Detail, BENT PYRAMID OF SNEFERU

Dahshur Dynasty IV, 2680-2565 B.C.

The casing gives a polished solid surface to the pyramid.

Detail, SHRINE OF KING SESOSTRIS I

Karnak Dynasty XII, c. 1940 B.C.

The limestone pillars are decorated with relief and hieroglyphics.



Detail, SCULPTURED PILLAR

Deir el Bahari, Thebes Dynasty XVIII, c. 1480 B.C.

The goddess Hathor, protectress of the city of the dead, is carved on this pillar from the Hathor shrine on the south side of the first terrace. She is portrayed as a beautiful woman with the ears of a cow.




Doll

Doll, small figure of a human being, usually a child's toy. In ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, dolls were used symbolically and probably also as children's playthings. In Europe, from the 15th cent., fashion dolls given as gifts by monarchs and courtiers helped spread costume styles. By the 17th cent. both boys and girls played with dolls. Sonneberg, Germany, was noted for the manufacture of wooden dolls (17th cent.) and of dolls' china heads (19th cent.). In Paris, dolls were made that could speak and close their eyes. In the 19th cent. dolls were made of papier-mâché, china, wax, hard rubber, or bisque; by the 20th cent. doll manufacturing was an important U.S. industry.


Early Christian art and architecture

Among the earliest extant manifestations of Christian art are the early 3d-cent. paintings of biblical figures on CATACOMB walls in Rome. Among the main themes portrayed are the hope of resurrection and immortality, symbolized by fish and peacock motifs. After the Edict of Toleration (313) the scope of Christian art was radically enlarged. BASILICAS were covered with elaborate MOSAIC narrative cycles, e.g., Santa Maria Maggiore and Santa Pudenziana in Rome and Sant'Appollinare Nuovo in Ravenna. In Christian art the ILLUMINATION of sacred texts assumed great importance.

Fragments of silver and gold biblical text on purple vellum with sumptuous illuminations are still preserved, e.g., the Vienna Genesis from the first half of the 6th cent. The elaborate sculpture of the stone sarcophagus was extensively practiced, often depicting the life of Jesus. Ivory carvers decorated book covers and reliquaries and such large objects as the throne of Maximianus in Ravenna (6th cent.).

After legal recognition of the faith, imposing cult edifices were erected throughout the Roman Empire. As with other art forms, Christian architecture adapted and modified existing structures from the pagan world. Church structure became centralized, emphasizing round, polygonal, or cruciform shapes. BAPTISTERIES and memorial shrines (martyria) followed the Roman style. A distinct type of Christian art and architecture was evolved in Egypt (see COPTIC ART). In the East the Byzantine emperors supported the developments of the Early Christian artistic tradition.

Although older fossil remains of humanlike beings have been found elsewhere, the ancient Middle East provides some of the earliest written records of human experience. For this reason one can say that history begins in this region.

ANCIENT HISTORY

Egypt and Mesopotamia

Two major areas of the Middle East--both of them river valleys- -seem to have been the earliest centers of civilization: Egypt, with its agriculture based on the annual flooding of the Nile (see EGYPT, ANCIENT); and MESOPOTAMIA, the rich land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. This latter area was the home of several great cultures of ancient times, including those of SUMER, BABYLONIA, and ASSYRIA. In both of these areas is found the earliest use of copper, about 4000 BC.

By the time writing was invented, civilization was already quite developed in both these areas. Society was organized into specialized groups with a ruling class of kings and nobles at the top and peasants, laborers, and slaves at the bottom. Highly developed mythologies and religious cults with temples and priests were to be found in different forms in various localities.

Writing, accomplished either by engraving symbols into stone or pressing them with a stylus into wet clay tablets that were later dried or baked--as in the case of Mesopotamian cuneiform- -or by impressing wet ink into papyrus sheets with a pen--as with Egyptian hieroglyphics--was only one of the many great inventions of the ancient Middle East that spread far and wide.

The contributions in the field of agriculture were significant: wild plants that were tended for human use included wheat, barley, and millet among the grains, and grapes and olives for eating and as sources of wine and oil respectively; animals that were domesticated included the sheep and goat for milk, meat, and wool and the donkey and camel as beasts of burden.

The two central civilizations of the ancient Middle East differed from each other not only in the details of their culture but in the very nature of their relationship to their physical environment and to the larger world beyond. Egypt was relatively self-contained, confined by deserts to the narrow Nile valley and the broader delta. It had some contact with other peoples--the Libyans to the west, the Nubians and Abyssinians to the south, and, most important, the varied peoples of western Asia to the east, who alternately were conquered by Egypt or invaded that rich and tempting land.

Nonetheless, Egyptian civilization was unique and seems at times to have been little influenced by outside forces. The facts of geography, on the other hand, made Mesopotamia quite open to movements of people and outside influences. It was frequently subject to foreign invasion, but the great kingdoms and empires that eventually arose in this area spread their civilizations by trade or by military expansion.

Syria-Palestine, Anatolia, and Persia

In addition to the two river-valley centers of civilization, three highland areas were of great importance to Middle Eastern and world history. Between Egypt and Mesopotamia, and influenced by both, lay the Syria-Palestine area, which stretched eastward from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates River and the Syrian Desert. This area was settled by West Semitic peoples called Canaanites and eventually--probably by 1200 BC--came to be divided into three main parts.

The coastal area west of the Jordan River from the Egyptian border to Mount Carmel was conquered by the tribes of Israel. This area, the land of Israel, came to be known by the Greeks as PALESTINE from the invading SEA PEOPLES, especially the PHILISTINES, who pushed the Israelites away from the coast to the low-hill country. Israel, the land of the people known eventually as JEWS, became a central focus of Western historical and theological concern because of the revolutionary combination of religious ideas developed by the Jews from about 1200 BC to the beginning of the Christian era: MONOTHEISM, REVELATION, and COVENANT (see also JUDAISM).

North of Israel lay the long narrow strip of coast, the remainder of Canaan, which the Greeks called PHOENICIA. From here, the Phoenicians, who became famous as merchants, carried goods in their ships to all the shores of the Mediterranean and beyond. To the Phoenicians is attributed, if not the invention then at least the spread of, the alphabetic system of writing that seems to be the source of most alphabets used in the world today.

