CHAPTER 8

A Geographic Profile of the Middle East and North Joe Hobbs

Egypt’s St. Katherine Monastery, built in the sixth century, lies at the foot of Jebel Musa—a mountain believed by many to be the Biblical Mount Sinai.

198 Section 8.1 Area and Population 199

chapter outline

8.1 Area and Population 8.4 Economic Geography 8.2 Physical Geography and Human Adaptations 8.5 Geopolitical Issues 8.3 Cultural and Historical Geographies

chapter objectives

This chapter should enable you to: Appreciate the problems of control over fresh water in this arid region Understand and explain the mostly beneficial relationships be- tween villagers, pastoral nomads, and city dwellers in an envi- Know what al-Qa’ida and other Islamist terrorist groups are ronmentally challenging region and what they want Know the basic beliefs and sacred places of Jews, Christians, and Muslims Recognize the importance of to this region and the Look for this logo in the text and go to GeographyNow at world economy http://earthscience.brookscole.com/wrg5e to explore interactive Identify the geographic chokepoints and oil pipelines that are maps, view animations, sharpen your factual knowledge and among the world’s most strategically important places and geographic literacy, and test your critical thinking and analytical routes skills with unique interactive resources.

he Middle East is a fitting designation for the places Africa more intelligible by illuminating the geographic con- and the cultures of this vital world region because they text within which they occur. T are literally in the middle. This is a physical cross- roads, where the continents of Africa, Asia, and meet and the waters of the and the Indian Ocean mingle. Its peoples—Arab, Jew, Persian, Turk, Kurd, 8.1 Area and Population Berber, and others—express in their cultures and ethnicities What is the Middle East and where is it? The term itself is the coming together of these diverse influences. Occupying as Eurocentric, created by the British who placed themselves in they do this strategic location, the nations of the Middle East the figurative center of the world. They began to use the term and North Africa have through five millennia been unwilling prior to the outbreak of , when the Near East re- hosts to occupiers and empires originating far beyond their ferred to the territories of the in the Eastern borders. They have also bestowed upon humankind a rich Mediterranean region, the East to , and the Far East to legacy that includes the ancient civilizations of Egypt and , , and the western Pacific Rim. With Middle East, Mesopotamia and the world’s three great monotheistic faiths they designated as a separate region the countries around the of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. (known to Arabs as the Arabian Gulf, and in People outside the region tend to forget about such con- this text as the Persian /Arabian Gulf and simply The Gulf). tributions because they associate the Middle East and North Gradually, the perceived boundaries of the region grew. Africa with war and terrorism. These negative connotations Sources today vary widely in their interpretation of are often accompanied by muddled understanding. This is which countries are in the Middle East. For some, the perhaps the most inaccurately perceived region in the world. Middle East includes only the countries clustered around the Does sand cover most of the area? Are there camels every- . For others, it spans a vast 6,000 miles where? Does everyone speak ? Are Turks and Persians (9,700 km) west to east from in northwest Africa Arabs? Are all Arabs Muslims? The answer to each of these to Afghanistan in central Asia, and a north–south distance questions is no, yet popular Western media suggest other- of about 3,000 miles (4,800 km) from , on Europe’s wise. This and the following chapter attempt to make the southeastern corner, to Sudan, which adjoins East Africa misunderstood, complex, sometimes bloody, but often hope- (Figure 8.1). This is the region covered in these chapters, ful events and circumstances in the Middle East and North where it is referred to as “The Middle East and North 200 Chapter 8 A Geographic Profile of the Middle East and North Africa

Political Geography

15˚W . I C T a TAJIKISTAN R T s p O A i P Black Sea a ATLANTIC L BULG. GEORGIA n Y TURKMENISTAN 30˚N ALB. ARM. AZER. S M E e OCEAN D G Kabul Algiers I Ankara a Rabat T N E R E TURKEY O R A C AFGHANISTAN T R E Tehran C T O U A C N E R N S I CYPRUS SYRIA O S E I M I A A N LEBANONBeirut Baghdad Tro A K pic AR S E A Ca of H IRAQ nce SA ISRAEL Jerusalem A r N R Amman P TE S JORDAN KUWAIT Kuwait E Cairo P W er 20˚N sia n G SAUDI ulf Abu Doha Dhabi Muscat MAURITANIA EGYPT QATAR R U.A.E. 20˚N e N d ARABIA A SENEGAL MALI M S Arabian e O a NIGER N Sea G U E I N San’a M E BURKINA FASO A CHAD Khartoum E S.L. Y 10˚N

L N I IVORY T I SUDAN B E O

R N G

I COAST E NIGERIA

A GHANA O A

B I N

O ETHIOPIA L INDIAN E O CENTRAL qua tor R AFRICAN REP. A 0˚ E OCEAN 0 500 1000 mi. M M A tor C O Equa 0 500 1000 km. S 60˚E

Figure 8.1 The Middle East and North Africa

Africa.” The North African peoples of Morocco, Algeria, Egypt has the Nile River, and parts of Iran and Turkey have and generally do not perceive themselves as Middle bountiful rain and snow. Conversely, where rain seldom Easterners; they are, rather, from what they call the Maghreb, falls, as in the of North Africa and in the Arabian meaning “the western land.” Many geographers would place Peninsula, people are few. Sudan in Africa South of the Sahara and Afghanistan in ei- The Middle East and North Africa as a whole have a high ther Central Asia or South Asia. Both are clearly border or rate of population growth. The rapid growth is a general in- transitional countries in regional terms, and in this text, they are placed in the Middle East and North Africa with consid- eration given to their characteristics of the other regions. Thus defined, the Middle East and North Africa include 21 countries, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the disputed Western Sahara (Table 8.1), occupying 5.91 million square miles (15.32 million sq km) 30˚N and inhabited by about 479 million people as of mid-2004. This area is about 1.8 times the size of the lower 48 United ic of States and is generally situated at latitudes equivalent to Trop ncer those between Boston, Massachusetts, and Bogotá, Colom- Ca bia (Figure 8.2). These nearly half-billion people are not distributed evenly across the region but are concentrated in major clusters (Fig- ures 8.3a and b). Three countries contain the lion’s share of the region’s population: Turkey, Iran, and Egypt, each with E quato more than 65 million people. One look at a map of precipi- r tation or vegetation explains why people are clustered this way (see Figure 2.1, page 18, and Figures 8.5a and b). Where Figure 8.2 The Middle East and North Africa compared in water is abundant in this generally arid region, so are people. latitude and area with the conterminous Section 8.1 Area and Population 201

Table 8.1 The Middle East and North Africa: Basic Data Estimated Area Annual Rate Population Human Urban Per Estimated of Natural Density Develop- Popula- Arable Capita (thousand/ (thousand/ Population Increase ment tion Land GDP PPP Political Unit sq mi) sq km) (millions) (%) (sq mi) (sq km) Index (%) (%) ($U.S.) Middle East Afghanistan 251.8 652.2 28.5 2.7 113 44 N/A 22 12 700 Bahrain 0.3 0.8 0.7 1.7 2333 901 0.843 87 3 16,900 Iran 630.6 1633.3 67.4 1.2 107 41 0.732 67 8 7000 Iraq 169.2 438.2 25.9 2.7 153 59 N/A 68 13 1500 Israel 8.1 21.0 6.8 1.6 840 324 0.908 92 16 19,800 Jordan 34.4 89.1 5.6 2.4 163 63 0.750 79 2 4300 Kuwait 6.9 17.9 2.5 1.7 362 140 0.838 100 1 19,000 4 10.4 4.5 1.7 1125 434 0.758 87 16 4800 Oman 82 212.4 2.7 2.2 33 13 0.770 76 0 13,100 Palestinian Territories 2.4 6.2 3.8 3.5 1583 611 0.726 57 17 800 Qatar 4.2 10.9 0.7 1.6 167 64 0.833 92 1 21,500 830 2149.7 25.1 3.0 30 12 0.768 86 1 11,800 Syria 71.5 185.2 18 2.4 252 97 0.710 50 25 3300 Turkey 299.2 774.9 71.3 1.4 238 92 0.751 59 31 6700 United Arab Emirates 32.3 83.7 4.2 1.4 130 50 0.824 78 0 23,200 Yemen 203.8 527.8 20 3.3 98 38 0.482 26 2 800 Total 2630.7 6813.5 287.7 2.0 207 80 0.728 60 8 6153 North Africa Algeria 919.6 2381.8 32.3 1.5 35 14 0.704 49 3 6000 Egypt 386.7 1001.6 73.4 2.0 190 73 0.653 43 3 4000 Libya 679.4 1759.6 5.6 2.4 8 3 0.794 86 1 6400 Morocco 172.4 446.5 30.6 1.5 177 69 0.620 57 19 4000 Sudan 967.5 2505.8 39.1 2.8 40 16 0.505 31 7 1900 Tunisia 63.2 163.7 10 1.1 158 61 0.745 63 18 6900 Western Sahara 97.2 251.7 0.3 2.1 3 1 N/A 0 0 N/A Total 3286 8510.7 191.3 1.9 123 47 0.634 46 5 4130 Summary Total 5916.7 15,324.2 479 1.9 160 62 0.690 54 6 5345 Source:World Population Data Sheet,Population Reference Bureau, 2004;U.N.Human Development Report,,2004;World Factbook,CIA,2004.

dication that this is a developing rather than industrialized such rapid growth may be ascribed in large part to the Pales- region and also reflects the majority Muslim culture that fa- tinians’ poverty and perhaps to the wishes of many Palestini- vors larger families. The average annual rate of population ans to have more children to counterbalance the demo- change for the 21 countries, the Palestinian territories, and graphic weight of their perceived Israeli foe. Western Sahara was 1.9 percent in 2004. The lowest rate of Between these extremes are countries with modest rates population growth (1.1 percent) is in Tunisia. The highest is of population growth of 1.5 to 2 percent per year; these in- 3.5 percent in the Palestinian territories, followed closely by clude Israel, Morocco, Algeria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, 3.3 percent in Yemen. These are some of the highest popula- and Qatar. Generally, their governments have regarded most tion growth rates in the world. In the Palestinian territories, of these countries as too populous for their resource and 202 Chapter 8 A Geographic Profile of the Middle East and North Africa

Population Distribution of the Middle East and North Africa 15˚W

30˚N

Tro pic Can of cer

20˚N

20˚N

POPULATION DENSITY sq. km. sq. mi. 10˚N 100> 259> 10–99 26–258 1–9 2–25

<1 <2 or Equat 60˚E (a)

Population Cartogram of the Middle East and North Africa

This sized box equals one million people

TURKEY

AFGHANISTAN

IRAN LEBANON SYRIA IRAQ West Bank ISRAEL JORDAN Gaza Strip KUWAIT SAUDI ARABIA BAHRAIN ALGERIA TUNISIA QATAR

LIBYA EGYPT U.A.E. YEMEN

MOROCCO OMAN

Western Sahara SUDAN

Figure 8.3 (a) Population distribution and (b) population cartogram of the Middle East (b) and North Africa industrial base and have encouraged family planning. They dent on subsistence agriculture and have low percentages of have been successful in lowering birth rates. On the other urban inhabitants. Perhaps surprisingly, however, the Middle hand, oil-rich Saudi Arabia, with its 3 percent annual growth East and North Africa have more urbanites than country rate, is a good example of how rapid population growth is folk. The average urban population among the 23 countries not always a sign of poverty, particularly in this region. In this and territories is 54 percent. The most prosperous countries case, an oil-rich nation has encouraged its citizens to create are also the most urban. Essentially a city-state, Kuwait is more citizens so that in the future they will not need to im- 100 percent urban. The other oil-wealthy Arab Gulf coun- port foreign laborers and technicians and will be more self- tries also have urban populations over 70 percent. Consis- sufficient in their development. tent with its profile as a Western-style industrialized country Many developing countries have economies largely depen- without oil resources, Israel is 92 percent urban. At the other Section 8.2 Physical Geography and Human Adaptations 203 end of the spectrum, desperately poor Afghanistan, Yemen, amount too small for most types of dry farming (unirrigated and Sudan have urban populations of less than 32 percent. agriculture). Sometimes, however, localized cloudbursts re- lease moisture that allows plants, animals, and small popu- lations of people—the Bedouin, Tuareg, and other pastoral 8.2 Physical Geography nomads—to live in the . Even the vast Sahara, the world’s largest desert, supports a surprising diversity and and Human Adaptations abundance of life. Plants, animals, and even people have The margins of the Middle East and North Africa are mainly developed strategies of drought avoidance and drought en- oceans, seas, high mountains, and (Figure 8.4). To durance to live in this harsh biome. Plants either avoid the west lies the ; to the south, the Sahara and drought by completing their life cycle quickly wherever rain the highlands of East Africa; to the north, the Mediterranean, has fallen or endure drought by using their extensive root Black, and Caspian Seas, together with mountains and systems, small leaves, and other adaptations to take advan- deserts lining the southern land frontiers of Russia and the tage of subsurface or atmospheric moisture. Animals endure Near Abroad; and to the east, the Hindu Kush mountains on drought by calling on extraordinary physical abilities (for the Afghanistan– frontier and the Baluchistan example, a camel can sweat away a third of its body weight Desert straddling Iran and Pakistan. The land is composed and still live) or by avoiding the worst conditions by being mainly of arid plains and plateaus, together with large areas active only at or by migrating from one moist place to of rugged mountains and isolated “seas” of sand. Despite the another. Migration to avoid drought is also the strategy pas- environmental challenges, this region has given rise to some toral nomads use. Populations of people, plants, and animals of the world’s oldest and most influential ways of living. are all but nonexistent in the region’s vast sand seas, includ- ing the Great Sand Sea of western Egypt (Figure 8.6) and the Hot, Dry, and Barren but, Empty Quarter of the Arabian Peninsula. in Places, Damp and Forested The region’s climates have the comparatively large daily Aridity dominates the Middle East and North Africa (Fig- and seasonal ranges of temperature characteristic of dry ures 8.5a and b). At least three-fourths of the region has av- lands. Desert nights can be surprisingly cool. Most days erage yearly precipitation of less than 10 inches (25 cm), an and nights are cloudless, so the heat absorbed on the desert

Physical Geography of the Middle East and North Africa C 15˚W a s p i ATLANTIC Black Sea a H n S 30˚N U M ts. S K OCEAN E D tic M e ANATOLIAN Pon a U I T D E . PLATEAU M t s . IN R r u s E t s R a u l b u M H n t a i n s T T r z u i M o g Z A r s T i a l a R s t N E R g PLATEAU OF A . r E S o Registan A E s N D Tr N M op S E IRAN ic E A A u o Ca o I p u nc f R h n er Y ra t a S A tes i s R. n - s E S l Ha Qattara AN-NAFUD u P S rug m er 20˚N el Depression DESERT m si A As a an Tanezrouft ue n G H d P ulf G. of Oman la Great Sand Sea N t Al A Ahaggar ile e Ha R a ja . u r R R Mt 20˚N A Mts. s. WESTERN e d D E R RUB AL-KHALI S E e R T d A s PENINSULA S S i Arabian e r a e M H a Sea i t l l s s .

