Introduction to Middle East
Middle East, a term for an indefinite region centered on southwest Asia and extending into North Africa. According to the most widely accepted definition, the region includes Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and all the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. According to other definitions, it includes various adjacent countries. The term originated in the early 20th century and came into popular use during World War II. The older term Near East, now becoming obsolete, sometimes was also used to include the Balkan countries as well as the lands around the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea.
Much of the Middle East is desert or semidesert, and most of the people are clustered in oases or river valleys, where water makes the land productive. It was in these centers that some of the world's earliest known civilizations flourished. From the Middle East, also, came three major religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Today, the people are predominantly Muslim (Islamic); about half use the Arabic language.
The region's principal assets today lie in its rich oil fields, mainly in the Persian Gulf region, which have more than half of the world's proven reserves. This wealth has placed new importance on the Middle East's position at the junction of three continents, where it controls vital links in the international transportation system. There has scarcely been any period in history, however, when significant developments did not center on the Middle East.
Ancient History
The oldest known civilizations arose in Mesopotamia (the region of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers) and Egypt. Through commerce on the Mediterranean Sea, the discoveries and inventions of these areas spread eventually to Europe. The early history of the Middle East is, therefore, the early history of Western civilization.
Farming was the first step toward civilization. About 9000 B.C. , in the hilly areas of the Tigris-Euphrates headwaters (eastern Turkey), people began to raise animals and plant crops. After several thousand years, they moved down into the river valleys of Mesopotamia, where they learned to irrigate their fields with river water. Farming spread over to the Mediterranean coast, which formed with Mesopotamia an arc of cultivated land called the Fertile Crescent. Crops were also grown along the Nile River in Egypt.
A people known as Sumerians settled in southern Mesopotamia sometime before 3500 B.C. They founded the region's first civilization, based on a group of city-states. The first system of writing, cuneiform, was devised by the Sumerians. Because of their many significant contributions, their land is called the Cradle of Civilization. Egypt, however, developed a civilization almost as early and devised its own system of writing, hieroglyphics. Egypt was the first Middle East country to become a nation. Organized first into two kingdoms, it was unified about 3100 B.C.
Meanwhile, trade was developing throughout the Middle East. Northern Mesopotamia got jade and copper from adjacent mountain regions. Syria mined silver, and Egypt mined gold. Salt was available from the Nile delta, timber from the Lebanon Mountains, and wine and olive oil from Palestine and Syria. The Sumerians produced metalwork and traded products obtained from their neighbors, sailing down the Persian Gulf and probably as far as the Indus Valley. The Syrian ports of Byblos and Ugarit handled trade with Cyprus, Crete, and the Aegean lands. People of Saba (Sheba) in southwestern Arabia traded with eastern Africa and sent herbs and spices northward.
There was constant movement of peoples in the ancient Middle East. Strong countries often invaded their neighbors. Nomadic peoples sought places to settle, peacefully or by force. But never were the gains of civilization lost. Less advanced peoples adopted the culture of the more advanced and developed it further.
From the 3000's B.C. there was repeated migration of Semitic-speaking desert peoples into the Fertile Crescent. A number of them, listed in chronological order, had a profound effect on history:
conquered the Sumerians.
founded Babylonia and also occupied the Mediterranean coast, where they merged with other settlers to form the Canaanites.
moved gradually into northern Egypt and founded a dynasty of pharaohs. They introduced the use of the horse in warfare.
migrated in turn to Mesopotamia, Palestine, Egypt, and back to Palestine, where they founded the kingdom of Israel (later Judah) and established the first great monotheistic religion, Judaism.
settled in Syria and traded so widely that their language was eventually spoken throughout the Fertile Crescent.
as the northern Canaanites came to be known, were the seafarers of the Mediterranean world. Their trading colonies reached to the Atlantic Ocean. They helped develop the alphabet and were most probably the ones to pass it on to the Greeks.
settled in Mesopotamia and conquered all the neighboring peoples.
helped destroy Assyria and created the Neo-Babylonian Empire.
Some of the mountain peoples north and east of the Fertile Crescent also made their mark on history:
of southwestern Iran, maintained a strong kingdom from about 2500 B.C. for almost 2,000 years.
living at the top of the Fertile Crescent about 2000 B.C. , were united under a foreign aristocracy to form the empire of Mitanni, reaching from the Svrian coast through ancient Armenia.
came into Babylonia after 2000 B.C. , in time became the rulers, and reigned for 400 years.
