HISTORY
Here we look at the history of the Middle East in three stages: the development of civilizations (ca. 3500 BCE-600 CE), the spread of Islam (622 CE-eighteenth century), and the impact of the west (nineteenth century-present). We follow three major ethnic/linguistic groups that are prominent today: the Arabs, originally from the southern Arabian peninsula; the Persians, from modern-day Iran; and the Turks, originally from western Asia.
I. The Development of Civilizations.
The Middle East was one of the first areas in the world to see the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and animal husbandry. Grain cultivation appeared circa 8500-7000 BCE and spread from the Middle East throughout Europe and Asia. Several thousand years later, ca. 3500-3000 BCE, the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia saw the development of one of the earliest civilizations known to man. In this fertile area, known as “the cradle of civilizations,” lived the Sumerians. The Sumerians made significant political and technological advances. They are best known, however, for having developed one of the earliest writing systems, appearing ca. 3000 BCE.
Further west, in the fertile lands watered by the Nile, another great civilization arose: Egypt. Egypt’s history begins with the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the Pharaoh, shortly after 3000 BCE. Ancient Egypt is known for its religion: a pantheon including Re, the sun god; Horus, the sky god; Isis, the mother goddess; and Osiris, god of the dead. Ancient Egypt flourished in these years of peace and independence, from 3000 BCE until around 332 BCE.
The region that includes the fertile lands of Mesopotamia and Egypt is known as “the fertile crescent.” In these “civilized” lands people lived in small cities and villages and cooperated together in agriculture, politics, and economics, developing rich cultural traditions. Beyond these limited areas, however, the majority of the population lived in non-settled tribal groups. These tribes were an unending source of trouble, with their constant raiding and looting of settled groups. Mesopotamia was especially prone to attacks because it had no geographical defenses. Egypt, surrounded by desert, was less vulnerable. As often as not, however, these “barbarians” settled down alongside the “civilized” people they attacked, adopting settled ways of life.
Meanwhile, in less fertile lands, an alternative form of “civilized” life developed. This was pastoralism, or animal husbandry. On the great steppes of Eurasia, the dry land was not suited for cultivation. The dwellers here, mostly Turks, began domesticating animals—especially horses. To the south, in Arabia, a distinct form of pastoralism developed among Semitic tribes. This way of life centered around the camel. The Arabian desert was dominated by these nomads, but also included settled areas around oases.
Other great civilizations of this period include the Hittites in Anatolia (until 1200 BCE) and the Persian empire to the east. In Mesopotamia, the Sumerians were succeeded by Semitic groups, most notably the Babylonians, ca.1830 BCE. Hammurabi the Great (1728-1686 BCE), a king of Babylon, is well-known for his code of laws and other political advances. The Babylonians and their successors, the Assyrians and Chaldeans, dominated Mesopotamia until 539 BCE when the region fell to Cyrus of Persia.
Intellectually the most interesting things were happening on the edges of these empires, among the Jews and eastern Persians. The Jews were a Semitic group that followed the religion of Yahweh. This religion centered especially on temple ritual. One of the earliest Jewish prophets, Abraham, was probably from the Sumerian city of Ur. He and other Jews slowly migrated west, finally reaching Canaan in Palestine, around 1200 BCE. Moses, who lived around 1300 BCE, helped oversee the development of the written scriptures. In 1000 BCE David, king of Judeah, established Jerusalem as the center of the religion and built a temple there. Tension between Israelites and other Semitic groups led to several invasions, most devastatingly by Nebuchadnezzar, a Babylonian king, in 587 BCE, who destroyed the temple. The Jews left Jerusalem in large numbers, migrating to areas throughout the Middle East. Around this time, the ancient scriptures were collected into the Hebrew Bible. Thus, despite the wide Diaspora, Jews in all locations could read one collection of texts and thereby preserve a shared practice and faith. In Persia, a prophet named Zoroaster (ca. 600 BCE) reformed the ancient Aryan religion of Iran. His dualistic system pitted the god of light, Ahura Mazda, against the god of darkness. These ideas had tremendous influence on the monotheistic traditions of the area, especially Christianity.
The next great empire after Babylon was Persia. The emperor Cyrus (ruled 550-530 BCE) conquered Babylon and extended Persian control throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. The empire fell, however, to Alexander the Great in 330 BCE, during the reign of Cyrus’s son, Darius.