B lu n s. e e t N A d Socotra 10˚N M il a e f

r R o r . . f a R u l ELEVATION M e G l

i meters feet N meters feet e t i INDIAN h W 5000> 16400> 250–500 820–1640 S u OCEAN 2500–5000 8200–16400 0–250 0–820 d Equ ator d 1000–2500 3280–8200 0˚ <0 <0 0 500 1000 mi. 500–1000 1640–3280 0 500 1000 km.

Figure 8.4 Reference map of the topographic features, deserts, and seas of the Middle East and North Africa 204 Chapter 8 A Geographic Profile of the Middle East and North Africa

Climates of the Middle East and Biomes of the Middle East and North Africa North Africa

30˚N 30˚N

20˚N 20˚N

10˚N 10˚N

Equ Equ ator ator CLIMATE0˚ TYPES 60˚E BIOME0˚ TYPES 60˚E Humid subtropical Semiarid / steppe Tropical savanna Mediterranean Temperate mixed forests Savanna Mediterranean Desert Undifferentiated highland Prairie and steppe Coniferous forests Desert and desert shrub Undifferentiated highland (a) (b) Figure 8.5 (a) Climates and (b) biomes of the Middle East and North Africa surface during the day is lost by radiational cooling to the Cairo and other hot inland locations. In Saudi Arabia, the heights of the atmosphere at night. Summers in the lowlands government relocates from Riyadh to the highland summer are very hot almost everywhere. The hottest shade tempera- capital of Taif to escape the lowland furnace. ture ever recorded on Earth, 136F (58C), occurred in Libya Lower winter temperatures bring relief from the summer in September 1922. Many places regularly experience daily heat, and the more favored places receive enough precipita- maximum temperatures over 100F (38C) for weeks at a tion for dry farming of winter wheat, barley, and other cool- time. season crops (Figure 8.7). In general, winters are cool to Human settlements located near the sand seas often expe- mild. But very cold winters and snowfalls occur in the high rience the unpleasant combination of high temperatures and interior basins and plateaus of Iran, Afghanistan, and Tur- hot, sand-laden winds, creating the sandstorms known lo- key. These locales generally have a steppe climate. Only in cally by such names as simuum (“poison”) and sirocco. Only the southernmost reaches of the region, notably Sudan, do in mountainous sections and in some places near the sea do temperatures remain consistently high throughout the year. higher elevations or sea breezes temper the intense midsum- A savanna climate and biome prevail there. mer heat. The population of , on the Mediter- Most areas bordering the Mediterranean Sea have 15 to ranean Sea coast, explodes in summer as Egyptians flee from 40 inches (38 to 102 cm) of precipitation a year, falling al-

Agricultural Land Use

30˚N

20˚N

10˚N

Equ ator LAND USE0˚ TYPES 60˚E Mediterranean farming Subsistence agriculture Mixed subsistence

Joe Hobbs Specialized horticulture Shifting cultivation Grazing and stock rearing Figure 8.6 Sand “seas” cover large areas in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Nomadic herding Little agricultural activity and parts of the Sahara. This is the edge of the Great Sand Sea near Siwa Oasis in Egypt’s . Figure 8.7 Land use in the Middle East and North Africa Section 8.2 Physical Geography and Human Adaptations 205 most exclusively in winter, while the summer is dry and warm—a typical Mediterranean climate pattern. Through- out history, people without access to perennial streams have stored this moisture to make it available later for growing crops that require the higher temperatures of the summer months. The Nabateans, for example, who were contempo- raries of the Romans in what is now Jordan, had a sophisti- cated network of limestone cisterns and irrigation channels (Figure 8.8). Rainfall sufficient for dry farming during the summer is concentrated in areas along the southern and northern margins of the region. The Black Sea side of Tur- key’s Pontic (also known as Kuzey) Mountains is lush and moist in the summer, and tea grows well there (Figure 8.9). In the southwestern Arabian Peninsula, a monsoonal climate brings summer rainfall and autumn harvests to Yemen and Joe Hobbs Figure 8.9 Rainfall is heavy on the Black Sea side of Turkey’s Pontic (Kuzey) Mountains. Note that roofs are pitched to shed precipitation; in the region’s drier areas, most roofs are flat. The crop growing here is corn.

Oman, probably accounting for the Roman name for the area: Arabia Felix, or “Happy Arabia.” Mountainous areas in the region, like the river valleys and the margins of the Mediterranean, play a vital role in sup- porting human populations and national economies. Due to orographic or elevation-induced precipitation, the moun- tains tend to receive much more rainfall than surrounding lowland areas. There are three principal mountainous regions of the Middle East and North Africa (see Figure 8.4). In north- western Africa between the Mediterranean Sea and the Sa- hara, the Mountains of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia reach over 13,000 feet (3,965 m) in elevation. Mountains also rise on both sides of the Red Sea, with peaks up to Joe Hobbs 12,336 feet (3,760 m) in Yemen. These are the result of tec- Figure 8.8 The Treasury, a temple carved in red sandstone, tonic processes that are pulling the African and Arabian probably in the first century A.D., by the Nabateans at their plates apart, creating the northern part of the Great Rift Val- capital of Petra in southern Jordan. English poet Dean Burgen F2.9 called Petra “A Rose Red City, Half as Old as Time.” The ley. The hinge of this crustal movement is the Bekaa Valley of 26 Nabateans built sophisticated networks for water storage and Lebanon, where the widening fault line follows the Jordan distribution. For scale, note the man at the lower right. River valley southward to the Dead Sea (Figure 8.10). This 206 Chapter 8 A Geographic Profile of the Middle East and North Africa Joe Hobbs Joe Hobbs Figure 8.10 The surface of the Dead Sea is the lowest point on Figure 8.11 The Taurus Mountains of southeastern Turkey Earth, a consequence of the rifting of continental crust. valley is the deepest depression on Earth’s land surface, lying Extensive forests existed in early historical times in the about 600 feet (183 m) below sea level at Lake Kinneret (the Middle East and North Africa, particularly in these moun- Sea of Galilee or Lake Tiberius) and nearly 1,300 feet (400 tainous areas, but overcutting and overgrazing have almost m) below sea level at the shore of the Dead Sea, the lowest eliminated them. Since the dawn of civilization in this area, point on Earth. The rift then continues southward to the very around 3000 b.c., people have cut timber for construction deep Gulf of and Red Sea before turning inland into and fuel faster than nature could replace it. Egyptian King Africa at Djibouti and Ethiopia. In tectonic processes, one Tutankhamen’s funerary shrines and Solomon’s Temple in consequence of rifting in one place is the subsequent collision Jerusalem were built of cedar of Lebanon. So prized has this of Earth’s crustal plates elsewhere. There are several such wood been through the millennia that only a few isolated collision zones in the Middle East and North Africa, partic- groves of cedar remain in Lebanon. Described in ancient ularly in Turkey and Iran, where mountain building has re- times as “an oasis of green with running creeks” and “a vast sulted. These are seismically active zones—meaning earth- forest whose branches hide the sky,” Lebanon is now largely quakes occur there—and rarely does a year go by without a barren (Figure 8.12). Lumber is still harvested commercially devastating quake rocking Turkey, Iran, or Afghanistan. in a few mountain areas such as the Atlas region of Morocco

Click Geography Literacy to see an animation of divergent plate boundaries.

A large area of mountains, including the region’s highest peaks, stretches across Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan. These mountains are products of the collision of continental plates. On the eastern border with Pakistan, the Hindu Kush Range has peaks over 25,000 feet (7,600 m). The loftiest mountain ranges in Turkey are the Pontic, Taurus (Figure 8.11), and Anti-Taurus, and in Iran, the Elburz and Zagros Mountains. These chains radiate outward from the rugged Armenian Knot in the tangled border country where Turkey, Iran, and the countries of the Caucasus meet. Mt. Ararat is an extinct, glacier-covered volcano of 16,804 feet (5,122 m) towering Joe Hobbs over the border region between Turkey and Armenia. Many Figure 8.12 It was believed that the solar boat of King Cheops Biblical scholars and explorers think the ark of Noah lies of Egypt (c. 2500 B.C.), builder of the Great Pyramid, would carry the Pharoah’s spirit through the firmament. It had to be made of high on the mountain (and some go in search of it), for in the the best wood—cedar of Lebanon. The solar boat was interred book of Genesis, this boat was said to have come to rest “in next to the pyramid, and now stands in a specially constructed the mountains of Ararat.” museum. Section 8.2 Physical Geography and Human Adaptations 207 and Algeria, the Taurus Mountains of Turkey, and the Elburz or other reasons. Describing these ways of life as components Mountains of Iran, but supply falls far short of demand. of the Middle Eastern ecological trilogy, English explained how each of them has a characteristic, usually mutually bene- The Middle Eastern Ecological Trilogy: ficial, pattern of interaction with the other two (Figure 8.13). Villager, Pastoral Nomad, and Urbanite The peasant farmers of Middle Eastern and North African In the 1960s, American geographer Paul English developed a villages (the villagers) represent the cornerstone of the trilogy. useful model for understanding relationships between the They grow the staple food crops such as wheat and barley three ancient ways of life that still prevail in the Middle East that feed both the city-dweller and the pastoral nomad of the and North Africa today: villager, pastoral nomad, and ur- desert. Neither urbanite nor nomad could live without them. banite. Each of these modes of living is rooted in a particular The village also provides the city, often unwillingly, with tax physical environment. Villagers are the subsistence farmers revenue, soldiers, and workers. And before the mid-20th of rural areas where dry farming or irrigation is possible; century, villages provided pastoral nomads with plunder pastoral nomads are the desert peoples who migrate through as the desert-dwellers raided their settlements and caravan arid lands with their livestock, following patterns of rainfall supply lines. Generally, however, the exchange is beneficial. and vegetation; and urbanites are the inhabitants of the large The nomads provide villagers with livestock products, in- towns and cities, generally located near bountiful water cluding live animals, meat, milk, cheese, hides, and wool, and sources, but sometimes placed for particular trade, religious, with desert herbs and medicines. Educated and progressive

Villagers Technical innovations, education,manufactured cultural amenities goods, Food crops, tax revenue,

soldiers, workers

hides, wool Food crops, clothing,

Live animals, meat, milk, cheese,some manufactured goods

Pastoral nomads Urbanites

Figure 8.13 People, environments, and interactions of the ecological trilogy (here, villagers harvesting sugarcane in upper Egypt, Bedouin at camp in Egypt’s , and shoppers at the main gate to the historic city of San’a, Yemen). This relationship is generally symbiotic, although historically both urbanites and pastoral nomads preyed on the villagers, who are the trilogy’s cornerstone. 208 Chapter 8 A Geographic Profile of the Middle East and North Africa urbanites provide technological innovations, manufactured brought significant economic changes, including goods, religious and secular education and training, and cul- the introduction of cash crops and modern facilities to ship tural amenities (today, including films and music). them. Improved and expanded irrigation, financed initially There is little direct interaction between urbanites and with capital from the West, brought more land under culti- pastoral nomads, although some manufactured goods such vation. Recent agents of change have been the countries’ own as clothing travel from city to desert, and some desert-grown government doctors, government teachers, and land reform folk medicines pass from desert to city. Historically, the ex- officers. Modern technologies such as sewing machines, mo- change has been violent, as urban-based governments have tor vehicles, gasoline powered water pumps, radio, televi- sought to control the movements and military capabilities of sion, and even the Internet and cell phones have modified old the elusive and sometimes hostile nomads. Pastoral nomads patterns of living. The educated and ambitious, as well as the once plundered rich caravans plying the major overland unskilled and desperately poor—motivated, respectively, by trade routes of the Middle East and North Africa. Govern- pull and push factors—have been drawn to urban areas. 41 ments did not tolerate such activities and often cracked Improved roads and communications in turn have carried down hard on the nomads they were able to catch. urban influences to villages, prompting villagers to become Later, in the 1970s, Paul English wrote an article marking more integrated into national societies. the “passing of the ecological trilogy.” He noted that cities were encroaching on villages, villagers were migrating into The Pastoral Nomadic Way of Life cities and giving some neighborhoods a rural aspect, and Pastoral nomadism emerged as an offshoot of the village pastoral nomads were settling down—thus, the trilogy no agricultural way of life not long after plants and animals longer existed. In reality, although the makeup and interac- were first domesticated in the Middle East (about 7000 b.c.). tions of its parts have changed somewhat, the trilogy model Rainfall and the wild fodder it produces, although scattered, is still valid and useful as an introduction to the major ways are sufficient resources to support small, mobile groups of of life in the Middle East and North Africa. It is especially people who migrate with their sheep, goats, and camels significant that a given man or woman in the region strongly (and in some locales, cattle) to take advantage of this chang- identifies himself or herself as either a villager, a pastoral ing resource base (see Perspectives from the Field, page 209). nomad, or an urbanite. This perception of self has an impor- In mountainous areas, they follow a pattern of vertical tant bearing on how these people of very different back- migration (sometimes referred to as transhumance), mov- grounds interact, even when they live in close proximity. Ur- ing with their flocks from lowland winter to highland sum- ban officials may work in rural village areas, but they remain mer pastures. In the flatter expanses that comprise most of at heart and in their perspectives city people and usually live the region, the nomads practice a pattern of horizontal apart from farmers. Extended families of pastoral nomads migration over much larger areas where rainfall is typically may settle down and become farmers, but they continue to far less reliable than in the mountains. In addition to selling identify themselves by affiliation with the nomadic tribe. or trading livestock to obtain foods, tea, sugar, clothing, Many continue to harvest desert resources on a seasonal ba- and other essentials from settled communities, pastoral sis and retain marriage and other ties with desert-dwelling nomads hunt, gather, work for wages, and where possible, relatives. grow crops. Their multifaceted livelihood has been described as a strategy of risk minimization based on the exploitation The Village Way of Life of multiple resources so that some will support them if oth- Agricultural villagers historically represented by far the ma- ers fail. jority populations in the Middle East and North Africa; only Although renowned in Middle Eastern legends and in within recent decades have urbanites begun to outnumber popular Western films like Lawrence of Arabia, pastoral no- them. In this generally dry environment, the villages are lo- mads have been described as “more glamorous than numer- cated near a reliable water source with cultivable land nearby. ous.” It is still impossible to obtain adequate census figures They are usually made up of closely related family groups, on the number living in the deserts of the Middle East and with the land of the village often owned by an absentee land- North Africa, though estimates range from 5 to 13 million. lord. Most often, the villagers live in closely spaced flat- Recent decades have witnessed the rapid and progressive set- roofed houses made of mud brick or concrete blocks. Pro- tling down, or sedentarization, of the nomads—a process at- duction and consumption focus on a staple grain such as tributed to a variety of causes. In some cases, prolonged wheat, barley, or rice. As land for growing fodder is often in drought virtually eliminated the resource base on which short supply, villagers keep only a small number of sheep and the nomads depended. Traditionally, they were able to mi- goats and rely in part on nomads for pastoral produce. Resi- grate far enough to find new pastures, but modern national dents of a given village usually share common ties of kinship, boundaries now prohibit such movements. Some have re- religion, ritual, and custom, and the changing demands of turned with the rains to their desert homelands, but others agricultural seasons regulate their patterns of activity. have chosen to remain as farmers or wage laborers in villages Village life has been increasingly exposed to outside in- and towns. On the Arabian Peninsula, the prosperity and fluences since the mid-18th century. Contacts with European technological changes prompted by oil revenues made rapid Section 8.2 Physical Geography and Human Adaptations 209

