History of the Middle East

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Modern Middle East
)

Contemporary political map of the Middle East
A map showing territories commonly considered part of the Near East

The Middle East, also known as the Near East, is home to one of the Cradles of Civilization and has seen many of the world's oldest cultures and civilizations. The region's history started from the earliest human settlements and continues through several major pre- and post-Islamic Empires to today's nation-states of the Middle East.

The

Seljuq dynasty. In the early 13th century, a new wave of invaders, the armies of the Mongol Empire, mainly Turkic, swept through the region. By the early 15th century, a new power had arisen in western Anatolia, the Ottoman emirs, who were linguistically Turkic and religiously Islamic and in 1453 captured the Christian Byzantine capital of Constantinople and made themselves sultans
.

Large parts of the Middle East became a warground between the Ottomans and the Iranian Safavid dynasty for centuries, starting in the early 16th century. By 1700, the Ottomans had been driven out of the Kingdom of Hungary and the balance of power along the frontier had shifted decisively in favor of the Western world. The British Empire also established effective control of the Persian Gulf, and the French colonial empire extended its influence into Lebanon and Syria. In 1912, the Kingdom of Italy seized Libya and the Dodecanese islands, just off the coast of the Ottoman heartland of Anatolia. In the late 19th and the early 20th centuries, Middle Eastern rulers tried to modernize their states to compete more effectively with the European powers. A turning point in the region's history came when oil was discovered, first in Persia in 1908 and later in Saudi Arabia (in 1938) and the other Persian Gulf states, and also in Libya and Algeria. A Western dependence on Middle Eastern oil and the decline of British influence led to a growing American interest in the region.

During the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, Syria and Egypt made moves towards independence. The British, the French, and the

Northern Africa saw the rise of pan-Arabism. The departure of the European powers from direct control of the region, the establishment of Israel, and the increasing importance of the petroleum industry, marked the creation of the modern Middle East. In most Middle Eastern countries, the growth of market economies was inhibited by political restrictions, corruption, cronyism, overspending on arms and prestige projects and overdependence on oil revenues. The wealthiest economies in the region per capita are the small oil-rich countries of Persian Gulf: Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates
.

A combination of factors—such as the 1967

ISIL
uprising.

The term Near East can be used interchangeably with Middle East, but in a different context, especially in discussing ancient history, it may have a limited meaning, namely the northern historically-Aramaic-speaking Semitic people area and adjacent Anatolian territories, marked in the two maps below.

  The limited modern archaeological and historical context of the Near East
  Middle East and Near East
Arabian plate. Not so much lingually but rather culturally, politically and historically, the most significant division here has been between the north and the south, which is to some degree isolated from each other by the sparsely-populated Arabian Desert. The north comprises Mesopotamia and the Levant, which, together with the lower Nile (i.e., Egypt), constitute the Fertile Crescent
.

General

Geographically, the Middle East can be thought of as

Northern Africa) and with the exclusion of the Caucasus. The Middle East was the first to experience a Neolithic Revolution (c. the 10th millennium BCE), as well as the first to enter the Bronze Age (c. 3300–1200 BC) and Iron Age
(c. 1200–500 BC).

Historically human populations have tended to settle around bodies of water, which is reflected in modern population density patterns.

city states, with the geo-linguistic distribution today being divided between Persian Gulf, the Najd and the Hejaz in the Peninsula, as well as the Bedouin
areas beyond the Peninsula.

Since ancient times the Middle East has had several

qualifying as distinct languages
by this linguistic criterion.

The Middle East was the birthplace of the

Prehistoric Near East

fertile crescent, circa 7500 BC, with main sites of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period. The area of Mesopotamia
proper was not yet settled by humans.

The

Cenozoic Era. Red Sea rifting began in the Eocene, but the separation of Africa and Arabia occurred in the Oligocene, and since then the Arabian Plate has been slowly moving toward the Eurasian Plate
.

The collision between the Arabian Plate and Eurasia is pushing up the Zagros Mountains of Iran. Because the Arabian Plate and Eurasia plate collide, many cities are in danger such as those in south eastern Turkey (which is on the Arabian Plate). These dangers include earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes.

The

BP
. One of the potential routes for early human migrations toward southern and eastern Asia is Iran.

