WEST ASIA AND ARAB WORLD SINCE 1919: Why the Middle East is so important? ( Assignment by Aqeel Ahmad)

  

WEST ASIA AND ARAB WORLD SINCE 1919 ( Assignment by Aqeel Ahmad)

International Relations

• Table of Contents
• Why the Middle East is so important?
• Middle East Facts
• Sykes-Picot Agreement
• The Ottoman Empire in the Post-Tanzimat Period and World War I by Ellen Lust
• The decline of Ottoman Empire

Why the Middle East is so important?

                 The Middle East is the birthplace of three major religions and civilizations. It comprises many countries inhabited by various ethnic groups. The region is widely known for its rich Islamic culture vast reserves of crude oil other monarchs, ongoing constitutional reforms, conflicts, and other various reasons. The Middle East is a large and diverse transcontinental region spread across Northeastern Africa. And west of Asia Middle East is not a continent it is a term used to describe a geographical region. This term was originally used by the British India office in the mid-19th century. later It came as a replacement for the term Near East at the beginning of the 20th century. The Middle East region consists of several small and major countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Cyprus, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, Yemen, and Egypt. Among all Saudi Arabia is the biggest country in size and Bahrain is the smallest these all countries are Muslim majority except Israel, which is the only Jewish State on the present world map. Pakistan Afghanistan North African countries and other Central Asian countries are also sometimes included in the greater middle east region. The greater Middle East term was first used during Second Bush Administration in the first decade of the 21st Century. Almost every country in the Middle East has got access to the Sea. The Mediterranean Sea lies to the West bordered by turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the Gaza Strip of Palestine, and Egypt. The Red Sea lies to the Southwest bordered by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. The Arabian Sea is to the southeast border Alone by Oman. There are several other Bodies that separate and connect land areas. The Persian Gulf alone connects many countries, especially the Arab States. The UAE is at the juncture of the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf of Aden lies to the south of Oman, while the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, is at the juncture of the gulf for the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aqaba. Countries like Jordan and Iraq look Landlocked, but they are not they have little access to the Sea through small strips of land. Suez Canal between the Mainland and Sinai Peninsula of Egypt and the state of Hurmuz are one of the most important shipping routes in the world. Most of the areas of the Middle East are covered by hot deserts. Therefore, the climate is generally hot and arid. Although Winters are mild with little rain therefore the majority of its population relies on several major rivers providing irrigation to support limited areas like the Nile Delta in Egypt River Jordan the Tigris and Euphrates watersheds of Mesopotamia. There are very few lakes and rivers in Arabian Peninsula. For Water Resources They are mostly dependent on riverbeds known as Wadies, these which are dry except rainy season. The Middle East is home to various large ethnic groups like Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azeris. Other indigenous minority ethnic groups include Jews, Assyrians, Armenians, Baluch, and many more. industrialization attracted many other ethnic groups in the region among these migrant populations are Indians, Pakistani Chinese, Filipino, Indonesians, and sub-Saharan Africans. The population of the Middle East mainly follows three major religions that are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam these three religions originated from the Middle East among these or Judaism was first which is still being practiced by the Jewish people of Israel Christianity came second, and makeup 10 to 15 percent of the population in the Middle East. While Islam dominates the region thus World's major Muslim population is mainly concentrated here.

