor to the Roman Empire) and taken over its capital, Constantinople, which they renamed Istanbul. Furthermore, the Ottomans controlled most of the eastern Mediterranean, Egypt and Mesopotamia. By the late 1400s, they extended their control of the southern and central Europe. During the empire’s (Ottoman) struggle against the Byzantine Empire, Islamic faith were carried from Spain in the east, down to North Africa, In Turkey and Southeastern Europe and across Central Asia to the Indus Valley and Northern India. Muslim traders carried the Islamic faith across Central Asia to Western China and by sea to Indonesia, Malaysia and to Southern Philippines.

Unification, Innovation and Transformation of the Realm through Islam. It is undeniable that Islam partook a key function in the transformation and unification of the realm and left so much impact to the rest of the world. Its (Islam) impact is very evident on the political aspect of the realm. Basically, the political system is governed or guided by their religion. Most of the religious beliefs were incorporated in their policies. Thus, religion and politics coexist with each other which resulted to a harmonious and unified realm.

As Muslim disperse to several parts of the realm, people started to educate and innovate improvements that would serve as their contribution to the rest of the world. They made important contributions in the fields of history, mathematics, geography, medicine and other academic disciplines that prospered in Alexandria, Baghdad, Damascus, Fez and Toledo in Spain. This led to the financial development of Islam societies such as banks, trusts, checks and receipts. From India, Muslims adapted the mathematical concept of zero, advancing trade, record keeping and scientific knowledge in the region. Islamic medicine drew a variety of traditions that had their origins from China to West Africa. Islamic medical practices such as medical record keeping and regular review of physicians.

5. Drought and unreliable precipitation dominate natural environments in this realm.Population clusters exist where water supply is adequate to marginal.