J-M172, which now comprise between them almost all of the population of the haplogroup, are both believed to have arisen very early, at least 10,000 years ago. Nonetheless, Y-chromosomes F-M89* and IJ-M429* were reported to have been observed in the Iranian plateau.[15]

There is evidence of

rock carvings along the Nile terraces and in desert oases. In the 10th millennium BC, a culture of hunter-gatherers and fishermen was replaced by a grain-grinding culture. Climate changes and/or overgrazing around 6000 BC began to desiccate the pastoral lands of Egypt, forming the Sahara. Early tribal peoples migrated to the Nile River, where they developed a settled agricultural economy and more centralized society.[16]

Fulani lactase persistence variant –13910*T may have spread, along with cattle pastoralism, between 9686 BP and 7534 BP, possibly around 8500 BP; corroborating this timeframe for the Fulani, by at least 7500 BP, there is evidence of herders engaging in the act of milking in the Central Sahara.[17]

Ancient Near East

Israelite royal Seals of Hezekiah also featured one, sometimes flanked on either side with the Egyptian ankh symbol. The Iranian kingdom has a related symbol called Faravahar which mistakenly is being called as the symbol of Zoroastrianism.[citation needed
]

The ancient Near East was the first to practice intensive year-round

warfare
.

Cradle of civilization, Sumer and Akkad

The earliest civilizations in history were established in the region now known as the Middle East around 3500 BC by the Sumerians, in southern Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), widely regarded as the cradle of civilization. The Sumerians and the Akkadians—who extended their empire to northern Mesopotamia (now northern Syria)—and later Babylonians and Assyrians all flourished in this region.

"In the course of the fourth millennium BC, city-states developed in southern Mesopotamia that were dominated by temples whose priests represented the cities' patron deities. The most prominent of the city-states was Sumer, which gave its language to the area, [presumably the first written language,] and became the first great civilization of mankind. About 2340 BC, Sargon the Great (c. 2360–2305 BC) united the city-states in the south and founded the Akkadian dynasty, the world's first empire."[18]

During this same time period, Sargon the Great appointed his daughter, Enheduanna, as High Priestess of Inanna at Ur.[19] Her writings, which established her as the first known author in world history, also helped cement Sargon's position in the region.

Egypt

Ramses_II._1989
Statue of Ramesses II of Egypt in Luxor.

Soon after the Sumerian civilization began, the

Nile valley of Lower and Upper Egypt was unified under the Pharaohs
approximately around 3150 BC. Since then, Ancient Egypt experienced 3 high points of civilization, the so-called "Kingdom" periods:

The history of Ancient Egypt is concluded by the

Ptolemaic Egypt
.

The Levant and Anatolia

Thereafter, civilization quickly spread through the

Nabatean kingdom. The Phoenician civilization, encompassing several city states, was a maritime trading culture that established colonial cities in the Mediterranean Basin, most notably Carthage, in 814 BC
.

Assyrian empires

Assyrian Empires of 1365–1076 BC and the Neo-Assyrian Empire
of 911–605 BC. The Assyrian Empire, at its peak, was the largest the world had seen. It ruled all of what is now Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, Cyprus, and Bahrain—with large swathes of Iran, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Sudan, and Arabia. "The Assyrian empires, particularly the third, had a profound and lasting impact on the Near East. Before Assyrian hegemony ended, the Assyrians brought the highest civilization to the then known world. From the Caspian to Cyprus, from Anatolia to Egypt, Assyrian imperial expansion would bring into the Assyrian sphere nomadic and barbaric communities, and would bestow the gift of civilization upon them."[20]

Neo-Babylonian and Persian empires

From the early 6th century BC onwards, several Persian states dominated the region, beginning with the

Seleucid
state in Western Asia.

After a century of hiatus, the idea of the Persian Empire was revived by the

Syriac–Assyrian
literary tradition.

