The Islamic world's geopolitics: Grounds for divergence and convergence

Covering a vast area of the earth, the Islamic world with a population of more than one billion is an important population, cultural, economic, and political pole. Though it has much capacity for convergence, it now suffers from divergence. From geopolitical viewpoint, most Islamic countries are in the beginning stage of organizing the political sphere. Population is rapidly increasing in these countries. Increase in population has various aftermaths one of which is the destruction of environment. There are also geopolitical problems in the Islamic world. The Islamic countries in the Middle East and North Africa suffer from the natural and geographical problem of lack of water. This has led to conflicts among countries with water sources and made water a geopolitical issue. On the other hand, the Islamic world has grounds from convergence. The biggest source of energy belongs to the Islamic world. Since the hydrocarbonic sources of energy are decreasing in other regions, Persian Gulf will remain significant for the world economy because of its huge sources of energy in the future 25 years. Thus feature is enough to give the region a geopolitical importance. Although water in the Middle East and North Africa turned into a geopolitical issue, the existence of considerable water resources in some of these countries can reduce the amount of the problem, changing water from a geopolitical issue to a political one. The paper tries to clarify the causes of divergence and the grounds of convergence in the Islamic world.