I share this text because I agree with it, except perhaps for the conclusion.
"The Middle East is a region at the crossroads of three continents: Africa, Asia, and Europe, a meeting point between the Mediterranean, Indian, Asian, European, Caucasian, and African worlds.
When humanity emerged from Africa, it was from the Middle East that humans spread to the corners of the earth.
It is in this region that the first civilizations were born: agriculture, writing, trade, the first cities, the first beliefs, the first temples, the first states, as well as the first armies, the first intrigues, the first wars, and the first massacres that have influenced the world as we know it today in all its aspects. Without the Middle East, ancient Greece would not be the ancient Greece we know.
It is also from this region that the monotheistic religions that dominate the world today emerged, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The birthplace of the greatest prophets and righteous figures of the Bible and the Quran, it is also the origin of some of the greatest oppressors, criminals, and injustices in the history of humanity.
A region renowned for its wealth, to the extent that it witnessed the rise of Croesus and Cyrus and the fall of Crassus and Alexander. From Egypt to Babylon, from Persepolis to Ephesus, from the kingdom of Sheba to Constantinople, from Pergamon to Alexandria, from Jerusalem to Mecca, from Antioch to Baghdad, from Damascus to Isfahan, this region has always been coveted, dreamt of, and fantasized about throughout history.
In short, it is the Middle East, our beloved region, but also a region that leaves us with a feeling of heaviness, a melancholy that blends anger and love.
Everything began here, and everything will end here."
That was nice. The Middle East is where civilization began. It was polytheistic and multicultural for thousands of years. Various empires arose - Assyrian, Babylonian, Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, Egyptian, Helenistic, Roman, Byzantine, ...
It thrived. It was a place of refuge for Jews during the Inquisition and pogroms in Europe.
The Middle East has made many cultural and scientific contributions, including: Mathematics Muslim scholars introduced the concept of zero, the Arabic word "algebra", and solutions to quadratic equations. The Arab numeral system was an improvement on the Hindu original.
Medicine Muslim doctors performed cataract surgery and treated kidney and gallstones. Ibn Sina's al-Qanun fi al-Tibb (The Canons of Medicine) was the first to recognize tuberculosis as contagious and identify meningitis.
Astronomy Arab astronomers calculated the Earth's diameter and knew it was round. Many stars still have Arabic names, such as Deneb, which is the Arabic word for "tail".
Calendar The Arabs reformed the calendar, which has a margin of error of only one day in five thousand years.
Weights and measures The Arabs developed weights and measures that are still used in everyday commerce.
The alphabet The invention of the alphabet is considered one of the greatest accomplishments of the ancient Middle East.
The three-course meal Persian musician, poet, and teacher Ziryab invented the three-course meal in 9th-century Andalusia.
The clock The system of counting from zero to 60 originated in Sumer, modern-day Iran and Iraq, around 2000 BC.
The shopping mall The shopping mall is derived from the pre-modern bazaar, which was prevalent in the Middle East.
Philosophy and poetry
It even preserved the knowledge of Athens when Europe fell into the Dark Ages.
The Middle East was more sophisticated than Europe. Aside from the rise and fall of various empires, people of that region were NOT fighting each other for thousands of years. The Judean scholars who wrote the Torah (Old Testament) in the 5th through 2nd centuries BC, along with Biblical scholars and, later, Zionists created a false narrative.
Problems began after WWI, when imperialistic, Allied governments carved up the Ottoman Empire into arbitrary borders and established neocolonial, puppet governments in order to steal resources. That eventually led to a backlash with Islamic revolutions in the 1980s.
Then a Jewish state was foisted on the region. Zionists were exclusionary and antagonistic from the very beginning. They have wrought hostility, misery and devastation ever since.
So blame the west for recent problems in the Middle East.
No I don't buy that because the development of agriculture and cities happened independently in Paleoamerica.
That is, nomadic humans were already in the Western Hemisphere by the time agriculture was invented in the Middle East. Yet, in the New World (pre-Columbian Western Hemisphere), agriculture and cities were already established. Their civilizations arose independently from the Middle Eastern civilizations.
Other areas on Earth, such as the Indus River Valley in South Asia and maybe the Yangtze River Valley in China, developed independently.
That is perhaps true, but the fact that others discovered and developed things independently is critical. It means that those who did it first were not required to be able to do it. This removes the specialness of the Middle East in this regard.
THIS: "It means that those who did it first were not required to be able to do it." was poorly written.
The development of civilization happens regardless of who did it first. So, that first civilization is not necessary toward the development of later civilizations.
It depends what he means. We don't know if it all ends here. But if he's talking about everything starting here, the first civilization, etc., then yes, it's true.
I'm not so sure about that. That's been conventional wisdom for a long time, but, given that pottery has been found over much of Eurasia as far back as the alleged start of agriculture (around 10000 to 80 years BP), that hints at the development of civilizations elsewhere at the same time as in the Middle East.