Greek and Roman Empire

The Roman Empire at its greatest extent, under Trajan, 117 AD

In 66–63 BC, the

Ægyptus was by far the most wealthy Roman province.[22][23]

During the time that mystery cults were introduced to the region, traditional religions were often criticized and the cults gained societal influence.[24] These cults formed around gods like Cybele, Isis, and Mithra.[24]

Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem: Jerusalem is generally considered the cradle of Christianity.[25]

As the Christian religion spread throughout the Roman and Persian Empires, it took root in the Middle East, and cities such as Alexandria and Edessa became important centers of Christian scholarship. By the 5th century, Christianity was the dominant religion in the Middle East, with other faiths (gradually including heretical Christian sects) being actively repressed. The Middle East's ties to the city of Rome were gradually severed as the Empire split into East and West, with the Middle East tied to the new Roman capital of Constantinople. The subsequent Fall of the Western Roman Empire therefore, had minimal direct impact on the region.

Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire)

The Eastern Roman Empire, today commonly known as the Byzantine Empire, ruling from the Balkans to the Euphrates, became increasingly defined by and dogmatic about Christianity, gradually creating religious rifts between the doctrines dictated by the establishment in Constantinople and believers in many parts of the Middle East. By this time, Greek had become the 'lingua franca' of the region, although ethnicities such as the Syriacs and the Hebrew continued to exist. Under Byzantine/Greek rule the area of the Levant met an era of stability and prosperity.

Medieval Middle East

Pre-Islam

In the 5th century, the Middle East was separated into small, weak states; the two most prominent were the Sasanian Empire of the Persians in what is now Iran and Iraq, and the Byzantine Empire in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) and the Levant. The Byzantines and Sasanians fought with each other a reflection of the rivalry between the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire seen during the previous five hundred years. The Byzantine-Sasanian rivalry was also seen through their respective cultures and religions. The Byzantines considered themselves champions of Hellenism and Christianity. Meanwhile, the Sasanians thought themselves heroes of ancient Iranian traditions and of the traditional Persian religion, Zoroastrianism.[26]

Map of the Roman–Persian frontier after the division of Armenia in 384. The frontier remained stable throughout the 5th century.

The Arabian peninsula already played a role in the power struggles of the Byzantines and Sasanians. While Byzantium allied itself with the Kingdom of Aksum in the horn of Africa, the Sasanian Empire assisted the Himyarite Kingdom in what is now Yemen (southwest Arabia). Thus the clash between the kingdoms of Aksum and Himyar in 525 displayed a higher power struggle between Byzantium and Persia for control of the Red Sea trade. Territorial wars soon became common, with the Byzantines and Sasanians fighting over upper Mesopotamia and Armenia and key cities that facilitated trade from Arabia, India, and China.[27] Byzantium, as the continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire, continued control of the latter's territories in the Middle East. Since 527, this included Anatolia, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt. But in 603 the Sasanians invaded, conquering Damascus and Egypt. It was Emperor Heraclius who was able to repel these invasions, and in 628 he replaced the Sasanian Great King with a more docile one. But the fighting weakened both states, leaving the stage open to a new power.[28][29]

The nomadic

Hira was a center for Christianity and Jewish craftsmen, merchants, and farmers were common in western Arabia as were Christian monks in central Arabia. Thus pre-Islamic Arabia was no stranger to Abrahamic religions or monotheism, for that matter.[31]

Islamic caliphate

Umayyad Caliphate
, 661–750

While the

Caliphs and skilled military commanders such as Khalid ibn al-Walid, swept through most of the Middle East, taking more than half of Byzantine territory and completely engulfing the Persian lands. In Anatolia, they were stopped in the Siege of Constantinople (717–718) by the Byzantines, who were helped by the Bulgarians
.

The Byzantine provinces of

Seljuq Empire
would also later dominate the region.

Much of North Africa became a peripheral area to the main Muslim centres in the Middle East, but Iberia (Al-Andalus) and Morocco soon broke away from this distant control and founded one of the world's most advanced societies at the time, along with Baghdad in the eastern Mediterranean. Between 831 and 1071, the Emirate of Sicily was one of the major centres of Islamic culture in the Mediterranean. After its conquest by the Normans the island developed its own distinct culture with the fusion of Arab, Western, and Byzantine influences. Palermo remained a leading artistic and commercial centre of the Mediterranean well into the Middle Ages.