                   The economy of the Middle East is mainly based on crude oil produced in the region. Most of the countries that border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of crude oil. These countries are Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Iraq, and Yemen. All these countries, except Iran, Iraq, and Yemen, are part of the GCC. It stands for the Gulf Cooperation Council. The GCC is a regional inter-governmental political and economic union. It has its headquarters in Saudi Arabia, and all current members of the GCC are Arab state monarchs. Qatar Kuwait and Bahrain are constitutional monarchies, while Saudi Arabia and Oman are absolute monarchies. And the UAE was a federal monarchy before the GCC was formed in 1981. The term "Khaleej" was used to refer to the Arab-speaking inhabitants of Eastern Arabia by the police. Khaleej is Arabic for "descendant of goat dwellers and fish eaters." 2011, Saudi Arabia proposed transforming the GCC into a Gulf Union like the European Union, but this union is here to become a reality. The Gulf Union's move was to counterbalance non-Arab Shiite Iran's influence in the region. This was not the first time one Middle Eastern state attempted to exert influence over another. The history of the Middle East is full of such wars and conflicts. The Middle East has not been an easy place. The region has been a long time under the grip of Islamic extremism, political turnover, faltering oil prices, and sectarian issues since the Arab Spring. Most of the countries in the region are unstable and every country in the region has an alliance with some other foreign country. Thus, too many global powers are actively involved in maintaining the balance of power in the region. These global powers also have their own economic interest in the region because any kind of turmoil in the Middle East, especially in the oil-producing countries, could lead to a gas and oil crisis, which would eventually have effects on the entire world. And this was seen during the Gulf War. Countries in the Middle East are the biggest producers and exporters of oil in OPEC. OPEC stands for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. It is an intergovernmental organization of 13 countries whose sounds are impacted by the first five members: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, with its headquarters based in Vienna, in 1965, the Persian Gulf countries in the Middle East produced 28% of the world's total oil supply. Saudi Arabia is the second-largest oil producer in the world. 

• Iraq is the 4th
• Iran is 6th.
• The UAE is ranked eighth.
• Kuwait is the 9th
• Oman is the 17th

The Middle East region is crucial for the world economy. because of the large volumes of oil and gas flowing through it. The Strait of Hurmuz in the Middle East, located between Oman and Iran, is the most important oil transit channel in the world. It is a narrow passage at the entrance to the Persian Gulf that hosts a daily caravan of oil tankers that transport roughly a third of the world's oil shipments, more than 85% of crude oil that moves. The world's economy is set to be affected by the closure of the Strait of Malacca. OPEC countries like Iran, the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar entirely rely on the Strait of Hurmuz for oil shipment. Saudi Arabia's oil reserves are the second largest in the world, and Saudi Arabia is the world's leading oil exporter and second-largest producer. Saudi It mainly transports its crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz. It also has an alternative pipeline route known as the Petro-line or East-West pipeline. This 1170-kilometer pipeline is a crucial infrastructure project for the transportation of Saudi oil from the east of the country to the west at the Port of Yanbu near the Red Sea for export to Europe and North Africa through the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal and the SUMED pipeline are the most important routes for the transportation of oil and natural gas shipments to Europe and North Africa. In 2013, these two roots accounted for about 8 percent of the world's seaborne oil trade.      

Middle East Facts

         To build awareness of Middle East history and culture, and to foster a more welcoming environment for ISU’s international students from the region, students in HIST 3354 Modern Middle East compiled a list of facts about the region, which was circulated around campus. The project received early coverage in the Idaho State Journal. Below are some of the facts they compiled. The project showcased student knowledge but also showed how students used this knowledge to contribute to community-wide discussions about Middle Eastern students on campus.

1. A variety of countries make up the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

2. Widely spoken languages in the Middle East and North Africa include Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Berber, Kurdish, French, and English.

3. The Middle East has been referred to as the crossroads of the world? because it connects the three continents of Asia, Africa, and Europe.

4. The majority of Muslims do not live in the Middle East. More Muslims live in South Asia than in the Middle East and North Africa combined.

5. The country with the world’s largest Muslim population is Indonesia, which is in South Asia, not the Middle East.

6. Roughly 60% of the population in the Middle East is under 25 years old.

7. The term “Arab” generally refers to people who speak Arabic as their first language.

8. The majority of Arabs are Muslims, but the majority of Muslims are not Arabs.

9. The words Islam and Muslim are derived from the Arabic word salaam, which means peace.

10. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are the three largest monotheistic and Abrahamic religions in the world, each of which originates in the Middle East.

11. The Islamic calendar is based on lunar cycles, unlike the Gregorian and other calendars that are based on the Earth’s rotation around the sun.

