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Many Things in Common
The people of the Middle East and North Africa are
often grouped together because they have many things in common. Islam is the
dominant religion and almost everyone speaks Arabic. Most of the Middle East
and North Africa is a desert where very little rain falls. There are,
however, many exceptions:
- Most
Iranians are Muslims, but they are not Arabs. Until recently, Iran was
known as Persia, a culture that has existed for thousands of years. Most
Iranians speak Farsi.
- The Turks
originally came from the land northwest of India. They are also Muslims
but speak Turkish rather than Arabic.
- More than
one fourth of the people of Lebanon speak Arabic, but are Christian.
Lebanon has traditionally been a Christian Arabic nation, but Muslims
now outnumber Christians because Muslims have tended to have more
children. Most Arabs living in the United States are Lebanese.
- Israel
was created as a homeland for Jewish people. Hebrew is the national
language of Israel.
- About
fifteen million Kurds live in the mountains between Iran, Iraq, Syria,
and Turkey. The Kurds are Muslims, but they have the own language and
culture. Many Kurds want to keep their traditional lifestyle and resist
assimilating into the population of their host nations.
- A
minority of the people of Morocco and Algeria are Berbers. The Berbers
are the descendants of the people who lived in North Africa before the
Arab invasion. The Berbers have their own traditions, but
most have accepted Islam and speak Arabic.
The
Middle East and North Africa were controlled by other nations until recently.
This is why you will commonly hear many other languages, including English,
French and Italian in the region.
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