Before tracing the rise of British prominence in the Middle East after 1798, it is important to note the historical antecedents of Britain's involvement in the region as well as the political and economic condition of the Ottoman Empire and Iran on the eve of Britain's ascendance. The early Muslim conquests (Arabic: الفتوحات الإسلامية ‎, al-Futūḥāt al-Islāmiyya), also referred to as the Arab conquests and the early Islamic conquests began with the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the 7th century. Some feel that there is a 'legacy of bitterness' in Muslim countries against the Crusades. A Western dependence on Middle Eastern oil and the decline of British influence led to a growing American interest in the region. Sephardim who fled to Ottoman-ruled Middle Eastern and North African countries merged with the Mizrahim, whose families had been living in the region for thousands of years. they promised them independence. This revolt turned the tide against the Ottomans at the Middle Eastern front, where they initially seemed to have the upper hand during the first two years of the war. By the early 15th century, a new power had arisen in western Anatolia, the Ottoman Empire. These developments led increased U.S. involvement in Middle East. Arabic-speaking armies have been generally ineffective in the modern era. Nonetheless, it is easy to imagine a much more vibrant and prosperous Middle East today if history had taken a different course. 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. The Ottomans turned to Germany to protect them from the western powers, but the result was increasing financial and military dependence on Germany. At the end of the war, Eastern European countries had been devastated. [29] Issues began to arise when the Mongols grew increasingly unable to reach a consensus as to whom to elect khagan. This was the first major outbreak of violence since the Oslo Peace Accords of 1993. Forces commanded by Sharif Hussein ibn Ali’s sons, the emirs Ali and Feisal, attacked the Ottoman garrison at Medina in an attempt to seize the holy city and its railway station. The Seljuq Empire would also later dominate the region. Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the states in the Arabian Peninsula generally kept their boundaries. The Nazis and the Soviet Union had wiped out the pre-war democratic leadership. Maps of the Middle East from 1910 to 2010. interview by Robin Wright of UK Foreign Secretary (at the time) Lord Carrington in November 1981, sfn error: no target: CITEREFStearnsAdasSchwartzGilbert2011 (. [32], 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. 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 rise of German dictator Adolf Hitler had created a new urgency in the Zionist quest to immigrate to Palestine and create a Jewish state. These groups are vested with responsibility for the defense of each member and responsible for harm any member does to outsiders. 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). The “Sassanian-Safavid conspiracy” refers to two sub-groups. That's when Shiites conspired to resurrect Persian imperial rule over the Middle East and then the world. "The Middle East" is a largely western invention, from its leaders to its forms of government to its national boundaries, and even in some degree to its cultures. The high point of this campaign came in the 1975 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 condemning Zionism as a form of racism and the reception given to Arafat by the United Nations General Assembly. The Byzantines considered themselves champions of Hellenism and Christianity. This was followed by the Allied invasion of Syria–Lebanon and the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. In the arts, Abbasid architecture expanded upon Umayyad architecture, with larger and more extravagant mosques. 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. By then, another group of Turks had arisen as well, the Ottomans. Learn more abut the Libya Revolt of 2011. U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq by December 2011. From the 7th century, a new power was rising in the Middle East, that of Islam. This promise made to the Sharif of Mecca was soon reneged by the British in the secret Sykes-Picot … The British, the French, and the Soviet Union departed from many parts of the Middle East during and after World War II (1939–1945). 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. European geopolitics in the earlier half of the 20th century in the wider Middle East region contributed to a lot of instability overall. This forced the United States into a close alliance with Saudi Arabia. By the early 15th century, a new power had arisen in western Anatolia, the Ottoman emirs, linguistically Turkic and religiously Islamic, who in 1453 captured the Christian Byzantine capital of Constantinople and made themselves sultans. Why is America Hated in the Middle East? This plan sought to create an Arab state and a separate Jewish state in the narrow space between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. 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. In 1095, Pope Urban II responded to pleas from the flagging Byzantine Empire and summoned the European aristocracy to recapture the Holy Land for Christianity. The Adnanite Arabs, inhabiting the drier desert areas of the Middle East, were all nomadic pastoralists before some began settling in 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. The rule of the Ottoman sultans marked the end of the Medieval (Postclassical) Era in the Middle East. Out of these self-criticisms came an assortment of responses, including adaptation of Western ideals, advocating for separation of religion and politics, complete rejection, and calls for armed struggle against Western powers. But the fighting weakened both states, leaving the stage open to a new power. The celebrations reflect the myriad troubles and mood of foreboding that confront the countries of Eastern Europe today. During this same time period, Sargon the Great appointed his daughter, Enheduanna, as High Priestess of Inanna at Ur. Sumerians were the first people to develop complex systems as to be called "Civilization", starting as far back as the 5th millennium BC. Resolution 3379 was revoked in 1991 by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 4686. At that time, the United States had little interest in Middle East oil or in any political designs on the region. The protests against Col. Muammar al-Gadhafi's regime in Libya started on Feb. 15, 2011, escalating into the first civil war caused by the Arab Spring. 