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Desired Learning Objectives
Perceptions: Americans are used to a history measured in centuries find it difficult to contemplate the Middle East’s time lines. It seems almost impossible to believe that great cities with running water, thriving commercial systems, libraries, paved streets, and other "modern" amenities existed more than 5000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent. Yet in this distant time peoples living in what is now called the Middle East and North Africa developed alphabets, astronomy, theology, architecture, literature, engineering, agronomy, and political systems to govern and organize society. Other peoples living along the Nile River developed a civilization that stood in its time as one of the more advanced in the world. Their massive monuments remain as mute testaments to their greatness, which, some argue, still cast a shadow over their distant descendants living along the same Nile River. This history provides a sense of identity, of pride, or shame, or impotence, or grandeur. It is first studied in early school grades, often beginning with myths about the past. Those myths are reinforced as children reach adulthood, and they often become the closest thing to truth because they are so appealing. Lack of physical evidence does not stop people from making claims on historical bases. Morocco claims the Western Sahara on the belief that old ties through trade bound Western Saharans and Moroccans together. Qatar and Bahrain claim some small islands between them on the grounds that the ruling families of both nations once ruled those islands. Saddam Husayn claimed Kuwait was historically a part of Iraq when he invaded it in August 1990. Some Israelis believe that the West Bank of the Jordan River is part of historical or ersatz Israel and thus hold that it should never be returned to the Palestinians, since it is part of the Promised Land.
The Past as Prologue.
The word "civilization" has numerous meanings, but generally the term is taken to mean a society bound together by a common language, a shared religion, cities, works of art, a literature, perhaps even a characteristic form of food preparation. These groupings produce rivalry, and a sense of superiority to other civilizations. Such pride can flow from a long history of accomplishments towards the furthering of one’s civilization, or, perhaps more importantly, seeing other civilizations take parts of your contributions and adopt them. Characterization of the civilizations of the Middle East and North Africa is difficult. In place of the ancient civilizations emerged a new civilization that has taken the name of the religion that helped to fuel its spread-Islam. What some now call the "Islamic Civilization" is actually a mixture of many other cultures existing at the time when Islam began to spread from the Arabian Peninsula in the middle of the 7th Century. As the Arab armies moved out from the deserts of Arabia into the Levant and Central Asia they encountered and borrowed from other civilizations. They also introduced much of their own to the world, although it is admittedly difficult to separate out what the Arabs developed and what they learned from others.
"Islamic civilization" is probably a misnomer, since, beyond Islam, there are few constants over the entire region known as the Middle East and North Africa. A majority of three different linguistic groupings practice Islam in the greater Middle East alone; those speaking Arabic, Turkish, or Persian (now known as Farsi). Millions more adhere to the religion in South Central, and Southeast Asia, as well as in China, Western Europe, and North America. Yet those living in the modern Middle East often refer to "Islamic Civilization" with a mixture of pride and regret for the past. They point to the accomplishments of the Umayyad and Abassid periods in comparison to Europe of the time, where most of the population lived in mud huts and used only the most rudimentary of instruments. Defenders of Islamic Civilization note that much of what is now part of "European" or even "Western" civilization originated from the Islamic world, which would have continued its cultural dominance had it not been for the invaders who derailed this grand enlightenment.
First, came the Crusaders, who looted the region of many of its treasures. The Mongols then swept out of Central Asia to sack Baghdad and thus end the Abassid Period. After the Mongols came the Ottomans, and finally the Europeans. France and Britain in particular became regional powers after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1919. They divided up the area, with the French getting most of North Africa, plus Syria (from which they carved out Lebanon to protect the Christian Maronite majority). The British got protectorates along the Arabian side of the Gulf, and most of the Levant, from which they created Iraq, Palestine, and Trans-Jordan. Britain also gained access to Egypt and to Suez in particular, where they had earlier built the Suez Canal to reduce transit time from Britain to the Asian domains of the British Empire. Westerners in particular should consider carefully the impact of this history. The idea of an independent state in the Middle East is a relatively new one. Those who live in these new independent states are unsurprisingly affected by their history.
Lessons from the Past.
Challenges to Arab unity and cohesion constantly arise, with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait only the latest. Arab unity sometimes appears so fragile that outsiders may be tempted to dismiss it as an outmoded concept. But the idea refuses to die, and instead continues on when pressures arise to break it. The aftermath of the Gulf War of 1990-91 revealed, for example, that significant numbers of Arabs still supported Iraq against UN-sponsored efforts to open the nation to inspectors seeking evidence of the production of weapons of mass destruction. Arab publics in many Arab nations demonstrated publicly in support of Iraq, causing one observer to note about Arab solidarity that, "…its role has also sometimes been underestimated. Because of a shared culture and language, a sense of kinship among Arab peoples is felt much more deeply than that which exists, for example, between Americans and Europeans. It has contributed, for example to popular outrage in every Arab capital at the plight of Iraqis at the hands of the United States." The rich heritage of the Middle East produces mixed reactions from its present-day citizens. In Egypt, for example, the past produces negative examples for the present. Anwar Sadat was mockingly called "Pharaoh" by his Islamist detractors in reaction to his remote and imperious manner of ruling. In Luxor a tragic massacre of foreign tourists in November 1997 by Islamists seemed to reflect an effort to separate the west and its attachment to Egypt’s pre-Islamic grandeur. But more common is the pride that so many people take from their culture. It can be seen in the way they guide visitors through museums-voices filled with enthusiasm as they describe some ancient relic or the accomplishments of some historic figure. It colors their views of other cultures, knowing that theirs was so often the first to discover some body of knowledge, or to create cities which stood for many centuries and then disappeared beneath the sands long before other cultures could even conceive of a city. It is also a source of considerable frustration that they are now so easily stereotyped negatively when their culture contributed so much to world civilization.
Middle Eastern History as Interpreted by Europeans. This part of history is disturbing to many who live in the Middle East, but it must be considered. Much of what is now known and understood about the history of the Middle East was accomplished by European scholars and soldiers. The scholars came to the region seeking knowledge of their own civilization, and they sometimes accompanied the soldiers and diplomats who expanded European interests there. Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1803 to try to deny the British access to their Asian colonies. He also brought with him scholars to uncover and decipher the wonders of ancient Egypt. French soldiers unearthed the Rosetta Stone, key to interpreting Egyptian hieroglyphics. In the middle of the 19th Century, British scholar Sir Henry Rawlinson climbed up Mount Behistun in modern Iran and translated a great stone carvings left by Darius the Great, unlocking the secrets of both the ancient Persian and Babylonian languages. British archeologists uncovered the buried ruins of Babylon, Ur, Nineveh, and other Fertile Crescent cities, and brought much of what they found back to the British Museum.
That discovery still continues. Teams of archeologists from Germany, the United States, Italy, Britain, and France remain engaged in the Middle East today. An Italian team of archeologists continues to explore the site of Ebla in Syria, while a French team probes the pyramid complex built by the Pharaoh Snefru at Dashur in Egypt. In July 1998 American archaeologists found what may the oldest surviving Christian church in the world near Aqaba, Jordan.
The Past as Periods.
A division of the past into periods is almost always arbitrary. Sometimes it is divided into dynasties, as in the cases of Chinese and Egyptian history. A subjective delineation of the history of Middle East and North Africa could be divided as follows: