Middle East Gift Suppliers

History :
History of the Middle East The Temple Mount in Jerusalem The Imam Ali Mosque, an important shrine in Najaf The Middle East lies at the juncture of Eurasia and Africa and of the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. It is the birthplace and spiritual center of the Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Yezidi, and in Iran, Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism and the Bahá'í Faith. Throughout its history the Middle East has been a major center of world affairs; a strategically, economically, politically, culturally, and religiously sensitive area. The earliest civilizations, Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, originated in the Fertile Crescent and Nile Valley regions of the ancient Near East, as well as the civilizations of the Levant, Persia, and Arabian Peninsula. The Near East was first unified under the Achaemenid Empire followed later by the Macedonian Empire and later Iranian empires, namely the Parthian and Sassanid Empires. However, it would be the Arab Caliphates of the Middle Ages, or Islamic Golden Age, that would first unify the entire Middle East as a distinct region and create the dominant ethnic identity that persists today. The Turkic Seljuk, Ottoman and Safavid empires would also later dominate the region. The modern Middle East began after World War I, when the Ottoman Empire, which was allied with the defeated Central Powers, was partitioned into a number of separate nations. Other defining events in this transformation included the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the departure of European powers, notably Britain and France. They were supplanted in some part by the rising influence of the United States. In the 20th century, the region's significant stocks of crude oil gave it new strategic and economic importance. Mass production of oil began around 1945, with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates having large quantities of oil.[24] Estimated oil reserves, especially in Saudi Arabia and Iran, are some of the highest in the world, and the international oil cartel OPEC is dominated by Middle Eastern countries. During the Cold War, the Middle East was a theater of ideological struggle between the two superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union, as they competed to influence regional allies. Of course, besides the political reasons there was also the "ideological conflict" between the two systems. Moreover, as Louise Fawcett argues, among many important areas of contention, or perhaps more accurately of anxiety, were, first, the desires of the superpowers to gain strategic advantage in the region, second, the fact that the region contained some two thirds of the world's oil reserves in a context where oil was becoming increasingly vital to the economy of the Western world [...][25] Within this contextual framework, the United States sought to divert the Arab world from Soviet influence. Throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, the region has experienced both periods of relative peace and tolerance and periods of conflict and war. Current issues include the US Occupation of Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Demographics Ethnic groups Main article: Ethnic groups of the Middle East Various ethnic and religious types in the Middle East, 19th century The Middle East is home to numerous ethnic groups, including Arabs, Turks, Persians, Jews, Kurds, Aramean Syriacs, Armenians, Azeris, Circassians, Greeks and Georgians. Religions Main articles: Religion in the Middle East and Christianity in the Middle East The Middle East is very diverse when it comes to religions, most of which originated there. Islam in its many forms is by far the largest religion in the Middle East, but other faiths, such as Judaism and Christianity, are also important. There are also important minority religions like Bahá'í, Yazdanism, Zoroastrianism. Languages The three top languages, in terms of numbers of speakers, are Arabic, Persian and Turkish, representing Afro-Asiatic, Indo-European, and Turkic language families respectively. Various other languages are also spoken in the Middle East, and they too span many different language families. Arabic is the most widely spoken language in the Middle East, being official in all the Arab countries. It is also spoken in some adjacent areas in neighbouring Middle Eastern non-Arab countries. It is a member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages. The second-most widely spoken language is Persian. While it is confined to Iran and some border areas in neghbouring countries, the country is one of the region's largest and most populous. It is an Aryan language of the Indo-Aryan branch of the family of Indo-European languages. It is much influenced by Arabic (through Islam) and Aramaic (the pre-Arabic lingua franca of the Middle East). The third-most widely spoken language, Turkish, is confined to Turkey, which is also one of the region's largest and most populous countries. It is present in areas in neighboring countries. It is a member or the Turkic languages, which have their origins in Central Asia. Other languages spoken in the region include Syriac (a form of Aramaic), Armenian, Azerbaijani, Berber, Circassian, smaller Iranian languages, Hebrew, Kurdish, smaller Turkic languages, Greek, and several Modern South Arabian languages. English is commonly spoken as a second language, especially among the middle and upper classes, in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.[26][27]. It is also a main language in some of the Emirates of the United Arab Emirates. French is spoken in Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, and Tunisia. Urdu is spoken in many Middle Eastern countries, such as Arab states the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and Qatar, which have large numbers of Pakistani and some Indian. immigrants. The largest Romanian-speaking community in the Middle East is found in Israel, where as of 1995 Romanian is spoken by 5% of the population.[28][29] Romanian is spoken mostly as a secondary language by people from Arab-speaking countries that made their studies in Romania. It is estimated that almost half a million Middle Eastern Arabs studied in Romania during the 1980s.[30] Russian is also spoken by a large portion of the Israeli population, due to emigration in the late 1990s. Economy Burj Al Arab, the world's tallest hotel located in Dubai. Main articles: Economy of the Middle East and Middle East economic integration Middle Eastern economies range from being very poor (such as Gaza and Yemen) to extremely wealthy nations (such as Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia). Overall, as of 2007, according to the CIA World Factbook, all nations in the Middle East are maintaining a positive rate of growth. According to the World Bank's World Development Indicators database published on July 1, 2009, the three largest Middle Eastern economies in 2008 were Turkey ($ 794,228,000,000), Saudi Arabia ($ 467,601,000,000) and Iran ($ 385,143,000,000) in terms of Nominal GDP.[31] In regards to nominal GDP per capita, the highest ranking countries are Qatar ($93,204), the UAE ($55,028), Kuwait ($45,920) and Cyprus ($32,745).[32] Turkey ($ 1,028,897,000,000), Iran ($ 839,438,000,000) and Saudi Arabia ($ 589,531,000,000) had the largest economies in terms of GDP-PPP.[20] When it comes to per capita (PPP)-based income, the highest-ranking countries are Qatar ($86,008), Kuwait ($39,915), the UAE ($38,894), Bahrain ($34,662) and Cyprus ($29,853). The lowest-ranking country in the Middle East, in terms of per capita income (PPP), is the autonomous Palestinian Authority of Gaza and the West Bank ($1,100). The economic structure of Middle Eastern nations are different in the sense that while some nations are heavily dependent on export of only oil and oil-related products (such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait), others have a highly diverse economic base (such as Cyprus, Israel, Turkey and Egypt). Industries of the Middle Eastern region include oil and oil-related products, agriculture, cotton, cattle, dairy, textiles, leather products, surgical instruments, defence equipment (guns, ammunition, tanks, submarines, fighter jets, UAVs, and missiles). Banking is also an important sector of the economies, especially in the case of UAE and Bahrain. With the exception of Cyprus, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon and Israel, tourism has been a relatively undeveloped area of the economy, due in part to the socially conservative nature of the region as well as political turmoil in certain regions of the Middle East. In recent years, however, countries such as the UAE, Bahrain, and Jordan have begun attracting greater number of tourists due to improving tourist facilities and the relaxing of tourism-related restrictive policies. Unemployment is notably high in the Middle East and North Africa region, particularly among young people aged 15–29, a demographic representing 30% of the region’s total population. The total regional unemployment rate in 2005, according to the International Labor Organization, was 13.2%,[33] and among youth is as high as 25%,[34] up to 37% in Morocco and 73% in Syria.[35]