Where is sw asia

Beginning when he was 40, Muslims believe that Muhammad began receiving revelations from God and later began preaching in his community. This year marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar. In Yathrib, Muhammad gained converts and political authority and eventually the Muslim forces from Yathrib conquered Mecca, where Muhammad later died in CE. Most Muslims believed that the leader of Islam should be the person who is most qualified. Today, this group represents the Sunni branch of Islam.

Others, however, believed that the only rightful leader must be a blood relative of Muhammad. Sunni is still the largest branch of Islam today, representing around 90 percent of adherents while Shia constitute around 10 percent of all Muslims see Figure 7.

The Five Pillars of Islam form the foundation for Muslim life and practice. First, the pillar of Shahada refers to a declaration of faith. The pillar of Salat refers to prayer five times per day. When Muslims pray, they face the Kaaba in Mecca, a cubed structure that is considered to be the most sacred Muslim site in the world see Figure 7.

The third pillar of Islam, Zakat, refers to the giving of alms, or charity. Muslims are required to donate 2. The fourth pillar, Sawm, requires Muslims to fast during the month of Ramadan. During this month, adult Muslims abstain from food, drink, and sex during daylight hours. Those who are ill, pregnant, elderly, or are otherwise unable to fast are exempt from the requirement.

The month-long fast is designed to bring Muslims closer to God, but also to remind them of the feeling of hunger in the hopes that they will be mindful of those who are less fortunate throughout the rest of the year. Finally, the fifth pillar of Islam is hajj , a pilgrimage to Mecca that is expected for all physically and financially able Muslims to complete at least once in their lifetime.

During the hajj, which lasts several days, Muslims complete a series of rituals, some dating back to the time of Abraham. In , a record 3. Since , several stampedes have occurred; the deadliest was in and killed over 2, people.

Islam is the majority religion in every state in this realm except for Israel. Globally, Islam has around 1. Although this region is largely united by a belief in Islam, the divisions within the faith as well as the presence of numerous minority religious groups has often led to conflict.

At its greatest extent, the Islamic Empire under the Umayyad Caliphate of the 7th and 8th centuries stretched across 15 million square kilometers 5.

No empire would be larger until the Mongols in the 13th century. The Islamic Empire continued for hundreds of years. Its capital moved from Medina to Damascus, the capital of modern-day Syria, and then to Baghdad, the capital of modern-day Iraq. By CE, however, much of this region, including Baghdad, was conquered by the Mongols, beginning a pattern of occupation and conquest that would continue until modern times. The Ottoman Empire, based in modern-day Turkey, followed, taking control of much of North Africa and coastal Southwest Asia by the 15th and 16th centuries.

Following World War I, the allied powers of Europe divided the former territory of the Ottoman Empire and carved out colonies. The League of Nations, an intergovernmental organization which lasted from the end of World War I until the beginning of World War II, portioned the former Ottoman Empire and granted mandates for European powers to control parts of its territory. France, for example, was given a mandate for Syria.

Britain was given a mandate to control Iraq as well as Palestine. The Italians, too, were able to take a piece of the Ottoman Empire, gaining control of Libya in the early 20th century. As with many other parts of the world, the colonies of North Africa and Southwest Asia were formed with little attention to underlying ethnic tensions or resource issues. Some ethnic groups found themselves split amongst several different European colonies, while others were forced to share newly created territories with hostile groups.

Even once colonies were able to get independence, these colonial-era issues would remain. Unevenly distributed oil wealth, which was not discovered in large quantities until after the withdraw of European powers, would further complicate political and economic stability in the region. One key issue is that the geography of this region has often restricted development and transit to fairly narrow channels.

Conflict can often occur over the control of these choke points. A choke point is a narrow passage to another region, such as a canal, valley, or bridge. North Africa and the Middle East has several, strategically important choke points including the Hormuz Strait, which provides the only sea passage into the Persian Gulf, and the Suez Canal, which was built to connect the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.

Who controls these choke points, and who they allow through, has often been a point of contention. European colonizers were generally slow to relinquish control in the region.

