Middle East

==History==
{{Main|History of the Middle East}}
{{See also|Neolithic#Western Asia|Ancient Near East|History of the Middle East|Mesopotamia|Uruk period|Kish civilization|Ancient Egypt|History of the ancient Levant|History of Anatolia|History of Iran|Middle Eastern Empires|Pre-Islamic Arabia|List of modern conflicts in the Middle East}}

[[File:Göbekli Tepe, Urfa.jpg|left|thumb|Some [[henge]]s at [[Göbekli Tepe]] were erected as far back as [[Göbekli Tepe#Layer III|9600 BC]], predating those of [[Stonehenge]], England, by over seven millennia. The site of the oldest known religious structure created by humans.<ref name="ArchMag">{{cite web|url=http://www.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/turkey.html|title=The World's First Temple|work= Archaeology magazine |date=November–December 2008|page=23}}</ref>]]
[[File:Westernwall2.jpg|thumb|[[Western Wall]] and [[Dome of the Rock]] in [[Jerusalem]]]]
[[File:Jerusalem-Grabeskirche-14-vom Erloeserkirchturm-2010-gje.jpg|thumb|[[Church of the Holy Sepulchre]] in [[Jerusalem]]]]
[[File:Kaaba mirror edit jj.jpg|thumb|The [[Kaaba]], located in [[Mecca]], [[Saudi Arabia]]]]

The Middle East lies at the juncture of [[Africa]] and [[Eurasia]] and of the [[Indian Ocean]] and the [[Mediterranean Sea]]. It is the birthplace and [[spirituality|spiritual]] center of religions such as [[Christianity]], [[Islam]], [[Judaism]], [[Manichaeism]], [[Yezidi]], [[Druze]], [[Yarsan]], and [[Mandeanism]], and in Iran, [[Mithraism]], [[Zoroastrianism]], [[Manicheanism]], and the [[Baháʼí Faith]]. Throughout its history the Middle East has been a major center of world affairs; a strategically, economically, politically, culturally, and religiously sensitive area. The region is one of the regions where agriculture was independently discovered, and from the Middle East it was spread, during the Neolithic, to different regions of the world such as Europe, the Indus Valley and Eastern Africa.

Prior to the formation of civilizations, advanced cultures formed all over the Middle East during the [[Stone Age]]. The search for agricultural lands by agriculturalists, and pastoral lands by herdsmen meant different migrations took place within the region and shaped its ethnic and demographic makeup.

The Middle East is widely and most famously known as the [[cradle of civilization]]. The world's earliest civilizations, [[Mesopotamia]] ([[Sumer]], [[Akkadian Empire|Akkad]], [[Assyria]] and [[Babylonia]]), [[ancient Egypt]] and [[Kish civilization|Kish]] in the Levant, all originated in the Fertile Crescent and [[Nile]] Valley regions of the ancient Near East. These were followed by the [[Hittites|Hittite]], [[Greeks|Greek]], [[Hurrians|Hurrian]] and [[Urartian]] civilisations of [[Asia Minor]]; [[Elam]], [[History of Iran|Persia]] and [[Medes|Median]] civilizations in [[Iran]], as well as the civilizations of the [[History of the Levant|Levant]] (such as [[Ebla]], [[Mari, Syria|Mari]], [[Tell Brak|Nagar]], [[Ugarit]], [[Canaan]], [[Aramea]], [[Mitanni]], [[Phoenicia]] and [[Ancient Israel|Israel]]) and the [[Arabian Peninsula]] ([[Majan (civilization)|Magan]], [[Sheba]], [[Atlantis of the Sands|Ubar]]). The Near East was first largely unified under the [[Neo Assyrian Empire]], then the [[Achaemenid Empire]] followed later by the [[Macedonian Empire]] and after this to some degree by the [[History of Iran|Iranian empires]] (namely the [[Arsacid Empire|Parthian]] and [[Sassanid Empire]]s), the [[Roman Empire]] and [[Byzantine Empire]]. The region served as the intellectual and economic center of the Roman Empire and played an exceptionally important role due to its periphery on the [[Sassanid Empire]]. Thus, the [[Ancient Rome|Romans]] stationed up to five or six of their legions in the region for the sole purpose of defending it from Sassanid and Bedouin raids and invasions.