12. The Arabic language uses the same punctuation marks as English, but some of them are inverted or reversed.

13. Arabic is the most commonly spoken language in the Middle East. It is the official language of more than 20 countries and is spoken by approximately 300 million people worldwide.

14. Sunni Muslims make up roughly 85% - 90% of the global Muslim population and 60% of the population in the Middle East.

15. The global population of Muslims is approximately 1.6 billion people, roughly 23% of the world’s population.

16. The term “mocha” is derived from the city of Mocha in Yemen, where coffee production was commercialized by the year 1400.

17. In 1997, three men from Yemen tried to sue NASA for trespassing on Mars, claiming they had inherited it from their ancestors 3,000 years ago.

18. Arabic is the world’s 5th most widely spoken language after Chinese, Spanish, English, and Hindi.

19. Some of the world’s oldest civilizations were connected with parts of today’s the Middle East. These include the Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian, and Babylonian civilizations.

20. Three of the seven wonders of the ancient world are in the Middle East: The Great Pyramid of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria.

21. Cairo, Egypt is the largest city in the Middle East with a population of roughly 16 million.

22. The world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is 2,717 feet tall and the second tallest building is the Royal Clock Tower Hotel in Mecca, which is 1,972 feet tall.

23. The five pillars of Islam are prayer, pilgrimage to Mecca, the profession of faith, fasting, and almsgiving.

24. The Prophet Muhammed had four daughters and three sons. Each of these children died before Muhammad, except Fatimah.

25. There are no permanent rivers in Saudi Arabia, but the country does have permanently or intermittently dry riverbeds, which are called wadis.

26. Ibn al-Haytham, the eleventh-century Middle Eastern scientist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher, wrote a seven-volume book on optics and is widely considered to be one of the world's first theoretical physicists.

27. Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, the eleventh-century Middle Eastern scholar, explained the lunar eclipse six centuries prior to Galileo.

28. Ibn Bajjah, the twelfth-century Middle Eastern scholar, proposed an early version of Newton’s third law of motion, which states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

29. Psychiatric hospitals were first constructed in Baghdad and Cairo in the 8th and 9th centuries CE.

30. Tulips were cultivated by the Ottomans and exported to Europe in the early modern period, resulting in “tulip mania” in which tulip bulbs were bought and sold at exorbitant prices, especially in the Netherlands.

31. Coffee houses were first popularized in the capital city of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul, in the sixteenth century.

32. Many English words are derived from Arabic, especially words that relate to science, which indicates that Europeans heavily borrowed from Middle Eastern scientists in the Middle Ages. Borrowed words include alcohol, algebra, alkali, almanac, amalgam, chemistry, elixir, lemon, magazine, sodium, zero, tobacco, guitar, and traffic.

33. Middle Eastern scientists in the Middle Ages made great contributions to science and launched entirely new fields of study, especially in algebra, chemistry, medicine, trigonometry, optics, and astronomy.

34. The shopping mall is a derivative of the pre-modern bazaar, which flourished in the Middle East. Currently, the largest shopping mall in the world is in Dubai, which includes the major international fashion labels.

35. The domestication of cats traces its history back to the Middle East. Archeologists have discovered evidence of cat domestication in Turkey in the sixth millennium BCE.

36. Sufism refers to the inner mystical dimension of Islam as well as the social organization of Muslims into brotherhoods or orders.

37. The Hadith is a collection of the reports attributed to the actions and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad. After the Quran, Hadith reports are the most authoritative source of knowledge and authority for Muslims.

38. Lebanon’s mountainous geography and Mediterranean coastline make it possible to ski in the morning and visit the beach in the afternoon.

39. The popularity of Kentucky Fried Chicken in Gaza, Palestine is evidenced by the fact that some people smuggle it (along with many other goods) through tunnels from Egypt.

40. The United Arab Emirates is attempting to build one of the first zero-carbon cities, Masdar City, with driverless electric cars and a university that will specialize in green technology.

41. Immigrants make up roughly 90% of the population in the United Arab Emirates, most of whom are migrant workers.

42. The Majlis al-Jinn (Congress of the Spirits) cave in Oman is one of the top 10 largest caves in the world.

43. The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have very low crime rates, lower than Germany, the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia, or New Zealand.

