Hey there good people, Brian here. So what comes to mind when you hear the word nation? Usually,
the word is used to refer to a regionally bounded location under one authority, with a common set
of goals. That, however, is actually a country. When we use the term nation for our lesson today,
we're going to be using it to refer to an ethnically similar group of people with a
shared past, similar vision for the future, and who identify with an area of land. That my friends
is a nation. Southwest Asia is home to about 330 million people, but with an incredible variance in
ethnicity, culture, and beliefs. Our goal for today is to be able to answer three main questions
about the nations of Southwest Asia. Number one: how did these nations get to Southwest Asia?
Number two: how do these nations interact? And number three: what influences have world events
had on the nations of Southwest Asia? And to help organize your thoughts, we've got a three-column
chart ready for you in the pdf with one column for each question; so just print, and let's go!
Southwest Asia: In the middle. As alluded to in our introduction to the region
Southwest Asia is chock full of extreme climates; from Mediterranean to desert,
from forbidding mountains to deep valleys, it's definitely a study of contrasts.
As a result, when people find a good route through and around those geographic obstacles,
they tend to keep using it, in this case for thousands of years. As a result,
while Southwest Asia may not have played a central role for traders and merchants moving through it,
it was the central pathway on the way to everywhere important. Pause here for a minute
and think about the effects of having so many different peoples, religious beliefs, ethnic
backgrounds, traitors and merchants moving through this area. What do you think the impacts will be?
The people and settlement of Southwest Asia. Now let's look at the people in
settlement patterns that will affect our understanding of modern Southwest Asia.
Ancient Southwest Asia. Most historical sources agree that more than 40 people groups have resided
in, or migrated to, Southwest Asia from prehistory through to the present.
Now think back to previous units and ask yourself why is it that people migrate? Were conquest,
conflict, or economic opportunity on your mental list, or maybe a little of all three?
Jewish, Palestinian, and European Nations. From the Persian conquests of the 500s B.C.E. forward,
most of the Eastern Mediterranean has been controlled by an outside force. After the
Persians, came the Greeks under Alexander, then the Romans, then the Persians again,
then the Arab Caliphate, then the Turkic Empires, and then the British; and well you get the idea.
Throughout most of that time Jewish people and descendants of Phoenician people, sometimes
called Palestinians, have lived in the area. The Jewish nation has a particular mention due to its
connection to the founding of Christianity; as the first section of the Christian Bible,
the old testament, is around 80 percent of the Jewish holy scripture called the Talmud.
While never the largest, the impact that both Jews and Palestinians continue to have
on modern politics is something that we'll discuss in further lessons. After diaspora,
or forced spreading out of Jews from the area known as Judea during the first century C.E.,
many other peoples from Transcaucasia and the Palestinian region moved in and remain.
Persian nation. The Iranic, or Persian peoples, come from an area west and north
of India and have lived in the area known as Persia or Iran for at least
5,000 years. In the 500s B.C.E under a leader named Cyrus the Great, this empire spread
across Southwest Asia and controlled much of the territory through the 5th century C.E.
by establishing an extremely efficient government system of Satrapies, or district governments,
which are still in use in some places to this day. While the rapid conquest of the
Arab Muslim peoples of the 6th century C.E. saw the power of the Iranic people decline,
the structures which were put together were used by every empire which came along afterward.
The Persian coastline had a hidden resource, which wouldn't be known until the modern era,
but would change the shape of Southwest Asia in a major way, beginning in the 20th century. If
you haven't yet, take a minute to pause here and jot down a couple of similarities, differences,
or thoughts on your three-column chart about how the Jewish, Palestinian, European, and
Persian peoples arrived here, how they interact, and influences of world events on this region.
Arab nations. Mentioned as early as the 9th century B.C.E., the Arab nations were under
the control of, or hired to disrupt trade networks between the many ancient empires of the region.