Perspectives from the Field Way-Finding Many desert travelers have been astonished by the nomads’ navigational and tracking ability, calling it a “sixth sense.” The in the Desert Khushmaan are exceptional way-finders and topographical in- The research for my doctoral dissertation terpreters able, for instance, to tell from tracks whether a camel in geography at the University of Texas– was carrying baggage or a man; whether gazelle tracks were Austin was an 18-month journey with the made by a male or female; which way a car was traveling and Khushmaan Ma’aza, a clan of Bedouin nomads living in the what make it was; which man left a set of footprints, even if he northern Eastern Desert of Egypt. I studied their perceptions, wore sandals; and how old the tracks are. Bedouins are proud knowledge, and uses of their desert resources and tried to un- of their geographical skills which, they believe, distinguish derstand how their worldviews and kinship patterns appar- them from settled people. Saalih told me, “Your people don’t ently helped them to devise ways of protecting these scarce re- need to know the country but we do, to know exactly where sources. I have worked with these people from the early 1980s things are in order to live.” Pointing to his head, he said, “My to the present and have always been astonished by how differ- map is here.” ent they are from me and how much better they are in their The difference in the way-finding abilities of nomads and ability to “read” the ground and recall landscape details. In the settled persons may be due to the greater survival value of following passage from my book Bedouin Life in the Egyptian these skills for nomads and to the more complex meanings they Wilderness, I attempt to explain why. attribute to locations. Bedouin places are rich in ideological The process by which the Khushmaan nomads have devel- and practical significance. The nomads interpret and interact oped roots in their landscape, fashioning subjective “place” with these meanings on a regular basis and create new places from anonymous “space,” and the means by which they orient in their lifetimes. Theirs is an experience of belonging and be- themselves and use places on a daily basis deserve special at- coming with the landscape, whereas settled people are more tention: these are essential parts of the Bedouins’ identity and likely to inherit and accommodate themselves to a given set profoundly influence how they use resources and affect the of places. desert ecosystem. The nomads’ homeland is so vast, and the The Bedouins have little need or knowl- margin of survivability in it so narrow, that edge of maps. The Mercator projection is topographic knowledge must be encyclopedic. meaningless. One evening as three of the Places either are the resources that allow hu- men watched television news in Hurghada, man life in the desert, or are the signposts that they argued over whether the world map lead to resources. A Khushmaan man pin- behind the anchorman was a map or a de- pointed the role of places in desert survival: piction of clouds. On the other hand, when “Places have names so that people do not get shown a map or aerial image of countryside lost. They can learn where water and other they know, the nomads accurately orient things are by using place names.” Tragedy may and interpret it, naming the mountains and result if the nomad has insufficient or incorrect drainages depicted. Saalih Ali (Figure 8.A) information about places: many deaths by especially enjoyed my star chart. He would thirst are attributed to faulty directions for tell me what time the Pleiades would rise, finding water.a

for example, and ask me what time the chart Joe Hobbs a From Bedouin Life in the Egyptian Wilderness, by indicated. The two were almost always in Figure 8.A Saalih Ali, a Bedouin J. Hobbs, pp. 81–82. Copyright © 1989 University agreement. of the Khushmaan Ma’aza of Texas Press. Reprinted by permission.

inroads into the material culture—and then the livelihood tionality. The major ethnic groups from which these tribes preferences— of the desert people; many preferred the com- draw are the Arabic-speaking Bedouin of the Arabian Penin- forts of settled life. Some governments, notably those of Is- sula and adjacent lands, the Berber and Tuareg of North rael and prerevolutionary Iran, were frustrated by their in- Africa, the Kababish and Bisharin of Sudan, the Yoruk and ability to count, tax, conscript, and control a sizable migrant Kurds of Turkey, the Qashai and Bakhtiari of Iran, and the population and therefore compelled the nomads to settle. Pashtun of Afghanistan. Members of a tribe claim common Pastoral nomads of the Middle East and North Africa descent from a single male ancestor who lived countless gen- identify themselves primarily by their tribe, not by their na- erations ago; their kinship organization is thus a patrilineal 210 Chapter 8 A Geographic Profile of the Middle East and North Africa descent system. It is also a segmentary kinship system, so terized as a faith of the desert, religious life has always been called because there are smaller subsections of the tribe, focused in, and diffused from, the cities. The importance of known as clans and lineages, that are functionally important the city’s congregational mosque in religious and everyday in daily life. Members of the most closely related families life is often emphasized by its large size and outstanding comprising the lineage, for example, share livestock, wells, artistic execution. trees, and other resources. Both the larger clans, made up of A large commercial zone, known as a bazaar in Persian numerous lineages, and the tribes possess territories. Mem- and suq in Arabic, and recognizable as the ancestor of the bers of a clan or tribe typically allow members of another modern shopping mall, typically adjoined the ceremonial clan or tribe to use the resources within its territory on the and administrative heart of the city (Figure 8.15). Merchants basis of usufruct, or nondestructive mutual use. and craftspeople of different commodities occupied separate Although some detractors have depicted pastoral nomads spatial areas within this complex, and visitors to an old med- as the “fathers” rather than “sons” of the desert, blaming ina today can still expect to find sections where spices, car- them for wanton destruction of game animals and vegetation, pets, gold, silver, traditional medicines, and other goods are there are numerous examples of pastoral nomadic groups sold exclusively. Smaller clusters of shops and workshops who have developed indigenous and very effective systems of were located at the city gates. resource conservation. Most of these practices depend on the Residential areas were differentiated as quarters not by kinship groups of family, lineage, clan, and tribe to assume income group but by ethnicity; the of Jerusalem, responsibility for protecting plants and animals. for example, still has distinct Jewish, Arab, Armenian, and non-Armenian Christian quarters (see Figure 8.b, page 214). Homes tended to face inward toward a quiet central court- The Urban Way of Life yard, buffering the occupants from the noise and bustle The city was the final component to emerge in the ecological of the street. The narrow, winding streets of the medina were trilogy, beginning in about 4000 b.c. in Mesopotamia (mod- intended for foot traffic and small animal-drawn carts, ern Iraq) and 3000 b.c. in Egypt. Unlike the villages they re- not for large motor vehicles, a fact that accounts for the sembled in many ways, the early cities were distinguished by traffic jams in some old Middle Eastern and North African their larger populations (more than 5,000 people), the use of cities today and for the wholesale destruction of the medina written languages, and the presence of monumental temples in others. and other ceremonial centers. The early Mesopotamian The that survive today are gently decaying ves- city and, after the seventh century, the classic Islamic city, tiges of a forgotten urban pattern. Periods of European colo- called the medina, had several structural elements in com- nialism and subsequent nationalism changed the face and mon (Figure 8.14). The medina had a high surrounding wall orientation of the city. During the colonial age, resident Eu- built for defensive purposes. The congregational mosque and ropeans preferred to live in more spacious settings at the often an attached administrative and educational complex outer edges of the city, and later, the national elite followed dominated the city center. Although Islam is often charac- this pattern. In recent times, independent governments have adopted Western building styles, with broad traffic arteries cutting through the old quarters and large central squares near government buildings. This opening up of the cityscape has spread commercial activity along the wide avenues, City gate thereby diluting the prime importance of the central bazaar as the focus of trade. City gate Rural–urban migration and the city’s own internal growth contribute to a rapid rate of urbanization that puts enormous 1 on services in the region’s poorer countries. Gov- 2 ernments often build high-rise public housing to accommo- City gate date the growing population, contributing to a cycle in which the urban poor move into the new dwellings, only to leave their old quarters as a vacuum to draw in still more ru- ral migrants. In Cairo, millions of former villagers now live in the “City of the Dead,” an extraordinary urban landscape 1 Great mosque 2 Central suq composed of multistory dwellings erected above graves—a City wall last resort for the poor who have no other place to go. The 91 Modern streets overwhelmingly largest city, or primate city, so characteris- Figure 8.14 An idealized model of the classic medina, tic of Middle Eastern and North African capitals, thus grows or Muslim middle eastern city at the expense of the smaller city. Section 8.3 Cultural and Historical Geographies 211

Figure 8.15 A characteristic Middle Eastern suq, or bazaar. This one is in

Joe Hobbs Sanliurfa, Turkey.

Much of the rural–urban migration and subsequent ur- enormous crop surpluses that allowed civilization—a cul- ban gridlock and squalor could probably be avoided if gov- tural complex based on an urban way of life—to emerge in ernments invested more in the development of villages and Mesopotamia (literally, “the land between the rivers” Tigris smaller cities. The oil-rich countries with relatively small pop- and Euphrates) and Egypt. Accomplishments in science, ulations generally enjoy an urban standard of living equaling technology, art, architecture, language, mathematics, and that of affluent Western countries. Modern industrial cities other areas diffused outward from these centers of civiliza- such as Saudi Arabia’s Jubail and others founded on oil tion. Egypt and Mesopotamia are thus among the world’s wealth were built virtually overnight, providing fascinating great culture hearths. contrast to the region’s colorful, complex ancient cities. The Middle East and North Africa are sometimes mistak- enly referred to as the Arab World; in fact, the region has huge populations of non-Arabs. It is true that most of the re- 8.3 Cultural and Historical gion’s inhabitants are Arabs. An Arab is best defined as any- one who is of Semitic Arab ethnicity and whose ancestral Geographies language is Arabic. That language is spoken by about 280 mil- Cultures of the Middle East and North Africa have made lion, or 58 percent, of the region’s people. Originally, the many fundamental contributions to humanity. Many of the Arabs were inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula, but con- plants and animals upon which the world’s agriculture is quests after their majority conversion to Islam took them, based were first domesticated in the Middle East between their language, and their Islamic culture as far west as Mo- 5,000 and 10,000 years ago in the course of the Agricultural rocco and Spain. Revolution. The list includes wheat, barley, sheep, goats, The region is also the homeland of the Jews, whose defini- cattle, and pigs, whose wild ancestors were processed, ma- tion today is complex. Originally, Jews were both a distinct 31 nipulated, and bred until their physical makeup and behavior ethnic and linguistic group of the Middle East who practiced changed to suit human needs. The interaction between people the religion of Judaism. It is possible (although difficult) for and the wild plants and animals they eventually domesti- non-Jews to convert to Judaism (the convert is known as a cated took place mainly in the well-watered Fertile Crescent, proselyte, or “immigrant”), so a strictly ethnic definition the arc of land stretching from Israel to western Iran. does not apply today. Many Jews do not practice their reli- By about 6,000 years ago, people sought higher yields by gion but still consider themselves ethnically or culturally irrigating crops in the rich but often dry soils of the Tigris, Jewish. Whatever debate exits about what defines a Jew, Jew- Euphrates, and Nile River valleys. Their efforts produced the ish identity is extremely strong and resilient. It is important 212 Chapter 8 A Geographic Profile of the Middle East and North Africa

Languages of the Middle East and North Africa 15˚W

12 11 10 30˚N 10 11 18 1 1 9 16 14 5 7 1 1 16 5 16 17 1 5 15 1 5 Tro pic 1 5 Ca of nce 6 5 r 5 5 1 8 8 5 13 5 5 20˚N 2 5 5 5 2 5 20˚N 5 5

20

3 5 5 20 10˚N

4 4

Equ ator 19

or Equat 0˚ 60˚E AFRO-ASIATIC FAMILY ALTAIC FAMILY CAUCASIAN FAMILY INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY NILO-SAHARAN FAMILY BERBER TURKIC** KARTVELIAN IRANIAN** CHARI-NILE 1 Berber 7 Azeri 12 Laz 13 Baluchi 19 Chari-Nile* 2 Tuareg 8 Qashqzi 14 Dari SAHARAN CUSHITIC 9 Turkish 15 Farsi (Persian) 20 Saharan* 3 Bedawi 10 Turkmen 16 Kurdish KORDOFANIAN 11 Uzbek 17 Pushto 4 Kordofanian* NURISTANI SEMITIC 18 Nuristani 5 Arabic * These are language sub-families, with too many individual languages to depict here. 6 Hebrew ** There are additional languages in these families with small distributions not indicated.

