7 Maps That Explain the Middle East

The Middle East is obvious on the map…

The region, however, is far more complex than its borders.

The Middle East is the Arab core of the Muslim world. But thinking about the region as

exclusively Arab excludes Turkey, Iran, and a very large

Kurdish population.

Viewing it as exclusively Muslim would exclude the Jews, Christians, Druze, Yazidis,

Zoroastrians, Bahai, and other religious groups in the region.

The idea of the Middle East has become quite vague, but in our

view, it’s where perhaps the world’s most complex war is

raging.

Now, let’s dig deeper into the demographics and history of the region to understand its

complexity.

The Middle Eastern Population Is Concentrated in the Mountains

Mountainous terrain is typically less populated than lowlands

due to obvious factors like ease of making a living.

Not so in the Middle East… since much of the lowlands lack

water and offer a rather inhospitable quality of life.

As a result, most of the population clusters in the

mountains of Iran, Iraq, and Turkey.

The Mountainous Northern Region Has a Wide Religious Diversity

Religious divisions are particularly important for

understanding the Middle East .

Note the division between Sunnis and Shiites and the

Christian and Jew mix.

But an understanding of these many religious factions is still

not enough.

Ethnic Subgroups Complicate the Religious Fragmentation

The Kurds, for example, are largely Sunni Muslims. They are

hostile to Arab Sunnis and Shiites.

The Druze are neither Muslim nor Christian, but can find

themselves allied with either.

To understand the origins of this ethnic complexity, we need to look back to the times of the

Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Empire Left the Old Middle East Highly Fragmented

The Ottomans dominated this region for centuries.

But unlike Muslims and Christians, they didn't use force

to impose their religion on conquered nations.

The Ottomans, therefore, left the Middle East in a chaotic

jumble of ethnic and religious groups after World War I.

Cultural differences resulted in endless battles in the region,

but the aggression was limited to low-level conflicts.

Each group had the strength to survive, but lacked capabilities

to conquer the others.

Plus, the mountainous terrain gave the advantage to the

defender and made it difficult for conquerors to take full

power.

The result has been inherent instability in the region.

The Europeans Divided the Middle East After WWI

After World War I, the victorious powers divided the

Middle East region into entities that had never existed before.

The French took the northwest portion and consolidated it into

one large state, Syria.

The British had a relationship with the Hashemite patriarch, Sharif Hussein, and they gave

his elder son, Faisal I, the kingdom of Iraq.

What is most important, however, is to understand how

artificial these entities were.

Now the Modern Middle East Can’t Hold Together

The point is that there is nothing natural about any of the Middle Eastern borders.

Some of the states were created on a more solid

foundation than others, but they were all invented over the

last century.

In this context, the rise of the Islamic State in the Middle East is not surprising, as almost all the states in this region were

invented.

IS is just reshaping a shapeless area that external powers created and left to its own

devices.

Record-low oil prices have pushed the Middle East into a serious economic crisis. Saudi Arabia’s economy, however, takes the most pain in the region. Before the end of this decade, the country could be broke… ISIS could be entrenched across the Middle East… and the cost of oil could be shockingly different from today.

The special report from renowned economic analyst John Mauldin and world-leading geopolitical expert George Friedman reveals what the Saudi Arabian crisis means for the Middle East and the rest of the world.

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