This would change with the birth of the Islamic religion in 632 C.E. In the late 600 C.E. through
the 11th century C.E., followers of the new religion of Islam, primarily Arabs,
quickly moved out of the Arabian Peninsula and began to take control of Northern Africa, the East
Mediterranean Coast, and the present-day areas of Iraq, Iran, and Central Asia. This conquest
and caliphate, or Islamic religious rule, brought both the new religion and a new lingua franca,
Arabic to the region. This initial conquest spread Islam rapidly. However, under these Arab
caliphates, most religions were allowed to keep practicing if they paid a tax for the privilege.
From this period you have the spread of the Arab nations across Southwest Asia;
today comprising the largest group in the region at over 170 million people.
Turkic nations. The somewhat unstable balance of the Arab Caliphates lasted until the 10th
century C.E. when a people group known as Seljuk, or ethnic Turks from Central Asia, conquered most
of Southwest Asia and attempted to impose a single very orthodox, or traditional form of Islam,
onto all its subjects. During this period, multiple religious groups, including
non-conforming Muslims, suffered persecution under local and regional Seljuk leaders. This on and off
persecution created problems for the leadership which later had to break the Seljuk empire into
multiple Beylics, like duchies or baronesses of Medieval Europe, in order to maintain control.
For 400 years, the Seljuks ruled over a vast Sunni Islamic Empire, stretching from Persia
through Central Turkey. Their conquest of the Eastern Mediterranean area containing Jerusalem
was the reason behind the first crusade launched from Europe. The ruler of one of the Beylics,
a man named Osman, moved quickly to take control of the Balkans region in the 13th century C.E.
Later, this new Turkic Empire, the Ottoman Empire, would take the city of Constantinople, ending the
Byzantine Empire, and creating the capital of Istanbul. This new Turkic Ottoman Empire would
conquer most of the Seljuk empire's territories, with two notable exceptions: Arabia and Persia,
known today as Iran, and rule over the territory you see here until the end of World War 1.
The Kurdish nation. In addition to the Persian, Arab, Turkic, Jewish, Balkan, European,
and Phoenician people groups in the area, we now add the Kurds. Living in the mountainous region
stretching from Northern Iraq and into Eastern Turkey, the Kurdish people have inhabited this
area for over 4,000 years. The continual struggle for the Kurdish people to have their own country
will loom large in the following events we discuss and in politics of the world in the present day.
To recap, we have ethnic Jewish people, Palestinians, Eastern Europeans, and Arabs living
throughout Western Southwest Asia and the Arabian peninsula. The Turkic peoples living in Turkey
and throughout the Balkans, Persian and Aaronic peoples living in the East, and a mix of ancient
religions, languages, governance, and customs. Think back to the question I
asked earlier about the number of people, beliefs, and merchants moving through this area; and make
an educated guess in your three-column chart about how you think these nations will interact.
Now to all that, let's add some world wars.
World Wars, reorganization, oil. and modern Southwest Asia. World War 1 saw the end of
the Turkic Ottoman Empire, which was then split up. This was called the Partitioning
of the former empire. Pause the screen for a moment here and read through the effects.
Looking at this list, who would you say benefited the most?
What impact do you think that will have for the future?
European control of the area and the beginnings of the exploitation of both Iranian and Arabian
oil began in earnest during this period. So did you guess correctly before about who benefited?
After World War 2, the countries of Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, and Syria primarily,
but not exclusively Muslim Arab states, declared themselves independent. At the same time,
Jewish people who survived the devastation of the Nazi Holocaust
were moving back to the ancient location of Judea to live; causing conflict between Arabs and Jews.
The newly created United Nations was given the challenge of settling unrest and created the state
of Israel in 1947. There was a provision for those already living there not of Jewish descent to move
to an area called Palestine. This was an unpopular decision for many living in Southwest Asia
and has been a source of much continual strife that we'll look at more closely in future lessons.
Conclusion. To bring us to the shape of modern Southwest Asia, we've looked at the
major peoples and religions which have moved in, we've looked at where they live and what
was done without their consent at the close of the world wars. Before we leave, look back at
your three-column chart and see if you found some answers. Next, we'll turn our focus to the modern
countries which are inhabited by these nations of people. Until next time, keep exploring!