Figure 8.16 Languages of the Middle East and North Africa to recognize that although political circumstances made them people living in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria—speak Kur- enemies in the , Jews and Arabs lived in peace dish (in the Indo-European language family). Many people for centuries, and they share many cultural traits. Both rec- in North Africa speak Berber and Tuareg (in the Afro- ognize Abraham as their patriarch. Arabic is a Semitic lan- Asiatic language family). Sudan is ethnically and linguisti- guage, in the same Afro-Asiatic language family as Hebrew, cally a transition zone between the Middle East and North which is spoken by most of the 5 million Jewish inhabitants Africa and Africa South of the Sahara. In that country, par- of Israel (see the language map, Figure 8.16). ticularly in the south, there are many speakers of Chari-Nile There are other very large populations of non-Semitic eth- languages, within the Nilo-Saharan language family. nic groups and languages in the region. The greatest are the The Middle East also gave the world the closely related 57 million Turks of Turkey, who speak Turkish, a member monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is of the Altaic language family, and the 34 million Persians of impossible to consider the human and political geographies Iran, who speak Farsi, or Persian, in the Indo-European lan- of this region without attention to these religions, the ways guage family. Both Persian and Arabic are written in Arabic of life associated with them, and their holy places, so here is script and so appear related, but they are not. Turkish also an introduction (Figure 8.17). was written in Arabic script until early in the 20th century, but since then, it has been written in a Latin script. The eth- The Promised Land of the Jews nic Pashtun majority of Pakistan speaks Pashto, a language The world’s first significant monotheistic faith, Judaism is to- closely related to Persian, and the country’s official language day practiced by about 13 million people worldwide, mostly is Dari, or Afghan Persian. About 26 million Kurds—a in Israel, Europe, and North America. The year 2005 corre- Section 8.3 Cultural and Historical Geographies 213

Canaan, until famine struck that land. At the command of Generalized Religious Patterns Abraham’s grandson Jacob, the Hebrews—known then as Israelites—relocated to Egypt, where grain was plentiful. 30˚N That began the long sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, which, according to the Bible, ended in about 1200 b.c. when Moses led them out in the journey known as the Exodus. According to , the prophecy of Abraham 20˚N was first fulfilled when the Israelites settled once again in their Promised Land of Canaan. The Jewish King Saul uni- Sunni Muslim Shi’ite Muslim fied the 12 tribes that descended from Jacob into the first 10˚N Christian of Israel in about 1020 b.c. In about 950 Jewish b.c. in Jerusalem—the capital of a kingdom enlarged by Animist 60˚E Saul’s successor, David—King Solomon built Judaism’s First Temple. He located it atop a great rock known to the Jews as Figure 8.17 Religions of the Middle East and North Africa Even HaShetiyah, the “Foundation Stone,” plucked from be- neath the throne of God to become the center of the world and the core from which the entire world was created (see Geography of the Sacred, page 214). The Ark of the Cove- sponded to the year 5765 in the Jewish calendar, but unlike nant, containing the commandments that God gave to Moses its kindred faiths— Christianity and Islam—Judaism does atop Mt. Sinai, was placed in the Temple’s Holy of Holies. not have an acknowledged starting point in time. Also unlike The united Kingdom of Israel lasted only about 200 years Christianity, Judaism does not have a fixed creed or doctrine. before splitting into the states of Israel and Judah. Empires Jews are encouraged to behave in this life according to God’s based in Mesopotamia destroyed these states: The Assyrians laws, which He gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai as a covenant attacked Israel in 721 b.c., and the Babylonians sacked with His people. Those laws are part of the Jewish Bible, Judah in 586 b.c. The Babylonians destroyed the First which Christians know as the Old Testament. Jews do not Temple (at which point the Ark of the Covenant disap- accept the Christian New Testament because they do not rec- peared) and exiled the Jewish people to Mesopotamia, where ognize Jesus Christ as the Messiah (“Anointed One” in He- they remained until conquering Persians allowed them to re- brew) or savior prophesied in the Jewish scriptures. turn to their homeland. In about 520 b.c., the Jews who re- turned to Judah rebuilt the temple (the Second Temple) on its original site. A succession of foreign empires came to rule the Jews and Arabs of Palestine: Persian, Macedonian, Ptole- Click Geography Literacy for a virtual tour of Mt. Sinai. maic, Seleucid, and around the time of Christ, Roman. Herod, the Jewish king who ruled under Roman authority Another distinction between Christianity and Islam is and was a contemporary of Christ, greatly enlarged the that Judaism is not a proselytizing religion; it does not seek temple complex. converts. Jewish identity is based strongly on a common The Jews of Palestine revolted against Roman rule three historical experience shared over thousands of years. That times between a.d. 64 and 135. The Romans quashed these historical experience has included deep-seated geographic rebellions in a series of famous sieges, including those of associations with particular sacred places in the Middle Masada and Jerusalem. The Romans destroyed the Second East—particularly with places in Jerusalem, capital of an- Temple, and a third has never been built. All that remains of cient Judah (), the province from which Jews take their the Second Temple complex is a portion of the surrounding name. Tragically, the Jewish history also has included unpar- wall built by Herod. Today, this Western Wall, known to alleled persecution. non-Jews as the Wailing Wall, is the most sacred site in the Depending on one’s perspective, the Jewish connection world accessible to Jews (Figure 8.18). Some religious tradi- with the geographic region known as Palestine, essentially tions prohibit Jews from ascending the Temple Mount the area now composed of Israel, the West Bank, and the above, the area where the Temple actually stood, because it Gaza Strip, is most significant on a time scale of either about is too sacred. After the temple’s destruction, that site was oc- 4,000 years or about 100 years. According to the Bible, cupied by a Roman temple and then in 691 by the Muslim around 2000 b.c., God commanded Abraham and his kins- shrine called the Dome of the Rock, which still stands today people, known as Hebrews (later as Jews), to leave their (also in Figure 8.18). The mostly Muslim Arabs know the home in what is now southern Iraq and settle in Canaan. Temple Mount as al-Haraam ash-Shariif, meaning “The God told Abraham that this land of Canaan—geographic Noble Sanctuary.” Supercharged with meaning, this place Palestine—would belong to the Hebrews after a long period has in modern times often been the spark of conflagration be- of persecution. The Bible says that the Hebrews did settle in tween Jews and Palestinian Arabs. 214 Chapter 8 A Geographic Profile of the Middle East and North Africa

Geography of the Sacred

Jerusalem Old City of Jerusalem The old city of Jerusalem is filled with sa- N A RD. N B IMAN cred places and is one of the world’s pre- L LE U N SU J S E SULTA R R IC D H mier pilgrimage destinations. Over thou- . O R D Herod’s Gate . sands of years, Jerusalem has been coveted AL

- Q

A and conquered by people of many different cultures and faiths. D I Damascus S I Y Gate MUSLIM A In the process, a place held sacred by one group has often come . T S QUARTER Lions’ IM EL to be held sacred by a second and even a third. In some cases, N S

U Gate HA -WAD AN Q Ecce Homo TZ K A H R this is not a problem. In others, it is a recipe for long-term dis- H D Convent A . EEN RD. N AHID L-MUJ E A

- cord and violence. O Z

F E

E I

T L

In the previous page, it is important to note that the location New Gate . R S RD IYEH Dome of the Rock D FRANCI K . ST. C BAT EL-TA of the First and Second Jewish Temples is identical to that of the HRI AQA (and presumed site of

TA QSTIAN First and Second J A Church of the F Temples) Muslims’ Dome of the Rock. Chapter 9 reveals the importance F A Holy Sepulcher R CHRISTIAN D UARTER . of this fact to the peace process between the Israelis and Pales- QUARTER Temple Mount / Haraam ash-Sharif tinians. Figure 8.B depicts the major places sacred to Jews, RD LEH . ILSI BABS al-Aqsa Christians, and Muslims and also the ethnic quarters of old DAVIDST. Western (Wailing) Jaffa J

E Mosque

Gate W Wall I

Jerusalem. ARMENIAN S H JEWISH

QUARTER Q U

A QUARTER T. JAMES S R

S T. T Dung E Cathederal of R Gate R

D

St. James .

.

IM Y DST A L A A . H

HAB D S R U K R E E Zion Gate D Y E IZ T H A LC

Active Figure 8.B Sacred sites and ethnic V

I E

T M A

quarters of the old city of Jerusalem. See an H Mt. Zion 0 100 m animation based on this figure, and take a Tomb of David short quiz on the facts and concepts. 0 100 yd

Figure 8.18 Jerusalem’s Western Wall, Temple Mount, and Noble Sanctuary. In this view are some of Judaism’s and Islam’s holiest places. At left, below the golden dome, is the Western Wall, which is all that remains of the structure that surrounded the Jews’ Second Temple. The dome is the Muslims’ Dome of the Rock. At far right, with the black dome, is the al-Aqsa Mosque, another very holy place

Joe Hobbs in Islam. Section 8.3 Cultural and Historical Geographies 215

The victorious Romans scattered the defeated Jews to the soldiers put him to death by the particularly degrading and far corners of the Roman world. Thus began the Jewish ex- painful method of crucifixion. The cornerstone of Christian ile, or Diaspora. In their exile, the Jews never forgot their at- faith is that Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead tachment to the Promised Land. The Passover prayer ends 2 days after his death and ascended into heaven. Christians with the words “Next year in Jerusalem!” In Europe, where believe that he continues to intercede with his Father on their their numbers were greatest, Jews were subjected to system- behalf and that he will come again on Judgment Day, at the atic discrimination and persecution and were forbidden to end of time. own land or engage in a number of professions. Known as After a period of relative tolerance, the Romans began ac- anti-Semitism, the hatred of Jews developed deep roots in tively persecuting Christians. Nevertheless, Christian ranks Europe. This sentiment in part grew out of the perception and influence grew. The turning point in Christianity’s career that Jews were responsible for the murder of Christ and the came after a.d. 324, when the Roman Emperor Constantine fact that Christian Europeans were generally prohibited from embraced Christianity and quickly established it as the offi- practicing money lending. Christians assigned the money- cial religion of the empire. The Christian Byzantine civiliza- lending role to Jews but then resented having to pay interest tion that developed in the “New ” that Constantine es- to them. tablished— Constantinople, now Istanbul, Turkey—created In the 1930s, anti-Semitism became state policy in Ger- fine monuments at places associated with the life and death many under the Nazis, led by Adolph Hitler. Many German of Jesus Christ. These include the place long acknowledged Jews, including , fled to the United States, and as the center of the Christian world, Jerusalem’s Church of others emigrated to Palestine in support of the Zionist move- the Holy Sepulcher (Figure 8.19). This extraordinary, sprawl- ment, which aimed at establishing a Jewish homeland in ing building, now administered by numerous separate Chris- Palestine with Zion (a synonym for Jerusalem) as its capital. Most Jews were not as fortunate as the emigrants. Within the boundaries of the Nazi empire that dominated most of con- tinental Europe during World War II, Hitler’s regime executed its “final solution” to the Jewish “problem.” Nazi Germans and their allies killed an estimated 6 million Jews, along with other “inferior” minorities, including Roma (Gypsies) and 116 –117 homosexuals. It was this Holocaust that prompted the vic- torious allies of World War II, from their powerful position in the newly formed United Nations, to create a permanent homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine.

Christianity: Death and Resurrection in Jerusalem Nearly 1,000 years after Solomon established the Jewish Temple, a new but closely related monotheistic faith emerged in Palestine. This was Christianity, named after Jesus Christ. Jesus, a Jew, was born near Jerusalem in Bethlehem, proba- bly around 4 b.c. Tradition relates that when he was about 30 years old, Jesus began spreading the word that he was the Messiah, the deliverer of humankind long prophesied in Jewish doctrine. After his death, his surname became Christ, meaning “Anointed One” in Greek. A small group of disci- ples accepted that he was the Messiah and followed him for several years as he preached his message. He taught that love, sacrifice, and faith were the keys to salvation. He had come to redeem humanity’s sins through his own death. To his fol- lowers, he was the Son of God, a living manifestation of God Himself, and the only path to eternal life was by accepting his divinity. Jesus Christ’s teachings denied the validity of many Jewish doctrines, and in about a.d. 29, a growing chorus of Jewish

protesters called for his death. Palestine was then under Ro- Joe Hobbs man rule, and Roman administrators in Jerusalem placated Figure 8.19 Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the mob by ordering that he be put on trial. He was found containing the spots where many Christians believe Christ guilty of being a claimant to Jewish kingship, and Roman was crucified and buried. 216 Chapter 8 A Geographic Profile of the Middle East and North Africa tian sects, contains the locations where tradition says Jesus spring, Christianity. Indeed, Muslims (people who practice Christ was crucified and buried. Islam) call Jews and Christians “People of the Book,” and Christianity has seldom been the majority religion in the their faith obliges them to be tolerant of these special peo- land where it was born; only until Islam arrived in Palestine ples. Muslims believe that their prophet Muhammad was the in a.d. 638 was the region primarily Christian. From then very last in a series of prophets who brought the Word to hu- until the 20th century, most of Palestine’s inhabitants were mankind. Thus, they perceive the Bible as incomplete but not Muslim, and since the mid-20th century, Muslims and Jews entirely wrong—Jews and Christians merely missed receiv- have been the major groups. Between the 11th and 14th cen- ing the entire message. Muslims do not accept the Christian turies, European Christians dispatched military expeditions concept of the divine trinity and regard Jesus as a prophet to recapture Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land from the rather than as God. Muslims. These bloody campaigns, known as the Crusades, Muhammad was born in a.d. 570 to a poor family in the resulted in a series of short-lived Christian administrations in western Arabian (now Saudi Arabian) city of . Lo- the region. cated on an important north–south caravan route linking There are significant minority populations of Christians the frankincense-producing area of southern Arabia (now throughout the Middle East, including members of distinct Yemen and Oman) with markets in Palestine (now Israel) sects such as the Copts of Egypt and Maronites of Lebanon. and Syria, Mecca was a prosperous city at the time. It was Their population percentages have generally been declining, also a pilgrimage destination because more than 300 deities both because of emigration and lower birth rates than those were venerated in a shrine there called the Ka’aba (the of the majority Muslims. Nevertheless, the Middle East re- “Cube”; Figure 8.20). Muhammad married into a wealthy mains the cradle of their faith for Christians the world over, family and worked in the caravan trade. Muslim tradition and Jerusalem and nearby Bethlehem are the world’s premier holds that when he was about 40 years old, Muhammad was Christian pilgrimage sites. meditating in a cave outside Mecca when the Angel Gabriel appeared to him and ordered him to repeat the words of God The Message of Islam that the angel would recite to him. Over the next 22 years, Islam is by far the dominant religion in the Middle East and the prophet related these words of God (Allah) to scribes North Africa; only Israel within its pre-1967 borders has a who wrote them down as the Qur’an (or Koran), the holy non-Muslim majority. Because of Islam’s powerful influence book of Islam. not merely as a set of religious practices but as a way of During this time, Muhammad began preaching the new life, an understanding of the religious tenets, culture, and dif- message, “There is no god but God,” which the polytheistic fusion of Islam is vital for appreciating the region’s cultural people of Mecca viewed as heresy. As much of their income geography. depended on pilgrimage traffic to the Ka’aba, they also viewed Islam is a monotheistic faith built upon the foundations of Muhammad and his small band of followers as an economic the region’s earliest monotheistic faith, Judaism, and its off- threat. They forced the Muslims to flee from Mecca and take

Figure 8.20 The black-shrouded cubical shrine known as the Ka’aba (just right of center) in Mecca’s Great Mosque is the object toward which all Muslims face when they pray and is the center- piece of the pilgrimage to Mecca required of all able Muslims. Note the carpet of humanity spread across

Nabeel Turner/Stone/Getty Images this image. Section 8.3 Cultural and Historical Geographies 217

