10 • 1 INTRODUCTIONYemen, and Iran. On the other hand, frequent invasions have brought
new races and folkways into the Middle East. The result is a vast mosaic of
peoples, a living museum of physical types, belief systems, languages, and
cultures.
This diversity may not always show up on statistical tables, such as the
one at the end of this book. Even when it does, remember that the religion
of nine-tenths of the people in the Middle East is Islam. Half the popula¬
tion of the area speaks Arabic; most of the other half speaks either Turkish
or Persian. The mosaic of separate religious and ethnic groups has started
to crumble. General primary schooling, Walkman personal stereos and
CD players, satellite television, DVDs, and mobile telephones are spread¬
ing a universal culture, mostly among the young. Oil revenues, the prolif¬
eration of factories, and the growth of cities have also made the people
seem more alike.
But cultural and religious differences persist and promote conflicts.
Lebanon's civil wars were partly due to the feeling of many Muslims that
they have not enjoyed equal power and prestige with the Christians, who
claim to be the majority in the country. Syria's current elite comes dispro¬
portionately from a minority sect, the Alawis, who used the army officer
corps to rise to power in a society otherwise dominated by Sunni Muslims.
Christian Arabs, especially the Greek Orthodox who make up less than 5
percent of Syria's population and 10 percent of Lebanon's, outstripped the
Muslims in promoting the early spread of Arab nationalism in those coun¬
tries. Iraq's politics are bedeviled by differences between Sunni and Shi'i
Muslim Arabs, both of whom have resisted attempts by the Kurds (about a
fifth of the country's population), often encouraged by Israel and the US,
to form a separate state. Israel, though mainly Jewish, has a million Arabs
living within its pre-1967 borders and has been ruling more than 3.5 mil¬
lion additional Arab Muslims and Christians in lands it has controlled
since the June 1967 war. Israel's Jews are divided between those of Euro¬
pean origin, called Ashkenazim, and those who came from Asian or Afri¬
can countries, called Mizrachim or Orientals. You may now be confused by
these sectarian and ethnic differences, but we cover them in more detail
later in the book. If you cannot wait to have these terms defined, look for
them in the Glossary.
CONCLUSIONThe interaction between human beings and their physical surroundings is
a fascinating subject, more so than most students realize. As you read