Indo-Europeans from the north and the west also came to the Middle East:
entered western Asia Minor about 2200 B.C. and moved slowly eastward, building a powerful empire. In Syria they were halted by the Egyptians in the 1200's B.C. and soon were overwhelmed by invaders from the sea.
were those sea people who settled in southern Canaan.
succeeded the Hittites in interior Asia Minor after 1200 B.C. and flourished on trade between the Greeks and the Mesopotamians.
were Greeks who crossed the Aegean Sea in the 1000's B.C. and settled in Asia Minor.
settled about 1000 B.C. south of the Caspian Sea, where two groups, the Medes and the Persians, later founded what became the Persian Empire, covering the entire Middle East, except for Arabia.
See articles in this encyclopedia on these various peoples and countries.
Alexander the Great of Macedonia crossed into Asia Minor in 334 B.C. and in nine years conquered the entire Persian Empire. It was divided after his death between two of his successors into the Seleucid Kingdom, centered in Syria, and the Ptolemaic Kingdom, centered in Egypt.
These two domains—called Hellenistic kingdoms because of their Greek origin— established Greek culture throughout the Middle East. Alexandria, Egypt, succeeded Athens as the center of Greek learning. The Seleucids soon lost much of their domain to the Persian Empire, reestablished under the Parthians; the rest fell in 64 B.C. to the Romans. Within a few decades Rome had also annexed Palestine and Egypt.
Trade under the Romans reached all the way to China by the overland Silk Road. Desert peoples, such as the Palmyrenes and Nabataeans, who controlled the caravan routes were made subject to Rome. Egypt became known as the granary of Rome, supplying grain to much of the empire.
During the Roman era Christianity was founded in Palestine. Early churches flourished in Jerusalem; Antioch, Syria; Ephesus, Asia Minor; and Alexandria. Emperor Constantine the Great made Christianity the official religion of his new eastern capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul).
Meanwhile, Jewish uprisings against the Romans in Palestine had brought severe reprisals. Jerusalem had been destroyed, the Jews banished from it, and Judaism outlawed. Many Jews migrated to Europe and Africa. Many others settled in Babylonia, where they grew strong and prosperous and converted many of their neighbors to Judaism. As the Roman attitude became more lenient, some of the exiles returned to Palestine.
The frontiers of the expanding Roman and Persian empires both reached upper Mesopotamia, and there were frequent clashes. After 395 A.D. , the Roman Empire was divided into Western and Eastern (Byzantine) sections. The conflict with Persia continued, gradually weakening both sides.
1,000 Years of Religious Conflict
Under Emperor Theodosius (reigned 379–95), Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire. Most of the Jews departed. The Holy Land, with its shrines and relics, began to attract Christian pilgrims from Europe.
A new doctrine, Monophysitism, arose in Constantinople and was accepted by the Eastern Orthodox (Byzantine) Church, but was then rejected. Another doctrine, Nestorianism, was introduced by the Byzantine patriarch, but was later condemned. Many churches in the Middle East refused to renounce these doctrines and separated from the Byzantine church. Often these conflicts resulted in massacres and destruction.
The Muslim, or Islamic, religion was founded in Arabia early in the seventh century by Mohammed. He claimed to be the last prophet of the Biblical God, whom he called Allah. The Arabians were quickly won to his cause, and Muslim armies advanced into adjacent lands. The Persians and Byzantines, enfeebled by their perpetual warfare, were easily defeated. By 700 all the Middle East but Asia Minor was under Muslim control. Arabic became the common language. The conquered peoples, except for Christians and Jews, were forced to convert to Islam. Jews began returning to Palestine.
The Arabs, secure in their control of the land, turned to the sea. Soon they had monopolized trade in the Indian Ocean and were sailing to China for silk.
The Arab caliph (the civil and religious ruler of the Muslims) governed first from Medina, then from Damascus. Dissension soon developed, however. The caliphate was seized by a dissenting faction in 750 and a new capital, Baghdad, was founded in 762. Arab influence declined and the Muslim world came to be controlled by the Persians, under whom a brilliant Islamic culture developed. But internal conflict brought divisions in the Muslim faith. Meanwhile, the Turks known as Seljuks were migrating from Central Asia into Persia, where they were converted to Islam. In the 11th century they became the rulers of all the central portion of the Middle East to the Mediterranean, and overwhelmed the Byzantines in eastern Asia Minor.
The Crusades began as a result of Turkish interference with Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land and pleas for aid from the Byzantine emperor. The arrival of the first Crusaders in 1097 was the beginning of two centuries of European occupation in the Middle East. The First Crusade took the Syrian coastal area and most of Palestine including Jerusalem.