Definitions + Insights

Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims The military forces of the two camps engaged in battle south A schism occurred very early in the develop- of Baghdad at Karbala in a.d. 680, and in the encounter, Sunni ment of Islam, and it persists today. The split troops caught and brutally murdered Hussein, a son of Ali developed because the Prophet Muhammad (Karbala is thus sacred to Shi’ites, as is nearby al-Najaf, had named no successor to take his place where Ali is buried). The rift thereafter was deep and perma- as the leader (caliph) of all Muslims. Some of his followers ar- nent. The martyrdom of Hussein became an important symbol gued that the person with the strongest leadership skills and for Shi’ites, who still today regard themselves as oppressed greatest piety was best qualified to assume this role. These peoples struggling against cruel tyrants, including some Sunni followers became known as Sunni, or orthodox, Muslims. Muslims. Others argued that only direct descendants of Muhammad, Today, only two Muslim countries, Iran and Iraq, have specifically through descent from his cousin and son-in-law Ali, Shi’ite majority populations. Significant minority populations could qualify as successors. They became known as Shi’a, or of Shi’ites are in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and the Arab states of Shi’ite, Muslims. the Persian /Arabian Gulf (see Figure 8.17).

refuge in Yathrib (modern Medina), where a largely Jewish many of these works would never have survived to become population had invited them to settle. There were subsequent part of the modern European legacy. It was an age of explo- skirmishes between the Meccans and Muslims, but in 630, ration, when Arab merchants and voyagers visited China and the Muslims prevailed and peacefully occupied Mecca. The the remote lands of southern Africa. Many important dis- Muslims destroyed the idols enshrined in the Ka’aba, which coveries by the Arab geographers were recorded in Arabic, a became a pilgrimage center for their one God. language unfamiliar to contemporary Europeans, and had to The Ka’aba is Islam’s holiest place, and Mecca and Me- be rediscovered centuries later by the Portuguese and Span- dina are its holiest cities. Jerusalem is also sacred to Muslims. iards. Arab merchants carried their faith on the spice routes Muslim tradition relates that on his Night Journey, the to the East. One result, surprising to many today, is that the Prophet Muhammad ascended briefly into heaven from the world’s most populous Muslim country is not in the Middle great rock now beneath the Dome of the Rock (the same rock East and North Africa, and its people are not Arabs; it is In- Jews regard as the Foundation Stone). Nearby on the Temple donesia, 5,000 thousand miles (8,000 km) east of Arabia. Mount /al-Haraam ash-Shariif is the al-Aqsa Mosque, a sa- Whether in Arabia or , whether they be Sunni cred congregational site. The proximity, even the duplica- Muslims or Shi’ite Muslims (see Definitions and Insights, tion, of holy places between Islam and Judaism came to be above), all believers are united in support of the five funda- the most difficult issue in peace negotiations between Pales- mental precepts, or pillars of Islam. The first of these is the tinians and Israelis, as explained in Chapter 9. profession of faith: “There is no god but God, and Muham- After Muhammad’s death in 632, Arabian armies carried mad is His Messenger.” This expression is often on the lips the new faith far and quickly. The two decaying empires that of the devout Muslim, both in prayer and as a prelude to then prevailed in the Middle East and North Africa—the everyday activities. Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire, based in Constantino- The second pillar is prayer, required five times daily at ple (now Istanbul), and the Sassanian Empire, based in Per- prescribed intervals. Two of these prayers mark dawn and sia (now Iran) and adjacent Mesopotamia (now Iraq)—put sunset. Business comes to a halt as the faithful prostrate up only limited military resistance to the Muslim armies be- themselves before God. Muslims may pray anywhere, but fore capitulating. Local inhabitants generally welcomed the wherever they are, they must turn toward Mecca. There also new faith, in part because administrators of the previous em- is a congregational prayer at noon on Friday, the Muslim pires had not treated them well, whereas the Muslims prom- Sabbath. ised tolerance. Soon the Syrian city of Damascus became the The third pillar is almsgiving. In earlier times, Muslims center of a Muslim empire. Baghdad assumed this role in were required to give a fixed proportion of their income as a.d. 750. charity, similar to the concept of the tithe in the Christian Arab science and civilization flourished in the Baghdad im- church. Today, the donations are voluntary. Even Muslims of mortalized in the legends of The Thousand and One Nights. very modest means give what they can to those in need. There were important accomplishments and discoveries in The fourth pillar is fasting during Ramadan, the ninth mathematics, astronomy, and geography. Scholars translated month of the Muslim lunar calendar. Muslims are required the Greek and Roman classics, and if not for their efforts, to abstain from food, liquids, smoking, and sexual activity 218 Chapter 8 A Geographic Profile of the Middle East and North Africa from dawn to sunset throughout Ramadan. The lunar month her maiden name. These apparent advantages can be weighed of Ramadan falls earlier each year in the solar calendar and against the drawbacks that women are generally subordinate thus periodically occurs in summer. In the torrid Middle East to men in public affairs and have fewer opportunities for ed- and North Africa, that timing imposes special hardships on ucation and for work outside the home. the faithful, who, even if they are performing manual labor, must resist the urge to drink water during the long, hot days. The final pillar is the pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca, Islam’s 8.4 Economic Geography holiest city. Every Muslim who is physically and financially Overall, this is a poor region; per capita GDP PPP for the 23 capable is required to make the journey once in his or her countries and territories averages only $5,345 (see Table 8.1). lifetime. A lesser pilgrimage may be performed at any time, This may seem surprising in view of the “rich Arab” stereo- but the prescribed season is in the 12th month of the Muslim type. Only the oil-endowed states of the Persian /Arabian calendar. Those days witness one of Earth’s greatest annual Gulf deserve reputations for wealth, and only non-Arab Is- migrations, as about 2 million Muslims from all over the rael is truly a more developed country (MDC) by measures world converge on Mecca. Hosting these throngs is an obli- other than per capita wealth. Israel’s prosperity comes from gation the government of Saudi Arabia fulfills proudly and at its innovation in computer and other high-technology indus- considerable expense. However, there has been some trepi- tries, the processing and sale of diamonds, large amounts of dation in recent years because of the security threat foreign foreign (mostly U.S.) aid, and investment and assistance by visitors may pose to the host country, and because accidents Jews and Jewish organizations around the world. such as stampedes and tent city fires have cost numerous Vital to the industrialized countries as a source of fuels, lives. Many pilgrims also visit the nearby city of Medina, lubricants, and chemical raw materials, petroleum is one of where Muhammad is buried. Most Muslims regard the hajj the world’s most important natural resources. A crucial fea- as one of the most significant events of their lifetimes. All are ture of world geography is the concentration of approxi- required to wear simple seamless garments, and for a few mately two-thirds of the world’s proven petroleum reserves days, the barriers separating groups by income, ethnicity, in a few countries that ring the Persian /Arabian Gulf. By co- and nationality are broken. Pilgrims return home with the incidence, the countries rich in oil tend to have relatively new stature and title of “hajj” but also with humility and re- small populations, whereas the most populous nations have newed devotion. few oil reserves; Iran is an exception. All but about 1 per- All Muslims share the five pillars and other tenets, but cent of the Persian /Arabian Gulf oil region’s proven re- they vary widely in other cultural practices related to their serves of crude oil are located in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, faith depending on what country they live in, whether they Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), with smaller are from the desert, village, or city, and their education and reserves in Oman and Qatar. Saudi Arabia, by far the income. The governments and associated clerical authori- world leader in reserves, has about 25 percent of the proven ties in Saudi Arabia and Iran insist on strict application of crude oil reserves on the globe. Iraq has an additional Islamic law (shari’a) to civil life; in effect, there is no separa- 11 percent, Kuwait 9 percent, Iran 9 percent, and the U.A.E. tion between church and state. The Qur’an does not state 6 percent. (These are the top five in the world’s known oil that women are required to wear veils, but it does urge them reserves as of 2004.) By comparison, Venezuela has 5 per- to be modest, and it portrays their roles as different from cent of world reserves, Russia another 5 percent, and the those of men. Clerics in Saudi Arabia insist that women wear world’s largest oil consumer, the United States, only 2 per- floor-length, long-sleeved black robes and black veils in pub- cent. In the Gulf region, the great thickness of the region’s lic, that they travel accompanied by a male member of their oil-bearing strata and high reservoir pressures have made it families, and that they not drive cars. In Egypt, by contrast, possible to secure an immense amount of oil from a small Muslim women are free to appear in public unveiled if they number of wells. The productivity of each well makes each choose. However, in most Muslim countries, conservative barrel inexpensive to extract and makes it simple to increase ideas about the role of women are still very strong: They or reduce production quickly in response to world market should be modest, retiring, good mothers, and keepers of the conditions. Gulf oil is thus “cheap” to produce unless ex- home. The Qur’an portrays women as equal to men in the penditures to maintain huge military forces to defend it are sight of God, and in principle, Islamic teachings guarantee factored in. In 2004, the United States maintained about the right of women to hold and inherit property. 170,000 military personnel in the region at a cost of more Most Muslim women argue that what others often see as than $50 billion per year. A U.S. Navy secretary once re- “backward” cultural practices are in fact progressive. For marked that the real price of oil, with military expenditures example, their modest dress compels men to evaluate them factored in, is about $100 per barrel, not the typical market on the basis of their character and performance, not their at- price of less than $50. tractiveness. Segregation of the sexes in the classroom makes Production, export, and profits of Middle Eastern and it easier for both women and men to develop their confidence North African oil were once firmly in the hands of foreign and skills. Sexual assault is rare. A married woman retains companies. That situation changed after 1960 when most of Section 8.5 Geopolitical Issues 219 the Gulf countries and other exporting nations formed the of oil once again climbed to record levels (thanks mainly to Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) OPEC decisions to reduce production), contributing to eco- with the aim of joint action to demand higher profits from nomic slowdowns in many nations. oil. It changed again after 1972 when the oil producing There are other resources and industries in the region’s countries began to nationalize the foreign oil companies. economic geography—remittances (earned income) sent OPEC was relatively obscure until the Arab–Israel war of home by guest workers in the oil-rich countries, revenues 1973, after which the organization began a series of dramatic from ship traffic through the , exports of cotton, price increases. In 1980, the organization’s price reached $37 rice, and other commercial crops, for example—but oil (U.S.) per barrel, compared with $2 a barrel in early 1973. dominates the region’s economy and is central to the global These events had enormous repercussions for the world economy. The economies of the respective countries are de- economy. Immense wealth was transferred from the more scribed in more detail in the following chapter. Here the fo- developed countries to the OPEC countries to pay for indis- cus remains on Middle Eastern oil and its critical role in pensable oil supplies. The skyrocketing cost of gasoline and geopolitical affairs. other oil products helped cause serious inflation in the United States and many other countries and contributed to the 1973 energy crisis in the United States. Desperately poor, 8.5 Geopolitical Issues less developed countries (LDCs) found that high oil prices not This has long been a vital region in world affairs and a tar- only hindered the development of their industries and trans- get of outside interests. Its strategic crossroads location often portation but also reduced food production because of high has made it a cauldron of conflict. From very early times, prices for fertilizer made from oil and natural gas. In the Gulf overland caravan routes, including the famous Silk Road, countries, the oil bonanza produced a wave of spending for crossed the Middle East and North Africa with highly prized military hardware, showy buildings, luxuries for the elite, and commodities traded between Europe and Asia. The security ambitious development projects of many kinds. Per capita of these routes was vital, and countries on either end could benefits to the general populace were greatest in the Arabian not tolerate threats to them. In more recent times, geopoliti- Peninsula, where small populations and immense inflows of cal concerns have focused on narrow waterways, access to oil money made possible the abolition of taxes, the develop- oil, access to fresh water, and terrorism. ment of comprehensive social programs, and heavily subsi- dized amenities such as low-cost housing and utilities, in- Chokepoints cluding water distilled from the Gulf by desalination plants. One of the striking characteristics of the geography of the Then, at the beginning of the 1980s, the era of continually Middle East and North Africa is how many seas border and expanding oil production, sales, and profits by the OPEC penetrate the region. In many cases, these seas are connected states came to an end. After 1973, the high price of oil stim- to one another though narrow straits and other passageways. ulated oil development in countries outside OPEC. Oil con- In geopolitical terms, such constrictions may be viewed as servation measures such as a shift to more fuel-efficient ve- chokepoints—strategic narrow passageways on land or sea hicles and furnaces were instituted. Substitution of cheaper that may be easily closed off by use, or even the threat, of fuels for oil increased. Coal replaced oil in many electricity- force (Figure 8.21). Chokepoints must be unimpeded if generating stations. Oil refineries were converted to make gasoline from cheaper “heavy” oils rather than the more ex- pensive “light” oils previously used. Meanwhile, the world entered a period of economic recession due in part to high oil Chokepoints BLACK SEA prices. Decreased business activity reduced the demand for Strait of Bosporus 30˚N M E D I T E Dardanelles oil. Profits of the world oil industry (and taxes paid to gov- R R A ernments) were severely cut, large numbers of refineries had N E A N S E A

P Strait of to close, and much of the world tanker fleet was idled. Strait of E Suez Canal R Hormuz Tiran SIA N G. Oil prices rose temporarily in 1990 –1991 when the flow R E 20˚N of Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil was cut off following Iraq’s military D

S takeover of Kuwait, but the prices soon fell again. In the E A ARABIAN N 1990s, Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Gulf states imple- DE F A SEA 10˚N Bab al-Mandeb LF O mented internal economic austerity measures for the first GU time. However, the immense oil and gas reserves still in the Equ ator ground guaranteed that the Gulf region would continue to 0˚ 60˚E have a major long-term impact on the world and would re- Active Figure 8.21 Chokepoints of the main relatively prosperous as long as these finite resources Middle East and North Africa. See an are in demand in the MDCs. The lasting economic clout of animation based on this figure, and take the region was apparent early in the 21st century as the price a short quiz on the facts and concepts. 220 Chapter 8 A Geographic Profile of the Middle East and North Africa