Africa was reviving, however, as more organized and centralized states began to form in the later Middle Ages after the Renaissance of the 12th century. Motivated by religion and conquest, the kings of Europe launched a number of Crusades to try to roll back Muslim power and retake the Holy Land. The Crusades were unsuccessful but were far more effective in weakening the already tottering Byzantine Empire. They also rearranged the balance of power in the Muslim world as Egypt once again emerged as a major power.

Islamic culture and science

The interior of the former mosque of Córdoba, showing its distinctive arches.

Religion always played a prevalent role in Middle Eastern culture, affecting learning, architecture, and the ebb and flow of cultures. When Muhammad introduced Islam, it jump-started Middle Eastern culture, inspiring achievements in

Abbasids and it was because of this that allowed for mass conversions in foreign areas. "People of the book" or dhimmi were always treated well; these people included Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Zoroastrians. However, the crusades started a new thinking in the Islamic empires, that non-Islamic ideas were immoral or inferior; this was primarily perpetrated by the ulama (علماء) scholars.[33]

Arabian culture took off during the early Abbasid age, despite the prevalent political issues. Muslims saved and spread Greek advances in

mapmaking during the Abbasid Caliphate. In the arts, Abbasid architecture expanded upon Umayyad architecture, with larger and more extravagant mosques. Persian literature grew based on ethical values. Astronomy was stressed in art. Much of this learning would find its way to the West. This was especially true during the crusades, as warriors would bring back Muslim treasures, weapons, and medicinal methods.[34]

Turks, Crusaders, and Mongols

The dominance of the Arabs came to a sudden end in the mid-11th century with the arrival of the

Turks
.

Despite massive territorial losses in the 7th century, the Christian Byzantine Empire continued to be a potent military and economic force in the Mediterranean, preventing Arab expansion into much of Europe. The Seljuqs' defeat of the Byzantine military in the Battle of Manzikert in the 11th century and settling in Anatolia effectively marked the end of Byzantine power. The Seljuks ruled most of the Middle East region for the next 200 years, but their empire soon broke up into a number of smaller sultanates.

Christian Western Europe staged a remarkable economic and demographic recovery in the 11th century since its nadir in the 7th century. The fragmentation of the Middle East allowed joined forces, mainly from England, France, and the emerging

Ayyubid
dynasty, retook the city. Smaller crusader kingdoms and fiefdoms survived until 1291.

Mongol rule

The conquest of Baghdad and the death of the caliph in 1258 officiated the end of the Abbasid Caliphate and annexed its territories to the

Mamluk Egypt and the majority of Arabia.[35] When the Khagan (or Great Khan) of the Mongol Empire, Möngke Khan, died in 1259, any further expansion by Hulegu was halted, as he had to return to the Mongol capital Karakorum for the election of a new khagan. His absence resulted in the first defeat of the Mongols (by the Mamluk Egyptians) during the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260.[36] Issues began to arise when the Mongols grew increasingly unable to reach a consensus as to whom to elect khagan. Additionally, societal clashing occurred between traditionalists who wished to retain their nomadic culture and Mongols moving towards sedentary agriculture. All of this led to the fragmentation of the empire in 1260.[37] Hulegu carved out his Middle Eastern territory into the independent Ilkhanate
, which included most of Armenia, Anatolia, Azerbaijan, Mesopotamia, and Iran.

تمثال_للسلطان_الظاهر_بيبرس_(cropped)
Statue of Baybars of Egypt in Cairo.

The Mongols eventually retreated in 1335, but the chaos that ensued throughout the empire deposed the Seljuq Turks. In 1401, the region was further plagued by the Turko-Mongol, Timur, and his ferocious raids. By then, another group of Turks had arisen as well, the Ottomans. Based in Anatolia, by 1566 they would conquer the Iraq-Iran region, the Balkans, Greece, Byzantium, most of Egypt, most of north Africa, and parts of Arabia, unifying them under the Ottoman Empire. The rule of the Ottoman sultans marked the end of the Medieval (Postclassical) Era in the Middle East.

Early Modern Near East

The Ottoman Empire (1299–1918)

The Ottoman Empire at its greatest extent in the Middle East, including its client states.
Selim the Grim
, Ottoman conqueror of the Middle East

By the early 15th century, a new power had arisen in western Anatolia, the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman khans, who in 1453 captured the Christian Byzantine capitol of Constantinople and made themselves sultans. The Mamluks held the Ottomans out of the Middle East for a century, but in 1514

Safavids, who were successors of the Aq Qoyunlu
.

