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Middle East
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Image:GreaterMiddleEast2.png Greater Middle East.html" title="Meaning of 400px 400px|thumb|The traditional Middle East and the G8's [[Greater Middle East..html" title="Meaning of thumb|The traditional Middle East and the G8's [[Greater Middle East">400px|thumb|The traditional Middle East and the G8's [[Greater Middle East.">thumb|The traditional Middle East and the G8's [[Greater Middle East">400px|thumb|The traditional Middle East and the G8's [[Greater Middle East.
The '''Middle East''' is a
Historical geography historical and
cultural geography cultural subregion of
Africa-Eurasia traditionally held to be countries or regions in
Southwest Asia together with
Ancient_Egypt#Background Egypt. In other contexts, the region can include other parts of
North Africa and/or
Central Asia.
Pakistan and the
Caucasus are generally not included in the region.
Characteristics
In the Western world, the Middle East is generally thought of as a predominantly
Islamic Arabic community. However the area encompasses many distinct cultural and ethnic groups, including the
Arabs,
Assyrian people Assyrians,
Azeris,
Berbers,
Chaldeans,
Druze,
Greeks,
Jews,
Kurdish people Kurds,
Maronites,
Persians and
Turkish peoples Turks. The main language groups include:
Arabic language Arabic,
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic Assyrian (also known as
Aramaic language Aramaic and
Syriac language Syriac),
Hebrew language Hebrew,
Persian language Persian,
Kurdish language Kurdish and
Turkish language Turkish. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the derived noun is
Middle_East#Middle_Easterner Middle-Easterner.
Most Western definitions of the "Middle East" — in both established reference books and common usage — define the region as 'nations in
Southwest Asia, from
Iran (Persia) to
Egypt'. Egypt, with its
Sinai Peninsula in
Asia, is usually considered part of the 'Middle East', although most of the country lies geographically in
North Africa. North African nations without Asian links, such as
Libya,
Tunisia and
Morocco, are increasingly being called
North Africa North African — as opposed to Middle Eastern (Iran to Egypt-Asia) — by international media outlets.
One widely used definition of "Middle East" is that of the airline industry, maintained by the
International Air Transport Association IATA standards organization. This definition — as of early
2006 — includes
Bahrain,
Egypt,
Iran,
Iraq,
Israel,
Jordan,
Kuwait,
Lebanon,
Palestinian territories Palestinian Territory,
Oman,
Qatar,
Saudi Arabia,
Sudan,
Syrian Arab Republic,
United Arab Emirates, and
Yemen. [http://www.iata.org/ps/services/cargois/middle_east.htm] This definition is used in world-wide airfare and tax calculations for passengers and cargo.
History
Image:Middle east.jpg 300px|thumb|A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East
{{main|History of the Middle East}}
The Middle East is the birthplace and spiritual center of
Judaism,
Christianity, and
Islam. The region saw both periods of relative tolerance and violence. In the
20th century, it has been at the center of world affairs, and has been strategically, economically, politically, culturally, and religiously sensitive area. It possesses significant stocks of
crude oil. See also
List of conflicts in the Middle East.
Borders
''Middle East'' defines a cultural area, so it does not have precise borders. The most common and highly arbitrary definition includes:
Bahrain,
Cyprus,
Egypt,
Turkey,
Iran (Persia),
Iraq,
Israel,
Jordan,
Kuwait,
Lebanon,
Oman,
Qatar,
Saudi Arabia,
Syria, the
United Arab Emirates,
Yemen, the
West Bank and the
Gaza Strip.
Iran is often the eastern border, but
Afghanistan and western
Pakistan are often included due to their close relationship (ethnically and religiously) to the larger group of
Iranian peoples as well as historical connections to the Middle East including being part of the various empires that have spanned the region such as those of the
Persians and
Arabs among others.
Afghanistan,
Tajikistan, and western
Pakistan (
Baluchistan and
North West Frontier Province) share close cultural, linguistic, and historical ties with Iran and are also part of the
Iranian plateau, whereas Iran's relationship with Arab states is based more upon religion and geographic proximity. Also the
Kurds, another group of
Iranian people Iranic linguistic extraction, are the largest ethnic group in the Middle East without their own state.
