Around 66% Arabic or languages related to Arabic, whilst 23% speak languages of the Iranian language-family. Others speak Turkic languages, Hebrew, Aramaic and a vast variety of other tongues.
In Mesopotamia (today shared by Iran and Iraq) the region has one of the cradles of world civilisation. 6,000 years ago, the oldest-known civilisation, the Sumerians, built the world’s first, city, Uruk. The earliest domestication of wheat and other cereal crops also took place in this region.
However, as a crossroads of power and ideas from Africa, Asia and Europe, the Middle East has also been a crucible. No other part of the world has been fought over so often. The relative wealth of the region has given rise to powerful Empires such as Assyria, Babylonia and Persia, and these have fought amongst themselves and with other powerful Empires in Egypt, Greece, Turkey and elsewhere.
Outsiders have sought to control the region, for its resources and for the power which control of this ‘crossroads’ brings. Such conflicts have often completely over-ridden the interests of the multiplicity of small states which have arisen in the region – including Judaea / Israel.
The region has also been the birthplace and battleground of religions – Ba’alistic paganism, Judaism, Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Islam and others.
Following the death of Mohammed in 632AD, his successors began the expansion of Islam out of Arabia and eventually to control of this whole region and beyond. Thus today, the majority of the region adheres strongly to Islam: in religion, politics, social structure and morals.
Israel is an obvious exception, and its existence is a cause of much of the region’s instability. Extremist Muslim attitudes to Israel, and Israel’s response, lie at the heart of the terrorism which afflicts so much of the world.
There are also very significant Christian minorities in many countries, some of them beleaguered and very courageous remnants of early churches which have existed continuously in suffering since before the Muslim conquest. Some of these groups have adopted doctrinal peculiarities which reflect ancient disputes within the Church and their long separation from Christians in other parts of the world.
Other Christian groups are of more recent origin and represent the fruit of patient and difficult missionary endeavour over the centuries. All Christian groups in the region face significant opposition, and in some parts the imminent threat of execution.
It is therefore a miracle that they exist at all, and are growing in some areas, often in great secrecy. Sadly, in other areas, notably Iraq, Christian numbers have declined as believers have fled the violence. A major challenge to Christians in the region is to find unity with other believers across old and bitter sectarian, ethnic or political divides.
Much of the wider Church is confused in its attitude to Israel, and also on how to react to the many Christians amongst the Palestinians.
This will continue at least until Siberian reserves are exploited to a level which challenges Middle East dominance, or until the oil runs out, many years from now. In either event, it will have changed the distribution of wealth in the world permanently.
Despite enormous revenues, and prestige projects in places like Dubai, little of this money trickles down to the region’s many poor people. Despite much protest and sabre-rattling over the running sore of the poverty of Palestinians in Gaza, the oil-rich states have not exercised their clear ability to permanently remove this poverty and bring stability and growth to Gaza.
The majority of people in the Middle East want nothing more for themselves and their children than to live in peace and prosperity. But the Middle East continues to have the potential to engulf the whole world in conflict. The activities of al-Qaeda, and a radicalised Iran, for example, seem to threaten all of us, and evoke strong responses. It is no wonder that much of the world – religious or secular - uses the name of a place in this region to represent a cataclysmic final conflict – Armageddon.
This Middle East region is of course the setting for most history as related in the Bible, and the place where the Lord Jesus chose to walk on Earth. As such it must be a specially-precious region to every Christian and a focal point for our activity.
WorldShare has a deep commitment in partnership with a number of ministries in the region.