The Ottomans united the whole region under one ruler for the first time since the reign of the

Afsharids.[38] By this time the Ottomans also held Greece, the Balkans, and most of Hungary, setting the new frontier between east and west far to the north of the Danube. Regions such as Albania and Bosnia
saw many conversions to Islam, but Ottoman Europe was not culturally absorbed into the Muslim world.

Rivalry with the West

By 1699, the Ottomans had been driven out of Hungary, Poland-Lithuania and parts of the western Balkans in the

magnified the divergence, and from 1768 to 1918, the Ottomans gradually lost territory.

Greece, Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria achieved independence during the 19th century, and the Ottoman Empire became known as the "sick man of Europe", increasingly under the financial control of European powers. Domination soon turned to outright conquest: the French annexed Algeria in 1830 and Tunisia in 1878 and the British occupied Egypt in 1882, though it remained under nominal Ottoman sovereignty. In the Balkan Wars of 1912–13 the Ottomans were driven out of Europe altogether, except for the city of Constantinople and its hinterland.

The British also

established effective control of the Persian Gulf, and the French extended their influence into Lebanon and Syria. In 1912, the Italians seized Libya and the Dodecanese islands
, just off the coast of the Ottoman heartland of Anatolia. The Ottomans turned to Germany to protect them from the western powers, but the result was increasing financial and military dependence on Germany.

Ottoman reform efforts

Middle East Map, 1916

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Middle Eastern rulers tried to modernize their states to compete more effectively with Europe. In the Ottoman Empire, the

Islamic scholars
.

This first Ottoman constitutional experiment ended soon after it began, however, when the autocratic Sultan

constitution in favor of personal rule. Abdul Hamid ruled by decree for the next 30 years, stirring democratic resentment. The reform movement known as the Young Turks emerged in the 1890s against his rule, which included massacres against minorities. The Young Turks seized power in the 1908 Young Turk Revolution and established the Second Constitutional Era, leading to a pluralist and multiparty elections in the Empire for the first time in 1908. The Young Turks split into two parties, the pro-German and pro-centralization Committee of Union and Progress and the pro-British and pro-decentralization Freedom and Accord Party. The former was led by an ambitious pair of army officers, Ismail Enver Bey (later Pasha) and Ahmed Cemal Pasha, and a radical lawyer, Mehmed Talaat Bey (later Pasha). After a power struggle between the two parties of Young Turks, the Committee emerged victorious and became a ruling junta, with Talaat as Grand Vizier and Enver as War Minister, and established a German-funded modernisation program across the Empire.[43]

Enver Bey's alliance with Germany, which he considered the most advanced military power in Europe, was enabled by British demands that the Ottoman Empire cede their formal capital Edirne (Adrianople) to the Bulgarians after losing the First Balkan War, which the Turks saw as a betrayal by Britain.[44] These demands cost Britain the support of the Turks, as the pro-British Freedom and Accord Party was now repressed under the pro-German Committee for, in Enver's words, "shamefully delivering the country to the enemy" (Britain) after agreeing to the demands to give up Edirne.[45]

Modern Middle East

Final years of the Ottoman Empire

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Ottoman general and the founder of modern Turkey

In 1878, as the result of the

High Commissioner and to London.[46]

Meanwhile, the fall of the Ottomans and the partitioning of Anatolia by the

program of modernisation and secularisation that pushed Turkey both economically and culturally closer to Europe and away from the Arab world. He abolished the caliphate, emancipated women, enforced western dress and the use of a new Turkish alphabet based on Latin script in place of the Arabic alphabet
, and abolished the jurisdiction of the Islamic courts.

