Many historians agree that the Middle East gave birth to modern Western civilization. Sometime between eight and ten thousand years ago the inhabitants of modern Iraq invented agriculture, precipitating the agricultural revolution that so transformed civilization. Agriculture spread over the succeeding millennia, first to the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley (which roughly divides the region), then to the Nile Valley in Egypt, then to most parts of the world.
Rather than living nomadic lives, the residents of the Middle East began to gather in permanent villages, which grew into the world's first cities. As individuals accumulated wealth, they also had leisure time to spend on activities other than the daily search for food. Middle Easterners invented writing, art, literature, and architecture and began a search for God. Four of the world's great religions originated in the Middle East: Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The modern conflicts between adherents of these religions date back to the earliest beginnings of Western civilization.
Numerous civilizations, some well known, some obscure, originated in the Middle East, which was a crossroads for trade and commerce from the beginnings of recorded history. In the Nile River Valley one of the world's earliest civilizations, the Egyptians, arose more than five thousand years ago and endured nearly three millennia. At approximately the same time a civilization called Sumerian by archaeologists came into existence in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley. This civilization rivaled the Egyptians in its accomplishments.
The Egyptians and Sumerians (and the successors of the Sumerians, the Old and New Babylonian Empires) bequeathed much to Western civilization, including monumental architecture, classics of literature, writing, and various superstitions. A few of the other contributors to Western culture from the Middle East include the Hittites (the discoverers of iron), the Phoenicians (who invented the world's first true alphabet), the Lydians (who invented coined money), the Persians (who created the first large empire in the world), and the Jews, who created a religious tradition upon which many other religions (including Christianity and Islam) are based.
Alexander the Great conquered the entire region in 333-332 B. c.E., bringing about a fusion of Middle Eastern culture with that of the Greeks. Alexander and his successors adopted many of the institutions they encountered in the Middle East and passed them on to the Romans when the latter conquered the region during the second and first centuries B. c.E. After the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great in the fourth century B. c.E., a succession of foreign conquerors dominated most of the region until after World War II.
The Romans conquered all the coastal regions of the Middle East and Egypt and held them for more than four hundred years. For a brief time the Romans also conquered the Tigris-Euphrates Valley all the way to the Persian Gulf before being thrown back by the Parthians (a rejuvenated Persian Empire). The Romans spread the civilization developed in the Middle East to all parts of their empire, including modern Western Europe.
After the Roman Empire collapsed around 450 c. E., the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire dominated much of the region until the rise of Islam in the eighth century. The Islamic empire endured until both it and the remnants of the Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottoman Turks during the fifteenth century. The Ottoman Empire managed to control most of the Middle East until World
World History