Between these coastal areas to the west and Mesopotamia to the east lay the city-states and later the empire of the ARAMAEANS. Whereas Israel came to be known as Palestine, Phoenicia and Aram came to be called SYRIA.

The high Anatolian plateau to the north of both Syria and Mesopotamia became the home of various high prehistoric cultures and eventually entered history with the founding of the HITTITE kingdom about 1900 BC. Eastward from the Mesopotamian lowlands, the Zagros Mountains and the Iranian Plateau beyond became another area of cultural creativity with the rise of the kingdoms of MEDIA and PERSIA.

By the 6th century BC the two great river-valley powers, Egypt and Babylonia, as well as Syria-Palestine and Anatolia, fell to the power of the rising Persian Empire. Under CYRUS THE GREAT (r. 550-530 BC), this empire ruled all of the Middle East except for Egypt, which fell to his son CAMBYSES II (r. 529-521 BC). Aramaic, the language of the politically impotent Aramaeans, became the language of government documents and of trade throughout the Persian Empire and gradually became the spoken vernacular of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine.

Hellenistic Age

During the 5th century the Persian Empire began to weaken and decline after suffering a number of defeats at the hands of the Greeks, a people that had established themselves on the edge of the Middle East and in Anatolia. In 330 BC, ALEXANDER THE GREAT of Macedonia led his forces against the weakened Persian Empire after subjugating the feuding Greek cities and created a new empire uniting east and west.

Alexander's death in 323 BC prevented the accomplishment of his aim of the actual fusion of the Greek and Middle Eastern peoples. The many cities he founded and the growth of commerce through the areas opened up by his conquests and exploration served to Hellenize the east and bring eastern goods and ideas to the west. This interaction of Greek and Middle Eastern civilizations gave rise to the composite Hellenistic civilization that dominated the entire area.

Politically, the Middle East was divided between two states ruled by dynasties established by two of Alexander's generals, the Ptolemies in Egypt and the SELEUCIDS in Syria and Mesopotamia. The constant strife between these two states and their internal weakness eventually led to the intervention of a rapidly rising power in the west, Rome. By 64 BC, Syria fell to the Romans, and, in 30 BC, Egypt was annexed, bringing to an end the Hellenistic kingdoms of the east.

The Middle East, which had always been involved in the rivalries between two great powers, was now divided between the Roman Empire, which controlled its western portion around the Mediterranean, and the empire of the Parthians (see ARSACIDS; PARTHIA) in Persia in the east.

One aspect of the civilization that was typical of the Hellenistic period was the disappearance of the old religions and their replacement by Eastern-inspired "mystery religions," such as MITHRAISM and the cults of ISIS and CYBELE. These religions spread from the east to the Roman Empire and laid the basis for the rapid spread there of a sectarian form of Judaism called CHRISTIANITY, which by the 4th century AD had become the religion of the Roman emperor and had also spread widely in the east.

Byzantine Empire

The division of the Roman Empire between two emperors, one ruling the west from Rome, the other the east from Constantinople, reflected, among other things, the strength of quite different civilizations that had persisted in the two areas. The Eastern, later called Byzantine, empire was Greek in language and, through its Hellenistic background, closely tied to the ancient civilizations of the Middle East, one of which, the Persian, was to be its chief rival for many years.

The Western empire, Latin in language, was profoundly influenced both by its Roman past and by the Germanic invaders who began to overrun its territories. By the end of the 5th century these Germanic tribes had effectively put an end to the Western empire, leaving the head of the Western branch of Christianity, the patriarch or pope of Rome, as the sole symbol of unity in that area. Meanwhile, in the east, the emperor still ruled, and authority in the church was divided among the patriarchs of the three great sees of the church, Constantinople, Antioch in Syria, and Alexandria in Egypt.

The BYZANTINE EMPIRE, although also subject to barbarian invasions on its northern flank, was more sorely beset by internal divisions among various Greek factions, as well as rivalry among the patriarchs. From the 4th to the 6th century these rivalries were channeled into disputes over the nature of Jesus Christ. Although primarily concerned with religious dogma, these debates were used by antiimperial groups to further ethnic and linguistic separation.

Thus the Aramaic- speaking populations of Syria, the Armenians of the Caucasus and eastern Anatolia, and the Coptic-speaking Egyptians used the heretical doctrine of MONOPHYSITISM to break away from the ORTHODOX CHURCH with its close ties to the emperor.

In addition, between 572 and 628 the Middle East was the scene of warfare between the Byzantines and the Persian empire of the SASSANIANS, occasionally halted by "eternal" treaties of peace that were soon violated. In 614, Jerusalem fell to the Persians, and, by 619, Egypt as well. Under the Byzantine emperor HERACLIUS (r. 610-41) the imperial armies succeeded in counterattacking and defeating the Persians decisively by 628. Both empires were left drained and weakened by this 50-year period of intermittent warfare. They were thus ill-prepared to meet a new threat, which appeared from Arabia, an area that had never before been of importance in Middle Eastern history.

ARAB ASCENDANCY

South Arabia had long possessed a civilization closely allied to the prevailing patterns in the Semitic areas of Syria and Mesopotamia. North Arabia, less favored by nature, had, after the domestication of the camel, become the territory of a highly structured nomadic tribal society. BEDOUIN tribes led a nomadic existence raising herds of camels, sheep, and goats. Caravan trade linking the Indian Ocean with the Mediterranean traversed this Bedouin territory and served as an important source of income.

The town of MECCA, not far from the Red Sea in western Arabia, was located at the junction of the major north-south and east-west routes and became an important trading and religious center for the North Arabians. In Mecca a cubical structure called the KAABA housed images of the various deities worshiped by the tribes that came there during annual fairs to carry on trade.

Muhammad

Mecca was the birthplace c.570 of the man who was to become known as the Prophet MUHAMMAD. In the year 610, Muhammad had the first of many experiences that he came to understand as divine revelations, calling upon him to preach to his people a monotheistic religion based on the worship of the one God, the belief in a day of judgment, and the giving of alms for the support of the poor.