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. About 800,000 Palestinians fled from areas annexed by Israel and became refugees in neighbouring countries, thus creating the "Palestinian problem", which has troubled the region ever since. 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. 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. Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective; In each issue of Origins, an academic expert will analyze a particular current issue – political, cultural, or social – in a larger, deeper context. In the 10th millennium BC, a culture of hunter-gatherers and fishermen was replaced by a grain-grinding culture. 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. Irrigation systems were extremely important for the agricultural Middle East: for Egypt that of the lower Nile River, and for Mesopotamia that of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Iraq incorporated large populations of Kurds, Assyrians and Turkmens, many of whom had been promised independent states of their own. Although the mawali would experience discrimination from the Umayyad, they would gain widespread acceptance from the Abbasids and it was because of this that allowed for mass conversions in foreign areas. By the 19th century, Europe had overtaken the Muslim world in wealth, population, and—most importantly—technology. Religion always played a prevalent role in Middle Eastern culture, affecting learning, architecture, and the ebb and flow of cultures. The Sumerians and the Akkadians, and later Babylonians and Assyrians all flourished in this region. Some Responses. 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".[40]. Missionaries and warriors spread the religion from Arabia to North and Sudanic Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and the Mesopotamia area. From the 3rd century up to the course of the 7th century AD, the entire Middle East was dominated by the Byzantines and the Sasanian Empire. In the hope of constructing a bulwark against Soviet subversion and of limiting the growth of anti-Western influences in the region, Britain and the United States had proposed in October 1951 the creation of the Middle East Defense Organization. Concerned that France would block British access to the eastern Mediterranean and thereby threaten critical trade routes to India, the British navy collaborated with Ottoman authorities to evict French troops from Egypt. The symbol shown above is an Egyptian version. At the far west, they crossed the sea taking Visigothic Hispania before being halted in southern France in the Battle of Tours by the Franks. The Middle East, it turned out, possessed the world's largest easily accessible reserves of crude oil, the most important commodity in the 20th century. 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. By the time the Egyptian leader resigned, large parts of the Middle East were already in turmoil. The U.S.-led invasion enabled the Shiite Arab majority to claim the government, the first time in the modern Middle East that Shiites came to power in any Arab country. The Byzantine provinces of Roman Syria, North Africa, and Sicily, however, could not mount such a resistance, and the Muslim conquerors swept through those regions. Bill Clinton's failed attempt to broker a peace deal between Israel and Palestine at the Camp David Summit in 2000 led directly to the election of Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister of Israel and to the Second Intifada, which conducted suicide bombings on Israeli civilians. This subjugation by Christian empires led Muslims of the Middle East to question their own beliefs as well as their aspirations, making many wonder whether the success of Western occupation was due to the inferiority of their own Islamic ideals. Famine threatened the survivors. Result of Muslim leader's hostility towards westernization. The industrial revolution fueled a boom that laid the foundations for the growth of capitalism. Familiarity with English is not uncommon among the middle and upper classes. Lebanon also rebuilt a fairly successful economy after a prolonged civil war in the 1980s. Before Assyrian hegemony ended, the Assyrians brought the highest civilization to the then known world. In 1941, the Rashīd `Alī al-Gaylānī coup in Iraq led to the British to invade, leading to the Anglo-Iraqi War. Between the 1st century BC and the early 7th century AD, the region was completely dominated by the Romans and the Parthians and Sassanids on the other hand, which often culminated in various Roman-Persian Wars over the seven centuries. Iraq became the "Kingdom of Iraq" and one of Sharif Hussein's sons, Faisal, was installed as the King of Iraq. 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. Moreover, the people were not given the right to participate in the administration of the island, since all powers were reserved to the High Commissioner and to London.