3. The Holy Land

     In the last post we looked at the rise of Abrahamic religions. We saw that each had attributed scared value to certain areas. This religious attachment to the land explains why the middle east is such a highly contested area. The crusades are the most obvious example of this. For hundreds of years armies marched from europe to Jerusalem for the religious value it held. Today both the Jewish Israel and Muslim Palestine fight over the this land. However, much has changed since the time of the crusades, and Christianity has lost it's stake in the area. The Christian population has been in decline for deacdes now.

     This can be explaind by the spread of Christianity around the globe. After the rennaisance European factions spread around the globe and bought their religion with them. This made Christianity a more tolerant religion out of necessity. It would be impossible to have the Spanish Inquisition prosecute the entire world.

     This tolerance for other religions made Christians less inclined to fight Muslims and Jews for control of the Holy Land, and their grip on it was wrenched away through religious prosecution by both sides.

2. Along comes Abraham(ic religions)

The Abrahmic faiths are monothestic religions (belief in a single god) which all trace their begining to the religious figure Abraham. They worship a single god as the creator of the universe and source of morality. The three main are, in order of starting date; Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Symbols of Judaism, Christianity and Islam respectivley.

 

     These three religions mark a siginficant theological shift in the middle east. Most religions pre-judaism revolved around nature or idol worship, the two often being intertwined. Abrahic religions however have a distinct, overarching god, to whom the world and it's inhabitants are subordinate. This is mirrored in the chang in the way hamans lived. At this point in history humans were able to bend nature to their will, so it would have been strange for people to continue worshiping it.

     Judaism later split into Christianity, which slpit into Islam. Each hold differnt parts of the middle east in some sacred regard, which will be explored further in the next post.

1. Land between rivers

    Mesopotamia, ancient greek for land between rivers, is the term used to designate the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in modern day Syria and Iraq. Mesopotamia was the first place that humans constructed a fixed settlement, and maked the end of Nomadic cultures.

    Nomadic cultues began to settle down once agriculture was discoverd. It was a far more efficient way of producing food than hunting or gathering. The earlist fixed human settlements then, were comprable to farms, and the fertile and easily irrigated land between two rivers is the perfect place for a farm.

    Since farming produced so much more food than hunting and gathering the settlers eventually had hore food than they needed. This let people turn to other professions and led to the creation of technology and civilisation.

Introduction

This blog is a study on why and how people live in the Middle East and whether the reasons are practical, cultural, religious or political.