History of the Middle 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 Sumerians, around the 5th millennium BC, were among the first to develop the contemporary notion of a civilization. By 3150 BC, Egyptian civilization had unified under its first pharaoh.^[1] Mesopotamia hosted powerful empires, notably the Assyrian Empires (1365–1076 BC and 911–609 BC). From the 7th century BC, the region was dominated by Iranian powers, including the Achaemenid Empire. In the 1st century BC, the Roman Republic expanded to include much of the Near East, and the Byzantine Empire later ruled from the Balkans to the Euphrates, increasingly defined by and dogmatic about Christianity. Between the 3rd and 7th centuries AD, the Middle East was dominated by the Byzantines and the Sasanian Empire. From the 7th century onward, Islam began to shape the region, bringing a new cultural and religious identity. The Seljuq dynasty displaced Arab dominance in the mid-11th century, followed by the Mongol invasions in the 13th century. By the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire, rooted in western Anatolia, rose to prominence, capturing Constantinople in 1453 and establishing a lasting sultanate.

Large parts of the Middle East were contested between the Ottomans and the Safavid dynasty from the early 16th century. By 1700, the Ottomans had been pushed out of Hungary, shifting the power balance towards the West. The British Empire gained control over the Persian Gulf, while French colonial empire extended into Lebanon and Syria. In 1912, Italy took Libya and the Dodecanese islands. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Middle Eastern rulers sought modernization to match European powers. A key moment came with the discovery of oil, first in Persia (1908), then in Saudi Arabia (1938), the Persian Gulf states, Libya, and Algeria, leading to increased Western and later American interest in the region.

In the 1920s to 1940s, Syria and Egypt pursued independence. The British, French, and Soviets withdrew from much of the Middle East during and after World War II. The Arab–Israeli conflict in Palestine culminated in the 1947 United Nations plan to partition Palestine. Amid Cold War tensions, pan-Arabism emerged in Western Asia and Northern Africa. The end of European control, the establishment of Israel, and the rise of the petroleum industry shaped the modern Middle East. Despite economic growth, many countries faced challenges like political restrictions, corruption, cronyism and overreliance on oil. The wealthiest per capita are the small, oil-rich Persian Gulf states: Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE.

Several key events shaped the modern Middle East: the 1967 Six-Day War,^[2] the 1973 OPEC oil embargo in response to US support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War,^[2][3] and the rise of Salafism/Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia that led to rise of Islamism.^[4] Additionally, the Iranian Revolution contributed to a significant Islamic revival (Tajdid).^[5] The Fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 shifted global focus from the Cold War to the War on Terror. In the early 2010s, the Arab Spring triggered major protests and revolutions in the region. Clashes in western Iraq on December 30, 2013, set the stage for the 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.