Local groups often reacted violently in trying to secure independence. As a result, many newly created governments in the region consisted of military groups. In other cases, monarchs found either military support or joined with local religious leaders. For many areas in this region, the discovery of oil brought about significant wealth, but also reignited Western interest and involvement.

During the Cold War, for example, the United States sought to limit Soviet influence in the region and maintain its supply of oil. Conservative religious ideology has sometimes provided a reaction against Westernization and foreign influence. In Iran, for example, the Islamic Revolution was largely a reaction against Westernization under a US-backed leader.

The revolution established a theocracy in Iran, meaning a rule by religious authority, with the Grand Ayatollah, a Shia religious cleric, as the supreme leader. After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the Saud dynasty partnered with the leader of the Wahhabi religious movement, creating the foundation of modern Saudi Arabia. Wahhabism is a strict form of Sunni Islam that promotes ultraconservative Muslim values. Until , women were forbidden from driving.

A number of other practices are forbidden by Wahhabism, including watching nonreligious television programs, playing chess, and dancing. The penalties for breaking these prohibitions are often severe.

The organization was founded by Osama bin Laden and formed an alliance with the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist political movement also based in Afghanistan. They are known for their brutal oppression against women and acts of terrorism against civilian targets. As countries have modernized, Westernization and conservative religious values have continued to clash. The landscape of North Africa and the Middle East remains in flux. The most widespread political change in recent years was a wave of protests and revolutions known as the Arab Spring.

The Arab Spring began in Tunisia in when a fruit vendor set himself on fire after being harassed continually by police. From Tunisia, protests spread across the region, at times toppling governments that had been in power for decades see Figure 7.

At the heart of the causes behind the Arab Spring is inequality. In much of this region of the world, wealth and power is concentrated in the hands of a select few. Young people in the region in particular had high levels of education but also high unemployment and played a central role in bringing about change. Social media was also used to organize and rally support, and diffused the revolution rapidly. Several of the countries that experienced an initial change in regime have seen several later waves of political change, as interim governments sometimes proved to be as ineffective as previous leadership.

In Syria, however, despite widespread initial protests and calls for a change in leadership, president Bashar al-Assad not only refused to step down, but violently opposed protestors. Bashar al-Assad was elected president under a referendum and ran unopposed, giving some indicator of the lack of political freedom in the country.

Soldiers were ordered to open fire on civilian protestors and many were killed or tortured. Eventually, the country declined into civil war, with the government fighting rebel groups who sought to overthrow it and civilians caught in the crossfire.

The civil war in Syria also offered an opportunity for another group in the region to gain control of territory. Efforts to create a coalition government and include Sunnis as well as the other minority groups in the country broke down.

Some of the Sunnis who had been political leaders or military personnel under Saddam Hussein formed ISIS and were eventually able to drive out Iraqi government forces in several key cities. From there, the group gained control of parts of Syria. For some time, much of Iraq and Syria existed as an insurgent state , a territory beyond the control of government forces. ISIS is widely known for its brutal tactics, including beheadings, sexual violence, and fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.

The group sought to create a worldwide Islamic State with every Muslim country under its control. Since , the people of Syria have endured government assaults, violence from rebel groups, and attacks from ISIS. Over , Syrians have been killed, many of them civilians, and over 13 million have become refugees. Some refugees have remained in Syria, cut off from aid by government and insurgent groups.

Around 4. Some have fled to Turkey and Greece by boat; many have died on the perilous journey. Europe and North America have debated whether to accept these migrants, with some countries arguing that Syrian migrants might actually be terrorists, and others acknowledging that the global community has a responsibility to help those in need. The rise of ISIS is representative of many key issues of geography in this region: the intersection of religious values, political instability, and control of territory and resources.

Militant Islamist movements have inspired the violent ideology of jihadism , which seeks to combat threats to the Muslim community. Islamism and jihadism represent a small portion of global Muslim beliefs, however. A Pew Research Center survey found that in most countries, over three-quarters of the population of Muslims reject Islamic extremism and a majority expressed concern over religious extremism. Furthermore, even in North Africa and Southwest Asia, only one-quarter of Muslims believed that tensions within the community between more religious and less religious Muslims represented a major problem.

