The Modern Middle East by Mehran Kamrava Page A

second edition. Whatever shortcomings remain in the book are, of course, my own responsibility. Over the years, the research that has gone into this book has benefited from the labor of a number of exceptional research assistants. For this edition I was lucky to work with Dwaa Osman and Sana Jamal, both of whom worked meticulously on many of the tables and collected much of the data that appear in the book. Naomi Schneider, my editor at the University of California Press, remains by far one of the most wonderful professionals in the publishing industry with whom I have ever worked.
    Any project of this magnitude is a product of love, and I have been extremely fortunate to be surrounded by a most loving family who selflessly gave me the time and the peace and quiet needed to complete work on this edition. My wife Melisa and our daughters, Dilara and Kendra, always provided the loving support and the emotional nourishment that I needed to work. For that, and for much more that cannot be adequately expressed in words, I dedicate this book to them.
     
    Map 1. The modern Middle East

Introduction
    This book examines the political history of the contemporary Middle East. Although it focuses primarily on the period since the demise of the Ottoman Empire, shortly after World War I, it includes some discussion of pre-Ottoman and Ottoman histories to better clarify the background and the context in which modern Middle Eastern political history has taken shape. The book uses a broad conception of the “Middle East” as a geographic area that extends from Iran in the east to Turkey, Iraq, the Arabian peninsula, the Levant (Lebanon and Syria), and North Africa, including the Maghreb, in the west. Maghreb is the Arabic word for “Occident” and has historically been used to describe areas west of Egypt. In modern times, it has come to refer to Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. Libya is also sometimes included as part of the Maghreb, but it is more commonly grouped with Egypt as belonging to North Africa.
    Although there are vast differences between and within the histories, cultures, traditions, and politics of each of these regions in the Middle East, equally important and compelling shared characteristics unify the region. By far the most important of these are language, ethnicity, and religion. Much of Middle Eastern identity is wrapped around the Arabic language. Poetry and storytelling have historically been viewed as elevated art forms. As Fouad Ajami has observed, “Poetry, it has been said, was (and is) to the Arabs what philosophy was to the Greeks, law to the Romans, and art to the Persians: the repository and purest expression of their distinctive spirit.” 1 Even in places where it is not the national language and is not widely spoken, as in Iran and in Turkey, Arabic, the language of the Quran, permeates life with its many expressions and phrases.
    Another common bond in the Middle East is Arab ethnic identity. From Iraq in the north down to the Arabian peninsula and west all the way toMorocco, ethnic Arabs predominate. There are, of course, significant clusters of other ethnic groups. A majority of Iranians are Persians, and Turks are predominant in Turkey. Apart from the so-called Arab-Israelis—Palestinians who found themselves in Israel’s borders when the country was born in 1948—Jews are the dominant group in Israel. As chapter 9 discusses, however, there is a debate as to whether Jews are members of an ethnic group or believers in a religious faith. Additionally, there are several “stateless” ethnic groups, by far the largest being the Kurds, who are mostly in southeastern Turkey, western Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syria. There are also sizable Berber communities throughout the Maghreb. But despite these diverse ethnic communities, much of the Arab world remains ethnically homogeneous and strongly identifies with its ethnicity.
    An even stronger bond uniting the region is religion, with some 97