The Middle East

Pick a Region:. . The Middle East

Geographic
Arabian Peninsula is located in southwest Asia and is surrounded by the Red Sea on the west, the Arabian Sea on the south, and the Persian Gulf on the east. The Peninsula includes Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirate, Bahrain, Qatar, and Kuwait.

Political
Colonialism is the extension of a state’s authority through conquest and/or settlement. This term is often used to describe the pattern of global control exercised by the European powers from around the 1400s until after World War II.

Country (synonymous with state) is a political unit that possesses territory, a population, and a government, and is independent.

Coup is a sudden seizure of power, usually by the military, in which the old government is replaced. In most cases, there is little loss of life during this transfer of authority.

Economic growth is a broad term used to describe an improvement in the economic situation of a state. Common measures include increases in national wealth, increases in personal wealth, or improvements in the standard of living.

Legitimacy is the popular acceptance by the population of the leadership’s right to rule.

Nation is a group of people who sees themselves as distinct, often on the basis of ethnicity, language, and/or culture.

State (synonymous with country) is a political unit that possesses territory, a population, and a government, and is independent.

Historical Terms
Arab is an ethnic group that claims descent from Ismail, the Prophet Abraham’s son by Hagar. Originally, this group was concentrated in the northern and central portions of the Arabian Peninsula. In modern times, an Arab is someone who speaks the Arabic language.

Islam is a monotheistic religion that draws upon Judaism and Christianity. Islam was founded by the prophet Muhammad (570-632 CE) in the town of Mecca in present-day Saudi Arabia. People who practice Islam are called Muslims. Their scripture is the Koran, which was revealed to Muhammad by god, Allah. Muhammad is seen as the last in a series of prophets beginning with Adam and including Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Soon after Muhammad’s death, the religion split into several sects, the two central ones being the Sunni and the Shia.

Islam spread throughout the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Europe. Presently about 1 billion people in the world practice Islam. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world.

Jew is any practitioner of the religion Judaism. The term is also used to refer to any member of the Jewish ethnic/cultural group.

Judaism is the oldest of the three major monotheistic religions. Judaism dates back to the Prophet Abraham in about 1800 BC.

League of Nations is an international organization created in the aftermath of World War I to act as an international collective security mechanism. Never terribly successful, the League disbanded during World War II and was effectively replaced by the United Nations.

League of Nations mandate system is a program designed to administer the colonies and other territories taken from the defeated states of World War I (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire). Its stated goal was to gradually move these territories to full independence. The mandate system was interpreted by some as a mechanism for the extension of colonial control by the victorious powers of the war.

Muslim is any practitioner of the religion of Islam and literally means "one who submits."

Ottoman Empire is the Turkic empire founded in 1300 by Othman in present-day Turkey. In 1453 the Ottomans captured Istanbul and made it their capital. At its height the Ottomans controlled North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East, and southeast Europe. Challenged by both foreign aggression and internal decay, the Ottomans gradually lost power throughout the 1700s and 1800s. Joining with Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I, the Ottoman empire was split up after the war and its territories were either granted independence or were given over to the victorious European states under the League of Nations mandate system. The modern state of Turkey emerged from the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

Turkic is originally the nomadic people of Central Asia, some of whom eventually spread into the Middle East. They were/are the dominant ethnic group in the Ottoman Empire and in present-day Turkey.