Agriculture was created because it was a solution to a problem faced by nomadic humans. That problem (climate change) likely appeared in other parts of Earth as well.
Anthropology is not exactly a hard deterministic science like mathematics. It is difficult to be certain of anything very specific. The Encyclopedia Britannica says Sumer in Mesopotamia was the first KNOWN civilization, but that it began only about 4500 years BCE (so about 6500 BP). Agriculture is older than that and, where's there's agriculture, then you begin to get civilization.
The problem is that a civilization can't be summed up by agriculture alone, which would be reductive, and we also need to talk about the level of development of this agriculture, if we really want to talk about this particular subject.
The Sumerian civilization didn't just develop agriculture.
And you have to take the text as a whole, not just summarize it in terms of agriculture.
I'll simply say this: Without agriculture, you won't have civilization because you don't need civilization. If you can be nomadic and survive, then you don't need civilization. But, when circumstances force your hand and you need a predictable food source, then you turn to agriculture. And, once you have a surplus of food, then civilization starts.
James Burke explains it well in the very first episode, "The Trigger Effect" of "Connections: An Alternative View of Change by James Burke". Civilization starts with the plow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XetplHcM7aQ
Once again, we must not reduce the text to the question of agriculture, and that depends on what level of agriculture we are talking about.
And it's even more important to reduce civilization only to just that.
prehistoric man practiced agriculture, but it's not quite at the same level as the agriculture produced by the Romans, for example, and Roman agriculture is different from today's agriculture.
@abc3645. There are a few paleolithic societies that didn't farm and were not nomadic - they fished instead. In the USA the Pacific Northwest and Japan come to mind. Even so, great reasoned reply!!
You started your writing about it by saying that you agree with it. What exactly do you agree wit? 🤔
You didn't mention anything about Jerusalem or Jesus Christ and the holy land. It's part of the history as well, right? That's very important to mention because that is what people need to know most about if they want to know history about the importance of Jerusalem and what is to come in our future. ✝️☮️
@d0x000 no not if it works for everyone involved. Nothing wrong with being your own person, honoring your culture and leaving others alone when they do the same.
I agree with you that historically speaking it is extremely significant and even still today it sort of is. The region is incredibly rich in history, landscapes and culture. However in the last century it's really gone down hill with all the wars, religious extremism, human rights abuses and tourist scams. Someone also pointed out that "oil has made Arabs lazy", and they fear what will happened to the region once the oil runs out, and they're afraid we might see a rise in terrorism.
Point being, as is so often the case, shitty people always have to ruin the coolest places.
I don't care a whole lot for the Gulf States or Egypt but Turkey, Iran and the Levant I like. Oman and Yemen also seem really cool, but the people are shitty. I was fortunate enough to visit Turkey. I'd like to visit some other countries when the situation improves. At the moment, I'd only recommend Turkey (and Cyprus if you wanna consider Cyprus as Middle East)
I hate the middle east. Idc about ancient history. The place is a shit hole, the people are mostly uneducated and live in poverty and the governments are all varying on massively corrupt and useless to dangerous to allow to exist. It's all based on the muck of Islam. The USA politicians made so many mistakes here, but England and France really fucked it up post WW1.
I will only ever enter that shitty region again in uniform, I hope I never go back.
I have a difficult time understanding or even finding anything about the Middle East I like. The mentality of the people, extreme religious beliefs and the treatment of women I find abhorrent.
I won’t argue with the historical significance of the Middle East, one can’t ignore the problems the Middle East is facing due to religious and political differences.
The Middle East is what happens when backward people have a shit ton of money (from oil). If it weren't for oil, the Middle East would still be just a bunch of third world countries no one hears anything about.
You don't know. What do you find it racist, Xeno, sexist nah, I'm sure you can find something wrong with everybody on the planet except yourself. And you stay hush, hush about your fellow idiots.
Professional Historians, journals, academics, teachers and authors no longer use those terms along with oriental, Indian, savage, ancient, BC/AC, religion, 1st, 2nd, 3rd world etc.
It's not just me. Experts. Professionals. Publishers. Professors. Researchers. Archeologists. It's to more accurately convey a concept.
Nah people still call it the middle east, the military still calls it that, all military analyst so, the news does, the average person does and all serious analysis refer to the region as such.
Maybe in academia you people are so bored and self important, you're trying to get people to do dumb shit like this...
I'm a tattooed cultist woman that doesn't bow to anyone I don't respect, in a relationship with a female antitheist, a male cultist and a Jewish woman. How is it unfortunate?
None of which interest me in the slightest. Only country out there remotely safe for me is Israel, and we got terrorists kidnapping and raping civilians before murdering them. Fuck that.
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