Looking at the map in the lesson, you can see that the countries of Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, and Egypt sit atop the great continent of Africa. These countries lie in and are part of the Islamic Global Villagea place in the world where your ancestor may have lived, the world is divided into cultural areas, each area designated as a global village, see the Global Villages Map.. The other Islamic village countries spread from Northern Africa Eastward and throughout the Middle East.
At this point in your studies, it is necessary to understand how Africa became divided into two separate dominant cultureculture is not genetically inherited, it is shared, learned, and dynamic- never static areas. The first film within the lesson content shows how the continent came to have a dominant culture above the Sub-Saharan Global Village. Go back to the lesson to revisit the map with the Islamic Cultural Region countries.
The northern part of Africa between 8,000 and 3,000 BC was a different kind of landscapeall the visual features of an area of countryside or land, considered in terms of settlement and making a living More. The animals we associate with southern Africa, like elephants, giraffes, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus roamed freely in these northern areas, which are now divided into countries.
The Neolithic cultures that migrated to this part of the African Global Village settled in communities where they began to supplement their hunting and gathering activities with horticulturea type of cultivation of the soil with hand tools, not mechanized using animals or other power and proto-agriculturethe practice of promoting the growth and/or reproduction of native plants by methods of cultivation, but not necessarily a complete state of growing crops in large agricultural plots, along with raising cattle and practicing the beginning of pastoralisma way of making a living focused on domestication of animals, which includes herding and breeding; pastoralists are mobile, meaning they move their herds seasonally or to access available water holes or better food resources for their animals. Some scholars propose that these early villagers wore clothing, made from animal skins, and perhaps made boats out of various types of grasses. They also began to make pottery.
You have learned that languagea system of symbols that allow people to communicate with each other, also the MOST symbolic way that culture is passed down is the most symbolic way of passing down culture. When languages become extinct, there is a great cultural loss. We don’t know what language the Neolithic peoples spoke, except that whatever it was, it no longer exists. The Egyptians spoke a kind of Coptic Egyptian languagea Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt from the second to thirteenth centuries (200-1200 AD), which was used in religious settings, as well as being the language of the common folk.
Arabic is today the official language of Egypt, but even after 1300 years of Arab conquests, the language of the Pharaohs is still around. There are very few speakers, however, and it is mostly used in religious contexts. UNESCOUNESCO is an acronym standing for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, established in 1945 has made the Coptic Egyptian language a national heritagesomething that comes or belongs to one by reason of birth; ancestors may be considered a kind of heritage; also traditions, achievements, beliefs, etc., that are part of the history of a group or nation; something passed down from preceding generations language, which has encouraged language revival and reintroduction programs. From here, we need to back up a few centuries to discover more roots of today’s cultural complexity in this Islamic Global Village.
Cultural adaptations like growing plants, and raising animals, in addition to hunting and gathering, have been suggested to be a major revolution in the way our ancestors lived their lives. We are the beneficiaries of their innovative ideas and risk-taking methods of trying to make their lives easier. Just like in the 21st century, however, those ancient inhabitants of northern Africa began to experience climate changes around 3,000 BC. There were no automobiles, and very few people, so climate change was a natural occurrence, as it is today.
According to paleo-botanists, the Sahara area went through many periods of being dry and wet, but over a millennium, it turned into a desert barrier between the northern and southern parts of the continent. This barrier became the dividing line between white and black Africa. What happened to these first cultural communities over that long period cannot exactly be determined, but we know from about 2,000 BC, the nomadic Berbers, whose exact origins are still unknown, had many occupied settlements. It is also known that during this early period, one of the world’s most renowned civilizations began to emerge in Egypt. As mentioned previously, the language of those Pharaohs still lingers to remind us of that once-great culture.
In other parts of the Islamic Global Village, the earliest civilizations arose in Mesopotamia (today’s Iraq). Three major world religions, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic, were first established, and we cannot pass over the Roman Period in this immense cultural region. Following is a video, “Lost Treasures of the World – Roman North Africa,” which is a good summary of how the Romans, before the Arabs, became the principal occupiers of the North African countries.
As you watch this film (it is almost a full movie), take note of the many cultural influences (heritage) that were passed on to Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, and Egypt as Northern Africa became a Romanized culture. The Romans, even though they destroyed the great civilizationa highly developed and advanced human society, associated with population density, writing and record-keeping, education, art, science, and complex political and social institutions of Carthage, they realized the great agricultural and trade potential of the region they had invaded. Once they conquered the peoples of North Africa, they allowed the populations to carry on their cultural traditions if they agreed to be “Roman.” Roman North Africa survived peaceful occupation for four centuries, with relatively little military presence needed. Much cultural diffusionthe borrowing of cultural traits between different groups, especially during mass migrations and immigration More must have taken place between the conquerors and the conquered.
We have already talked about the early domesticationto tame animals, and to cultivate plants for human use More of plants and animals and crop cultivation by around 11,000 BC. Such innovations began to diffuse into various parts of the region in many directions, but perhaps the greatest incentive for populations to become interconnected and interdependent anciently, just like today, was establishing cultural patterns of trade.
