Middle Eastern history

Which dessert is named after the heroic third-century Queen Zenobia of Palmyra?

In early 1946, Kurds declared an independent republic in north-west Iran.

From Timur's tent in Samarqand to Shah 'Abbas's palace in Isfahan and Humayun's tomb in Delhi, the pavilion has been an integral part of Persianate gardens since its earliest appearance at the Achaemenid garden in Pasargadae in the sixth century BC.

Contemporary political events have generated a strong interest in minorities in the Middle East.

A mixture of travelogue, history and war journalism, Allah's Mountains tells the story of the conflict between a nation of mountain tribes and the might of the Russian army.

In the troubled island of Cyprus, the national interests and rivalries of Greece and Turkey still collide, the population remains divided between the Greek and Turkish communities and the country is still a cat's paw of outside powers - especially the USA and the now resurgent Russia - as it has been since the acquisition of the island by Britain in 1878.

The conclusion of World War I and the subsequent breakup of the Ottoman Empire led to theindependence of a number of Arab nations and resulted in a Western scramble for roles ofcontrol and influence over them.

The geopolitical importance of the Gulf region is a source both of great interest and great tension.

As the only oil producer with sufficient spare capacity to shape the world economy, Saudi Arabia is one of the most significant states in twenty-first century geopolitics.

The profound effects of the British Empire's actions in the Arab World during the First World War can be seen echoing through the history of the 20th century.

'Romanticism had its roots in fantasy and fed on myth'.

Gandhi's involvement in Middle Eastern politics is largely forgotten yet it goes to the heart of his teaching and ambition - to lead a united freedom movement against British colonial power.

Tulips and coffee are defining cultural products of the Ottoman eighteenth century, along with their related institutions of palace and coffeehouse.

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From their ancestral heartland by the shores of the Aral Sea, the medieval Oghuz Turks marched westwards in search of dominion.

It has often been assumed that the subjects of the Ottoman sultans were unable to travel beyond their localities - since peasants needed the permission of their local administrators before they could leave their villages.

The on-going crisis in Syria has not only affected those caught within the country's borders, but with the deluge of refugees fleeing the violence, it has also had an impact on the surrounding countries.

The start of the twentieth century ushered in a period of unprecedented change in the Middle East.

Since the beginning of 2011, the political situation in Syria has consistently found itself at the top of news broadcasts, newspaper headlines and the agendas of politicians.

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Beirut is the cultural, commercial and economic hub of Lebanon.

Yemen, tucked into the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, has often escaped regional and international attention.

International Arms Trade has always been a powerful and multi-functional constituent of world politics and international diplomacy.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century Turkey experienced an extraordinary set of transformations.

The 1979 Revolution in Iran caused the migration of millions of Iranians, many of whom wrote, and are still writing, of their experiences.

The Umayyad caliphate, ruling over much of what is now the modern Middle East after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, governe from Damascus from 661 to750CE, when they were expelled by the Abbasids.

Buraimi is an oasis in an otherwise bleak desert on the border between Oman and the UAE.

The political economy of Iran underwent the fundamental transition from feudalism to modernity from the early 19th to the 20th century: a period which was a vital watershed in Iran's historical development.

Since the Iranian Revolution, the close alliance between Syria and Iran has endured for over three decades, based on geopolitical interests between the two states and often framed in the language of resistance.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in support of a Marxist-Leninist government, and the subsequent nine-year conflict with the indigenous Afghan Mujahedeen was one of the bloodiest conflicts of the Cold War.

The reign of the founder of Cairo, the fourth Fatimid Imam-caliph al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah (341-365/953-975), marks a watershed in the transformation of the Fatimid state from a regional North African dynasty to an expansive Mediterranean empire.

Abu Sa'id 'Abd al-Hayy Gardizi was a Persian author and historian living in the mid-eleventh century at the height of the Turkish Ghazvanid dynasty.

In the decades since Edward Said first christened the term 'Orientalism', the discourse on the West's historical representation of the East has been inundated with new literature.

Over ninety years since their absorption into the modern Iraqi state, the Kurdish people of Iraq still remain an apparent anomaly in the modern world - a nation without a state.

The Copts of Egypt, who consist of 10-15 per cent of the population, have traditionally been viewed as a 'beleaguered and persecuted minority'.

The Iranian nuclear crisis has dominated world politics since the beginning of the century, with the country now facing increasing diplomatic isolation, talk of military strikes against its nuclear facilities and a disastrous Middle East war.

The conclusion of World War I and the subsequent breakup of the Ottoman Empire led to the independence of a number of Arab nations and resulted in a Western scramble for roles of control and influence over them.

Why does an officer in an elite regiment - the Grenadier Guards - exchange a prestigious and privileged career in the British Army for service among desert tribes in harsh and unforgiving territory, and in the seemingly insoluble conflict of the turbulent Arab world?

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The great German theologian Albert Schweitzer famously drew a line under nineteenth-century historical Jesus research by showing that at the bottom of the well lay not the face of Joseph's son, but rather the features of all the New Testament scholars who had tried to reveal his elusive essence.

In early 1946, Kurds declared an independent republic in north-west Iran.

After the British occupation of Jerusalem in December 1917, the newly appointed governor Ronald Storrs met with the Spanish consul Conde de Ballobar.

The flowering of the 'Abbasid caliphate between 750 and 1258 CE is often considered the classical age of Islamic civilization.

The rapid expansion of the early Islamic world is conventionally ascribed to a combination of perceptive military leadership and religious fervour.

Beginning in January 2011, the Arab world exploded in a vibrant demand for dignity, liberty, and achievable purpose in life, rising up against an image and tradition of arrogant, corrupt, unresponsive authoritarian rule.

Roman Catholics constitute the most populous religious denomination in the United States, comprising one in four Americans.

The overwhelming majority of Jews who laid the foundations of the Israeli state during the first half of the twentieth century came from the Polish lands and the Russian Empire.

In 1974, the International Congress on World Evangelization met in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Mesopotamia, the world's earliest literate culture, developed a rich philosophical conception of representation in which the world was saturated with signs.

How is it that some conservative groups are viscerally antigovernment even while enjoying the benefits of government funding?