Ethnic Group: group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage or tradition
Culture group: is a self-defined group of people who share a commonality; example in deaf culture, hip-hop crowd
Religious group: people who share in common a religion; ex: Christians, Hindus, Judaism, Muslim, etc…
Theocracy: government where a religious ruler has power; ex: Ayatollah of Iran
Scarcity: insufficient resources to fulfill wants and needs of a society; ex: water in a desert
Oasis: a fertile or green area with water, such as a well, or a pond filled by an aquifer in an arid region like a desert
Arid: excessively dry area having insufficient rainfall to support agriculture
Arable: land fit for or used for growing food crops
Arab: member of an Arabic-speaking people of the Arabian Peninsula (ethnic group)
Persian: member of ancient Iranian descent (ethnic group)
Kurd: member of a pastoral and agricultural people who inhabit a plateau region in adjoining parts of Turkey, Iran,
Iraq, Syria, Armenia, and Azerbaijan (ethnic group)
Abundance: an ample quantity, large amount of a resource; ex: petroleum (oil)
Petroleum: oil
Monotheistic: belief in one God
Polytheistic: belief or worship in more than one God
Judaism: religion developed by the Hebrews with belief in one monotheistic God who revealed himself to Abraham,
Moses and the Hebrew prophets; Jewish culture
Islam: religious faith of Muslims including belief in Allah as one, monotheistic God and in Muhammad as his prophet
Christianity: religion derived from Jesus
Muslim: person who practices the Islam as their religion
Torah: holy text of Judaism; Jews
Bible: holy text of Christians
Quran or Koran: holy text of Islam; Muslims
Sunni: the Muslims of the branch of Islam that follows the orthodox tradition and acknowledges the first four caliphs
as rightful successors of Muhammad
Shia: the Muslims of the branch of Islam that believe Ali and the bloodline of Muhammad are the rightful leaders of
the Islamic faith
Literacy rate: the rate at which people can read and write
Standard of Living: a measure of quality of life
Muhammad: prophet of Allah; received the word of God for the Islamic faith
Jesus: Jewish religious teacher whose life, death, and resurrection as reported by the Evangelists are the basis of the
Christian message of salvation
Abraham: Hebrew leader that began to believe in one God (monotheism), father to Ishmael and Isaac
Caliph: title used by rulers of the Muslim community until 1924
Caliphate: the office of the Caliph
Prophet: one who tells divinely inspired revelations
Anti-Semitism: is prejudice against or hostility towards Jews
Zionism: The Jews moving to all parts of the world to Israel to claim their “Promised Land”.
Balfour Declaration: The British promised the Jews that lived across Europe that if they fought on Britain’s side
during WWI then Britain would establish a state for them. Didn’t fulfill their promise until after WWII!