Geography of the Muslim World

The Muslim World.

Islam is the second largest religion, and the fastest growing one, in the world. The graph below shows the estimated number of followers of the four main religions in the world. 

 For this book, we will take the Muslim world to mean those countries whose governments have declared that they are Islamic states (for example, Iran, Saudi Arabia) and those countries where the majority of the population is Muslim.

The Muslim world stretches about 15,000 km east to west, and 6000 km north to south. Inside this vast region, there are bound to be many differences, but the whole area is bound together by faith in Islam, the Prophet (PBUH), and the Quran.

Physical Features

As you can see from the map on page 2, most of the Muslim countries are located on level land. The main mountains are the Atlas range in North Africa, the highlands of Ethiopia, Yemen and the southern end of Saudi Arabia, eastern Turkey, and much of Iran. The highest regions of all are Afghanistan and the Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountains of Pakistan. However, few people live in these mountainous regions.

The next map shows that much of the Muslim world, except for Malaysia, Indonesia, and some parts of Africa has very little natural vegetation. More than half of the whole area is hot desert, temperate desert, semi-desert, and scrub.

Political Map Showing the Muslim World.

Map showing physical features of the muslim world.

 

In these desert areas, apart from a few oases, little or nothing grows, except very tough plants which can survive in such harsh conditions. These can provide food only for the hardiest sheep and goats, usually kept by nomadic or semi-nomadic people who wander with their flocks and herds in search of pasture.

There are, however, considerable areas of tropical rainforest in parts of Central Africa and South-east Asia which produce huge amounts of timber and tropical forest products such as rubber and tropical fruits. In other countries, good farm crops are produced in the valleys of the great rivers, the Nile, Tigris, Euphrates, and Indus, and in other places by irrigation.