Near East
The Library of Congress (LoC) is an institution established by Congress to provide a research library for the government of the United States and serve as a national library. It is under the supervision of the United States Congress Joint Committee on the Library and the Librarian of Congress. The Near East is a separate topic and subdivision of the African and Middle Eastern division. The Middle East contains a Hebraic section consisting of only Israel for a country, but including eleven modern and ancient languages relating to Judaism, such as Yiddish, a European pidgin language. The Near East is otherwise nearly identical to the Middle East, except that it extends partly into Central Asia and the Caucasus, regions that the State Department considers to be in Asia.
Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau was once part of the kingdom of Gabu, part of the Mali Empire; parts of this kingdom persisted until the 18th century. Other parts of the territory in the current country were considered by the Portuguese as part of their empire. Portuguese Guinea was known as the Slave Coast, as it was a major area for the exportation of African slaves by Europeans to the western hemisphere. Previously slaves had been traded by Arabs north to the northern part of Africa and into the Middle East.
Somalis
The birth of Islam on the opposite side of Somalia's Red Sea coast meant that Somali merchants, sailors and expatriates living in the Arabian Peninsula gradually came under the influence of the new religion through their converted Arab Muslim trading partners. With the migration of fleeing Muslim families from the Islamic world to Somalia in the early centuries of Islam and the peaceful conversion of the Somali population by Somali Muslim scholars in the following centuries, the ancient city-states eventually transformed into Islamic Mogadishu, Berbera, Zeila, Barawa and Merca, which were part of the Berberi civilization. The city of Mogadishu came to be known as the City of Islam, and controlled the East African gold trade for several centuries.
British Empire
With support from the British abolitionist movement, Parliament enacted the Slave Trade Act in 1807, which abolished the slave trade in the empire. In 1808, Sierra Leone was designated an official British colony for freed slaves. The Slavery Abolition Act passed in 1833 abolished slavery in the British Empire on 1 August 1834 (with the exception of St. Helena, Ceylon and the territories administered by the East India Company, though these exclusions were later repealed). Under the Act, slaves were granted full emancipation after a period of 4 to 6 years of "apprenticeship".
British Empire
Two years later, the Royal African Company was inaugurated, receiving from King Charles a monopoly of the trade to supply slaves to the British colonies of the Caribbean. From the outset, slavery was the basis of the British Empire in the West Indies. Until the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, Britain was responsible for the transportation of 3.5 million African slaves to the Americas, a third of all slaves transported across the Atlantic. To facilitate this trade, forts were established on the coast of West Africa, such as James Island, Accra and Bunce Island. In the British Caribbean, the percentage of the population of African descent rose from 25 percent in 1650 to around 80 percent in 1780, and in the 13 Colonies from 10 percent to 40 percent over the same period (the majority in the southern colonies). For the slave traders, the trade was extremely profitable, and became a major economic mainstay for such western British cities as Bristol and Liverpool, which formed the third corner of the so-called triangular trade with Africa and the Americas. For the transported, harsh and unhygienic conditions on the slaving ships and poor diets meant that the average mortality rate during the Middle Passage was one in seven.
Sumer
By the time of the Uruk period (c. 4100–2900 BC calibrated), the volume of trade goods transported along the canals and rivers of southern Mesopotamia facilitated the rise of many large, stratified, temple-centered cities (with populations of over 10,000 people) where centralized administrations employed specialized workers. It is fairly certain that it was during the Uruk period that Sumerian cities began to make use of slave labor captured from the hill country, and there is ample evidence for captured slaves as workers in the earliest texts. Artifacts, and even colonies of this Uruk civilization have been found over a wide area—from the Taurus Mountains in Turkey, to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, and as far east as central Iran.
Paris
During the Middle Ages, Paris was a center of Jewish learning with famous Talmudic scholars, such as Yechiel of Paris who took part in the Disputation of Paris between Christian and Jewish intellectuals. The Parisian Jewish community was victim of persecution, alternating expulsions and returns, until France became the first country in Europe to emancipate its Jewish population during the French Revolution. Although 75% of the Jewish population in France survived the Holocaust during World War II, half the city's Jewish population perished in Nazi concentration camps, while some others fled abroad. A large migration of North Africa Sephardic Jews settled Paris in the 1960s, and represent most of the Paris Jewish community today. There are currently 83 synagogues in the city; The Marais-quarter Agoudas Hakehilos Synagogue, built in 1913 by architect Hector Guimard, is a Paris landmark.