North Africa or the
Maghreb, although often placed outside the Middle East proper, does have strong cultural and linguistic links to the region, and historically has shared many of the events that have shaped the
Mediterranean and Middle Eastern
subregion regions including those prompted by
Phoenician-colonized
Carthage and
Greco-Roman civilization as well as
Muslim Arab-
Berber and
Ottoman empires. The Maghrib is sometimes included, sometimes excluded from the Middle East by the media and in informal usage, while most academics continue to identify North Africa as
physical geography geographically a part of Africa, but being closely related to
southwestern Asia in terms of
political geography politics,
cultural geography culture, religion, language, history, and genetics. This can be compared with other similar instances in which, for example,
Tasmania and
Newfoundland, geographically non-European, share many such traits with northwestern
western Europe while
Madagascar is in some of these respects more like
southeast Asia than
east Africa southeast Africa.
The
Caucasus region,
Cyprus, and
Turkey, although often grouped into
Southwest Asia based upon geographic proximity and continuity, are generally considered culturally and politically
European due to their various historic and recent political ties to that region. For example,
Armenia and
Cyprus, although both exist in close geographic proximity to the Middle East, possess two important criteria that links them more to Europe than to the Middle East: their national identity that combines an
Indo-European linguistic background and majority populations that adhere to
Christianity, which are both factors that do not correspond with most typically Middle Eastern countries some of whom possess one trait (Indo-European languages dominate Iran and Afghanistan for example) or the other (Lebanon is the only country that may have a Christian majority but this remains speculative as well). Turkey possesses neither of these European traits, but has deep historic connections with Europe since it was the site of the
Byzantine Empire and the
Ottoman Empire that overlapped into Europe. As a prospective candidate of the
European Union and a long-time member of
NATO, Turkey has adopted the secular traits that dominate Europe and has severed many of its ties to the Middle East with the notable exception of the religion of Islam. Throughout her history,
Georgia (country) Georgia has been resolutely distancing herself from surrounding islamism (and associated lifestyle), thus adhering to what was perceived as "Christendom" and - broadly - the tradition of europeanism as part to the national identity. Since the beginning of 19th century, all three South Caucasian states (incl.
Azerbaijan,
Armenia and
Georgia (country) Georgia) were also strongly influenced by the dominion of the
Russian Empire and the
Soviet Union. Nowadays they are more 'European' than Middle Eastern and generally viewed as a regional bloc in the Caucasus region.
Central Asian countries from the former
Soviet Bloc also show varying degrees of affinity and historical ties to the Middle East, but not in any uniform fashion. While the southern states of
Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan, and
Tajikistan display many cultural, historical, and socio-political similarities to the Middle East,
Kazakhstan and
Kyrgyzstan are examples of more remote and mixed cultures. As a result, these states are often viewed as
Eurasian (in ways similar to the Caucasus) and their Russian/Soviet past has set them apart in various ways from the Middle East, while there has been a movement to re-establish ties to the region in
Tajikistan, for example, based upon their ethno-linguistic affinities with Iran and Afghanistan. Like the Caucasus and Turkey, Central Asia has strong secular and 'western' affinities that are both Soviet legacies, although this may change with some recent shifts towards a historical-cultural renaissance and resurgence of Islamic identity that were suppressed for decades by Soviet authorities.
The
Israel State of Israel also represents a unique fusion of
European and Middle Eastern traits, but due to geographic continuity with the
Levant and a majority population that is predominantly Middle Eastern (including
Sephardic Jews,
Sabras,
Israeli Arabs, etc.), it perhaps shares more similarities with its neighbors than is readily apparent from media coverage.
Changes in meaning over time
Until
World War II, it was customary to refer to the eastern shore of the Mediterranean as the
Near East. The Middle East then meant the area from
Mesopotamia to
Burma, namely the area between the Near East and the Far East. The sense described in this article evolved during the war, perhaps influenced by the ancient idea of the Mediterranean as the "sea in the middle".
Eurocentrism
Some have criticized the term ''Middle East'' for its perceived
Eurocentrism[http://commposite.uqam.ca/videaz/docs/elshen.html ], perhaps since it was originally coined by Europeans. Today the term is used by Europeans and non-Europeans alike, unlike the similar term ''
Mashreq'', used exclusively in Arabic-language contexts. The region is only east from the perspective of western Europe. To an
India Indian, it lies to the west; to a
Russia Russian, it lies to the south. The description ''Middle'' has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the
World War I First World War, ''Near East'' was used in English to refer to the
Balkans and the
Ottoman Empire, while ''Middle East'' referred to
Iran Persia,
Afghanistan and
Central Asia,
Turkistan and the
Caucasus. In contrast, ''
Far East'' refers to the countries of '''East Asia''' e.g. China, Japan, Koreas, Hong Kong, Taiwan etc. Such critics usually advise using an alternative term, such as "West Asia".