Geography of Energy Middle Eastern Another Middle East conflict, the 1967 Six Day War between Israel and its neighbors, led to the closure of the Suez Canal Oil Pipelines (for about a decade) and thus to the construction of two new The oil exporting countries of the Middle pipelines to bypass Suez: one across southern Israel from the East, often with the financial support of Gulf of Aqaba to the Mediterranean Sea and another across the United States and other leading oil Egypt from the Gulf of Suez to the Mediterranean (thus its consuming countries, have invested enormous resources to acronym, SUMED). ensure the safe passage of oil to world markets. The Middle No Middle Eastern country has been more dependent on East is not landlocked like the oil-rich “stans” of Central Asia pipelines than Iraq, and none has so systematically experienced are, but some of the same kinds of geopolitical issues are in- the liabilities of pipelines. The Iran–Iraq war of 1980 –1988 168 –169 volved in oil-export planning. These concerns often point had major impacts on pipeline geography. Saudi Arabia sup- 258 toward pipelines as the best possible means of routing oil ported Iraq in the war and so tried to ensure it could get oil to shipments (Figure 8.C). Pipelines are attractive because they market without being threatened by Iran; this meant bypassing shorten the time and expense involved in seaborne transport, the Strait of Hormuz. That led to the construction of Petroline and they bypass chokepoints. However, they are very vulner- (opened in 1981), the east–west pipeline across the Arabian able to disruption. Weapons as small as can disrupt Peninsula. Iraq built a pipeline to ship some of its oil south to supplies. A major challenge is how to route a pipeline so that it Petroline, thereby bypassing the Strait of Hormuz as well. Be- will not cross through a potential enemy’s territory, and an- ginning in 1961, Iraq was also able to ship oil through other is how to maintain friendships with the countries the oil pipelines almost due west though Syria to the Mediterranean crosses. Sea. But when it attacked Iran in 1980, Iraq lost that route be- One of the first major pipelines in region was the 1,100-mile cause Syria was Iran’s ally. (1,760-km) Trans-Arabian Pipeline (Tapline), leading from the Iraq quickly responded to that setback by building a new oil producing eastern province of Saudi Arabia to a terminal on pipeline leading almost due north to bypass Syrian territory and the Mediterranean coast of Lebanon. It has the advantage of then making a sharp 90 degree turn westward through south- bypassing three chokepoints (Strait of Hormuz, Bab el Man- ern Turkey to the Mediterranean Sea. But in 1990, Iraq attacked deb, and Suez Canal). However, at the time it was completed Kuwait, threatened Saudi Arabia, and prompted a U.S.-led (1950), it could not have been anticipated that it would cross counterattack. Saudi Arabia responded by closing the southern two of the worst conflict zones in the Middle East: the Golan link with Petroline. Turkey, a NATO ally of the United States, Heights of Syria (which fell to Israel in the 1967 war) and responded by closing the northern link. The United Nations re- southern Lebanon (a major theater of the Lebanese civil war of sponded by issuing strict controls on Iraqi oil exports. In sum, the 1970s and the Israeli–Lebanese Shi’ite struggles of the by its military actions, Iraq did almost everything imaginable 1980s and 1990s). Tapline was knocked out early by its unfor- to deprive itself of oil-export capabilities. Only in post-Saddam tunate geography. Hussein Iraq is the country’s oil production recovering.

world commerce is to carry on normally. Keeping them open is therefore usually one of the top priorities of regional and external governments. Similarly, closing them is a priority to a combatant nation or a terrorist entity seeking to gain a strategic advantage. Many notable events in and the formation of foreign policy in the Middle East focus on these strategic places. One of the world’s most important chokepoints is the Suez Canal, which opened in 1869. Slicing 107 miles (172 km) through the narrow Isthmus of Suez, the British- and French-owned Suez Canal linked the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean, saving cargo, military, and passenger ships a journey of many thousands of miles around the

southern tip of Africa (Figure 8.22). Keeping the Suez Canal Joe Hobbs in friendly hands was one of Britain’s major military con- Figure 8.22 The strategically vital Suez Canal zone saw bitter cerns during World War II. That objective led to a very hard- fighting in the Middle East wars of 1956, 1967, and 1973. Section 8.5 Geopolitical Issues 221

Middle East Oilfields and Pipelines 0 150 300 mi. Caspian TURKEY 0 150 300 km. Tabriz Sea Ceyhan

Kirkuk Tehran 35˚N CYPRUS SYRIA MEDITERRANEAN SEA LEBANON Baghdad Haifa IRAQ Alexandria ISRAEL IRAN

S U Basra M E Cairo TR D JORDAN A NS Abadan -A Eilat RA BI Gulf of Suez AN P K. P Kharg I. Gulf of Aqaba IPE E LI NE R S I A Strait of IRAQ-SAUDI ARABIA PIPELINE N Hormuz R B. (inactive) G U 25˚N EGYPT E L F Gulf of Oman Riyadh Q. Abu Dhabi Yanbu OLINE D PETR Muscat U.A.E. OMAN SAUDI

20˚N

Port Sudan S ARABIA

E

A SUDAN YEMEN ARABIAN 15˚N ERITREA San’a Figure 8.C Principal oil fields and n pipelines in the heart of the Middle d e SEA B A ab East. Vulnerable chokepoints and a l f -M o a volatile political relations have led to Oil pipeline n Aden d f ETHIOPIA e l the construction and often indirect Oilfield b u 45˚EG 55˚E 60˚E routing of many pipelines.

fought and eventually successful British and Allied campaign On either side of the Arabian Peninsula are two more crit- against Nazi in North Africa. Egyptian President ical chokepoints. One is extraordinarily vital to the world’s Gamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalization of the canal in 1956 economy: the Strait of Hormuz, connecting the Persian / led immediately to a British, French, and Israeli of Arabian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea. Much Egypt and a conflict known as the Suez Crisis and the 1956 of the world’s oil supply passes through here in the holds of Arab–Israeli War. Egypt effectively won that war when in- giant supertanker ships. Closure of the Strait of Hormuz ternational pressure caused the invading forces to withdraw, would have devastating impacts on the world’s industrial leaving the canal in Egypt’s hands. and financial systems. Iran’s plans to station Chinese-made Nearby, another chokepoint played a critical role in the silkworm missiles on the Strait of Hormuz and thus threaten most important Arab–Israeli war, the 1967 Six Day War. international oil shipments led to a new level of U.S. in- One of the events that precipitated the war was Egyptian volvement late in the Iran–Iraq War of 1980 –1988. That President Nasser’s closure of the Strait of Tiran (at the south- war also prompted a flurry of new oil pipeline construction ern end of the Gulf of Aqaba) to Israeli shipping. Israel had designed to bypass the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint (see the won the right of navigation through the strait after its war of Geography of Energy, above). One of these pipelines, the independence and would not accept its closure; therefore, it Petroline route running east–west across the Arabian Penin- attacked Egypt. sula, was built to also bypass the other important choke- 222 Chapter 8 A Geographic Profile of the Middle East and North Africa

and because of the importance of the oil as a future reserve. American companies are also heavily involved in oil opera- tions and oil-financed development in the Gulf countries. Gulf “petrodollars” are spent, banked, and invested in the United States, contributing significantly to the American economy. Maintaining a secure supply of Gulf oil has there- fore been one of the longstanding pillars of U.S. policy in the Middle East. The United States has long had a precarious relationship with the key players in the Middle Eastern arena. On the one hand, the United States has pledged unwavering support for Israel, but on the other, it has courted Israel’s traditional en- emies such as oil-rich Saudi Arabia. That Arab kingdom and its neighbors around the Persian /Arabian Gulf possess more

Joe Hobbs than 60 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves. Thus, they Figure 8.23 The Dardanelles chokepoint is the southernmost of are vital to the long-term economic security of the Western the two Turkish straits. This is a view from the Asian side, looking industrial powers and Japan. The United States and its West- across to Europe near the Gallipoli Battlefield. ern allies made it clear they would not tolerate any dis- ruption of access to this supply when Iraqi troops directed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein occupied Kuwait on Au- point: the Bab al-Mandeb, which connects the Red Sea with gust 2, 1990. U.S. President George Bush drew a “line in the the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. sand,” proclaiming “we cannot permit a resource so vital Turkey controls two more chokepoints that together are to be dominated by one so ruthless—and we won’t.” The known as the Turkish Straits. The northernmost strait is the United States and a coalition of Western and Arab allies Bosporus, which cleaves the city of Istanbul into western fielded a massive array of military might that ousted the Iraqi (European) and eastern (Asian) sides, and the southern strait invaders within months and secured the vital oil supplies for is called the Dardanelles (Figure 8.23). Their security has Western markets. When the United States invaded and occu- long been critical to the successful passage of goods between pied Iraq in 2003, ostensibly to extinguish Iraq’s ability to Europe and Asia and even more so to the successful passage develop and deploy weapons of mass destruction (WMD), of vessels between Russia (and the ) and the rest including chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, many of the world. Throughout the 20th century, one of the Soviet critics insisted this was just another example of America’s de- Union’s constant strategic priorities was the right of naviga- termination to control Middle Eastern oil. tion through the Turkish Straits. The Gulf War was not the first time the United States Finally, it should be noted that the , con- expressed its willingness to use force if necessary to main- necting the Mediterranean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean, is tain access to Middle Eastern oil. In the wake of the revolu- also a chokepoint. Here, too, maintaining and monitoring tion in Iran in 1979, the Soviet Union invaded neighboring the flow of maritime traffic have long been important con- Afghanistan. U.S. military analysts feared the Soviets might cerns. Britain’s insistence on maintaining control over its en- use Afghanistan as a launch pad to invade oil-rich Iran. 130 clave of Gibraltar, decades after the of most The United States deemed this prospect unacceptable, and of the world, is an excellent indicator of how critical this President Jimmy Carter issued the policy statement that chokepoint is. came to be known as the : The United States would use any means necessary to defend its vital interests in Access to Oil the region. Vital interests meant oil, and any means neces- The Suez Canal and other chokepoints, the cotton of the sary meant the United States was willing to go to war with Egypt’s Nile Delta, and the strategic location of the region the Soviet Union, presumably nuclear war, to defend those were important during and since colonial times. But oil has interests. been, and will remain (as long as fossil fuels drive the world’s Middle Eastern wars had already become proxy wars for economies), what keeps the rest of the world interested in the superpowers, with oil always looming as the prize: In the Middle East and North Africa. The region’s oil is sold the 1967 and 1973 Arab–Israeli wars, for example, Soviet- to many countries, but most of it is marketed in Western backed Syrian forces fought U.S.-backed Israeli troops. Europe and Japan. The United States also imports large American support of Israel in this war prompted Arab mem- amounts of Gulf oil but has a much smaller relative depen- bers of OPEC to impose an embargo on sales of their oil to dence on this source than do Japan and Europe. However, the the United States, precipitating the nation’s first energy crisis. Gulf region is very important to the United States because of During the 1973 war, the United States put its forces on an the heavy dependence of close American allies on Gulf oil advanced state of readiness to take on the Soviets in a nuclear Section 8.5 Geopolitical Issues 223

exchange if necessary. All of these events illustrate that the Middle East and North Africa comprise, in political geogra- Water Issues between Israel phy terms, a shatter belt—a large, strategically located re- and its Neighbors gion composed of conflicting states caught between the con- LEBANON Israel’s National Water Carrier G

116 O flicting interests of great powers. IIIIIIIIIII Canal L

A

Approximate extents of aquifers N

H SYRIA E

Access to Fresh Water I L. Kinneret G H

Some of the most serious geopolitical issues in the Middle T MEDITERRANEAN SEA Haifa S WAHDA (UNITY) East and North Africa relate to hydropolitics, or political DAM (proposed)

i uk R Nazareth i rm . i Ya

i i leverage and control over water. In this arid region, where i i

i

i i

i Irbid

i

i

i

most water is available either from rivers or from under- i

i

i

i

i

i

i

i

i

ground aquifers that cross national boundaries, control over i

i i

i Netanya i i

i

i

water is an especially difficult and potentially explosive issue. i

i

i

i

i i

i

i

An estimated 90 percent of the usable fresh water in the i

i i

i EAST GHOR CANAL

i

i WEST BANK i

Tel Aviv i

Middle East crosses one or more international borders. i i

i

i

i

i

i

i Amman Water is one of the most problematic issues in the i i

i

Ramallah i

i

i

i

i

i

Palestinian–Israeli conflict (Figure 8.24). Fresh-water aqui- i

i

i

i Jerusalem i fers underneath the West Bank supply about 40 percent of i Israel’s water. Palestinians point to Israel’s control over West Dead Sea Bank water as one of the most problematic elements of its oc- Gaza cupation. The average Jewish settler on the West Bank uses 74 GAZA STRIP gallons (278 liters) per day, whereas the average West Bank Beersheba Palestinian uses 19 (72 liters). The World Health Organiza- tion calculates that 27 gallons (102 liters) per person per day ISRAEL is needed for minimal health and sanitation standards, but Israeli policies prohibit Palestinians from increasing their JORDAN

water usage. Many Israeli policymakers insist that water re- RED-DEAD CANAL/PIPELINE (Proposed) sources on the West Bank must remain under strict Israeli EGYPT control and, on these grounds, oppose the creation of a Palestinian state on the West Bank. Critically, it is estimated that the West Bank aquifers will not contain enough water to support the region’s population at current levels of con- sumption for more than a few more years (even taking into account anticipated replenishment from rainfall). More promisingly, Jordan and Israel are working on agree- ments to share waters from the Jordan River (which forms a portion of their common border) and its tributary, the Eilat Aqaba Yarmuk River. They are discussing a joint venture to build 0 20 40 mi. 0 20 40 km. the “Red-Dead” Canal, which would connect the Gulf of Aqaba with the Dead Sea. The gravity flow of seawater to the Figure 8.24 Locations of water issues between Israel and its Dead Sea would spin turbines and run generators to produce neighbors electricity the two nations could share. Water is a critical issue blocking a peace treaty between Israel and Syria. If Syria were to recover all of the Golan Heights area (which it lost to Israel in the 1967 war), it store waters of the Yarmuk River to be shared between those would have shorefront on Lake Kinneret and therefore, countries. Israel thus implied it would bomb the dam rather presumably, rights to use its water. That prospect is unac- than allow it to deprive Israel of Jordan River water. ceptable to Israel. This body of water, also known as Lake A useful way to think about the geography of hydropoli- Tiberias and the Sea of Galilee, is Israel’s principal supply of tics is in terms of “upstream” and “downstream” countries. fresh water, feeding the National Water Carrier system that Simply because water flows downhill, an upstream country transports water south to the Desert. In occupying usually is able to maximize its water use at the expense of a the Golan Heights, Israel also controls some of the northern downstream country. However, the situation between Israel bank of the Yarmuk River on the border with Jordan. For and the countries upstream on the Yarmuk shows that this is many years, Israel has stated it would never allow Syria and not always true. Israel is far more powerful militarily and can Jordan to construct their proposed Unity Dam that would use the threat of force to wrest more water out of the system. 224 Chapter 8 A Geographic Profile of the Middle East and North Africa

Historically, the same has been true for Egypt. It is the ul- timate downstream country, at the mouth of a great river Water Developments than runs through 10 countries and sustains 160 million in the Nile Basin people (a population that is expected to double in 25 years; 25˚E 30˚E ISRAEL MEDITERRANEAN SEA N Figure 8.25). However, it has long been the strongest coun- A D try in the Nile Basin and has threatened to use its greater Alexandria Port Said I R I