Persecuted in Mecca, Muhammad and his early converts migrated northward in 622 to the agricultural oasis of Yathrib (later MEDINA), which was inhabited by three Jewish tribes as well as several pagan Arab tribes. There Muhammad was no longer an outcast but was recognized by many as a prophet of God and the leader of a community that regarded him as a lawgiver, judge, and military leader.

At his death in 632 this community, which called its religion ISLAM and the believers Muslims, possessed the record of Muhammad's revelations collected in the KORAN. The migration (HEGIRA) to Medina in 622 was regarded as the beginning of the Muslim era.

During his last years Muhammad had led his community from Medina on raids against the Meccans. Eventually, the Muslims defeated the people of Mecca, who accepted the new religion, and the city with the sacred shrine of the Kaaba, now dedicated to the worship of the one God, became the focal point of worship and the object of pilgrimage.

Establishment of the Caliphate

As a prophet, Muhammad could have no successor. As military leader, judge, and arbitrator in disputes, he could and did have a successor called khalifa, or caliph (see CALIPHATE). The first caliph was a father-in-law and one of the closest advisors of the Prophet, ABU BAKR (r. 632-34). Most of his brief reign was taken up with wars that united much of the Arabian Peninsula under Islam.

But the volunteer Bedouin army of the Muslims, filled with enthusiasm for their new religion and for the spoils that they shared after victory, soon carried their battles beyond Arabia.

Under the second caliph, UMAR I (r. 634-44), the Arab conquest of the Middle East began in earnest. All of Syria had fallen to the Muslims by 637, Mesopotamia was overrun by 639, and Egypt was conquered between 639 and 642. In 641 the final defeat of the Persians at the Battle of Nahavand signaled the end of the Sassanian dynasty. In less than ten years the Muslim Arabs had conquered all of the Middle East except for Anatolia.

Divisions in the Muslim Community

The new Muslim community had strong political and economic factions as well as a religious mission. During the reign of Umar's successor, Uthman (r. 644-56), the various factions began to take shape, and their rivalry eventually came to a head with the murder of Uthman by dissident Muslim troops assigned to Egypt. Uthman belonged to a wealthy and powerful clan called the UMAYYADS.

They had come to Islam rather late, but with their kinsman as caliph they were able to take over leading positions in the administration of the new empire. The main opponents of the Umayyads were the older Muslim "aristocracy," who resented Uthman's feeble efforts to curb their greed for land, and the followers of ALI, husband of the Prophet's daughter, FATIMA. Despite his close ties with Muhammad, Ali had three times been passed over in the caliphal succession, but when Uthman was killed his murderers proclaimed Ali to be the fourth caliph.

Ali (r. 656-61) was immediately involved in civil war, first with the Medina "aristocracy" whom he defeated decisively, and then with the defenders of the Umayyad cause, led by Uthman's cousin MUAWIYA, governor of Syria. In the course of the latter struggle, the ranks of Ali's followers were split. The dissidents, called Kharijites, left the camp and were later massacred by Ali's loyal followers, who came to be known as SHIITES--literally "partisans (of Ali)." Both groups remain today as religious divisions within Islam.

The Kharijites became fanatical egalitarians claiming that any pious Muslim could become caliph; the Shiites believed that only Ali and his descendants had the right to that position. The bulk of the Muslim community, agreeing with neither of these views, came to be known as SUNNITES.

The outcome of the conflict between Ali and Muawiya was indecisive. Ali remained as nominal caliph until he was assassinated by a Kharijite in revenge for his massacre of that group. Meanwhile, Muawiya, ruling in Damascus, was consolidating his control of most of the empire, which recognized him as caliph after Ali's death.

Muawiya (r. 661-80) succeeded temporarily in uniting the empire and giving it certain important administrative features. He introduced the principle of hereditary rule and was the first of the Umayyad dynasty, which ruled until 750. The Umayyads, with their capital in DAMASCUS, based their power on the use of Syrian troops and the supremacy of the Arabs within the empire. Theirs was a "western" policy, and when conquests of new territories resumed, they turned primarily toward North Africa, Spain, and France.

The political rivalries that had been skillfully manipulated by Muawiya burst into the open not long after his death, and the empire was embroiled in bloody civil wars between 684 and 701. The Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685-705), under whom the rebel groups were finally defeated and the empire reunited, carried out a policy of Arabization of the administration of the empire. Abd al-Malik made Arabic the language of administration and introduced an Arabic/Muslim coinage to replace the modified Byzantine and Sassanian coins that had been used until then.

The conquered populations gradually accepted Islam as their religion and, in most parts of the empire, Arabic as their language. Since they were not Arabs, however, they were treated as second-class citizens. Only one of the Umayyad caliphs, Umar II (r. 717-20), tried to respond to the growing frustrations and hostility of the non-Arab Muslims, or mawali, by promulgating reforms aimed at giving all Muslims equality in regard to taxation. His successors, however, abandoned his reforms and were involved in internecine Arab tribal rivalries. These intra-Arab conflicts, together with the bitterness of the mawali and the disaffection of the Kharijite and Shiite factions, brought about the overthrow of the Umayyads and their replacement by a new dynasty, the ABBASIDS, in 750.

The Abbasid Caliphate

The Abbasid revolution played on the grievances and aspirations of the various groups who opposed the Umayyads. The impossibility of satisfying all of the conflicting aims laid the foundation for various later attempts at revolt and disruption of the empire. The westernmost regions, Spain and Morocco, were immediately lost to the empire, remaining loyal to the Umayyads. The rest of the empire, however, now based in Iraq (ancient Mesopotamia) rather than Syria, and looking eastward to Iran and central Asia, began to enjoy the fruits of the unity of the vast territories under Abbasid rule. The new capital, BAGHDAD, became the richest and most cultured city in the world.

The variegated population of the empire was now largely Muslim in religion, although minorities of Christians and Jews, as well as adherents of ZOROASTRIANISM and other remnants of pre- Islamic times, continued to play important roles in the area. The mixture of peoples with different linguistic and religious backgrounds led to great cultural developments in the areas of both the religion of Islam and of the entire civilization of which it was the basis.