With the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, ''
Near East'' largely fell out of common use in English, while ''Middle East'' came to be applied to the re-emerging countries of the
Islamic world. However, the usage of
Near East was retained by a variety of academic disciplines, including
archaeology and
ancient history, where it describes an area identical to the term ''Middle East'', which is not used by these disciplines (see
Ancient Near East). So in shorter words, the term Middle East came about when the UK/French part of the world used the term. In German the Term ''Naher Osten'' (Near East) is still in common use and in Russian ''Ближний ВоÑ?ток'' (Near East) remains to be the only appropriate term for the region.
The criticism of Eurocentrism is of course related to the fact that 'East' and 'West' are defined in relation to the lines of
Longitude relative to the
Prime Meridian or
Greenwich Meridian and therefore inherently Eurocentric. This was a result of the British cartography standard being widely accepted in 1884 at the
International Meridian Conference.
Indirect translations
There are terms similar to ''Near East'' and ''Middle East'' in other European languages, but, since it is a relative description, the meanings depend on the country and are different from the English terms generally. See
:fr:Proche-Orient,
:fr:Moyen-Orient, and
:de:Naher Osten,
:ru:Blizhniy Vostok,
:ru:Ближний ВоÑ?ток for examples.
Similar terms
In some ways the lack of precise
borders of the Middle East is an advantage, since it can be used to describe various
cultural geography cultural and
political geography political criteria. This vagueness in definition has led to the emergence of alternative neutral terms used by
international organizations and movements, namely
Southwest Asia and
West Asia, which has become the preferred term of use in India, both by the government and by the media.
Arab world is not a synonymous term for the Middle East, although it covers most of the same area. The
Asian part of the
Arab world (including
Arabia proper) is called the ''
Mashreq''. "Middle East-North Africa" (MENA), which is sometimes used to encompass the zone from Morocco to Iran, also occasionally called the
Greater Middle East; sometimes this term is used to mean the entire area of Africa from the
Sahara to the
Mediterranean and Asia west of China and India and south of Russia. It is used by some historians who deal with various empires and civilizations (including that of the Mediterreanean Greco-Romans and Persians as well as the vast Arab Caliphates and the regions where early Muslim Turks established their rule). It can encompass North Africa and Turkey in the west to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the east. The term 'Greater Middle East' remains in use by the G8, the US State Department[http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/43293.pdf], and various academic institutions such as the Middle East Institute.[http://www.mideasti.org/countries/countries_main.html]
Conflicts
Today the region is characterized by strong internal political tensions like the issue of
Kurdistan, the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the issue of rights to
water resources, as well as a number of smaller yet important issues, like
Syrian presence in Lebanon, border disagreements between Syria and Turkey over the
Hatay Province, between Egypt and Sudan over the
Hala'ib Triangle, between Saudi Arabia and Yemen over the
geography of Saudi Arabia, the civil rights of religious minorities in
Minority politics in Iraq Iraq and
Politics of Bahrain Bahrain and the security of
Religion in Egypt Christians in Egypt.
There are also substantial tensions between the Middle East and external regions, especially with the
Western World West. These include the issues arising from the
invasion of Iraq, Western (especially the
United States') support of the
economy of Israel, the
nuclear program of Iran, and the allegations of
state-sponsored terrorism on the part of several Middle Eastern nations.
Geography
''Main article:
Geography of Asia''
Regions of the Middle East
''Main article:
Middle Eastern Regions''
*
Iranian Plateau
*
Anatolia -
Turkey
*
Mediterranean Sea -
Cyprus
*
Arabia, see
Persian Gulf States -
Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait,
Qatar,
United Arab Emirates U.A.E.,
Oman,
Yemen,
Bahrain and
Iraq
* The
Levant -
Syria,
Israel,
Jordan,
Lebanon, the
West Bank and
Gaza Strip,
Egypt's
Sinai Peninsula
See also
*
Southwest Asia
*
Near East
*
Cradle of Humanity
*
Greater Middle East
*
Orientalism
*
ODAM
External links
-
Election Tracker-Monitors Democratic Conditions Around the World
-
Public Opinion about the middle east
-
gomideast - Where in the world is the Middle East?
-
Middle East Forum
-
Ancient Near East .net - provides a comprehensive portal to the archaeology and ancient cultures of the Near / Middle East
-
Middle East Studies Association (MESA) of North America
-
University of Chicago Library - Middle East Department
-
The Middle East, Old and New by
Martin Kramer
-
Middle East Public Relations Association (MEPRA)
-
Middle East Resource Guide
-
Middle Eastern Artists : Iranian Contemporary and young blood Art.
-
Middle East Institute
-
Middle East Watch
NGOs working in region
-
Ansar Burney Trust - NGO working on human rights and human trafficking issues in the Middle East
{{Middle East}}
{{Region}}
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