Where is the Middle east?

Exploring an Amero-European Construction

Our president, Hadeel Hamoud, writes about our exploration of the term, “Middle East,” its history, usage, context according to various regions across the world, and the endless perspectives about the term itself.

history of the term

“Middle East” is an unstable and relatively recent political construction. The term appeared in an 1899 article by General T. E. Godron, titled “The Problem of the Middle East.” Gordon didn’t claim to coin the term or feel it necessary to define the area, suggesting the term may have originated even earlier. Nevertheless, historians and scholars credit American naval officer Alfred T. Mahan with coining the term in 1902 when calling for the British to strengthen their naval power in the Persian Gulf in the National Review. Mahan needed a term to refer to the area “guarding a part of the sea route from Suez to Singapore,” [1] the territory “between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean,” [2] or in other words, the region between the ‘Near East’ based on Turkey and the ‘Far East’ based on China.

Accordingly, Mahan’s conceptualization of the term comes from a naval, imperialist perspective rather than geographical, linguistic, or cultural one. In fact, “in spite of their recent origin, their rather parochial outlook, and their obsolete global projection, these terms, Middle East in particular, have won world-wide acceptance and are now used to designate their countries even in regions for which in fact they lie to the North, the West, or the South; even most remarkable of all, in the Middle East itself.” [3] Later, the term was popularized by Valentine Chirol, chief of the foreign department of The Times. After returning to Persia and neighboring lands while going to India in 1902-1903, Chirol wrote a series of articles under the title “The Middle Eastern Question” and a few months after published a book The Middle Eastern Question or Some Political Problems of Indian Defence. The series and book “marked the first sustained public use of the new term.” [4] For Chirol, the Middle East included “those regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India, and which are consequently bound up with the problems of Indian political as well as military defence.” [5]

Other designations that have been used to categorize countries and territories in the region are Near East, western Asia, eastern Mediterranean, the Arab world, and more. [6]

PRevious Maps

Maps are tools of power. In 1569, mapmaker Geradus Mercator created the world map most recognizable today. However, the Mercator projection is nowhere near to scale and “vastly exaggerates aged imperialist power” by centering Europe and enlarging North America at the expense of continents like Africa and South America. [7] Maps are accordingly not objective, factual representations of the real world; instead, they are tools for leveraging existing power dynamics to dominate discourse around understanding the world. Money, people, and systems tied to capitalism and imperialism reinforce the truthfulness of maps.

With this in mind, we offer an exploration of historical representations of the region. These resources include maps that expose the ambiguity and complexity of the etymology of the “Middle East”.

1. University of North Carolina Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies: Where is the Middle East?

2. Vox News: 40 Maps Illustrating the Middle East

Perspectives from the Region

Coming Soon!

How and Why We are Defining the Region

“Middle East” has evolved beyond naval importance or proximal relevance to India and the Far East but still relies on Amero-European agendas. Scholar Osamah F. Khalil explains that the Middle East’s geographical boundaries have shifted to reflect the “strategic interests of the major hegemonic power in the region, initially Britain and later the United States.” [8] To this end, scholar Nile Green contends that the “Middle East” as a closed, formal geographical model has outlived its usefulness. Nevertheless, these analytical categories “trace forms of connectivity and commonality” [9] and treatment of the region has manifested intimate dynamics and connections in history, politics, culture, and society. Still, the rise of global, interconnected history continues to challenge “the closedness and fixity of the traditional area studies paradigm.” [10]

Consequently, we at Juhood Magazine have adopted a broader version of the term, MENA+, that includes many countries in ambiguity. This is not a limited definition but simply bounds our area of study in some critical way that considers shared geography, region, culture, history, and language. We recognize that this approach still carries limitations, and we acknowledge an emergent theoretical conceptualization that emphasizes the globality of this history. However, we hope this recognition and acknowledgement is evident in our expansive, broader approach. Moreover, conversations about our epistemological framework for the region are ongoing and underlie our scholarship.

Countries Currently Included in Our Map

Africa

• Morocco

• Algeria

• Tunisia

• Libya

• Egypt

• Sudan

• Somalia

• Eritrea

• Mauritania

• Western Sahara

• Djibouti

Central Asia

• Turkmenistan

• Uzbekistan

• Afghanistan

South Asia

• Pakistan

Other Resources

1. TeachMideast: An Educational Initiative of the Middle East Policy Council - What is the Middle East?

2. Middle Eastern Studies. “Captain Mahan, General Gordon, and the Origins of the Term ‘Middle East.’” Clayton R. Koppes. Vol. 12, No. 1 (Jan., 1976), pp. 95-98.

3. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. “Rethinking the “Middle East” after the Oceanic Turn.” Duke University Press (2014). 34 (3): 556–564.

4. Foreign Affairs. “Where Is the Middle East?" Roderic H. Davison. July 1960.

REferences

[1] A.T. Mahan (1960), “The Persian Gulf and International Relations” The National Review, September 1902, 38-39, Roderic H. Davison, “Where is the Middle East?” Foreign Affairs 38 : 667-668.

[2] Koppes, C. (1976). Captain Mahan, General Gordon, and the Origins of the Term 'Middle East'. Middle Eastern Studies, 12(1), 95-98.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6]  “Where is the Middle East?” U.N.C. Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies.

[7] Hames Hitchings-Hales, “Your World Map Is Wrong. So Wrong. See How the World Really Looks” Global Citizen (2018).

[8] Osamah Khalil, “The Crossroads of the World: U.S. and British Foreign Policy Doctrines and the Construct of the Middle East, 1902-2007” Diplomatic History (2014).

[9] Nile Green “Rethinking the “Middle East After the Oceanic Turn”. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (2014).

[10] Ibid.