Lively theological debates were accompanied by the collection and codification of the records of the sayings and deeds of the Prophet known as the hadith. This, in turn, together with the Koran served as the basis for the Islamic legal system, the SHARIA. Science, both theoretical and practical, flourished as did philosophical speculation along Aristotelian and Neoplatonic lines. These intellectual trends, which made the Islamic empire the cultural center of the world at the time, were based in large part on the influence of Greek thought and writings, the preservation and transmission of which was due mostly to Aramaic-speaking Christians, some of whose descendants translated these works into Arabic.

The added factor in the cultural development of Islamic civilization was the meeting of Greek thought with a variety of Oriental ideas that had entered the empire through its eastern conquests. Iranian and Indian concepts and literature interacted with Greek ideas that had filtered mostly through Christian and Jewish carriers and responded, in turn, to the specifically Arabian features of earliest Islam.

Disintegration of the Caliphate

The glories of the Abbasid empire did not last long, reaching their height during the reign of al-Mamun (r. 813-33). The early Abbasids depended on Khorasanian troops from northeastern Iran. By 836 the problems caused by these troops and their commanders in their treatment of the populace led the caliph al -Mutasim (r. 833-42) to transfer the capital from Baghdad to Samarra, where it remained for more than 30 years.

A move of more far-reaching consequences taken by al-Mutasim to strengthen himself against the Khorasanians was his policy-- followed by his successors as well--of importing Turkish slaves and mercenaries to form a special military corps. Within a very short time caliphs became mere puppets of their Turkish troops, whose commanders began to claim portions of the empire as their virtually independent domains.

Iran (ancient Persia) had slowly recovered its unique cultural identity and was the first area to become practically independent of the central government under native dynasties (the Tahirids, 821-73, and the Saffarids, 867-1495). More frequently, however, the new dynasties tended to be Turkish in origin. They maintained the fiction of the delegation of authority by the caliph, but that office, which had been considered to be held by successors of the Prophet ruling over a single Muslim nation, now turned into a parody.

In 929, for example, in addition to the puppet Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, two other rulers took the title of caliph, the Umayyad ruler of Cordoba, Spain, as well as the Shiite Fatimid ruler in Cairo. Shiite dynasties such as the FATIMIDS in North Africa and Egypt (909-1160) and the Buwayhids of Iraq (932-1005), as well as the Shiite rebellion of the Carmathians who overran Arabia, Syria, and Iraq from 890 to 906, showed the rising significance and power of this Muslim sect.

Eventually it was the TURKS, most of whom were staunch Sunni Muslims, who stemmed the tide of Shiism. Under the Turkish dynasty of the SELJUKS, who invaded Khorasan in 1037 and established an empire in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Anatolia until the end of the 12th century, the intellectual as well as military counteroffensive to Shiism, the "Sunni revival," developed full force.

During the Seljuk period the European CRUSADES--first brought into being by the Seljuk conquest (1071) of Jerusalem--swept into the Middle East and established feudal principalities along the Mediterranean coast, from the Principality of Antioch in the north to the Latin Kingdom of JERUSALEM in the south. The Crusader power was finally broken after about 100 years by SALADIN (r. 1169-93), the founder of the Kurdish-Turkish dynasty of the AYYUBIDS, whose members ruled Egypt, Syria, and parts of Arabia until 1250.

Under the Ayyubids, the Turkish slave military institution, begun centuries earlier, developed the structure that it was to retain with some modifications until it was finally wiped out early in the 19th century. Known as the Mamluk, or MAMELUKE (literally, "owned"), system, it was based on the importation as slaves of young boys, first of Turkic and later of other ethnic groups, who were converted to Islam, given military training, and set free. These Mameluke troops took control of the state in Egypt and Syria when the last Ayyubid ruler died.

From 1250 to 1517 with Cairo as their capital, the Mamelukes ruled Egypt, Syria, Palestine, parts of Anatolia, and Arabia and were a bastion of Islam against repeated futile invasion attempts by Crusaders from Europe as well as more successful efforts by the MONGOLS from the east. Mameluke sultans generally rose from the ranks of commanders, although one Mameluke dynasty maintained itself in Egypt from 1299 to 1382. The Mongols had destroyed Baghdad in 1258, presumably ending the Abbasid line. Three years later the Mamelukes recognized a surviving Abbasid as caliph in Cairo, and the puppet caliphate continued there until 1517.

TURKISH ASCENDANCY

The important Turkish role in Middle Eastern history is not limited to the part played by individuals or small groups of soldiers. The Mamelukes, although powerful at times, were a minority foreign element. The Seljuks, on the other hand, were typical of a phenomenon of major population shifts that marks the entire history of the Middle East. Semitic and Indo- European-speaking peoples had migrated into the area in prehistoric and early historic times, becoming the relatively stable population that was definitively changed by the invasions of the Arabs. The next great population movement was that of various Turkic peoples from central Asia who began to enter the Middle East in large numbers during the 11th century.

Rise of the Ottomans

Among these Turkic groups that migrated into the Islamic Middle East were the Ottoman Turks. After establishing a Muslim principality in northern Anatolia, the Ottomans continued moving westward and crossed into Thrace in Europe by 1345 at the invitation of the Byzantine emperor who needed their assistance. For the next 100 years Ottoman history deals mostly with efforts to unify under their control Anatolian territories held by vassals, as well as efforts to expand Turkish control in the Balkans.

Close behind the Turks came the next wave of population, that of the Mongols who established themselves in central Asia and Persia. In the struggle against one Mongol conqueror, TIMUR, in 1402, the Ottoman state came near to collapse. Ottoman authority was finally reestablished, more firmly than before, after defeating a Christian crusade aimed at driving them out of the Balkans. MEHMED II the Conqueror (r. 1451-81) established the strong centralized Ottoman government based on its Anatolian and Rumelian (Balkan) territories. In 1453 the last remnants of the weakened Byzantine state finally collapsed when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman armies and soon thereafter became the capital of the OTTOMAN EMPIRE.