Within 50 years the Muslims had begun winning back territory, and additional Crusades sought, unsuccessfully, to retake it However, the Crusaders were also interested in taking loot, and on one expedition, 1202–04, they turned against the Byzantine Empire, conquered it, and stripped it of its treasure. In 1261 the Europeans were expelled from Constantinople and in 1291 from Acre, their last stronghold in the Holy Land.
The Muslims had regained the Middle East under leaders from Egypt—first Saladin and his heirs, then the Mameluke dynasty. Crusader seaports, when captured, were destroyed, and trade was redirected from the Levant (the eastern Mediterranean shore) to Egypt.
In 1258 the Mongols, or Tatars, of Genghis Khan conquered Persia, but in several westward thrusts could not defeat the Mamelukes. The Mongols subjugated the Seljuk Turks, however, and drove another group, the Ottoman Turks, into Asia Minor. Some of the Mongols were Christians, but gradually all were converted to Islam.
Mongol authority soon waned. The Ottomans absorbed the Seljuks and began conquering the remainder of the Byzantine Empire. Beginning in 1380, the Tatar chieftain Tamerlane reconquered much of the Middle East in a long campaign accompanied by vast destruction. This restoration of the Mongol Empire did not long survive Tamerlane's death in 1405. The Ottomans took Constantinople in 1453, ending the Byzantine Empire.
The Ottoman Empire
When the Ottomans were establishing their domain, which extended through the Balkans, Mameluke Egypt was the center of Middle East trade and of Islamic culture. However, destruction of Crusader ports and depredation by the Mongols had devastated much of the Fertile Crescent. The population dwindled steadily and great areas of cultivated land became desert. Settlements were frequently raided by Bedouins (desert Arabs). In spite of the desolation, many Jews returned to Palestine, especially from Spain, where they suffered persecution beginning in the late 1300's and were expelled in 1492.
The Portuguese in the early 16th century opened the sea route around Africa, and the Dutch helped establish a European monopoly on trade with the Indies. The economy of the Mameluke Empire collapsed. The Ottomans entered Syria in 1516 and in a few months conquered the Levant and Egypt. Within 25 years they had gained control of Mesopotamia and much of the Red Sea and Persian Gulf coastline. Constantinople, the Ottoman capital, became one of the great trade centers of the world.
After the period of expansion, Ottoman sultans (monarchs) gradually lost control of their outlying territories. Many local rulers became virtually autonomous, and most of the empire languished economically. In time, Europeans were permitted to conduct overland trade with the East. France and Great Britain vied for use of the route across Egypt's Isthmus of Suez. In 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte's armies seized Egypt for France (which wanted easy access to India), but the French were expelled in three years. The British began making trade arrangements along the Arabian coast.
The French constructed the Suez Canal, 1859–69, but the British gained financial control of it very shortly and by the mid-1880's had established military control over Egypt. They also had set up protectorates in southern Arabia and the Persian Gulf.
France gained influence with the Ottoman sultans and was given special privileges in the Levant. Russia, pushing southward, annexed some of northern Persia, while Great Britain discovered oil in southern Persia in 1908. Germany, seeking to become a colonial power, had gained a favored position with the Ottomans by the start of World War I.
At the outbreak of war in 1914, Ottoman Turkey formed an alliance with Germany; Turkish forces saw action against Britain and Russia. With British support, the Arabians formed several independent domains. After the Allied victory, the Ottoman Empire was dismembered. Syria (including modern Lebanon) became a League of Nations mandate of France; Palestine, Trans-jordan (now Jordan), and Mesopotamia (now Iraq), mandates of Britain. Egypt reestablished its monarchy, but British troops remained. Turkey became a republic.
The Modern Middle East
Most of the mandates continued until after World War II, although the people of the occupied countries were eager for independence. The major European nations, however, were concerned with the question of a homeland for the Jews. In response to Zionism, the movement devoted to this cause, Britain in 1917 issued the Balfour Declaration, favoring establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The policy was endorsed by the League of Nations. In anticipation, Jews began emigrating to Palestine, where they were met with hostility. The Arabic-speaking countries gradually united in opposition to a Jewish nation in the Middle East.
Consideration of a British plan of 1939 for a Palestinian nation to be shared by Arabs and Jews was interrupted by World War II. During the war Britain centered its Middle East operations in Egypt and stopped a German drive for the Suez Canal at El Alamein in 1942. In 1945 Arab countries founded the Arab League. When the nation of Israel was created from portions of Palestine in 1948, league members went to war in a vain attempt to destroy it.