44. One of the best-preserved Roman temples in the world is in Lebanon, in the Phoenician city of Baalbek, referred to as Heliopolis during the Hellenistic period.

45. Bayt al-Hikma (House of Wisdom?), established in ninth-century Baghdad, contained one of the largest libraries in the world and the first observatory in the Islamic world.

46. The first mosque in the United States is known as the “Mother Mosque of America” or” The Rose of Fraternity Lodge,” and was built in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1934.

47. Major bodies of water in or bordering the Middle East include the Amu Darya River, Nile River, Tigris River, Euphrates River, Jordan River, Lake Van, Lake Urmia, Suez Canal, Mediterranean Sea, Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf, Black Sea, Dead Sea, and the Red Sea.

48. Major cities in the Middle East include Damascus, Syria; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Istanbul, Turkey; Baghdad, Iraq; Tehran, Iran; Tel Aviv, Israel; Amman, Jordan; Kuwait City, Kuwait; Sanaa, Yemen; Dubai, UAE; Gaza, Palestine; and Beirut, Lebanon.

49. The Middle East and North Africa include diverse geographical features, such as the Zagros Mountains, Hindu Kush Mountains, Rub al-Khali Desert, the Sahara Desert, Anatolian Plateau, Kara Kum Desert, and the Taurus Mountains, and the Atlas Mountains.

50. The Dead Sea Depression is the lowest point on Earth (roughly 415 meters below sea level), and includes the Dead Sea, Sea of Galilee, Jordan River, cultivated land, and settled communities.

51. The harp, lyre, zither, drum, and tambourine were all developed in the Middle East.

52. Ghawar is the largest oil field in the world. Along with Safaniya (the world’s third-largest oil field and largest offshore oil field), Ghawar has allowed Saudi Arabia to produce more oil than any other country.

53. Iran is the first country in the Middle East where oil was discovered, in 1908. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (later rebranded as British Petroleum, or BP) was formed in 1909, and the British government became its largest stakeholder in 1914.

54. 4.3% of the land in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is farmable.

55. Thomas Jefferson acquired a copy of the Quran eleven years before writing the Declaration of Independence and later obtained countless books about Middle Eastern history, languages, and Islam.

56. Copts are the largest population of Christians in the Middle East, who speak Arabic and live primarily in Egypt and surrounding countries.

57. The Middle East is composed of people from many ethnicities, including Arabs, Persians, Turks, Kurds, and Armenians.

58. According to per capita income, Qatar is one of the richest countries in the world with a per capita GDP of nearly US $10,000.

59. Idaho State University offers a student exchange program through Al Akhawayn University in Morocco.

60. Originally Muslims faced Jerusalem when they prayed, but Muhammad later changed the direction of prayer to Mecca, where Muslims are encouraged to go for pilgrimage (hajj) at least once in their life.

Similar to Catholicism and Protestantism in Christianity, Islam has two major sects: Shi’ism and Sunnism. The two Muslim sects developed after Muhammad’s death as a power struggle over who would become the Prophet's successor.

 Sykes-Picot Agreement

      In 1916, during the First World War, the British and French entered into a secret agreement known as the Sykes-Picot agreement. They decided to secretly carve the Middle East into Spheres of influence. Most of the boundaries of the modern Middle East are the creation of the agreement and many believe the chaos and instability in the region are because of the agreement signed over hundred years ago.