Mehmed was responsible for the formal structure of relations between the Muslim Ottoman state and its non-Muslim subjects, known as the millet system. In this system great civil as well as religious authority was granted to the Greek Orthodox patriarch, the Jewish grand rabbi, and the Armenian patriarch over their respective communities. This system was in effect until the end of the Ottoman Empire early in the 20th century.

Although the Ottoman view of their role as fighters on the borders of Islam dictated that their main theater of war for territorial expansion would be the Balkans and ultimately the rest of Christian Europe, a development to the east turned the empire to war against fellow Muslims.

Ottomans vs. Persians

After the death of Timur, Persia was ruled by his descendants (see TIMURIDS) and later by a TURKMEN dynasty. In 1501, Shah Ismail came to power and founded the new dynasty of the Safavids, under which Persia underwent a national renascence and received its identity as a Shiite nation, which it has preserved until today. The Shiite-Sunni rivalry led to intermittent warfare between Persia and the Ottomans beginning in 1502. When the Ottoman sultan SELIM I (r. 1512-20) fought against Shah Ismail of Persia, eastern Anatolia, which for years had been under Mameluke rule, was conquered by the Turks.

This brought the Mamelukes into the conflict in 1516 and resulted in the rapid defeat of the Mameluke armies in Syria and the occupation of Egypt in 1517. Thus, both the Mameluke sultanate and the puppet Abbasid caliphate in Cairo were destroyed by the Ottomans, and both Egypt and Syria, as well as the holy cities of Islam in Arabia, became part of the Ottoman Empire.

The struggle between the Ottomans and Persia had strong religious elements, each side seeing the other as heretics. The warfare itself resulted in periodic conquest and reconquest of Iraq, Azerbaijan, and parts of the Caucasus and eastern Anatolia by one side or the other.

Ottomans vs. Europeans

With its vast expansion by the 16th century the Ottoman Empire, heretofore facing minor European forces such as the Serbians, Albanians, and Walachians, now began to come into contact with a number of European powers. The Portuguese, who had closed the Red Sea to international shipping during the Mameluke period, using the route around Africa instead, dominated the southern approaches until a Turkish campaign opened the Red Sea in 1538. The conquest of the Balkans brought the Ottomans into a deep involvement in internal Hungarian affairs and control of that country by 1541. This, in turn, involved Austria and Poland, which saw themselves as next in line as potential conquests.

Whereas during the 15th and 16th centuries Turkish arms were generally victorious both in Europe and the Middle East, by the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries a period of decline set in. The government of the empire was no longer in the hands of strong sultans but of chief ministers (viziers) who represented rival cliques in the palace and the royal harem. Corruption increased; the JANISSARIES--an Ottoman military corps resembling the Mamelukes, but consisting mostly of levies of Christian youths--became a more powerful factor in the state; revenue declined; and several European powers became important trading factors in the Middle East.

The rise of Europe, and the simultaneous decline of the Ottomans and of the East in general, led to the situation at the end of the 17th century when European powers were not only victorious in battle after battle but were beginning to interfere in the internal affairs of both the Ottoman Empire and Persia. Perhaps the most important reason for this development was the rise of science and technology in the west and the lack of comparable development in the east. Just as the Ottomans had overcome the Mamelukes because of their mastery of new advances in gunpowder and firearms, they were eventually defeated on various fronts by the application of newer techniques than those used by their forces.

The Austrians and the newly powerful Russians began to push the Turks out of Europe. The symbol of this effort was the successful European defense of Vienna in 1683, which marked the farthest point the Turks were able to reach. The 18th century saw a constant pressure by Austria and Russia, the former in the Balkans, the latter in the Ukraine and Crimea as well as in the Balkans.

In the Treaty of Kuchuk Kainarji, which ended the first major RUSSO-TURKISH WAR in 1774, a new religious factor emerged that became important in later years. The Ottoman sultan asserted his claim to religious leadership of Islam by assuming the title of caliph. At the same time the Russian rulers put forth their own ambitions to represent the Greek Orthodox subjects of the Ottomans.

THE 19TH CENTURY

In 1798 the first decisive European involvement in the Middle East itself took place with the Egyptian expedition of Napoleon Bonaparte (later NAPOLEON I). In France's war against England, Bonaparte planned to deliver a blow to Britain's Indian empire by conquering Egypt. The French army that landed in Alexandria easily defeated the Mameluke cavalry, which the Ottomans had permitted to continue to serve as Egypt's military force. The British sent their navy to the eastern Mediterranean, however, and destroyed the French fleet. Only by concluding a treaty with Turkey, restoring Egypt to its control, were the French able to repatriate their army.

Muhammad Ali and Egypt

The French expedition to Egypt had several important consequences. It focused European attention on the Middle East and the weakness of the Turks in that area and thus turned it into another theater for imperial expansion. In 1805 the Ottomans recognized MUHAMMAD ALI, an Albanian military commander who had succeeded in driving out the Ottoman governor of Egypt, as governor of that province.

In 1811, Muhammad Ali had the remaining Mamelukes massacred and took over absolute control of Egypt. He built up a powerful army and a strong naval force, took over most of the land, organized state monopolies of trade, and introduced the cultivation of cotton and hemp. He also conquered the Sudan and, in a war with the Ottomans, gained control of Syria, southern Anatolia, and Arabia.

The intervention of the European powers, which were alarmed by his growing power, ended the second war between Muhammad Ali and the sultan in 1839-41. Egypt lost control of Crete and Syria, but Muhammad Ali and his family's hereditary rule were recognized in Egypt.

Under a son of Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Said (r. 1854-63), EGYPT was opened to greater foreign economic involvement with the granting of the Suez Canal concession to France. This involvement grew even stronger under ISMAIL PASHA (r. 1863-79), who set out to modernize Egypt and borrowed huge sums at usurious rates of interest to carry through vast public works. The SUEZ CANAL was opened in 1869, but within a few years Ismail had to sell his shares in the Suez Canal Company to the British because of his financial problems.

