Often heralded as a “cradle of civilization” and the birthplace of three major world religions, the North Africa and Southwest Asia regions have more recently struggled with the impacts of outsiders. In the current era, social and political change has lagged behind economic development, which itself varies widely around the region. Why has the wealth generated by oil not resulted in a spreading of opportunities, such as broad public education, an opening up of public discourse, and an expansion of educational and political opportunities for women? As indicated in the opening vignette, change is now underway across this region and is gaining momentum, but there are countervailing forces that could inhibit political reform, social change, and economic development.

Important developments in agriculture, societal organization, and urbanization took place long ago in this part of the world. Also, three of the world’s great religions were born here: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Between 8000 and 10,000 years ago, formerly nomadic peoples founded some of the earliest known agricultural communities in the world. These communities were located in an arc formed by the uplands of the Tigris and Euphrates river systems (in modern Turkey and Iraq) and the Zagros Mountains of modern Iran (see Figure 6.16). This zone is often called the Fertile Crescent because of its once-plentiful fresh water; its fertile soil that is seasonally replenished by flooding; its open forests and grasslands; its abundant wild grains; and its fish, goats, sheep, wild cattle, camels, horses, and other large animals (Figure 6.12 and Figure 6.13).

The skills of these early people in domesticating plants and animals allowed them to build ever more elaborate settlements. The settlements eventually grew into societies based on widespread irrigated agriculture along the foot of the mountains and in river basins, especially along the Tigris and Euphrates. Nomadic herders living in adjacent grasslands traded animal products for the grain and other goods produced in the settled areas.

Over several thousand years, agriculture spread to the Nile Valley, west across North Africa, north and west into Europe, and east to the mountains of Persia (modern Iran). Ultimately, other cultivation systems across the world were influenced by developments in the Fertile Crescent. Eventually, small settlements associated with agriculture took on urban qualities: dense populations, specialized occupations, concentrations of wealth, and centralized government and bureaucracies. For example, the agricultural villages of Sumer (in modern southern Iraq), which existed 5000 years ago, gradually turned into city-states that extended their influence over the surrounding territory. The Sumerians developed wheeled vehicles, oar-driven ships, and irrigation technology.

From time to time, nomadic tribes who had adopted the horse as a means of conquest banded together and, with devastating cavalry raids, swept over agricultural settlements. They then set themselves up as a ruling class, but soon these former nomads adopted the settled ways and cultures of the peoples they conquered and thus themselves became vulnerable to attack.

Increasing research evidence suggests that the dawning of agriculture may have marked the transition to markedly distinct roles for men and women. Archaeologist Ian Hodder reports that at the 9000-year-old site of Çatalhöyük (see Figure 6.12), near modern Konya in south-central Turkey, where the economy was primarily based on hunting and gathering, there is little evidence of gender differences. Families were small and men and women performed similar chores in daily life. Both had comparable status and power, and both played key roles in social and religious life. Archaeological evidence elsewhere indicates that gender roles were also egalitarian in other preagricultural societies.

Scholars think that after the development of agriculture, as the accumulation of wealth and property became more important in human society, concerns about family lines of descent and inheritance emerged. This led in turn to the idea that women’s bodies needed to be controlled so that a woman could not become pregnant by a man other than her mate and thus confuse lines of inheritance. From this core concern about secure lines of descent grew many practices aimed at reinforcing the idea that the mating of women had to be controlled and, by extension, that women’s daily spatial freedom, interaction with men, and sexuality needed to be curtailed.

The very early religions of this region were founded on a belief in many gods who controlled natural phenomena; such was the case through the Greek era and into the Roman period. Then, several thousand years ago, monotheism—the belief system based on the idea that there is only one god—began to emerge. The three major monotheistic world religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—all have connections to the eastern Mediterranean; there the city of Jerusalem is sacred to all three. (Muslims also revere Makkah (Mecca) and Al Madinah (Medina) in Saudi Arabia.) All three religions have a connection to a sacred text: the Torah (the first five books in what Christians refer to as the Old Testament) for Jews; the Old and New Testaments of the Bible for Christians; and for Muslims both the Bible and the Qu’ran are sacred.

Judaism was founded approximately 4000 years ago. According to tradition, the patriarch Abraham led his followers from Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) to the shores of the eastern Mediterranean (modern Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories), where he founded Judaism. Judaism is characterized by the belief in one God, a strong ethical code summarized in the Ten Commandments, and an enduring ethnic identity reinforced by dietary and religious laws.

After rebelling against the Roman Empire, which culminated in their expulsion in 73 c.e. from the eastern Mediterranean, some Jews were enslaved by the Romans and most migrated to other lands in a movement known as the diaspora (the dispersion of an originally localized people). Many Jews migrated across North Africa and Europe, and others went to various parts of Asia. After 1500, Jews were among the earliest European settlers in all parts of the Americas.

