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5.2 Southwest Asia (A Mix of Ethnic Groups (Today, Arabs are the main…

- - - - Located in present-day Iraq, this region was called Mesopotamia, which is derived from Greek words meaning “between the rivers.”
  - - - By 3500 b.c., the area became a center of farming and trade.
        
        The Tigris and Euphrates rivers flooded every year, leaving fertile soil along their banks.
        
        People dug irrigation ditches to bring water to fields that lay far from the river.
        
        Irrigation helped them to produce crop surpluses, or more than they needed for their own use.
- - - - According to the Torah, about 2000 b.c. Abraham, a Mesopotamian man, became convinced that there was one god, not many.
        
        He migrated to Canaan, where he became the ancestor of the Jewish people. Canaan was an area of land located along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea.
        
        Hundreds of years later, it became known as Palestine.
        
        From ancient times, Jews saw Palestine as their homeland.
      - At the heart of Judaism is the Torah, five books that make up the Jews’ most sacred text.
        
        The Torah also contains the Ten Commandments.
    - - Almost 2,000 years later, Jesus, the founder of Christianity, began preaching in present-day Israel.
      - Christianity first developed around a.d. 30.
      - The religion is based on the teachings of Jesus, a Jew who traveled throughout Palestine
      - Christians later adopted the Torah as the first five books of the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.
      - The first four books of the New Testament of the Christian Bible are the Gospels.
        
        They tell about the life and teachings of Jesus.
      - According to the Gospels, Jesus taught that his followers would have eternal life.
    - - In about a.d. 600, Islam’s founder and prophet, Muhammad, began teaching in present-day Saudi Arabia.
      - Of the three religions, Islam has by far the most followers in Southwest Asia today.
      - The sights and sounds of Islam are everywhere in Southwest Asia.
      - One sound is the call of the muezzin, a person whose job is to call Muslims to pray.
        
        Five times a day, Muslims stop what they are doing and pray.
      - Muslims gather to worship in buildings called mosques.
        
        One of the most famous is the Dome of the Rock, shown in the photo below.
- - - - Today, about 90 percent of Muslims are Sunni.
    - - Most of the Muslims in both Iran and Iraq, however, are Shi’as.
- - - - They lived as refugees in other Arab nations or in territories under Israeli rule.
- - - - In 2003, the United States, Israeli leaders, and the PLO agreed on a new peace plan.
        
        The plan called for Israel to agree to the creation of a Palestinian state and for the PLO to agree to Israel’s right to exist in peace.
- - - - Three weeks after the start of the war, Saddam fell from power and went into hiding.
        
        In December 2003, U.S. troops captured Saddam.
      - American officials began working with Iraqi leaders to set up a democratic system of government.