The tremendous debts incurred by Ismail led to ever greater European control. By 1878 an Englishman was appointed minister of finance and a Frenchman minister of public works, and in 1879 it was declared that they could not be removed from office without the consent of Britain and France. Egyptian officers led an uprising that was suppressed during 1882 when Egypt was placed under direct British control.

The "Sick Man of Europe"

Attempts at reform in the Ottoman Empire followed the continued loss of territories due to nationalist uprisings in the Balkans that were encouraged by various European powers. Russian demands to be able to intervene on behalf of all Orthodox subjects led to the CRIMEAN WAR (1853-56) and the growing dependence of the Turks on Britain and France. Insurrection in Syria in 1860-61 and conflict between the DRUZES and Christian Maronites in Lebanon led to French intervention and a special status for Lebanon to protect its Christian population.

Efforts at liberalization of the regime proceeded until shortly after the accession of Sultan ABD AL-HAMID II (r. 1876-1909). He initially accepted promulgation of a constitution, but he soon suspended it, dismissed parliament, and devoted himself to the reestablishment of his absolute power. The empire was now the "Sick Man of Europe," and all that kept it from division among the European powers was their own inability to agree on joint action and their intense rivalries.

The revolution of the YOUNG TURK movement in 1908 forced Sultan Abd al-Hamid to restore the constitution of 1876. The growth of Turkish nationalism, however, caused gradual disillusionment of minority nationalities--such as the Armenians--with the promises of the revolution. Abd al-Hamid was deposed in 1909, and a constitutional monarchy was instituted that lasted until a coup overthrew it in 1913.

Qajar Rule in Persia

In Persia, too, the rise of the new Qajar dynasty (1794-1925) led to increasing European involvement that eventually brought the country to a state of economic submission to Russian and British interests. In 1905 a Persian revolution broke out, directed at the elimination of foreign interests and control and against the shah's chief minister who was held responsible. Muhammad Ali Shah (r. 1907-09) was hostile to the revolutionary movement and tried to fight it, at first on his own and later with Russian assistance.

In 1907 the Anglo-Russian Entente was concluded, by which those two nations divided Persia into spheres of influence--the northern half Russian and the southern British. Internal conflict within Persia led to growing Russian domination of the country until World War I.

Thus, by 1914 and the outbreak of war in Europe, Persia, the Ottoman Empire, and Egypt were all subject to varying degrees of European involvement and pressure. Moreover, in 1914 the Ottoman Empire signed a secret treaty of alliance with Germany. Within months of that treaty Russia declared war on the Ottoman state, and the Middle East became one of the battlefields of World War I.

THE 20TH CENTURY

The impact of WORLD WAR I on the Middle East was, in the long run, as profound as it was on Europe. It destroyed the old order and set into motion various trends and movements that have still not run their course. The multinational empire of the Ottomans was the first and most obvious victim of the war. The alignment of the Ottomans with the Germans and the Austrians against the British, the French, the Russians, and, ultimately, the Americans, was a decisive factor in the empire's collapse.

Even during the war the British and the French developed plans for the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, essentially dividing it between themselves, but the forces of modern nationalism, which had been developing among various groups in the area, eventually played an even more important role in shaping the region's future.

Varieties of Nationalism

Modern nationalism was a foreign concept imported into the Middle East during the 19th century both by students who had been sent abroad to study and by foreign missionaries and educators who had established institutions in the Middle East. Although to pious Muslims the concept seemed to run against the basic ideas of the faith, ample precedent existed in the Islamic world for ideas like nationalism.

The old cleavages had been first and foremost between Muslim and non-Muslim, then between Shiite and Sunni, then between Turk and non-Turk. The last division became the entering wedge of nationalism in the mid-19th century. During that period an Egyptian nationalism developed and was encouraged by the ruling family in their desire to be recognized as independent and legitimate rulers of a sovereign state.

Turkish nationalism differed from the Egyptian version in that the Turks emphasized their linguistic and religious identity, whereas the Egyptians--at this period--stressed the glories of Egypt going back to Pharaonic times. In theory, at least, this Egyptian nationalism was all-inclusive; Christians and Jews as well as Muslims who lived in Egypt shared in the ancient and glorious history of the land. Turkish nationalism, on the other hand, was closely tied to Islam, and although the Young Turk movement for a time tried to develop ties with Armenians, Greeks, and Jews, it failed in this effort.

However, although its emphasis on Islam should have allied Turkish nationalism with the two non-Turkish Muslim elements of the empire--the Arabic-speaking peoples and the KURDS--the growing emphasis on the linguistic and racial superiority of the Turks only alienated both of those groups. Islamic brotherhood and loyalty to the Ottoman dynasty, which had come to be identified with the caliphate, might have prevented the development of a separate nationalism among Arabs and Kurds--among the latter it came very late indeed--except for the existence of a Christian Arab group in Lebanon among whom the idea of a separate nationalism struck a sympathetic note.

The anti-Christian riots and massacres of the 1840s and '60s made many Christians in Lebanon and Syria move slowly in the direction of a Syrian and then a pan-Arab nationalism.

World War I helped to foster and realize these new nationalist ideas, especially when the British-inspired revolt of the Arabs, led by HUSAYN IBN ALI in Arabia, made the collapse of Ottoman arms on the southern front a reality. The British promised Husayn that an Arab state would be established south of the 36th parallel--including Syria, Iraq, and Arabia, but leaving the coastal areas of Lebanon and Palestine to future determination.

At the same time the government of India--a separate part of the British administration--promised IBN SAUD, the leader of the puritanical Muslim sect of the Wahhabis (see WAHHABISM) and ruler of central Arabia, that he could have control of all of Arabia. The British also promised the Jews support in establishing a national home in Palestine, the Greeks control of western Anatolia, the Italians southern Anatolia, and the Armenians an independent state in the eastern regions of Anatolia.

Jewish nationalism, known as ZIONISM, was a modern, European- inspired political movement, although the idea of a return to Zion, the ancient Jewish homeland of Palestine, had existed ever since the Roman conquest of the land and the imperial decrees that forbade Jews from settling in Jerusalem or its vicinity. Although small numbers of Jews had returned and settled in the land at various times and with increasing momentum during the 19th century, the Zionist colonization did not begin until about 1880. Efforts to obtain Ottoman agreement to large-scale settlement failed, but more than 150,000 Jews lived in Palestine by World War I.