Middle Ages
Religious beliefs in the Eastern Empire and Iran were in flux during the late sixth and early seventh centuries. Judaism was an active proselytising faith, and at least one Arab political leader converted to it. Christianity had active missions competing with the Persians' Zoroastrianism in seeking converts, especially among residents of the Arabian Peninsula. All these strands came together with the emergence of Islam in Arabia during the lifetime of Muhammad (d. 632). After his death, Islamic forces conquered much of the Eastern Empire and Persia, starting with Syria in 634–635 and reaching Egypt in 640–641, Persia between 637 and 642, North Africa in the later seventh century, and the Iberian Peninsula in 711. By 714, Islamic forces controlled much of the peninsula in a region they called Al-Andalus.The Islamic conquests reached their peak in the mid-eighth century. The defeat of Muslim forces at the Battle of Tours in 732 led to the reconquest of southern France by the Franks, but the main reason for the halt of Islamic growth in Europe was the overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate and its replacement by the Abbasid Caliphate. The Abbasids moved their capital to Baghdad and were more concerned with the Middle East than Europe, losing control of sections of the Muslim lands. Umayyad descendants took over the Iberian Peninsula, the Aghlabids controlled North Africa, and the Tulunids became rulers of Egypt. By the middle of the 8th century, new trading patterns were emerging in the Mediterranean; trade between the Franks and the Arabs replaced the old Roman economy. Franks traded timber, furs, swords and slaves in return for silks and other fabrics, spices, and precious metals from the Arabs.
Tadeusz Jan Kowalski
Tadeusz Jan Kowalski (1889-1948) was a Polish orientalist, expert on Middle East Muslim culture and languages. He was a professor at Jagiellonian University, and a member of the Polish Academy of Learning.
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly from Africa to the Americas, and then their sale there. The slave trade used mainly the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, and existed from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The vast majority of those who were enslaved and transported in the transatlantic slave trade were Africans from central and western Africa, who had been sold by other West Africans to Western European slave traders (with a small number being captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids), who brought them to the Americas. The South Atlantic and Caribbean economies especially were dependent on the supply of secure labour for the production of commodity crops, making goods and clothing to sell in Europe. This was crucial to those western European countries which, in the late 17th and 18th centuries, were vying with each other to create overseas empires.
Sahara
The Byzantine Empire ruled the northern shores of the Sahara from the 5th to the 7th centuries. After the Muslim conquest of Arabia (Arabian peninsula) the Muslim conquest of North Africa began in the mid-7th to early 8th centuries, Islamic influence expanded rapidly on the Sahara. By the end of 641 all of Egypt was in Muslim hands. The trade across the desert intensified. A significant slave trade crossed the desert. It has been estimated that from the 10th to 19th centuries some 6,000 to 7,000 slaves were transported north each year.
Islam by country
Adherents of Islam constitute the world's second largest religious group. According to a study in 2015, Islam has 1.8 billion adherents, making up about 24% of the world population. Most Muslims are either of two denominations: Sunni (80 - 90%, roughly 1.5 billion people) or Shia (10 -- 20%, roughly 170 - 340 million people). Islam is the dominant religion in the Central Asia, Indonesia, Middle East, South Asia, North Africa, the Sahel and some other parts of Asia. The diverse Asia - Pacific region contains the highest number of Muslims in the world, easily surpassing the Middle East and North Africa.