Alexander was from Macedon, a small kingdom on the edges of Greece. The Macedonians developed a strong army and began to expand under Alexander’s father, King Philip (r. 359-336 BCE) and later under Alexander himself (r. 336-323 BCE). The Macedonians conquered Persia, Central Asia, the Mediterranean, and even parts of Arabia. The expansion ended abruptly in 323 BCE when Alexander died suddenly of illness during a military campaign. Where ever these campaigns advanced, Greek culture did as well. Greek language began to displace Aramaic as the dominant language in the eastern Mediterranean. Following the Greeks, Rome expanded into Asia, North Africa, Syria and Palestine, and Mesopotamia in the first century BCE.
At this moment, Christianity appeared. Jesus, the founder of the new movement, was an Aramaic-speaking Jew from Nazareth, in Palestine. He was captured and crucified by the Romans in Jerusalem. Although the new movement was primarily a combination of Jewish and other Middle Eastern ideas, its scriptures were written in Greek. It also incorporated a great deal of Greek ideas, especially from the Platonic and neo-Platonic traditions. The religion remained relatively small for its first 200 years, but its success was guaranteed with the conversion of Constantine, the Holy Roman Emperor, in 313 CE.
Despite losses to the Greeks, the Persian empire survived and was now ruled by the Sassanian kings. Persia became the frontier between warring tribes of the steppe and the settled communities of the Middle East. The settled communities faced the aggressions of tribes advancing from the east. These tribes were attracted to better land and climate that became more hospitable as one moved westward across Asia. Farthest east, the Mongol tribes were pushing back Turkish tribes, who were themselves pushing Scythians tribes toward the Ukrainian steppe. Iranians managed to keep these groups in check to some degree. In the eastern reaches, they began domesticating horses and could better compete with the nomads, who were already skilled horsemen. The increasing power of these settled communities against invading tribes facilitated the development of trading routes across Asia. The most famous trade route, of course, is the Silk Road, which linked China to Syria and Rome.
II. The Spread of Islam
Meanwhile, on the Arabian peninsula, the land was dominated by Semitic tribes, divided between the Bedouin nomads, and the more pastoral inhabitants along the Red Sea and in oasis towns. The era before Islam is known by Muslims as Al-Jahiliyya, meaning the time of ignorance. At this time, the Arabs followed a pantheistic religion which involved the worship of stone statues of gods. It also involved a chivalric value system called muruwwa. At this time, the oasis towns such as Mecca and Medina became cultural and commercial centers; here Arabs came into contact with Greek, Jewish, and Christian ideas. Many of these ideas were incorporated into Islam. Islam unified the Arabs, providing them with a shared ideology, other than simple tribal loyalties.
The prophet Muhammad, founder of Islam, was born around 570 CE in Mecca. He was a member of the Hashemite tribe. He became involved in trade, and may have traveled throughout the Middle East. He was a spiritual man, and was evidently deeply influenced by Christian and Jewish ideas. When he was about 40 years old, he began receiving visions: verses that would make up a holy scripture. These were transcribed and became the Holy Qur'an, which established a new religious faith, Islam. Muhammad preached this new faith to the people of Mecca, especially the Christians and Jews. He believed his faith celebrated the same God as theirs. However, the people of Mecca were not receptive. Tensions rose, and in 622 Mohammad fled to Medina with a small group of followers. Here he became an important political leader. This event, called the hijra (an Arabic word meaning “migration”), marks the beginning of the Islamic era. Several years later, after having attracted numerous followers, Mohammad returned to Mecca and his group triumphantly took control of the city. The Muslims extended their control throughout Arabia, uniting Arabia under Islam. Muhammad died shortly thereafter, in 632 CE.
One of Muhammad’s companion, Abu Bakr, was named successor (khalif). He was followed by Omar (r. 634-644), founder of the Ommayyad khalifate. Under Omar, the Arabs expanded their control beyond Arabia, beginning with Syria and Mesopotamia. They took control of Persia and Egypt by 640 CE. In the late 650's, a split came in Islam. Ali, a cousin and son-in-law of the prophet, succeeded to the khalifate. His succession was disputed by several close associates of the prophet. He established his own group of followers in 658 CE, but was ultimately murdered, as were his sons Hasan and Husain. Today there are two main branches of Islam: the Shi’as, those who support Ali’s succession; and Sunnis, those who do not.
Under the Ommayyads, the Arabs conquered vast lands. Ruled from Syria, the empire stretched across western Africa, Arabia, Persia, Mesopotamia, and deep into Central Asia, stopping only at China and India, by 712 CE. In 711 the Arabs conquered Spain, and moved north, but were defeated at the border with France in 732. Later waves of conquest were not as successful as the first, military defeats and political difficulties began to take their toll on the empire. In 744, civil war broke out, and the Ommayyads were overthrown, replaced by rulers from the Abbasid family. The Abbasids ruled from Baghdad. They ruled until 1258, although for most of that time they were figureheads under Turkish leadership.