From the 4th century CE onwards, the Middle East became the center of the two main powers at the time, the [[Byzantine Empire]] and the [[Sassanid Empire]]. However, it would be the later [[Caliphate|Islamic Caliphates]] of the [[Middle Ages]], or [[Islamic Golden Age]] which began with the [[Early Muslim conquests|Islamic conquest]] of the region in the 7th century AD, that would first unify the entire Middle East as a distinct region and create the dominant [[Islam]]ic [[Arab]] ethnic identity that largely (but not exclusively) persists today. The 4 caliphates that dominated the Middle East for more than 600 years were the [[Rashidun Caliphate]], the [[Umayyad caliphate]], the [[Abbasid caliphate]] and the [[Fatimid caliphate]]. Additionally, the [[Mongols]] would come to dominate the region, the [[Kingdom of Armenia (Antiquity)|Kingdom of Armenia]] would incorporate parts of the region to their domain, the [[Seljuk Empire|Seljuks]] would rule the region and spread Turko-Persian culture, and the [[Franks]] would found the [[Crusader states]] that would stand for roughly two centuries. Josiah Russell estimates the population of what he calls "Islamic territory" as roughly 12.5 million in 1000 – [[Anatolia]] 8 million, [[Syria (region)|Syria]] 2 million, and [[Egypt]] 1.5 million.<ref>{{Setton-A History of the Crusades|last=Russell|first=Josiah C.|chapter=The Population of the Crusader States|pages=295–314|volume=5|p=298}}</ref>
From the 16th century onward, the Middle East came to be dominated, once again, by two main powers: the [[Ottoman Empire]] and the [[Safavid dynasty]].

The modern Middle East began after [[World War I]], when the Ottoman Empire, which was allied with the [[Central Powers]], was defeated by the British Empire and their allies and [[partitioning of the Ottoman Empire|partitioned]] into a number of separate nations, initially under [[Mandatory Palestine|British]] and [[French Mandate]]s. Other defining events in this transformation included the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the eventual departure of European powers, notably [[United Kingdom|Britain]] and [[France]] by the end of the 1960s. They were supplanted in some part by the rising influence of the United States from the 1970s onwards.

In the 20th century, the region's significant stocks of [[crude oil]] gave it new strategic and economic importance. Mass production of oil began around 1945, with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, and the [[United Arab Emirates]] having large quantities of oil.<ref>Goldschmidt (1999), p. 8</ref> Estimated [[Oil reserves#Estimated reserves by country|oil reserves]], especially in Saudi Arabia and Iran, are some of the highest in the world, and the international oil cartel [[OPEC]] is dominated by Middle Eastern countries.

During the Cold War, the Middle East was a theater of ideological struggle between the two superpowers and their allies: [[NATO]] and the United States on one side, and the [[Soviet Union]] and [[Warsaw Pact]] on the other, as they competed to influence regional allies. Besides the political reasons there was also the "ideological conflict" between the two systems. Moreover, as [[Louise Fawcett]] argues, among many important areas of contention, or perhaps more accurately of anxiety, were, first, the desires of the superpowers to gain strategic advantage in the region, second, the fact that the region contained some two-thirds of the world's oil reserves in a context where oil was becoming increasingly vital to the economy of the Western world [...]<ref>Louise, Fawcett. ''International Relations of the Middle East''. (Oxford University Press, New York, 2005)</ref> Within this contextual framework, the United States sought to divert the Arab world from Soviet influence. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the region has experienced both periods of relative peace and tolerance and periods of conflict particularly between [[Sunni]]s and [[Shiite]]s.