Another turning point came when

crude oil, the most important commodity in the 20th century. The discovery of oil in the region made many of the kings and emirs of the Middle East immensely wealthy and enabled them to consolidate their hold on power while giving them a stake in preserving western hegemony over the region.[47]

As the West became dependent on Middle Eastern oil exports and British influence steadily declined, American interest in the region grew. Initially, Western oil companies established a dominance over oil production and extraction. However, indigenous movements towards nationalizing oil assets, oil sharing, and the advent of OPEC ensured a shift in the balance of power towards the Arab oil states.[47]

World War I

In 1914,

Gallipoli in 1916, they turned to fomenting revolution in the Ottoman domains, exploiting the awakening force of Arab, Armenian, and Assyrian nationalism against the Ottomans.[48]

The British found an ally in

Sharif Hussein, the hereditary ruler of Mecca believed by many to be a descendant of Muhammad, who led an Arab Revolt
against Ottoman rule, after being promised independence.

The Entente, won the war and the Ottoman Empire was abolished with most of its territories ceded to Britain and France; Turkey just managed to survive. The war transformed the region in terms of shattering Ottoman power which was supplanted by increased British and French involvement; the creation of the Middle Eastern state system as seen in Turkey and Saudi Arabia; the emergence of explicitly more nationalist politics, as seen in Turkey and Egypt; and the expansion of oil industry, particularly in the Gulf States.[49]

Ottoman defeat and partition (1918–22)

When the Ottoman Empire surrendered to the Allies in 1918, the Arab patriots did not get what they had expected. Islamic activists of more recent times have described it as an Anglo-French betrayal. The governments of the European Entente had concluded a secret treaty before the armistice, the Sykes–Picot Agreement, partitioning the Middle East amongst themselves. The British had in 1917, endorsed the Balfour Declaration promising the international Zionist movement their support in re-creating the historic Jewish homeland in Palestine.

After the Ottomans withdrew, Arab leaders proclaimed an independent state in Damascus, but were swiftly defeated by the forces of Great Britain and France who soon after establishing control, re-arranged the Middle East to suit themselves.[50]

Turkmens
, many of whom had been promised independent states of their own.

Britain was granted a Mandate for Palestine on 25 April 1920 at the

San Remo Conference, and, on 24 July 1922, this mandate was approved by the League of Nations. Palestine became the "British Mandate of Palestine" and was placed under direct British administration. The Jewish population of Palestine, consisting overwhelmingly of recent migrants from Europe, numbered less than 8 percent in 1918. Under the British mandate, Zionist settlers were granted wide rein to immigrate initially, buy land from absentee landlords, set up a local government and later establish the nucleus of a state all under the protection of the British Army, which brutally suppressed multiple Palestinian Arab revolts in the years that followed, including in 1936.[51] The Territory East of the Jordan River and west of Iraq was also declared a British Mandate when the Council of the League of Nations passed the British written Transjordan Memorandum on 16 September 1922. Most of the Arabian peninsula, including the Holy cities of Mecca and Medina, though not incorporated into either a British or French colonial mandate, fell under the control of another British ally, Ibn Saud, who in 1932, founded the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
.

1920–1945

ModernEgypt,_Saad_Zaghloul,_BAP_14785
Saad Zaghloul

During the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s,

revolted. In 1922, the (nominally) independent Kingdom of Egypt was created following the British government's issuance of the Unilateral Declaration of Egyptian Independence
.

Although the Kingdom of Egypt was technically "neutral" during World War II,

.

In Palestine, conflicting forces of Arab nationalism and Zionism created a situation the British could neither resolve nor extricate themselves from. The rise of German dictator Adolf Hitler had created a new urgency in the Zionist quest to immigrate to Palestine and create a Jewish state. A Palestinian state was also an attractive alternative to the Arab and Persian leaders, instead of the de facto British, French, and perceived Jewish colonialism or imperialism, under the logic of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".[52]

New states after World War II

King_Farouk_I_1948
Farouk of Egypt

When World War II ended, the British,[53] French, and Soviets, withdrew from most parts of the regions they had occupied both before and during the War II and seven Middle East states gained or regained independence:

  • 22 November 1943 – Lebanon
  • 1 January 1944 – Syria
  • 22 May 1946 – Jordan (British mandate ended)
  • 1947 – Iraq (forces of the United Kingdom withdrawn)
  • 1947 – Egypt (forces of the United Kingdom withdrawn to the Suez Canal area)
  • 1948 – Israel (forces of the United Kingdom withdrawn)
  • August 16, 1960 – Cyprus