[35]. Thereafter, civilization quickly spread through the Fertile Crescent to the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea and throughout the Levant, as well as to ancient Anatolia. Why 100-year-old borders drawn by two Europeans still define the Middle East The Sykes-Picot agreement, reached a century ago this week, delineated … In 1912, the Italians seized Libya and the Dodecanese islands, just off the coast of the Ottoman heartland of Anatolia. Please do your best to turn this into a history lesson. It is easy to imagine a much better world had we not come to think of Arabs and Persians as little brown people with a lot of oil. The British in 1917 announced the Balfour Declaration promised the international Zionist movement their support in re-creating the historic Jewish homeland in Palestine. Can the West be relied on to support democracy and basic human rights in the Arab World. [1] Mesopotamia was home to several powerful empires that came to rule almost the entire Middle East—particularly the Assyrian Empires of 1365–1076 BC and the Neo-Assyrian Empire of 911–609 BC. This history started from the earliest human settlements, continuing through several major pre- and post-Islamic Empires through to the nation-states of the Middle East today. In 2014, a terrorist group and self-proclaimed caliphate calling itself the Islamic State made rapid territorial gains in western Iraq and eastern Syria, prompting international military intervention. The modern-day, 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, 1948 – Israel (forces of the United Kingdom withdrawn), Cheta, Omar Youssef. Much of this learning would find its way to the West. After fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, he formed the al-Qaida organization, which was responsible for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, the USS Cole bombing and the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. [30] Hulegu carved out his Middle Eastern territory into the independent Ilkhanate, which included most of Armenia, Anatolia, Azerbaijan, Mesopotamia, and Iran. Erdogan: Israel the main threat to peace in the Middle East, The so-called “only democracy in the Middle East”. 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. At this darkest hour for Britain’s imperial fortunes in the Middle East, even most of the famous Arab Legion of Transjordan, led by a British officer, John Glubb, passively mutinied and refused to march against their pro-Nazi Arab brothers in Iraq. (2016), Gause III, F. Gregory. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Middle Eastern rulers tried to modernize their states to compete more effectively with the European powers. Syria became a French protectorate as a League of Nations mandate. "People of the book" or dhimmi were always treated well; these people included Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Zoroastrians. In 1099 the knights of the First Crusade captured Jerusalem and founded the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which survived until 1187, when Saladin retook the city. These dangers include earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes. To this day, however, the Middle East has, in particular, some sizable, ethnically distinct Christian minority groups, as well as Jews, concentrated in Israel, and followers of Iranian religions, such as Yazdânism and Zoroastrianism. President George H. W. Bush did not, however, attempt to overthrow Saddam Hussein, which the United States later came to regret. At its greatest extent, the Arab Empire was the first empire to control the entire Middle East, as well three-quarters of the Mediterranean region, the only other empire besides the Roman Empire to control most of the Mediterranean Sea. 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. The Arab Revolt of 1916-1919 had been initiated in coordination with the British based on the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence in which the Brits had promised the Arabs their independence and the lands of Al Hijaz and Al-Sham (including Palestine) if they rose against the Ottomans. Home to the Cradle of Civilization, the Middle East—interchangeable with the Near East—has seen many of the world's oldest cultures and civilizations. Saud created the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932. This commerce was central to city-life, where most inhabitants were merchants. The Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries, or Jewish exodus from Arab countries, was the departure, flight, expulsion, evacuation and migration of 850,000 Jews, primarily of Sephardi and Mizrahi background, from Arab countries and the Muslim world, mainly from 1948 to the early 1970s.The last major migration wave took place from Iran in 1979–80, as a consequence of the Iranian Revolution. While the Byzantine Roman and Sassanid Persian empires were both weakened by warfare (602–628), a new power in the form of Islam grew in the Middle East. However, its empires also introduced rigid social stratification, slavery, and organized warfare. Islam also created the need for spectacularly built mosques which created a distinct form of architecture. Within days, nearly a million East Germans joined the protests and began rioting across hundreds of East German cities and towns. The revolt was against forced labour and tax policies forced upon the people by the German government, which was implementing a cotton scheme to increase her exports. The Palestinians were supported in this, to varying degrees, by the regimes in Syria, Libya, Iran, and Iraq. Urbanization and agriculture was limited in Arabia, save for a few regions near the coast. A responsive surge in U.S. forces in Iraq was largely successful in controlling the insurgency and stabilizing the country. 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. Cities in the Middle East, especially Alexandria, became major urban centers for the Empire and the region became the Empire's "bread basket" as the key agricultural producer. What promise did the british make to the arabs in exchange for their support?