An Introduction to the Region

Fleeing from Mecca, the Prophet's utterances did not stop. He gained a large following and in a few years returned to Mecca not only with a message of love, but also with a sword. Mohammed declared a holy war, a jihad, on all nonbelievers. Mecca became a holy city, and the Arab realm of Islam spread. At the time of his death about 632, Islam was a dominating and growing force in the Middle East.

Mohammed's followers spread Islam and Arabic culture through the Middle East in the years after his death. Two dynasties of leaders, the Umayyads (661ö750) and the Abbasids (750ö1258), ruled the area in the years following Mohammed. Hourani points out that these leaders, or caliphs, theologically divided the world into the Realm of Islam and the Realm of War. The purpose of Islam was to subject the world to God's will. Indeed, Islam means submission to the will of God, and a Muslim is one who submits.

About 1000 C.E. the Turks began to take the domains of the Abbasids. Struggles continued for the next 100 years until a Mongol advance from East Asia brought the Abbasid dynasty to an end. The Mongols were eventually stopped by an Egyptian army of slaves, and their descendants gave rise to a new group of Turks known as Ottomans. The Ottomans were aggressive, conquering most of the Middle East and large parts of Europe. The Ottomans fought the Iranians on one border and central Europeans on the other border for many years.

European relations with Islamic empires were not characterized by harmony. The West began its first violent encounters with the European attempts to conquer the Middle East known as the Crusades (1095 to about 1250). These affairs were bloody and instigated centuries of hatred and distrust between Muslims and Christians. European struggles with the Ottoman Empire reinforced years of military tensions between the two civilizations. Modern tensions in the area can be traced to the decline of Ottoman influence and the collapse of Iranian power in the eighteenth century. When these Islamic powers receded, Western Christian powers were quick to fill the void.

Yonah Alexander (1976) points out that issues of power shifts were complicated by a late nineteenth century concept called Zionism. Zionists began moving to Palestine in the 1890s for the purpose of establishing a Jewish homeland. This created some tension, as Syria and Egypt were vying for control of the area. The problem exploded in 1914, when World War I internationalized the political problems of the Middle East. Modern Middle Eastern terrorism can be traced to World War I's (1914ö1918) political watershed.