How Well Do You Know The Middle East: Answers

1.  David Ben-Gurion declared Israeli independence on the 14th May 1948, the day before the expiration of Britain’s Palestinian Mandate.
2. The last Shah of Iran was Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. He was deposed in February 1979 in a revolution that resulted in Ayatollah Khomeini assuming power.
3. Gamal Abdel Nasser was the President of Egypt from 1956 until 1970. He was succeeded by Anwar Sadat.
4. The main religion in Iran before the Arab conquests and the spread of Islam was Zoroastrianism.
5. The Ottoman Empire was named the “sick man of Europe” by Tsar Nicholas I of Russia.
6. Azerbaijan is the state that shares borders with Iran, Russia and the Caspian Sea.
7. The body of water between Iran and the United Arab Emirates is the Persian Gulf, also known as the Arabian Gulf.
8. The capital city of Oman is Muscat.
9. Mosul is situated in Northern Iraq.
10. The United Arab Emirates is made up of 7 emirates, the capital of which is Abu Dhabi.
11. The current Yemeni President is Abd Rabbuh Mansur Al-Hadi who replaced long-standing President Ali Abdullah Saleh in February of this year.
12. The PFLP, or Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is a hard line Palestinian organisation founded in 1967.
13. Israel’s current Minister of Foreign Affairs is Avigdor Liberman, leader of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu.
14. King Abdullah II of Jordan made a cameo appearance in Star Trek whilst Crown Prince.
15. Former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq and Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Mursi are the two candidates left in the running for the Egyptian presidential election.
16. Muhammad died in 632 at the age of 62.
17. Egypt has the largest number of Middle Eastern bloggers, possessing about 30% of the total.
18. Lebanon is the only Middle Eastern country to not have a desert.
19. Osama bin Laden, the former leader of Al Qaeda was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
20. The Baha’i Faith’s Universal House of Justice is located in Haifa, Israel.