The Ottoman Empire in the Post-Tanzimat Period and World War I by Ellen Lust

     The map of the Middle East was completely redrawn as a result of World War I. The only prewar border in the region that remained essentially unchanged was that between Iran and what became the Turkish Republic. These changes had extraordinary effects on the region’s entire population, upsetting centuries of commercial, social, political, and cultural ties. The effects of these wholesale changes still reverberate nearly a century later. The twentieth century began with the Ottoman state facing a multitude of external and internal problems, including dissent throughout the provinces and among reformers unhappy with the absolutist rule of Abdülhamid II. The reformers believed that Abdülhamid II had moved the Ottoman state backward by suspending the constitution in 1878 and by using religious rhetoric to prop up his authority. He was deposed in 1908 by a group of reformers known as the Young Turks in a revolt that started as a military insurrection in the Balkans and eventually moved to Istanbul.19 After the coup, power moved from the older Ottoman institutions to the newly formed Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) that the Young Turks established. Across the Ottoman Empire’s ethnic and religious communities, groups of new leaders modeled on the Young Turks replaced the traditional leaderships. The new leaders did not possess the same allegiance to the Ottoman state and its institutions like the traditional elite. The stage was set for the rise of nationalist movements throughout the empire. The end of the nineteenth century also saw a shift in the British attitude toward the Ottomans. Throughout the nineteenth century, Britain had viewed the empire as a strategic asset because it acted as a buffer between the Mediterranean and the Russians, whom the British viewed as their most immediate threat. The only ports the Russians could use year-round were in the Black Sea, and this required them to pass through Ottoman-controlled sea-lanes

The decline of the Ottoman Empire

                     The Ottoman Empire was one of the longest-lasting empires in modern history spanning from 1299 ce2 1922. But after its meteoric rise throughout Europe spreading Islam and Bridging the eastern and western world's the Empire slowly deflated and collapsed ultimately some of the worst geopolitical situations we've seen in the past Century can all be linked to the fall of the Ottoman Empire. So what contributed to this study collapse well at its peak in the 16th and 17th centuries the Empire covered more than Million people and about 2 million square miles throughout the Mediterranean Sea as well as Southeast Europe Western Asia, the caucuses, and North Africa, but the spirit of the Empire upset neighboring Western European powers, which saw the Islamic empire as encroaching on their own conquests, in particular, the house of Habsburg was one of their most aggressive Rivals and the two fought a series of wars in the 16th through 18th century. The most important of these wars was the Second Siege of Vienna in 1683. The Ottomans attack the Austrian City for a period End of two months while Poland and the remaining Western Holy Roman Empire cooperated to fend off the Invaders Eventually Austrian and neighboring forces overwhelmed the ottoman Army finally stopping their Advance through Europe. The defeat was so great that within years. The Ottomans also pushed out of Hungary and Transylvania and forced the Empire to stop expanding throughout Central Europe by the Treaty of Carlo. It's this first major concession marked the beginning of the end after being forced into peace throughout the 18th century the ottoman military lost ground both geographically and Against their European counterparts seeing their power waning the Ottomans instituted strict reforms known as tons a month which encouraged Empire based nationalism and equality among the vast diversity of Ottoman citizens. Although the remaining regions became stronger and more unified the Empire as a whole continue to shrink in the early 20th century. The first world war provided an opportunity for the Ottomans to reclaim their loss of territory. So 1914 they joined with the European Central Powers against the Allies consisting of Britain, France, and Russia. Russia although the Central Powers had some early victories including the collapse of the Russian government in 1917 by the following year. The Allies had overwhelmed their opponents and won the war British troops occupied the Ottoman capital of Constantinople, and the entire Empire was ceded to be allies who partitioned it away. So it could no longer threaten Western power in the region this geographical carving significantly increase the participation of countries, like Britain and France in colonizing and occupying regions of the Middle East and gave rise to what we now know as the modern World what little was left of the Ottoman Empire was ultimately Consolidated as the Republic of Turkey the effort to split a once unified empire along almost arbitrary borders created significant conflict between the new States and regions one example, which the British government support of a Jewish homeland to be established in Britain's recently acquired territory of Palestine a move which today has created a considerable amount of conflict and strife another example saw France acquiring the region of Syria and Lebanon, which created a number of smaller States. With arguably incompatible populations such as Sunni and Shia sects. today the long-term result of Western Powers taking over the former Ottoman Empire had led to a huge number of unexpected consequences. Although it was an extremely long-lasting Empire and fell less than a century ago. Today its former glory is more of a memory.