The struggle between the Arabs and the Jews in Palestine culminated in the 1947

plan to partition Palestine. This plan sought to create an Arab state and a separate Jewish state in the narrow space between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Jewish leaders accepted the plan, but Arab leaders rejected it.[54]

On 14 May 1948, when the British Mandate expired, the

Jews expelled or who fled from Arab lands after 1948 were absorbed and naturalized by the State of Israel.[57]

On August 16, 1960, Cyprus gained its independence from the British Empire. Archbishop Makarios III, a charismatic religious and political leader, was elected its first independent president, and in 1961 it became the 99th member of the United Nations.[citation needed]

Modern states

1963 film about contemporary events in the Middle East
Gamal_Abdel_Nasser_1958
Gamal Abdel Nasser

The modern Middle East was shaped by three things: departure of European powers, the founding of Israel, and the growing importance of the oil industry. These developments eventually led to increased U.S. involvement in the region. The United States was the ultimate guarantor of the region's stability as well as the dominant force in the oil industry after the 1950s. When revolutions brought radical anti-Western regimes to power in Egypt (1954), Syria (1963), Iraq (1968), and Libya (1969), the Soviet Union, seeking to open a new arena of the Cold War, allied itself with Arab socialist rulers like Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

These regimes gained popular support with promises to destroy the state of Israel and other "western imperialists", and to bring prosperity to the Arab masses. When the Six-Day War of 1967 ended with an overwhelming Israeli victory, many viewed the defeat as the failure of Arab socialism. This represents a turning point when "fundamental and militant Islam began to fill the political vacuum created".[58]

The United States, in response, felt obliged to defend its remaining allies, the monarchies of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iran, and the Persian Gulf emirates, whose methods of rule were often almost as unattractive in western eyes as those of the anti-western regimes. Iran in particular became a key U.S. ally, until a revolution led by the

1956 Suez War, 1967 Six-Day War, 1967-1970 War of Attrition, 1973 Yom Kippur War, 1982 Lebanon War
, as well as a number of lesser conflicts of lower intensity.

In

Cyprus dispute
remains unresolved.

In the mid-to-late 1960s, the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party led by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar took power in both Iraq and Syria. Iraq was first ruled by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, but was succeeded by Saddam Hussein in 1979, and Syria was ruled first by a Military Committee led by Salah Jadid, and later Hafez al-Assad until 2000, when he was succeeded by his son, Bashar al-Assad.

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 4686
.

Due to many of the frantic events of the late 1970s in the Middle East it culminated in the

Khuzestan
in 1980 at the behest of the latter's chaotic state of country due to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, eventually turned into a stalemate with hundreds of thousands of dead on both sides.

The fall of the

Soviet Jews to emigrate from Russia and Ukraine to Israel, further strengthening the Jewish state. It cut off the easiest source of credit, armaments, and diplomatic support to the anti-western Arab regimes, weakening their position. It opened up the prospect of cheap oil from Russia, driving down the price of oil and reducing the west's dependence on oil from the Arab states. It discredited the model of development through authoritarian state socialism, which Egypt (under Nasser), Algeria, Syria, and Iraq had followed since the 1960s, leaving these regimes politically and economically stranded. Rulers such as Iraq's Saddam Hussein increasingly relied on Arab nationalism
as a substitute for socialism.

Saddam_Hussein_1979
Saddam Hussein

Saddam Hussein led Iraq into a prolonged and costly war with Iran from 1980 to 1988, and then into its fateful invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Kuwait had been part of the Ottoman province of Basra before 1918, and thus in a sense part of Iraq, even though Iraq had recognized its independence in 1961. In response, the United States formed a coalition of allies with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syria, gained UN approval, and evicted Iraq from Kuwait by force in the Gulf War. President George H. W. Bush did not, however, attempt to overthrow Saddam Hussein, which the United States later came to regret.[59] The Gulf War led to a permanent U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf, particularly in Saudi Arabia, which offended many Muslims, and was a reason often cited by Osama bin Laden as justification for the September 11 attacks.

1990s–present

A map of the Middle East (2003)

The worldwide change of governance in Eastern Europe, Latin America, East Asia, and parts of Africa following the

Persian Gulf states
the majority of the population could not vote because they were guest workers rather than citizens.