By the end of the war, when the British received League of Nations mandates over Palestine (including the area soon to be called Transjordan) and Iraq, and the French received mandates over Syria and Lebanon, the foundations of a stronger Arab nationalism were laid. This nationalism, once the preserve largely of Christians, now spread among Muslims as well, who saw in imperialism and Zionism (one could also say, in Christians and in Jews) the barriers to the achievement of their national aspirations. The struggle for independence from European rule and against Jewish immigration to Palestine became the central themes in the development of Arab nationalism between the wars.

The Turkish Republic

The Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI (r. 1918-22) was presented with the Allied plan for the dismemberment of the empire and the division of Anatolia itself into Greek, Italian, and Armenian zones. Although his government eventually accepted the terms of the settlement, a nationalist party set up a provisional government at Ankara with Mustafa Kemal (later Kemal ATATURK) as president (1920-38). The nationalists, with help from Soviet Russia, succeeded in driving the Greeks and Italians out of Anatolia and in defeating the Armenians. The sultanate was abolished in 1922, and the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed the following year. In 1924 the caliphate was abolished as well, and a series of reforms was undertaken to make Turkey a secular, modern state.

With the expulsion of most of the Greek population of Anatolia and the flight of Armenians in the early part of the century, the new Turkish Republic had a largely Turkish population. Kurdish revolts were suppressed in 1925 and 1930, and efforts to assimilate the Kurds have continued until the present. Iraq's defeat in the PERSIAN GULF WAR (1991) and the breakup of the USSR and Yugoslavia heightened regional ethnic tensions and increased Turkey's strategic importance.

Modern Iran

Persia was the scene of British and Russian (both Bolshevik and anti-Bolshevik) efforts to regain control of the country at the end of the war. The confused situation resulted in a coup led by an army officer, Reza Khan, in 1921. Reza Khan soon assumed dictatorial control of the state, and in 1925 he took the throne as REZA SHAH PAHLAVI. A Persian nationalism based on identification with the glories of pre-Islamic Persia was fostered. At the same time, moves were taken to modernize the state. In 1925 the name of the country was officially changed to the ancient native name, Iran. When World War II broke out, the British and Soviets sought Iran's cooperation in using the territory as a means of supplying the USSR. Reza Shah was forced to abdicate in 1941, and his son, MUHAMMAD REZA PAHLAVI, succeeded him.

After World War II the USSR supported separatist movements in the Azerbaijan and Kurdistan areas of Iran but with-drew support under pressure from the United States and Britain. A long struggle for nationalization of the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1952-54 led to the establishment of a nationalist government led by Premier Muhammad MOSADDEQ, who was given dictatorial powers. A conflict between Mosaddeq and the shah in 1953 ended in victory for the shah. The shah's repression and pressure to modernize Iran, however, united leftist groups and Shiite religious elements against the government. Unrest culminated in the ouster (January 1979) of the shah and the establishment of an Islamic republic under the Ayatollah Ruhollah KHOMEINI.

The new regime manifested marked hostility toward the United States, a longtime supporter of the shah. From November 1979 to January 1981, U.S. embassy personnel in Tehran were held hostage (see IRANIAN HOSTAGE CRISIS), and terrorists linked to Iran seized hostages in Lebanon. The regime's efforts to consolidate its power were hampered by the prolonged IRAN-IRAQ WAR (1980-88). In 1990, Iraq acceded to Iran's peace terms, and diplomatic ties were restored. Iran remained neutral in the Gulf War. After the war it moved to establish ties with the new Muslim republics of the former USSR.

The State of Israel

Undoubtedly the most dramatic development in the modern Middle East and the one causing the greatest continuing unrest has been the emergence of the Jewish state of Israel in Palestine. Despite the obligations undertaken in the BALFOUR DECLARATION of 1917 to aid in the establishment of a Jewish homeland, the British did all in their power to frustrate Zionist aims in the interwar years.

At the same time they did not fulfill all their commitments to various Arab leaders. Jewish settlement in Palestine and the creation of quasi-governmental institutions by the Jewish community between 1920 and 1948--when the British relinquished their mandate over Palestine under growing pressure from both Jews and Arabs--came into conflict with newly emerging Arab nationalism, concepts of a Greater Syria held by many Arab Christians in the area, and Islamic ideas of the inviolability of Islamic territory. Palestine, as the Holy Land of Judaism and Christianity, and also a sacred area to Islam, was therefore a center of religious and nationalist conflict.

Sporadic Arab riots against Jewish settlement broke out in Palestine in 1921 and 1929, flaring up into a protracted period of almost open warfare in 1936, until World War II put a temporary end to it. British proposals to settle the question mostly called for a curtailment of Jewish immigration--at a time when Nazi persecution of European Jews meant that a haven was desperately needed.

After the war the virtual closing of Palestine to Jewish immigration began a struggle between the British and various underground Jewish military groups, some of which resorted to terrorism. In 1947 the British announced their intention to withdraw and threw the question of the future of Palestine into the hands of the United Nations. That newly formed organization voted to partition Palestine into two states, a Jewish and an Arab one, with international status for the city of Jerusalem.

Although reluctantly accepted by the Jews, the partition plan was rejected by the Arabs, and when Britain left Palestine in May 1948 and the Jews proclaimed the new state of Israel, seven Arab states invaded Palestine; the first ARAB-ISRAELI war had begun. The outcome of that war--and of subsequent Arab-Israeli conflicts in 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982--was the enlargement of Israel's territory at the expense of its neighbors and the creation of a large body of Arab refugees from Palestine, most of whom have remained in camps since the two major conflicts (1948, 1967) until today.

In the years after Israel's creation in 1948 it developed as a dynamic democratic society with rapid economic growth in spite of limited resources. This growth resulted largely from the emphasis on modern technology, and it involved considerable investment by Jewish communities in other parts of the world. From 1948--when it had a Jewish population of about 750,000--to 1989, Israel absorbed about 2 million Jewish refugees from European and Arab countries.