Christianity is based on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew who, claiming to be the son of God, gathered followers in the area of Palestine about 2000 years ago. Jesus, who became known as Christ (meaning anointed one or Messiah), taught that there is one God, who primarily loves and supports humans but who will judge those who do evil. This philosophy grew popular, and both Jewish religious authorities and Roman imperial authorities of the time saw Jesus as a dangerous challenge to their power.

After Jesus’ execution in Jerusalem in about 32 c.e., his teachings were written down (the Gospels) by those who followed him, and his ideas as interpreted by these writers spread and became known as Christianity. Centuries of persecution ensued, but by 400 c.e., Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire. However, following the spread of Islam after 622 c.e., only remnants of Christianity remained in Southwest Asia and North Africa.

Islam, now the overwhelmingly dominant religion in the region, emerged in the seventh century c.e., after the Prophet Muhammad transmitted the Qur’an to his followers by writing down what was conveyed to him by Allah (“God” in Arabic). Born in about 570 c.e., Muhammad was a merchant and caravan manager in the small trading town of Makkah (Mecca) on the Arabian Peninsula near the Red Sea (see Figure 6.16B). Followers of Islam, called Muslims, believe that Muhammad was the final and most important in a long series of revered prophets, which includes Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.

Unlike the many versions of Christianity, Islam has virtually no central administration and only an informal religious hierarchy (this is somewhat less true of the Shi‘ite version of Islam; see the discussion later in this chapter). The world’s one billion Muslims may communicate directly with God (Allah). A clerical intermediary is not necessary, though there are numerous clerical leaders who help their followers interpret the Qur’an. An important effect of the lack of a central authority is that the interpretation of Islam varies widely within and among countries, from group to group, and from individual to individual.

Today, 93 percent of the people in the region are followers of Islam; for them, the Five Pillars of Islamic Practice embody the central teachings of Islam. Not all Muslims are fully observant, but the Pillars have had an enormous impact on daily life, including on festivals and religious holidays, since the time of Muhammad (Figure 6.14).

The Pillars of Muslim Practice

Saudi Arabia occupies a prestigious position in Islam, as it is the site of two of Islam’s three holy shrines: Makkah, the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad and of Islam, and Al Madinah (Medina), the site of the Prophet’s mosque and his burial place. (The third holy shrine is in Jerusalem.) The fifth pillar of Islam has placed Makkah and Al Madinah at the heart of Muslim religious geography for more than 1400 years. Today, a large private sector service industry, owned and managed by members of the huge Saud family that rules Saudi Arabia, organizes and oversees the 5- to 7-day hajj for more than 2.5 million devout foreign visitors.

Islamic Religious Law and Variable Interpretations Beyond the Five Pillars, Islamic religious law, called shari‘a, or “the correct path,” guides daily life according to the principles of the Qur’an. But there are many interpretations of the Qur’an, several renderings of shari‘a, and a wide variety of versions of observant Muslim life. Some Muslims believe that no other legal code is necessary in an Islamic society, because shari‘a provides guidance in all matters of life, including worship, finance, politics, marriage, sex, diet, hygiene, war, and crime. Other Muslims think that secular law is more useful in modern societies that are increasingly multicultural because secular law makes allowances for different religious sensibilities. The debate about whether shari‘a or secular law is best has raged for hundreds of years, and recently flared up again as part of the Arab Spring.

Insofar as the interpretation of shari‘a is concerned, the Muslim community is split into two major groups that formed after the death of Muhammad, when divisions arose over who should succeed the Prophet and have the right to interpret the Qur’an for all Muslims: Sunni Muslims, who today account for 85 percent of the world community of Islam, and Shi‘ite (or Shi‘a) Muslims, who live primarily in Iran but also in southern Iraq, Syria, and southern Lebanon. While Sunnis have a relatively decentralized religious system for interpreting shari‘a, Shi‘ites recognize an authoritative priestly class whom they call mullahs.

This division continues today, with disagreements about the interpretation of shari’a exacerbated by countless local disputes over land, resources, and philosophies. In Iraq, for example, long-standing conflict between Sunnis and Shi‘ites intensified after the U.S. invasion in 2003, as rivalries arose over which group should control political power and fossil fuel resources.

Among the first converts to Islam were the Bedouin—nomads of the Arabian Peninsula. By the time of Muhammad’s death in 632 c.e., they were already spreading the faith and creating a vast Islamic sphere of influence. Over the next century, Muslim armies built an Arab–Islamic empire over most of Southwest Asia, North Africa, and the Iberian Peninsula of Europe (Figure 6.15).