I

I I

I I I I I I I I O force if it does not get the water it wants. In 1926, when the I I I I SUEZ CANAL I I I

I I I British ruled Egypt and many other colonies in Africa, 10 of Cairo I J

Egypt’s upstream countries were compelled to sign the Nile Gulf of Gulf of Suez Water Agreement. This guaranteed Egyptian access to 56 bil- Aqaba SAUDI

lion cubic meters of the Nile’s water, or fully two-thirds of its N ARABIA i LIBYA le R R 84 billion cubic meters—even though barely a drop of the . Nile’s waters actually originates in Egypt. The treaty forbids E D any projects that might threaten the volume of water reach- EGYPT ASWAN HIGH DAM ing Egypt, prohibits use of Lake Victoria’s water without First Cataract S

Egypt’s permission, and gives Egypt the right to inspect the I I L. Nasser

Toshka Lakes I I I E entire length of the Nile to ensure compliance. TOSHKA CANAL I A In recent years, though, one country after another has KAJBAR DAM Second Cataract defied the treaty, calling it an outmoded legacy of colonial- (proposed) 20˚N ism. Kenya and have plans to build pipelines to Third Cataract Fourth carry Lake Victoria waters to thirsty towns and villages in- Cataract land. Uganda is building its controversial Bujagali Dam on Fifth Cataract MEROWE DAM CHAD (proposed) A the Nile, mainly for hydroelectricity production. With Chi- tba ra R nese assistance, Ethiopia is building the huge Takaze Dam, Sixth Cataract . for hydropower and irrigation, on a tributary of the Blue Khartoum ERITREA Nile. Sudan is building the Merowe (Hamdab) and Kajbar WHITE NILE DAM KHASHAM AL GIRBA DAM T ak Dams on its northern stretch of the Nile. Predictably, Egypt SUDAN aze R. SENNAR DAM has had a bellicose response to these developments. For ex- B TAKAZE DAM lu . e (proposed)

R N e

ample, Egypt called Kenya’s stated intention to withdraw l i

i l e

N R

e .

t from the Nile Water Agreement an “act of war.” i ROSEIRES h Meanwhile, Egypt’s demands on Nile waters are increas- W DAM ing. Egypt recently excavated the multibillion-dollar Toshka Bahr el Ara b R Malakal . S

I o

Canal, which transports water from Lake Nasser over a dis- I b ETHIOPIA

I a

I t

I R

S I . I

I

I tance of 300 miles (500 km) to the Kharga Oasis of the West- I

U I

I

I

I I

I Ak ern Desert. Proponents of the canal insist it will result in the I D o I b

I o I

CENTRAL I R I

W I .

I .

hI

cultivation of nearly 1.5 million acres (600,000 hectares) of I D R i JONGLEI CANAL te AFRICAN r u N P J (construction halted i i l b “new” land and provide a living for hundreds of thousands e o REPUBLIC in 1983) r R R of people. Critics argue that it is a waste of money and that . . Juba salinization and evaporation will take a huge toll on the cul- tivated land and the country’s water supply. Uele R. L. Turkana The source of four-fifths of Syria’s water and two-thirds UGANDA Con go A of Iraq’s, Turkey is an upstream country that exercises its R ruw L. Albert . imi R. L. Kyoga KENYA upstream advantage on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers Bunia Victorian Nile OWEN FALLS DAM (Figure 8.26). Turkey’s position has long been that water Kampala BUJAGALI DAM (proposed) in Turkey belongs to Turkey, just as Saudi Arabian oil be- L. Edward Lake CONGO longs to Saudi Arabia. Not surprisingly, downstream Syria L Nairobi o Victoria m

a L. Kivu

and Iraq reject this position and are distraught by the dimin- m RWANDA

i

R . ished flow and quality of water resulting from Turkey’s com- Proposed water pipeline BURUNDI 262–263 prehensive Southeast Anatolia Project. When completed, the Shinyanga L. Tanganyika Kahama project is expected to reduce Syria’s share of the Euphrates waters by 40 percent and Iraq’s by 60 percent. Also increas- 0 150 300 mi. TANZANIA 0 150 300 km. ing the likelihood of serious future tension is a history of strained relations among Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, accompa- Figure 8.25 Recent and proposed water developments in the nied by the fact that no commonly accepted body-of-water Nile basin law governs the allocation of water in such international situations. Section 8.5 Geopolitical Issues 225

cleric Sheikh Umar Abdel-Rahman bombed New York City’s World Trade Center as a protest against American support of Israel and Egypt’s pro-Western government. In an attempt to destabilize and replace Egypt’s government, which they viewed as an illegitimate regime too supportive of the United States, another Egyptian Islamist group attacked and killed foreign tourists in Egypt in the 1990s. In the 1980s, members of the pro-Iranian Hizbullah, or Party of God, in Lebanon kidnapped foreigners as bargaining chips for the release of comrades jailed in other Middle Eastern countries. Within Israel and the autonomous Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian members of Hamas (an Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Move- ment) and another organized called the al-Aqsa Martyrs Joe Hobbs Brigade have carried out terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians Figure 8.26 The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers rise in Turkey, and soldiers in an effort (apparently successful) to derail im- giving this non-Arab country control over a resource vital to the lives of millions of Arabs in downstream Syria and Iraq. This plementation of the peace agreements reached between the waterfall is on a tributary of the Tigris in far eastern Turkey. Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organiza- tion (PLO). In Algeria, years of bloodshed followed the government’s annulment of 1991 election results that would have given the Turkish leaders have said they will never use water as a Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) majority control in the parlia- political weapon, but Turkey has wielded water to its ad- ment. Muslim sympathizers carried the battle to , vantage. In 1987, for example, Turkey increased the Eu- bombing civilian targets in protest against the French gov- phrates flow into Syria in exchange for a Syrian pledge to ernment’s support for the Algerian regime. stop support of Kurdish rebels inside Turkey. Turkey now In Western capitals, concern about “state-sponsored ter- says it wants to use water to promote peace in the Middle rorism” has long focused on Iran. Iran has extended direct East by shipping it in converted supertankers for sale to such or clandestine assistance to a variety of Islamist terrorist thirsty (and therefore potentially combative) countries as Is- groups, including Hizbullah and Hamas. There is great con- rael, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Algeria. cern about Iran’s nuclear weapons potential because such weapons might find their way to terrorist groups or be deliv- Terrorism ered by Iran itself on its own missiles against Israel or an- Viewed from the perspective of the U.S. government, almost other target. Iran denies that it is developing the weapons, all of the geopolitical issues related to this region— oil, eco- but U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies believe Iran will nomic development, trade, aid, the Arab–Israeli conflict, and possess them by 2008. Israeli officials have said publicly that more—have recently been subsumed beneath the broader Israel (which has its own nuclear weapons) regards Iran as rubric of the “war on terrorism.” Even the 2003 invasion of an “existential threat” and will prevent that development, Iraq was explained in part as essential to the war on terror (see presumably by an air strike like the one Israel carried out that discussion in Chapter 9, pages 257–258). How the United against Iraq’s nuclear facility in 1981. States pursues that war in the coming years will have enor- In 1998, the world began to hear about Osama bin Laden, mous impacts on societies and economies in the Middle East a former Saudi businessman living in exile in Afghanistan, and North Africa and perhaps in the United States as well. whose al-Qa’ida organization bombed U.S. embassies in The terrorists pursued by the United States are almost Kenya and Tanzania as part of a worldwide armed struggle, without exception Islamist militants (best known as Islam- or jihad, against American and immorality (see ists), and so it is useful to understand the nature of Islamic Geography of Terrorism, pages 226 –227). Bin Laden’s orga- “fundamentalism” and radicalism. Not all Islamists are mil- nization was also responsible for the 2000 bombing of the itant or terrorist, but they all reject what they view as the ma- American naval destroyer the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen’s harbor terialism and moral corruption of Western countries and the of Aden. However shocking those assaults were, they pale political and military support these countries lend to Israel. in comparison to al-Qa’ida’s attacks against targets in the Both Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims have advanced a wide range United States on September 11, 2001. In the most ferocious of Islamic movements, notably in Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, terrorist actions ever undertaken to that date, members of al- Afghanistan, Sudan, and Algeria. Qa’ida cells in the United States hijacked four civilian jetlin- Although nominally religious, the more radical of these ers and succeeded in piloting two of them into New York movements have political and cultural aims, particularly the City’s World Trade Center towers and one into Washington, destabilization or removal of U.S. and Israeli interests in the D.C.’s Pentagon. More than 3,000 people, mainly civilians, region and abroad. In 1993, followers of the radical Egyptian perished. Bin Laden and his followers cheered the carnage as 226 Chapter 8 A Geographic Profile of the Middle East and North Africa

Geography of Terrorism What Does tions take.” d Osama bin Laden, as evident in his own words below, called for the killing of American and other Western al-Qa’ida Want? civilians. Gunaratna regards al-Qa’ida as an extremely unusual This is an important question. Perhaps if terrorist group in the category he calls “apocalyptic,” one that an answer could be found, there would be believes “it has been divinely ordained to commit violent acts, a way either to defeat this organization and likely to engage in mass casualty, catastrophic terrorism.” e or to address the root causes of its existence in such a way that He warns that al-Qa’ida “will have no compunction about em- it would no longer have a reason to exist. Here, we will look ploying chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons at the question mainly from the inside, examining what al- against population centers.” f Qa’ida says it wants. The answer may be fundamentally a But why? Why do they want to kill Western, and particu- geographic one. larly American, civilians? Al-Qa’ida leaders have been very ex- To begin, it is useful to know what al-Qa’ida is. Al-Qa’ida plicit in their rationale. Osama bin Laden explained that the (“the Base” in Arabic) is a transnational organization that main reason for the terrorist attacks is to convince the United seeks to unite Islamist militant groups worldwide in a common States that it should withdraw its military forces and other in- effort to achieve its goals. An Islamist or jihadist organization terests from the Islamic Holy Land. In the following statement, is one that employs Islamic faith, culture, and history to legit- the “Land of the Two Holy Places” means Saudi Arabia. The imize its philosophy and actions.a The principal sources Is- two holy places are the Saudi Arabian cities of Mecca (site of lamists cite are the Qur’an, the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet the Ka’aba, and Islam’s most sacred city) and Medina (Islam’s Muhammad), and the writings of earlier Islamic militants such second holiest place, where the Prophet Muhammad is buried). as Ibn Taymiyya, Sayyid Qutb, and Muhammad al-Faraj. Ac- The Dome of the Rock is the shrine in Jerusalem, described cording to Rohan Gunaratna, the leading academic authority earlier, containing the sacred rock from where the Prophet on the organization, al-Qa’ida is “above all else a secret, almost Muhammad was said to have ascended into heaven on the virtual, organization, one that denies its existence in order to Night Journey. remain in the shadows.” b This desire for secrecy explains why The Arabian Peninsula has never—since God made it flat, al-Qa’ida seldom takes direct responsibility for terrorist acts. created its desert, and encircled it with seas—been Instead, these are attributed to the other names and identities stormed by any forces like the crusader armies spreading employed by al-Qa’ida, particularly the “World Islamic Front in it like locusts, eating its riches and wiping out its plan- for the Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders,” a coalition tations . . . The latest and greatest of these aggressions, in- of seven Islamist militant groups (three Egyptian, two Pak- curred by the Muslims since the death of the Prophet . . . istani, one Bangladeshi, and one Afghan). Osama bin Laden, is the occupation of the Land of the Two Holy Places—the formerly a Saudi national, emerged as the figurehead of this foundation of the house of Islam, the place of the revela- organization. tion, the source of the message, and the place of the noble Al-Qa’ida certainly is a terrorist organization if one employs Ka’aba, the qibla of all Muslims—by the armies of the the U.S. Department of State’s definition of terrorism: “pre- American crusaders and their allies. We bemoan this and can only say “No power and power acquiring except meditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against through Allah” . . . To push the enemy—the greatest kufr noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine [infidel]— out of the country is a prime duty. No other c agents, usually intended to influence an audience.” Ayman al- duty after Belief is more important than this duty. Utmost Zawahiri, al-Qa’ida’s second in command, called for an esca- effort should be made to prepare and instigate the umma lation of attacks with “the need to inflict the maximum casual- [Islamic community] against the enemy, the American– ties against the opponent, for this is the language understood Israeli — occupying the country of the two Holy by the West, no matter how much time and effort such opera- Places . . . to the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem . . . The cru-

a John L. Esposito, Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam (: d Ayman Al-Zawahiri, 2002b. “Why Attack America (January 2002).” , 2002), p. 28. In Anti-American Terrorism and the Middle East, Barry Rubin and b Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (New Judith Colp Rubin, eds. (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 133. York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 3. e Gunaratna, op. cit., p. 93. c Quoted in Rex A. Hudson, Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why: The f Ibid., p. 11. 1999 Government Report on Profiling Terrorists (Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 1999), p. 18. Section 8.5 Geopolitical Issues 227