As trade routes became cultural lifelines to better economic opportunities, traders began to carry their cultural capitala term put forth by French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu in the 20th century, which refers to non-financial capital; he believes social assets such as education, dress, physical appearance, and intellect are part of a person's cultural capital that he/she may use for gain in a non-economic realm - for instance if a person is bi-lingual, that is cultural capital, if he/she has a higher education, that is cultural capital, in other words, "accumulated cultural knowledge" in all its contexts, is considered cultural capital over these trade routes. Such cultural capital included the Islamic religionan organized system of beliefs expressed through rituals and symbols and concerned with the supernatural in some way; the way a society holds itself together and "sells" its ethics and standards to the next generation - no culture has ever survived without religion More, which had already begun to spread into Northern Africa by the 7th century AD, shortly after Mohammad and his followers were given refuge in Medina.
Though Mohammad had his prophetic vision in a cave in Mecca, there were factions there that sought to do him harm. Since he had regularly been visiting Medina, where his father was buried, people there were ready to give him help and support. See the map below for the locations of these two important centers of Islamic cultural traditions in Saudi Arabia.
Every Global Village has a history of wars, conflicts, and cultural upheavals before the regions’ populations finally succumb to the cultural domination of their conquerors. Such was the case with the Roman occupation and the same with the Arab occupation. Cultural changes and transformations are not always bad, though it is easy to dwell on the negatives. Cultural changes usually involve resistance from the locals before there is an acceptance period. Such was the case of the indigenous Berbers of Northern Africa, both against the Romans as well as the Arabs. This same resistance has flared up many times in the Islamic Global Village, even into the 21st century. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize the cultural heritage contributions brought to Northern Africa by the Arab followers of Islam.
Language, whether written or verbal is perhaps the most intrusive way to begin a culture change. Writing was a cultural influence introduced, along with mosques and centers of learning. It was during the “dark ages,” of Medieval times (11th through the 14th centuries) that Muslim scholars translated and copied ancient texts that would not be available today without their diligent efforts. A new system of measuring weights was also introduced by the Arabs and we cannot forget the contributions of the engineering of complex irrigation systems, along with the wheel, metallurgy, and ways to control wind, water, and animal power that originated in this Global Village anciently.
Other cultural legacies between groups of people need to be mentioned here because they seem to be mentioned in the daily news on both television and the internet. These are the legacies of cultural conflicts leading to discrimination, forced displacement, ethnic cleansingthe mass expulsion or killing of members of an unwanted ethnic or religious group in a society - think the Holocaust--mass slaughter of Jews by the Nazis in WWII More, and genocidesometimes also referred to as ethnic cleansing, but genocide is far more systematic. The Jews and the Muslims seem to be, historically, the populations with the most violent objections to each others’ cultures.
The presence of Jews in Algeria has a long history from before the Roman period to the current era. The Jews in Northern African coastal settlements migrated there, from Palestine, after Jerusalem was destroyed numerous times. They settled among the Berber tribes and culturally assimilated to speak the Berber language, while at the same time some of the Berbers became Jewish converts. Berbers and Jews fought together against the Arabization of their new homeland.
After the Arab conquest, the Jews began to assimilate once again into the new Arab culture. Another event furthering the complexity of cultural history in this Global Village was the Spanish/Catholic Inquisition of the 14th century. Many Jews, escaping from Spain, fled to Algeria. They were integrated into the Berber and Jewish populations. The continual diasporathe movement, migration, or scattering of a people away from an established or ancestral homeland; the most common referral to a diaspora is the settling of scattered colonies of Jews outside Palestine after the Babylonian exile; expansionary movements of people from their original living spaces of Jewish populations from various regions brought more and more complex cultural traits to be traded between groups.
Today, Jewish populations in Northern Africa speak Berber, Arabic, Spanish, Italian, and, of course, Hebrew. Another turn of events in the 16th century, which the Turks introduced against non-Muslims, left the Jews scrambling for places to reside that did not discriminate against them. They also had to wear a certain type of clothing to be recognized as Jews. Jews were not allowed to ride horses, carry any kind of arms, or in any way exhibit themselves superior to Muslims.
Cultural complexity reached a pentacle until the French became the next occupier of this region in 1830. When the French arrived, they changed the rules of inferiority, and the Jews thus became French citizens, again assimilating into a new and different French culture. With French citizenship, many of the Jews in the Islamic Global Village immigrated to the European culture regiona culture region, or culture area (or Global Village) is an area where common cultural components, traits, or characteristics have developed over time, and are shared among various societies, due to a variety of causal factors such as immigration, war, colonialism, forced acculturation, technology and travel advances, etc. and, after World WarWar: A state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state. II, back to their original homeland of Israel.
With large Jewish populations settling in France, you can imagine the diffusion of cultural traits from Northern Africa, which brought changes to French communities. That said, we know the continued history of discrimination and isolation that Jewish populations have endured at the hands of Christians, Muslims, and the Nazi Holocaust into the present-day rhetoric of insistent annihilation by the leaders of Islamic states.
Understanding the historical roots of how discrimination of certain groups is passed down through generationsthose people that are born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively; usually a generation within families is considered about 20 years gives us a foundation on which to build change and more peaceful relationships among all peoples.