Beginning around 1000, Turkish tribes began to dominate the Islamic world. These tribes came from western and central Asia, penetrating into Iran and Mesopotamia. Under the Seljuk Turks (1037-1109) the Muslim world expanded into India, Asia Minor and the Ukrainian steppe.
These advances made the bordering Europeans powers nervous, and resulted in the Crusades (1096-1270). The Christians also hoped to retake Jerusalem and surrounding areas, which they called the “the Holy Land,” from the Arabs. The first group of European crusaders met in Constantinople in 1096 and headed into Syria and Jerusalem. The first crusade met with success, and Europeans recovered the western coast of Anatolia. Later efforts, however, were not as successful and the entire movement did little to slow Turkish advances.
The Crusades exposed the weakness of Byzantium, and inspired the aggressions of a Turkish group called the Ottomans. The Ottomans were originally a small kingdom in northwestern Asia Minor. During the next few centuries, they extended their boundaries and became the longest-lived of the new Turkish states. They crossed the Dardanelles in 1354 and soon thereafter, gained military supremacy in the Balkans. They captured Constantinople in 1453.
Meanwhile, areas to the east were facing Mongol aggression. In the thirteenth century, Chingis Khan (r. 1206-27) invaded China, Iran, Iraq, and Russia, including these lands in a vast empire. The Mongols were incredibly successful but their empire was short-lived. It began to fall apart soon after the death of Chingis Khan’s successor, Kublai Khan. While the Mongols were traditionally tribal nomads, they often settled alongside the people they conquered, even taking on their ways of life. Many of them converted to Islam. Thus, Mongols became assimilated into the Turkic communities that were then dominant on the western and central steppe.
III. Impact of the West
In 1502, the Turkish empire played host to a divisive conflict between Shi’a and Sunni Muslims. Until this time, the Islamic world had been happily pluralistic, with followers of different sects and persuasions living together peacefully. When Ismail Safavi, the leader of a radical Shi’a sect, began taking over parts of the Ottoman empire, the confrontation polarized the Islamic world. Everywhere, leaders and their subjects had to specify their loyalties. The Ottomans and the Safavis reached a truce in 1638.
The seventeenth century was a time of great change. Inland, ancient ways continued. However, in coastal areas, the beginning of international trade and commercial agriculture changed societies drastically. Furthermore, these areas found themselves having increased contact with Europeans. European powers gradually took over trade and industry in Asia and the Middle East; control that ultimately became military domination.
The development of European sea power became a major threat to Turkish dominance in the eastern Mediterranean, and the Ottomans lost much of their territory. In 1699 they were forced to surrender Hungary to Austria, a humiliating loss. Russian armies successfully pushed into Ottoman territories from the north, beginning in 1768, stopping just short of taking Constantinople. Because of these struggles, the Ottoman empire was nicknamed “the sick man of Europe.” These events were disorienting not only for Turks, but for Muslims throughout the world, who viewed military supremacy as a sign of divine favor. This threat of western dominance then created new tensions. In an area where Islamic textual scholars and Sufi mystics lived together happily and even symbiotically, the new threat resulted in the popularization of Islamic legalism. In Saudi Arabia, for example, Mohammed ibn Abdul Wahhab (1691-1787) taught a strenuous, “purified” form of Islam called Wahhabism. By the time of Wahhab’s death, this group controlled most of Arabia
In the nineteenth century, the industrial and democratic revolutions in Europe were beginning to affect the entire world. The three great Muslim empires of the age: the Ottoman, Persian, and Mughal (Indian) empires suffered severe setbacks. In the Crimean War (1854-56), the Ottoman empire defeated the Russians with the help of France and Britain, but lost much autonomy to these powers who vigorously “encouraged” them to reform their institutions following western models. The Ottoman sultan found himself dependent on European support in order to maintain his empire. Everywhere, Muslim rulers became puppets in the hands of western foreigners.
At the end of World War I (1914-1918) treaties effectively ended Ottoman sovereignty in all Arab lands, partitioning the empire among British and French powers. British and Russian representatives competed for influence in Iran and Turkestan. Other than a few areas of Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Ottoman empire, most of the regions of the Muslim world were now under European control.
Several leaders in the Middle East recognized the need for modernization. This included Turkey’s Mustafa Kemal (1881-1938), also known as Atatürk. Under Atatürk, the Turks successfully defended Anatolia and in 1923 secured control of Constantinople. Kemal’s drastic secularizing reforms reduced the power of Islam and increased government power. However, these secular reforms were not acceptable to much of his people. Similarly, in Iran, Reza Pahlevi became Shah in 1925 and began implementing secularist reforms and building a strong central government, as British influence there declined. But Islamic sentiment was even stronger in Persia than in Turkey, and modernization advanced even more slowly.