In most Middle Eastern countries, the growth of market economies was said to be limited by political restrictions, corruption, and cronyism, overspending on arms and prestige projects and over-dependence on oil revenues. The successful economies were countries that had oil wealth and low populations, such as Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, where the ruling emirs allowed some political and social liberalization, but without giving up any of their own power. Lebanon also rebuilt a fairly successful economy after a prolonged civil war in the 1980s.

At the beginning of the 21st century, all these factors intensified conflict in the Middle East, which affected the entire world.

Oslo Peace Accords
of 1993.

At the same time, the failures of most of the Arab governments and the bankruptcy of secular Arab radicalism led a section of educated Arabs (and other Muslims) to embrace

covert operations ever.[60][61]

One of these Arab militants was a wealthy Saudi Arabian named

War on Terror
".

In 2002, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld developed a plan to invade Iraq, remove Saddam from power, and turn Iraq into a democratic state with a free-market economy, which they hoped would serve as a model for the rest of the Middle East. The United States and its principal allies—Britain, Italy, Spain, and Australia—could not secure United Nations approval for the execution of the numerous UN resolutions, so they launched an invasion of Iraq and deposed Saddam without much difficulty in April 2003.

The advent of a new western army of occupation in a Middle Eastern capital marked a turning point in the history of the region. Despite successful elections (although boycotted by large portions of Iraq's Sunni population) held in January 2005, much of Iraq had all but disintegrated, due to a post-war insurgency which morphed into persistent ethnic violence that the American army was initially unable to quell. Many of Iraq's intellectual and business elite fled the country, and many Iraqi refugees left as a result of the insurgency, further destabilizing the region. A responsive surge in U.S. forces in Iraq was largely successful in controlling the insurgency and stabilizing the country. U.S. forces

withdrew
from Iraq by December 2011.

By 2005, President George W. Bush's Road map for peace between Israel and the Palestinians was stalled, although this situation had begun to change with Yasser Arafat's death in 2004. In response, Israel moved towards a unilateral solution, pushing ahead with the Israeli West Bank barrier to protect Israel from Palestinian suicide bombers and proposed unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. In 2006 a new conflict erupted between Israel and Hezbollah Shi'a militia in southern Lebanon, further setting back any "prospects for peace".

In the early 2010s, a

international military intervention
. At its peak, the group controlled an area containing an estimated 2.8 to 8 million people, 98% of which was lost by December 2017.

Maps of the Middle East from 1910 to 2010

See also

By country:

General:

References

  1. .
  2. ^ a b Robin Wright, Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam, pp. 65–66
  3. ^ interview by Robin Wright of UK Foreign Secretary (at the time) Lord Carrington in November 1981, Sacred Rage: The Wrath of Militant Islam by Robin Wright, Simon and Schuster, (1985), p. 67
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  8. ^ "World Factbook – Kuwait". 11 January 2023.
  9. . The Middle East still stands at the heart of the Christian world. After all, it is the birthplace, and the death place, of Christ, and the cradle of the Christian tradition.
  10. . Most Druze do not consider themselves Muslim. Historically they faced much persecution and keep their religious beliefs secrets.
  11. . While they appear parallel to those of normative Islam, in the Druze religion they are different in meaning and interpretation. The religion is considered distinct from the Ismaili as well as from other Muslims belief and practice... Most Druze consider themselves fully assimilated in American society and do not necessarily identify as Muslims..
  12. . Theologically, one would have to conclude that the Druze are not Muslims. They do not accept the five pillars of Islam. In place of these principles the Druze have instituted the seven precepts noted above..
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  55. .
  56. . By 1948, the majority of Palestinians, about 700,000 to 800,000 people from 500 to 600 villages, were displaced. They were either expelled or fled from their homes for fear of being killed, as had actually taken place in a number of villages.
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Works cited

Further reading

  • Worth, Robert F., "Syria's Lost Chance" (review of Elizabeth F. Thompson, How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs: the Syrian Arab Congress of 1920 and the Destruction of Its Historic Liberal-Islamic Alliance, Atlantic Monthly, 466 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXVII, no. 15 (8 October 2020), pp. 31–33. Worth writes (p. 33): "Perhaps things would have been different if the Syrians had been left to govern themselves a century ago."

External links

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