saders and the Jews have joined together to invade the With these goals in mind, what should the United States do? heart of Dar al-Islam—the Abode of Islam: our most sa- Al-Qa’ida’s strategists clearly hope that terrorism will inflict cred places in Saudi Arabia, Mecca and Medina, including unacceptable losses of American lives, forcing the United States the prophet’s mosque and Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, to withdraw its troops from Iraq and neighboring countries. g al-Quds. That conviction may stem from the withdrawal of U.S. troops In what was arguably his most important policy statement, from Somalia after the loss of 18 American soldiers in Mo- announcing the formation of the “Islamic World Front for the gadishu in 1993 (the “Blackhawk Down” episode; see page Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders,” bin Laden used the 501) and the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Lebanon follow- occupation of Islamic sacred space as the principal justification ing the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in for war against the United States: 1983 (see page 243). Al-Qa’ida thinks the United States has no In compliance with God’s order, we issue the following stomach for sustained sacrifice. fatwa [religious injunction] to all Muslims: The ruling to Al-Qa’ida poses a dilemma for the United States. If the kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and mili- United States were to withdraw its troops from the region, it tary—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do might only reaffirm al-Qa’ida’s belief that its adversary is weak it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to and vulnerable, thus encouraging more attacks. And if al- liberate the al-Aqsa mosque and the holy mosque [in Qa’ida’s ultimate goal is to take on the United States once it has Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to established an Islamic empire, there is no reason to believe that move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to a unilateral withdrawal would bring a cessation of hostilities. threaten any Muslim.h On the other hand, if the United States continues to conduct a In an earlier fatwa (1996), bin Laden laid out these goals for war on al-Qa’ida and a broader war against terrorism in a host al-Qa’ida: to drive U.S. forces out of the Arabian Peninsula, of Muslim countries, al-Qa’ida can use the American presence, overthrow the Saudi government, and liberate the holy places and especially unintended civilian losses, to incite widespread of Mecca and Medina. Overthrowing the Saudi government hatred and violence directed against the United States. Al- and the other autocratic dynasties of the Persian Gulf region, Qa’ida has used the U.S. occupation of Iraq to bolster its case along with other secular and pro-Western regimes of the that “the Crusaders” are waging a war against Muslims and Middle East—notably Mubarak’s Egypt—is a theme that is the Islamic world, and it is time to use terrorism because vio- very often articulated in al-Qa’ida ideology. lence is the only language they understand. And by selecting What is al-Qa’ida’s ultimate goal? Is the organization Saudi citizens as 15 of the 19 hijackers of the 9/11 attacks, al- satisfied now that U.S. troops actually have been withdrawn Qa’ida successfully introduced a major, lasting strain in rela- from Saudi Arabia? What would be achieved if all Western in- tions between the United States and its vital ally Saudi Arabia. terests were driven from the Islamic Holy Land and if all of the Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and a variety governments sympathetic to the West were overthrown? Ac- of other tools, many geographers are interpreting the geo- cording to Gunaratna, the ultimate aim is to reestablish the graphic dimensions of terrorism. One of the most profound caliphate—the empire of Islam’s early golden age—and questions for geographers is where future attacks will take thereby empower a formidable array of truly Islamic states to place. Gunaratna estimates that al-Qa’ida maintains a reserve wage war on the United States and its allies.i of at least 100 targets worldwide.j Where are most of these? Suleiman Abu Ghaith, one of bin Laden’s top aides, offered a g Osama bin Ladin, “Declaration of War (August 1996).” In Anti- clue, along with a geographic answer to the question of what American Terrorism and the Middle East, Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin, eds. (Oxford University Press, 2002a), pp. 137, 139; Osama bin al-Qa’ida wants: “Let the United States know that with God’s Ladin, “Statement: Jihad against Jews and Crusaders” (February 23, permission, the battle will continue to be waged on its territory 1998).” In Anti-American Terrorism and the Middle East, Barry Rubin until it leaves our lands.” k and Judith Colp Rubin, eds. (Oxford University Press, 2002b), p. 149; Osama bin Ladin, “Al-Qa’ida Recruitment Video (2000).” In Anti- jIbid., p. 188. American Terrorism and the Middle East, Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin, eds. (Oxford University Press, 2002c), p. 174. kSuleiman Abu Ghaith, “Al-Qa’ida Statement (October 10, 2001).” In Anti-American Terrorism and the Middle East, Barry Rubin and Judith h Bin Laden 2002b, op. cit., footnote vii, p. 150. Colp Rubin, eds. (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 251. iGunaratna 2002, op. cit., footnote ii, pp. 55, 89. 228 Chapter 8 A Geographic Profile of the Middle East and North Africa

Major al-Qa’ida-Related Terrorist Attacks, 1998–2004

18 23 19 20 4 25 5 16 22 7 8 6 15 12 21 3 9 11 1 14 13

2 24 10

1 NAIROBI, KENYA 6 DJERBA ISLAND, TUNISIA 11 ZAMBOANGA, PHILIPPINES 16 , MOROCCO 21 RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA 8/07/98 4/11/02 10/17/02 5/16/03 4/21/04 2 DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA 7 KARACHI, PAKISTAN 12 MANILA, PHILIPPINES 17 RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA 22 KHOBAR, SAUDI ARABIA 8/07/98 5/08/02 10/18/02 11/08/03 5/29/04 3 OFFSHORE OF ADEN, YEMEN 8 KARACHI, PAKISTAN 13 MOMBASA, KENYA 18 ISTANBUL, TURKEY 23 TASHKENT, UZBEKISTAN 10/12/00 6/14/02 11/28/02 11/15/03 7/30/04 4 NEW YORK, U.S.A. 9 OFFSHORE OF ADEN, YEMEN 14 , PHILIPPINES 19 ISTANBUL, TURKEY 24 , INDONESIA 9/11/01 10/06/02 3/04/03 11/20/03 9/09/04 5 WASHINGTON, U.S.A. 10 KUTA, INDONESIA 15 RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA 20 MADRID, SPAIN 25 TABA, EGYPT 9/11/01 10/12/02 5/12/03 3/11/04 10/08/04

Figure 8.27 Locations of terrorist attacks attributed to al-Qa’ida and affiliated organizations, 1998 –2004 justifiable combat against an infidel nation whose military Mainstream Islamic movements are not military or terrorist troops occupied the holy land of Arabia, where Mecca and organizations but have distinguished themselves through Medina are located. public service to the needy and through encouragement of As the U.S. counterattacked, ousting al-Qa’ida from its strong moral and family values. For most Muslims, the grow- bases in Afghanistan and cracking down hard on its leader- ing Islamist trend means a reembrace of traditional values ship around the world, al-Qa’ida evolved into a far more ge- like piety, generosity, care for others, and Islamic legal sys- ographically diffuse organization. It carried out or supported tems, which have proven effective for centuries. These values attacks in Indonesia, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Spain, Uzbe- pose a reasonable alternative to Western cultural influences kistan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia (Figure 8.27). A succession and often repressive political and administrative systems. For of al-Qa’ida videotapes and audiotapes promised an unre- many people outside the region, however, “Muslim” and lenting and costly continuation of jihad against the United “terrorist” have become synonymous—an erroneous associ- States and its allies. It will be many years before Americans ation that can be overcome in part by careful study of the in particular might be able to emerge from the shadow of this complex Middle East and North Africa. threat. Al-Qa’ida clearly will not hesitate to use the most This concludes an overview of land and life in the Middle devastating weapons, even against large numbers of civilians. East and North Africa. The following chapter offers more in- In fact, this combination is its tactical priority. sight into the peoples and nations of this vital region. It be- In 9/11 and other atrocities, a tiny minority of Muslims gins with a continuation of the geopolitical theme, examin- carried out terrorist actions that the great majority of Mus- ing one of the world’s most problematic, persistent, and lims condemned. Islamic scholars and clerics pointed out in influential conflicts, the one between Israel and its Arab each case that the murder of civilians is prohibited in Islamic neighbors. law and that the attacks had no legitimate religious grounds. Key Terms + Concepts 229

SUMMARY Events in the Middle East and North Africa profoundly affect the tion, great river systems and freshwater aquifers have sustained daily lives of people around the world, yet this region is often mis- large human populations. understood. Misleading stereotypes about its environment and Many of the plants and animals upon which the world’s agricul- people are common, and people outside the region often associ- ture depends were first domesticated in the Middle East in the ate it solely with military conflict and terrorism. course of the Agricultural Revolution. The region has bestowed upon humanity a rich legacy of ancient The Middle Eastern “ecological trilogy” consists of peasant vil- civilizations, including those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and lagers, pastoral nomads, and city-dwellers. The relationships the three great monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and among them have been mainly symbiotic and peaceful, but city- Islam. dwellers have often dominated the relationship, and both pas- Middle Easterners include Jews, Arabs, Turks, Persians, Pash- toral nomads and urbanites have sometimes preyed upon the vil- tuns, , people of sub-Saharan African origin, and other lagers, who are the trilogy’s cornerstone. ethnic groups who practice a wide variety of ancient and modern About two-thirds of the world’s oil is here, making this one of the livelihoods. world’s most vital economic and strategic regions. Arabs are the largest ethnic group in the Middle East and North Since World War II, several international crises and wars have Africa, and there are also large populations of ethnic Turks, Per- been precipitated by events in the Middle East. Strong outside sians (Iranians), and Kurds. Islam is by far the largest religion. powers depend heavily on this region for their current and future Jews live almost exclusively in Israel, and there are minority industrial needs. Unimpeded access to Gulf oil is one of the pil- Christian populations in several countries. lars of U.S. foreign policy. Population growth rates in the region are moderate to high. Oil The Middle East and North Africa are characterized by a high wealth is concentrated in a handful of countries, and as a whole, number of chokepoints, strategic marine narrows that may be this is a developing region. shut off by force, triggering conflict and economic disruption. The Middle East has served as a pivotal global crossroads, link- Oil pipelines in the Middle East are routed both to shorten sea ing Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Mediterranean Sea with the tanker voyages and to reduce the threat to sea tanker traffic Indian Ocean. These countries have historically been unwilling through chokepoints but are themselves vulnerable to disruption. hosts to occupiers and empires originating far beyond their borders. Access to fresh water is a major problem in relations between Turkey and its downstream neighbors, Egypt and its upstream The margins of this region are occupied by oceans, high moun- neighbors, and Israel and its Palestinian, Jordanian, and Syrian tains, and deserts. The land is composed mainly of arid and semi- neighbors. arid plains and plateaus, together with considerable areas of rugged mountains and isolated “seas” of sand. Al-Qa’ida and affiliated Islamist terrorist groups aim to drive the United States and its allied governments from the region and to Aridity dominates the environment, with at least three-fourths of replace them with an Islamic caliphate. Al-Qa’ida is an apoca- the region receiving less than 10 inches (25 cm) of yearly precip- lyptic group that seeks to inflict mass casualties on its enemies, itation. Plants, animals, and people have developed strategies of particularly on Americans in their home country. drought avoidance and drought endurance to live here. In addi-

KEY TERMS + CONCEPTS Terms in blue are also defined in the glossary. Afro-Asiatic language family (p. 212) chokepoints (p. 219) energy crisis (p. 219) Berber subfamily (p. 212) Christianity (p. 215) Exodus (p. 213) Berber (p. 212) Church of the Holy Sepulcher (p. 215) Fertile Crescent (p. 211) Tuareg (p. 212) civilization (p. 211) First and Second Temples (p. 213) al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (p. 225) Copts (p. 216) Hamas (p. 225) al-Aqsa Mosque (p. 217) Crusades (p. 216) Hebrew (p. 213) al-Qa’ida (p. 225) culture hearth (p. 211) Hizbullah (p. 225) Altaic language family (p. 212) Diaspora (p. 215) Holocaust (p. 215) Turkish (p. 212) Dome of the Rock (p. 213) horizontal migration (p. 208) anti-Semitism (p. 215) drought avoidance (p. 203) hydropolitics (p. 223) Arab (p. 211) drought endurance (p. 203) Indo-European language family (p. 212) Carter Doctrine (p. 222) dry farming (p. 203) Dari (Afghan Persian) (p. 212) 230 Chapter 8 A Geographic Profile of the Middle East and North Africa

Farsi (Persian) (p. 212) Nile Water Agreement (p. 224) sedentarization (p. 208) Kurdish (p. 212) Nilo-Saharan language family (p. 212) Semitic language family (p. 212) Pashto (p. 212) Chari-Nile languages (p. 212) Arabic (p. 212) Islam (p. 216) Noble Sanctuary (al-Haraam ash-Shariif) Hebrew (p. 212) Islamic law (shari’a) (p. 218) (p. 213) shatter belt (p. 223) Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) (p. 225) Organization of Petroleum Exporting Shi’ite (Shi’a) Islam (p. 217) Islamist (p. 225) Countries (OPEC) (p. 219) Suez Crisis (1956 Arab–Israeli War) Israelite (p. 213) Pashtun (p. 212) (p. 221) Jew (p. 211) People of the Book (p. 216) Sunni Islam (p. 217) jihad (p. 225) Persian (p. 212) Temple Mount (p. 213) Ka’aba (p. 216) pillars of Islam (p. 217) terrorism (p. 226) Kurd (p. 212) almsgiving (p. 217) Turk (p. 212) Maronites (p. 216) fasting (p. 217) upstream and downstream countries medina (p. 218) pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca (p. 218) (p. 223) Middle Eastern ecological trilogy (p. 207) prayer (p. 217) usufruct (p. 210) pastoral nomads (p. 207) profession of faith (p. 217) vertical migration (p. 208) urbanites (p. 208) primate city (p. 210) weapons of mass destruction (WMD) villagers (p. 207) Promised Land (p. 213) (p. 222) Muslims (p. 216) push and pull migration factors (p. 208) Western Wall (p. 213) “New Rome” (p. 215) Qur’an (Koran) (p. 216) Zion (p. 215) Night Journey (p. 217) risk minimization (p. 208) Zionist movement (p. 215)

REVIEW QUESTIONS they are found? What is an Arab? A Jew? A Turk? A Kurd? A Persian? A Muslim?

Assess your understanding of this chapter’s topics with additional quizzing 5. What are the principal beliefs and historical geographic mile- and concept-based problems at http://earthscience.brookscole.com /wrg5e. stones of Jews, Christians, and Muslims? 1. What countries constitute the Middle East and North Africa? 6. What is the difference between Shi’ite and Sunni Islam? What are the three most populous? Which encourage and dis- courage population growth? 7. Where is oil concentrated in this region? 2. What are the major climatic patterns of the Middle East? Where 8. What is the Carter Doctrine? are the principal mountains, deserts, rivers, and areas of high 9. What are “upstream” and “downstream” countries, and which rainfall? are usually the more powerful? What are the exceptions to this 3. Why can this region be described as a culture hearth? What ma- rule? jor ideas, commodities, and cultures originated there? 10. What are Hizbullah, Hamas, and al-Qa’ida? 4. What are the major ethnic groups and the countries in which

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. What is the origin of the term Middle East? 5. What are the main elements that make up the classic medina, or Muslim Middle Eastern city? List them and then draw a model 2. What makes the Dead Sea the lowest place on Earth? city. What city mapped in this chapter conveys most of those es- 3. Why is Lebanon barren today? What other significant environ- sential elements? mental changes have occurred in the region? 6. Using a map, discuss the sacred places of Judaism, Christianity, 4. Three ancient ways of life—making up the ecological trilogy— and Islam in Jerusalem. prevail in the Middle East. What are these and what are some 7. Why is Islam often described as a way of life? What are the five of the important characteristics and interrelationships of each? pillars of Islam? What do they require of a Muslim? (This may be answered with an exercise involving three groups, with each group representing one livelihood.) 8. Discuss the importance of the region’s oil to the United States Discussion Questions 231

and other countries. How has that importance shaped U.S. for- 10. Discuss hydropolitical problems between Israel and its neigh- eign policy? bors, Turkey and its neighbors, or Egypt and its neighbors. 9. What are the major chokepoints in the Middle East? Who has 11. What does al-Qa’ida want and why? What should be done closed them off and what has happened as a result? How has about this threat? the threat of their closure affected the routing of oil pipelines? What was the shifting geography of Saddam Hussein’s pipeline network?