While most of Europe was stagnating during the medieval period (450–1500 c.e.), the Arab–Islamic empire nurtured learning and economic development. Muslim scholars traveled throughout Asia and Africa, advancing the fields of architecture, history, mathematics, geography, and medicine. Centers of learning flourished from Baghdad (Iraq) to Toledo (Spain). During the early Arab–Islamic era, the development of banks, trusts, checks, receipts, and bookkeeping fostered vibrant economies and wide-ranging trade. The traders founded settlements and introduced new forms of living spaces. The architectural legacy of Arabs and Muslims lives on in Spain, India, Central Asia, the Americas, and in countless buildings across the world.

By the end of the tenth century, the Arab–Islamic empire had begun to break apart. From the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries, Mongols from eastern Central Asia (eventually converting to Islam by 1330) conquered parts of the Arab-controlled territory, forming the Muslim Mughal Empire, centered in what is now north India. Meanwhile, beginning in the 1200s, nomadic Turkic herders from Central Asia began to converge in western Anatolia (Turkey) where they eventually forged the Ottoman Empire, which became the most influential Islamic empire the world has ever known.

By the 1300s, the Ottomans had become Muslim and by the 1400s they had defeated the Christian Byzantine Empire centered in Constantinople, which was the successor to the Roman Empire. The Ottomans took over Constantinople, renamed it Istanbul, and soon controlled most of the eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. By the late 1400s, they also controlled much of southeastern and central Europe and by the 1600s had taken over parts of coastal North Africa from the Arabs. Previously, in the 1490s, the Arab Muslims had lost their control of the Iberian Peninsula to Christian kingdoms. Islam currently still dominates in a huge area that stretches from Morocco to western China and includes northern South Asia, as well as Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia in Southeast Asia (see the inset of Figure 6.15).

Once a location was completely conquered, the Ottoman Empire, like the Arab–Islamic empire before it, encouraged religious tolerance toward the conquered peoples so long as they adhered to a religion with a sacred text. Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and Zoroastrians were allowed to practice their religions, although there were attractive economic and social advantages to converting to Islam. Multicultural urban life in Ottoman cities facilitated vast trading networks spanning the known world, and Istanbul became a cosmopolitan capital with elaborate buildings and lavish public parks that outshined anything in Europe until the nineteenth century (Figure 6.16C).

The Ottoman Empire ultimately withered in the face of a Europe made powerful by colonialism and the Industrial Revolution. Throughout the nineteenth century, North Africa provided raw materials for Europe in a trading relationship dominated by European merchants. By 1830, France was exercising direct control over parts of the North African territory of Algeria (see Figure 6.16D). France took control of Tunisia in 1881 and Morocco in 1912 (Spain controlled a bit of the Mediterranean coast and what is now called Western Sahara); Britain gained control of Egypt in 1882 and Sudan in 1898; and Italy took control of Libya in 1912 (Figure 6.17A).

World War I (1914–1918) brought the fall of the Ottoman Empire, which had allied itself with Germany. At the end of the war, the victorious powers dismantled the Ottoman Empire and all of the former Ottoman territories; only Turkey was recognized as an independent country. The rest of the formerly Ottoman-controlled territory was allotted to France and Britain as protectorates (see Figure 6.17B). On the Arabian Peninsula, Bedouin tribes were consolidated under Sheikh Ibn Saud in 1932, and Saudi Arabia began to emerge as an independent country.

World War II (1939–1945) further affected the political development of North Africa and Southwest Asia. Most significantly, in the aftermath of the Holocaust in Europe, the Jewish state of Israel was created in the eastern Mediterranean on land inhabited by Arab farmers and nomadic herders as well as by some Jews (see the discussion later in this chapter; see also Figure 6.16E).

By the 1950s, European and U.S. energy companies played a key role in influencing who ruled Iran and Saudi Arabia— countries where vast oil deposits were to become especially lucrative. In Egypt, a major cotton producer, European textile companies played a similar role. Officials in the governments of these countries received financial benefits from foreign companies and showed their loyalty to these companies with low taxes on oil and cotton exports and easy access to land. While a tiny ruling elite grew fabulously wealthy, even the modest revenues generated by oil and other taxes were not invested in creating opportunities for the vast majority of poor people. Over time, ever more political power accrued, especially to foreign energy companies. The United States and Western Europe supported those autocratic local leaders who were most sympathetic to the interests of their companies and their Cold War strategies vis-à-vis the Soviet Union (see Figure 6.16F). As a result of these concerns, both the Europeans and the Americans supported undemocratic governments and stood in the way of reforms that would have resulted in a more educated populace able to participate in the full range of democratic institutions.