In general, change occurred slowly throughout the Muslim world. Leaders recognized the need for modernization and industrialization, but by also demanding secular changes, they challenged the values of their people, thereby undermining the success of their reform projects. The dilemma facing Islamic civilizations was great: how to respond to the changes of the modern world within an Islamic context. How could they modernize without sacrificing Muslim identity, which united them all and distinguished them from their western dominators?
In Arab lands, north Africa and Syria/Palestine had been assigned to France and Britain. The colonial powers began to impose secular changes and encourage the modernization of industry and infrastructure. Secularism gained some support here, primarily among elites, who studied in western schools and learned French and English. Modernism’s greatest impact was in encouraging independence movements. These movements were potentially liberatory, in their promises of freedom from western domination. However, their inherent divisive nationalism undermined pan-Arab visions of an Arab people united under Islam. The European powers began letting go of their colonies following World War II, but this did not always happen easily. In places where large numbers of Europeans lived, such as Algeria, independence movements involved much violence. In Algeria, fighting went on for years between Algerians and European immigrants. Algeria won her independence in 1962.
Another volatile conflict developed in Palestine. After the terrible genocide of Jews in Europe under Hitler, Zionism, the movement to establish a Jewish homeland, became extremely popular. Zionists focused their attention on the area of Palestine centered around Jerusalem. Arabs had lived in Palestine since the early days of the Arab conquests, and governed the region until the rise of the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman rule lasted from 1516 to1917 when it was replaced by British rule (1917-1948). Large numbers of Jews began migrating to Palestine, aided by the British colonial power. This influx of people resulted in tension with local Arabs. Jews finally had to use force to effect the displacement of Arabs and found the state of Israel. This angered Arabs and Muslims throughout the world. In 1947 the UN decreed that when the British left, Palestine would be divided between Jews and Arabs. Nevertheless, fighting continued. The Israelis were successful in the early confrontations. The Six Day War of 1967 was a great victory for Israel, giving Jews control over all of Jerusalem and extending their borders to Jordan in the east and the Suez canal in the west. These conflicts involved the world’s cold war powers. The Soviet Union supported Arab nations and the U.S. supported Israel with money and arms. In 1973, in retaliation for the U.S.’s support of Israel, the Arab oil nations banned the export of oil to the U.S. Even when the embargo was lifted, prices remained high. This effected the entire world, leading to recession in the U.S. and elsewhere.
In Arabia, Abdul-Aziz ibn-Sa‘ud (1880-1953), originally a great supporter of the Wahhabis, challenged the Hashemite ruler. The Hashemite ruler had angered the British by not supporting their plans for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. With British help, Ibn-Sa‘ud ultimately gained control of the whole peninsula. Under his rule, oil was discovered in Arabia, and western money poured into Arabia. This new-found wealth weakened the support for the Wahhabi movement. However Wahhabism remains one of the dominant religious movements in Saudi Arabia today.
In Iran, Reza Shah had been removed by European powers in the 1940’s, and replaced by a new shah who was sympathetic to western concerns. Popular sentiment turned against the new shah and his secularizing reforms. In 1979, a people’s revolution overthrew the secular government and control was given to a Shi’a imam, Ayatollah Khomeini.
In Iraq, revolutions in the mid-1900’s culminated in a period of stability under the Ba’ath party, a party of Sunni Muslims. Saddam Hussein, a member of the Ba’ath party, came to power in 1979. Iraq is 40% Sunni and 55% Shi’a. Tension between the two groups led to a military confrontation with the neighboring Shi’a power, Iran. Peace was reached in 1988, with Iraq emerging as victor. The U.S. had aided the more secular Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran, but when he invaded oil-rich Kuwait, they turned on him, defeating him in a short effort in 1991.
The Middle East faces many challenges today. Secular rulers, who have close ties with western powers, struggle to retain the support of their more traditional constituencies. Oil wealth continues to enrich many Middle Eastern countries, such as Saudi Arabia and its neighbors. An exception to this is Iraq, which has considerable oil reserves, but which continues to suffer under punishing sanctions since refusing to comply with U.N. arms inspections. Violence continues between Palestinians and Israelis, and many in the Islamic world condemn the U.S. for continuing to arm and support Israel. A sizable diaspora of Arabs and other Muslims
lives throughout the U.S. and Europe, maintaining ties to their families at home, and beginning to exert more and more influence in their host countries.
LAST UPDATE: 12/05/2001