Britain, long dominant in Persia (called Iran from 1935), Iraq, Arabia, and Egypt, withdrew gradually from the Middle East after World War II, and the Soviet Union attempted to gain influence there. Middle East investments became increasingly attractive to foreign countries, as the rate of development of the region's vast petroleum reserves was accelerated. The oil industry was largely owned by Western companies through concessions granted them by Middle East governments.
By the 1970's Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia had close ties with the United States; Syria, Iraq, and Libya with the Soviet Union. Egypt had maintained close relation? with the Soviet Union for years, but broke those ties in 1976.
By the end of the 1970's, most of the Middle East oil-producing countries, including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, had nationalized foreign-owned oil operations, ending the concession system. Through OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries), which was formed in 1960, the oil-producing nations during the 1970's were able to greatly increase prices. This led to substantial growth in wealth and to increased influence of the Middle East in international affairs.
Beginning in the late 1970's, a rise in Islamic fundamentalism, in reaction to growing influence by Western and Soviet-bloc nations, was the source of much unrest and rebellion in the region. In Iran, Shiite fundamentalists overthrew the shah in 1978. In Egypt, President Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist Sunnite group.
Lebanon was long dominated by Christians, but during a civil war from 1975 to 1990, Muslim fundamentalist groups gained more power in the government.
In 1980 Iraq under Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in an attempt to win back territory it had ceded in 1975. The invasion was pushed back in 1982, and the war stalemated. It ended in 1988.
In 1990, Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait. The United States, Great Britain, France, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and 30 other countries formed a coalition under United Nations auspices to oppose Iraq. In 1991, the coalition forces in what became known as the Persian Gulf War defeated Iraq and freed Kuwait. Following the war, Kurdish and Shiite groups in Iraq launched rebellions against Saddam Hussein, which he quickly crushed.
Arab-Israeli Conflict
Persecution of Jews by the Nazi regime in Germany vastly increased Jewish immigration to Palestine from the early 1930's. In 1947 the United Nations drew up a plan of partition that divided Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs; Jerusalem was included in the Arab part as an international city. British control ended in 1948, and war broke out immediately between the new nation of Israel and surrounding Arab nations. Fighting was ended in 1949, with the Israelis occupying about half of the Arab territory, including part of Jerusalem. (The remainder of Arab Palestine, known as the West Bank, was annexed by Jordan in 1950.)
Hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled from Israeli territory, many to refugee camps that became, in effect, their permanent homes. The liberation of Palestine became the focal point of Arab activism. There were frequent border incidents. In 1956 Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, and Israel immediately invaded the Sinai Peninsula. The United Nations forced the Israelis, and French and British troops who had been rushed to the canal, to withdraw.
Arab commandos continued to attack Israel, bringing retaliatory raids. In 1967, war broke out between Israel and surrounding Arab nations, who were quickly defeated in what came to be called the Six Day War. Israel seized the West Bank from Jordan, the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Egypt blocked the Suez Canal with sunken ships, and it remained impassable until 1975.
Israel declared at least some of the occupied territory to be essential to its security and refused to withdraw. The active Arab opposition became nominally unified under the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Arab extremists began a worldwide campaign of terrorism against Israel.
In 1973 Israel was attacked by neighboring countries, but fighting was halted within a few weeks under a UN cease-fire. In 1979 Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel. Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt in a series of steps, 1979–82.
During the late 1970's and early 1980's, Lebanon became the principal arena of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Civil war broke out in 1975 among the Christians, PLO, Shiite Muslims, Sunnite Muslims, and other groups. Israel gave military support to the Christian groups, and Syria helped arm the Islamic groups. Both countries became directly involved when in 1976 Syria entered eastern Lebanon and when in 1982 Israeli troops invaded southern Lebanon. Israeli forces did not fully withdraw from Lebanon until 2000; Syrian troops left Lebanon in 2005.
In 1993, after two years of secret negotiations, Israel and the PLO signed a peace agreement. Israel gave the PLO limited self-rule in the Gaza Strip and in Jericho, in the West Bank. In 1994, Jordan and Israel signed a peace agreement. Another pact between Israel and the PLO, signed in September 1995, expanded Palestinian control over more towns in the West Bank. An Israeli opponent of the agreement assassinated Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November, and conflicting interpretations of the agreement between Israel and the PLO delayed its fulfillment. By the end of 2000 there was a marked increase in acts of violence between Israel and Palestinians. As part of a plan approved by the Israeli parliament in 2004, Israel removed Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank in 2005, allowing Palestinians to assume complete control of these areas.
