In Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East, authors Daniel G. Bates and Amal Rassam (2001) discuss the needs, values and motivations of individuals in the region in order to explain the development of cultural institutions and social processes. In Chapters 1, the authors provide a discussion of different geographical factors, ecological constraints and material resources which shaped the development of societies in the region. For example, in the largely arid region, water is an essential and important natural resource in shaping the societies that live in the Middle East. As Bates and Rassam (2001, p. 1) assert, ôSources of water are the sources of life itself in the Middle East. The distribution of people, the settlements they have created, and the ways they secure their livelihoods are closed shaped by the challenges of controlling and securing this vital resource.ö We see how this resource impacted the tools and products of ancient Egyptians, who developed water lifting devices to water their fields. The exploration of the geographical factors, ecological constraints and material resource that shaped societies in this region demonstrate the authorsÆ claim that it is ôàimpossible to separate cultural or social processes from the environmental setting in which they occur,ö (Bates, & Rassam, 2001, p. 1).
In Chapters 2 and 3, the authors provide a discussion of the ideology and ideation behind Islam. We see that Islam is a source of unity and collective meaning in the region, but that it is also one whose meaning is often disputed and drives cultural communication. The authors maintain that Islam must be seen as a vehicle for political action, one that unites at the same time it continually evolves in meaning: ôHow people understand, interpret, and act upon Islamic principles defines what Islam is at any given time for a particular community,ö (Bates, & Rassam, 2001, p. xvi). In Chapter 2 the authors express these i...