It also has about 700,000 Arab citizens. Another 1.7 million Palestinian Arabs live under its rule in areas occupied in the 1967 war. A massive wave of immigration by Soviet Jews began late in 1989. It was predicted that Soviet Jews would become the largest ethnic group in Israel, but the arrival of so many immigrants strained the economy. The Palestinian uprising (INTIFADA) in the occupied territories that began in December 1987 and the subsequent severing (1988) of Jordanian administrative and legal ties to the West Bank highlighted the need to resolve the Palestinian question, as did the growing rivalry between the secular PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANIZATION (PLO) and Islamic groups (see MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD). On Sept. 13, 1993, Israel and the PLO signed an accord on Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.

Additional self-rule accords were signed in 1994, although the status of Jerusalem and other controversial issues remained unresolved and violence by radical Palestinians continued. The 1994 Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty and other Arab moves toward accommodation with Israel further raised hopes for regional peace.

Arab Nationalism

A striking and important development of the late 1950s, which became important after the 1967 war, was the growth of a Palestinian national movement as a part of the general movement of Arab nationalism. Compared with other Middle Eastern nationalism--Turkish, Iranian, Jewish, even Kurdish and Armenian--Arab nationalism has had the most difficult task of defining its identity and aims.

In the earliest days of Islam and during the Umayyad period there was a clear distinction between Arab and non-Arab. The conversion of vast numbers of Aramaic, Coptic, and other Middle Eastern Christians, as well as Jews, to Islam led to the creation of the widespread Arabic- speaking population that stretches from the Iranian border to the Atlantic Ocean. The consciousness of constituting an Arab nation came to this group rather late and was in constant conflict with local nationalisms--especially Syrian, Lebanese, and Egyptian.

Only with the rise to power in Egypt of Gamal Abdel NASSER (r. 1954-70), who espoused and led the cause of Arab nationalism, did an Arab movement arise that had a charismatic leader around whom it could rally. Attempts to form a United Arab Republic linking Egypt and Syria in 1958 collapsed in 1961, however, and the Arab world remains divided over whether the ultimate goal of Arab nationalism should be the creation of a single political entity.

The PLO, Jordan, and Lebanon

Within this problematic area of Arab nationalism, two specific areas caused major unrest in recent years, both tied in some way with the Arab-Israeli conflict. One was the effort of the PLO, founded in 1964 primarily within the refugee community, to use neighboring countries as a base of terrorist operations against Israel. Because the number of Palestinians within Jordan is large--larger, in fact, than the original Transjordan population--the PLO was once almost in control of the country.

In September 1970, King HUSSEIN of Jordan began military operations to break the hold of the PLO on the country. He succeeded, causing the PLO to move the center of its operations to the country with the second-largest concentration of Palestinians outside of historic Palestine--namely, Lebanon.

The area of Lebanon since about the 11th century had been the home of two disparate religious groups--the MARONITES, a once- heretical Christian group that became part of the Roman Catholic church, and the DRUZES, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Later other Christian and Muslim groups settled there, so that modern Lebanon, which came under French mandate after World War I, became a mosaic of most of the Christian and Muslim groups to be found in the Middle East.

When Lebanon became independent after World War II, a "gentleman's agreement" divided all government positions among the various Christian and Muslim sects according to a numerical formula. However, steady Muslim population growth and equally steady Christian emigration to the West upset the balance between the two communities. The rise of Arab nationalist sentiment among part of the population clashed with the local Lebanese patriotism of the Maronites and led to civil war in 1958--ended only by the landing of U.S. troops--and again in 1975-76. Sporadic violence continued, complicated by Syrian intervention, the seizure of foreign hostages by Iranian-backed terrorist organizations such as HEZBOLLAH, and the PLO's efforts to mount raids against Israel from southern Lebanon.

These efforts not only brought a confrontation between the PLO and the government, but also provoked the retaliation of Israel, which invaded Lebanon in 1982. In 1990 constitutional amendments established political equality between Muslims and Christians. Hopes for reuniting the country later increased as its rival armies were disarmed and a Syrian-brokered peace accord appeared to take hold.

Big-Power Rivalry, Oil, and Arab Radicalism

After World War II and the withdrawal of the British and French from the area, the USSR and the United States became deeply involved in the Middle East. The USSR maintained close ties with radical Arab regimes, while the United States supplied arms to Israel and other allies. Many events taking place before 1990, including the lack of an overall Arab-Israeli settlement, must be seen in the context of big-power competition.

Further adding to the political complexities of the present-day Middle East has been the great importance of oil. Dramatic oil- price rises in the 1970s by members of the ORGANIZATION OF PETROLEUM EXPORTING COUNTRIES and the cutting off of oil supplies to the West by Arab oil producers during the 1973 Arab -Israeli War had a profound impact on the world economy. Many nations remained heavily dependent on Middle Eastern oil, and the prolonged Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) and the damage to Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil facilities during the 1991 Persian Gulf War emphasized the fragility of the oil supply line.

In most Middle Eastern countries the reformist-modernist movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries have given way to more radical ideologies. Those wishing change within the framework of Islam--particularly fundamentalists inspired by the 1979 Iranian revolution--tend to reject the changes of the past 50 to 100 years as non-Muslim in form and content and wish to restore clerical control of the state. Both the fundamentalists and the radicals of the secular left reject the West and its cultural heritage.

The Persian Gulf War and the Peace Process

The 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait provoked almost universal condemnation and shattered the myth of Arab unity. A new set of alliances emerged, with Egypt, Syria, and the Gulf sheikhdoms joining the U.S.-led alliance against Iraq, Iran and Israel on the sidelines, and the PLO uneasily backing Iraq. An estimated 5 million people were temporarily or permanently displaced by the crisis. Saddam HUSSEIN remained in control of Iraq and temporarily massed troops on the Kuwait border in October 1994. But the 1993 and 1994 accords on Palestinian self-rule between Israel and the PLO (for which Israeli leaders Yitzhak RABIN and Shimon PERES and PLO leader Yasir ARAFAT shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize) and the 1994 Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty held the promise of reducing some tensions in the region.