Geography of Southwest Asia and North Africa
This body of water is North of Africa.
What is Mediterranean Sea?
Islam began on this peninsula in the 600s CE.
What is the Arabian Peninsula?
This empire lasted for more than 600 years and didn't come to an end until the 20th century.
What is the Ottoman Empire?
This vast desert forms the northern border of West Africa and made travel difficult.
What is the Sahara Desert?
Traditional West African religions believed in this kind of spiritual presence in nature.
What are spirits or animism?
These three kingdoms dominated West Africa in a sequence until 1600 CE.
What is Ghana, Mali, and Songhai?
This peninsula is boarded by the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, and the Persian Gulf.
What is Arabian Peninsula
Followers of Islam are called this.
What are Muslims?
The Ottoman Empire rose after Turkish warriors won against an empire.
What is the Byzantine Empire?
Much of West Africa is covered in this grassy region ideal for farming and herding.
What is the savanna?
Traditional religions often focused on honoring these family members who had passed away.
What are ancestors (ancestor worship)?
This was the first major empire in West Africa, known for controlling gold and salt trade.
What is Ghana?
This desert is the largest in the world and covers much of North Africa.
What is the Sahara Desert?
These are the core duties that all Muslims are expected to follow.
What are the Five Pillars of Islam?
Leader or sovereign of an Islamic nation.
What is a Sultan?
This semi-arid region lies just south of the Sahara and transitions into savanna.
What is the Sahel?
Lines of extended families and clans who can trace their roots to a common ancestor.
What is a Lineage?
This later empire replaced Ghana and grew even larger and wealthier.
What is Mali?
These two rivers form the region known as Mesopotamia.
What are the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers?
This city is considered the holiest in Islam and the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad.
What is Mecca?
He rebuilt Constantinople and constructed many new buildings, including palaces and the great Mosque of the Conqueror, with its hospitals, colleges, and public baths.
Who is Mehmed II?
This major river flows through West Africa and was vital for trade, farming, and transportation.
What is the Niger River?
A people, culture, or religion that is native to a particular geographical region.
What is indigenous?
This was the third great empire of West Africa, known for expanding trade and education.
What is Songhai?
This sea is important for trade because ships can use it to eventually reach the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean.
What is the Black Sea?
Mohammad recited these teachings to his followers, who wrote them down in a book.
What is the Quran?
He encouraged the Ottomans to develop a better understanding of mathematics, astronomy, and religion. He established eight colleges in Constantinople.
Who is Mehmed II or Mehmed the Conqueror?
West Africa was rich in this precious metal, which was traded across the Sahara.
What is gold?
These storytellers preserved history, religion, and culture through oral tradition.
Who are griots?
This West African ruler was known for his wealth and his famous pilgrimage to Mecca.
Who is Mansa Musa?
This is considered the holy city in the Arabian Peninsula.
What is Mecca?
The belief in one god.
What is Monotheism?
In 1444, he abdicated the throne and made his 12-year-old son sultan.
Who is Murad II?
This mineral was just as valuable as gold in ancient West Africa because it preserved food.
What is salt?
The cloth is known for its many multicolored patterns of bright colors and geometric designs.
What is Kente Cloth?
Mansa Musa is often called the richest man in history because of this natural resource.
What is gold?
Between the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa.
What is the Red Sea?
The second holiest book in Islam.
What is the Sunnah?
Carried large groups of people and camels across much of the Islamic world on land.
What are Carvans?
Traders crossed the Sahara using this type of animal, called the “ships of the desert.”
What are camels?
A kinship system in which ancestors are traced through the mother's side of the family.
What is Matrilineal?
He built these Islamic places of worship throughout Mali.
What are mosques?
North of Iran and also boarded by Kazakhstan and Russia.
What is the Caspian Sea?
This prophet founded Islam in the Seventh century in the country of Arabia.
Who is Prophet Mohammad?
The Ottoman Empire conquered this city and established the Ottoman Empire.
What is Constantinople?
This trade route connected West Africa to North Africa and the Islamic world.
What is the Trans-Saharan trade route?
A kinship system in which ancestors are traced through the father's side of the family.
What is Patrilineal?
Mansa Musa’s promotion of learning helped spread this system of writing.
What is Arabic?
Located between present-day Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.
What is the Persian Gulf?
Mohammad and his followers migrated to this city.
What is Medina?
Luxury goods traded in the Islamic empire
Silk, Spices, fur or Incense
(List at least 2)
Trade and travel along these routes helped spread this religion into West Africa.
What is Islam?
Priest-like elders in an indigenous religion who are thought to have special powers to communicate with the spirit world.
What is Shamans?
A pilgrimage to the city of Mecca.
What is a Hajj?
The Arabian Peninsula is known for having this kind of climate.
What is arid?
Islam spread so quickly during the 7th century.
What is conquest, conversion, or tolerance?
They made great advancements in philosophy, physics, geography, and chemistry.
What is The Ottoman Golden Age?
Important trade and cultural centers of the Mali empire
What is Djenne and Timbuktu?
One of the more impact epics is the Dausi and the Epic of Sundiata.
What is West African Literature?
Mansa Musa helped make this city a center of Islamic learning.
What is Timbuktu?