Syria
Sunni Muslims make up between 69–74% of Syria's population and Sunni Arabs account for 59–60% of the population. Most Kurds (8.5%) and most Turkoman (3%) are Sunni and account for the difference between Sunnis and Sunni Arabs, while 13% of Syrians are Shia Muslims (particularly Alawite, Twelvers, and Ismailis but there are also Arabs, Kurds and Turkoman), 10% Christian (the majority are Antiochian Greek Orthodox, the rest are Syrian Orthodox, Greek Catholic and other Catholic Rites, Assyrian Church of the East, Armenian Orthodox, Protestants and other denominations), and 3% Druze. Druze number around 500,000, and concentrate mainly in the southern area of Jabal al-Druze.President Bashar al-Assad's family is Alawite and Alawites dominate the government of Syria and hold key military positions. In May 2013, SOHR stated that out of 94,000 killed during the Syrian Civil War, at least 41,000 were Alawites.Christians (2.5 million), a sizable number of whom are found among Syria's population of Palestinian refugees, are divided into several sects: Chalcedonian Antiochian Orthodox make up 45.7% of the Christian population; the Catholics (Melkite, Armenian Catholic, Syriac Catholic, Maronite, Chaldean Catholic and Latin) make up 16.2%; the Armenian Apostolic Church 10.9%, the Syriac Orthodox make up 22.4%; Assyrian Church of the East and several smaller Christian denominations account for the remainder. Many Christian monasteries also exist. Many Christian Syrians belong to a high socio-economic class.
Slave Trade Act 1807
The Slave Trade Act 1807, officially An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom prohibiting the slave trade in the British Empire. Although it did not abolish the practice of slavery, it did encourage British action to press other nations states to abolish their own slave trades.
Egypt
Modern Egypt is considered to be a regional and middle power, with significant cultural, political, and military influence in North Africa, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Its economy is one of the largest and most diversified in the Middle East, with sectors such as tourism, agriculture, industry and services at almost equal production levels. In 2011, longtime President Hosni Mubarak stepped down amid mass protests. Later elections saw the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was ousted by the army a year later amid mass protests.
Near East
The use of the term Middle East as a region of international affairs apparently began in British and American diplomatic circles quite independently of each other over concern for the security of the same country: Iran, then known to the west as Persia. In 1900 Thomas Edward Gordon published an article, The Problem of the Middle East, which began:
Israel
The Jewish Legion, a group primarily of Zionist volunteers, assisted, in 1918, in the British conquest of Palestine. Arab opposition to British rule and Jewish immigration led to the 1920 Palestine riots and the formation of a Jewish militia known as the Haganah (meaning "The Defense" in Hebrew), from which the Irgun and Lehi, or Stern Gang, paramilitary groups later split off. In 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate over Palestine under terms which included the Balfour Declaration with its promise to the Jews, and with similar provisions regarding the Arab Palestinians. The population of the area at this time was predominantly Arab and Muslim, with Jews accounting for about 11%, and Arab Christians at about 9.5% of the population.
Islam by country
The country with the single largest population of Muslims is Indonesia in Southeast Asia, which on its own hosts 13% of the world's Muslims. Together, the Muslims in the countries of the Malay Archipelago (which includes Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and East Timor) constitute the world's second or third largest population of Muslims. Here Muslims are majorities in each country other than Singapore, the Philippines, and East Timor.
Israel
The population of Israel, as defined by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, was estimated in 2016 to be 8,476,600 people. It is the world's only Jewish-majority state, with 6,345,400 citizens, or 74.9%, being designated as Jewish. The country's second largest group of citizens are denoted as Arabs, numbering 1,760,400 people (including the Druze and most East Jerusalem Arabs). The great majority of Israeli Arabs are Sunni Muslims, with smaller but significant numbers of semi-settled Negev Bedouins; the rest are Christians and Druze. Other far smaller minorities include Maronites, Samaritans, Dom people and Roma, Black Hebrew Israelites, other Sub-Saharan Africans, Armenians, Circassians, Vietnamese boat people, and others. Israel also hosts a significant population of non-citizen foreign workers and asylum seekers from Africa and Asia.
Religion in Syria
In Syria, Jews of both origins, numbering altogether fewer than 3,000 in 1987, are found. After a mass emigration in 1992, today fewer than 200 Jews live in Syria, mostly in the capital. Syrian Jews are Arabic-speaking and barely distinguishable from the Arabs around them. In Syria, as elsewhere, the degree to which Jews submit to the disciplines of their religion varies.
What is something that is not consistent between the Jewish population in the country know for its Muslims and the people who traded slaves into the Middle East?
Who traded slaves into the Middle East?
Arabs
What country is known for its #1 and Muslims?
Syria
In #2 what is something that is not consistent between the Jewish population?
the degree to which Jews submit to the disciplines of their religion