Middle East

III

People

The Middle East has a population (2006 estimate) of about 460 million. Population density varies greatly throughout the region. In most countries, there has been a steady migration of people from rural to urban areas since the 1940s, so today the majority of people live in urban areas. In Iraq, for example, about 61 percent of the population lived in rural areas in 1957, compared with 33 percent in 2003. The largest cities in the region are İstanbul, Turkey (11.1 million, 2007 official), Cairo, Egypt (7.5 million, 2003 estimate), and Tehrān, Iran (6.8 million, 2006 estimate).

A

Ethnic Groups and Languages

Arabs make up the majority of the people of the Middle East, accounting for almost the entire populations of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and the states of the Arabian Peninsula, and for three-fourths of the population of Iraq. The Arabs originated in the Arabian Peninsula and began to migrate northwards and eastwards in the 5th and 6th centuries ad. The rate of migration accelerated after the birth and spread of Islam in the 7th century. Under Arab influence, peoples in the surrounding areas gradually adopted the Arabic language, and even more gradually adopted Islam. Arabic, a Semitic language, serves as a unifying bond among Arabs throughout the region.

The Turks, another broad, linguistically related group of peoples, reside primarily in Turkey and Iran. About 80 percent of the population of Turkey, and most of the present inhabitants of Anatolia (the Asian portion of Turkey), are descended from Central Asian tribes that migrated west between the 11th and 13th centuries. These people speak Turkish, one of a group of Turkic languages spoken between southeastern Europe and northwestern China (see Altaic Languages). In Iran, about one quarter of the population speaks one of the Turkic languages, especially Azeri. A few hundred thousand Turkmens in northern Iraq also speak a Turkic language.

The pre-Islamic people of Iran, the Persians, make up about 60 percent of the present-day population of Iran. The Persians descended from Indo-European peoples who entered the country from Central Asia during the 2nd century bc. These people speak Persian, an Indo-Iranian language.

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Members of another ethnic group, the Kurds, reside in the Middle Eastern countries of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, as well as in several of the former republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). They speak Kurdish, another Indo-Iranian language. The largest concentration of Kurds is in Turkey, where they make up about 19 percent of the population.

The Jewish population of Israel constitutes an important cultural group in the Middle East. Although about half of the current residents were born in Israel, their parents and grandparents came from more than 100 countries throughout the world, primarily in the 20th century. From diverse backgrounds, this group nevertheless shares in common the Jewish tradition and the modern Hebrew language.

B

Religion

Islam is the predominant religion in the Middle East. More than 90 percent of the area’s population are Muslims. Christians form the next largest group, with about 4 percent of the population, and Jews make up about 2 percent of the population. Muslims explicitly recognize that Judaism and Christianity preceded their faith, and therefore regard Christians and Jews as “peoples of the book”—that is, groups with written scriptures that should be free to practice their religion.

Islam is divided into two major groups, Sunni Islam and Shia Islam. The Sunni Muslims are by far the most numerous, both in the Middle East and in the Muslim world in general. The Sunnis and Shias separated over the issue of supreme authority after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632. The majority of Muslims, the Sunnis, believe the first four caliphs, all of whom belonged to Muhammad’s tribe, were the prophet’s rightful successors. A minority, the Shias, believe that Muhammad’s nearest male heir, his cousin and son-in-law Ali, was intended to succeed Muhammad. Shias accept only Ali’s descendants (imams) as legitimate rulers. The Shias themselves are divided into several sects, which differ over how many of Ali’s male descendants should be recognized as leaders of the Islamic community. Of Middle Eastern Shia Muslims, who form about 28 percent of the population of the region, the majority are Jafaris. Because they accept 12 imams, Jafaris are also called “Twelvers.” This group is especially prominent in Iran. They believe that the 12th imam will return in the future to establish perfect justice, supplanting the rule of any other leader. This belief has undermined government authority since the establishment of Twelver Shiism as the state religion in 1501. Twelvers also reside in Iraq and Lebanon. Another Shia sect, the Zaydis of Yemen, recognize five imams. A third group, called Ismailis (“Seveners”), recognize seven imams; a few hundred thousand Ismailis reside in Syria.

More than half of the Christians in the Middle East live in Egypt. Most Egyptian Christians belong to the Coptic Church. The remaining Middle Eastern Christians are divided between Orthodox groups (Armenian, Greek, and Syrian) and Catholic groups (Armenian, Greek, Maronite, and Syrian) in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. The formal division between Orthodox and Catholic sects dates back to the Great Schism of 1054 between the Eastern and Roman churches. Apart from the Maronites, however, most Middle Eastern Catholics are descendants of converts from various Orthodox churches in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Almost all Middle Eastern Jews live in Israel. Orthodox Jews, who strictly follow traditional Judaic beliefs and practices, hold the most influence over religious affairs in Israel. Reform Jews, who seek to modify Jewish tradition to meet contemporary circumstances, and Conservative Jews, who maintain a middle position between the two, constitute important minorities. Reform and Conservative groups continually struggle for a limited role in Israeli religious affairs.

C

Education

Most Middle Eastern countries provide free primary and secondary education. University education is either free or subsidized by scholarships for those in need. Although in theory primary education is compulsory in all countries, internal conflicts and remoteness of many areas from urban centers often prevent full attendance. Nearly all school-aged females participate in the primary and secondary education, but far fewer continue to university level. In more conservative states such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, the sexes are educated separately at all levels. Although literacy has improved significantly in recent years, it remains low in much of the Middle East by Western standards. In the mid-2000s literacy rates for people aged 15 or older were 41 percent in Iraq, 53 percent in Yemen, 59 percent in Egypt, 78 percent in Syria, and 81 percent in Saudi Arabia and Iran.

D

Way of Life

Due to the growth of the petroleum industry and accompanying modernization, traditional ways of life largely disappeared from most parts of the Middle East in the 20th century. For instance, the pastoral nomads that symbolize the Middle East to many people account for less than 1 percent of the region’s population. The few remaining nomads reside in the vast deserts of Syria, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula, and some Kurdish and Persian tribes still migrate back and forth from summer to winter pastures. The majority of the population now lives in either urban settlements of more than 10,000 people or in smaller rural villages.

With the first wave of modernization came a general trend toward secularism. Islam exerted less influence on social conduct, and religious practice was gradually relegated from the public to the private sphere. One of the most visible effects was an increase in gender equality. Women gained more opportunities for education and employment, especially in the urban centers. Since the late 1960s the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, which, among other things, reasserts values that emphasize the subordination of women to men, has begun to have an adverse effect on these developments.

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