In every religious community, there are fundamental interpretations of scripture and both conservative and liberal understandings of theology. For traditional Muslims, religious life and personal life are intertwined, and thus political structures in this region have often reflected religious values. Several states in North Africa and Southwest Asia have declared sharia law, meaning that Islamic religious law applies in the court system see Figure 7.

Islamist groups in particular have often utilized a strict and harsh interpretation of sharia. In a region where political boundaries were often contrived by outside forces, governments have struggled with their relationship to minority religious and ethnic groups.

A series of wars between Israel and the surrounding Arab states left Israel as an independent state in control of the territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which were originally intended to be Palestine. Conflict continues between Palestinians living in territory controlled by Israel and Israelis who maintain sovereignty over the entire area see Figure 7.

Israel has built a series of walls dividing the West Bank and Gaza from the areas of Israeli control, maintaining that they are to protect Israelis from Palestinian terrorists.

For Palestinians, however, these walls limit their freedom of movement and have often separated them from their livelihoods. The Gaza strip remains completely isolated, surrounded by walls on three sides and a sea controlled by Israeli ships on the other. Some have suggested a two-state solution and the creation of an independent, Palestinian state, but Israeli construction of homes in the West Bank has limited that option. North Africa and Southwest Asia is a region of the world that is the cradle of ancient civilizations and modern religions, but where resources are limited and unevenly distributed.

Religious tension and political conflict have persisted. The Afghanistan Partnership Framework contains targets and indicators related to return and reintegration of refugees and IDPs, including in the areas of access to services, housing and employment, as well as issuance of civil documentation. UNHCR simultaneously sought to channel additional investments into the national public service delivery systems in the Islamic Republics of Iran and Pakistan education, health care, social protection and vocational skills development , with a view to supporting inclusive government policies and benefitting host communities and refugees alike.

Working environment and response in The large-scale displacement of Afghans is now entering its fifth decade, with some 4 million Afghan refugees hosted by Pakistan and close to 1 million by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Both countries also host large numbers of undocumented Afghans, some of whom may also need international protection. These complex transitions and the limitations of the Government of Afghanistan to fulfil its commitments to sustainable reintegration of returnees in a highly volatile security environment, may affect the decision of refugees to return and impact the population movements.

While contingency measures are valid for up to , refugee returns to Afghanistan, the planning assumption for is based on a return of 60, Afghan refugees from both the Islamic Republic of Iran and Pakistan. Iran may witness further economic decline, under the current international climate, leading to increased needs within large segments of the Iranian society, including large numbers of refugees and other people of concern to UNHCR.

Iran, which jointly with Pakistan, hosts one of the largest and most protracted refugee populations in the world, gave asylum to , Afghan refugees and 28, Iraqi refugees, in addition to about Kurd and Rohingya households.

In UNHCR aims to support the Government to continue to provide more sustainable access to quality national services in particular health and education, greater opportunities for self-reliance including through financial and economic inclusion, enhanced access to social safety nets for vulnerable refugees and enhanced harm prevention and response mechanism, while seeking durable solutions.

Socio-political situation in the region is volatile, coupled by economic decline, therefore, may have an impact for implementation of objectives. The Government of Pakistan took a very positive step in allowing refugees to open their bank accounts, which will greatly facilitate their temporary stay and business, pending their return. Budget and Expenditure Voluntary Contributions Budget and Expenditure in South-West Asia USD Operation Pillar 1 Refugee programme Pillar 2 Stateless programme Pillar 3 Reintegration projects Pillar 4 IDP projects Total Afghanistan Budget Expenditure 23,, 7,, 0 0 72,, 43,, 26,, 13,, ,, 64,, Islamic Republic of Iran Budget Expenditure 99,, 36,, 0 0 0 0 0 0 99,, 36,, Pakistan Budget Expenditure 72,, 48,, , , 26,, 8,, 0 0 99,, 56,, Total Budget Expenditure ,, 92,, , , 99,, 51,, 26,, 13,, ,, ,, current budget as approved by the High Commissioner as of October ; pending presentation to the ExCom's Standing Committee All other years are considered final for budget and expenditure data.

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