IS THE MIDDLE EAST A POOR RELATION OF EUROPE?

In search for an answer to this question four different aspects of the problem namely historical, geographical, sociopolitical and economic aspects should be addressed.

Firstly from a historical point of view, one can argue that the present European civilization, philosophy, beliefs and religions are all based on Middle Eastern models.

Even before the spread of Christianity in Europe, Mithraism, or the worship of the sun, which was the ancient religion of Medes and Persians had spread to Europe and there is much evidence of its influence in the beliefs and customs of Europe before Christianity. One very obvious example of it is the Christians festival on 25th of December which was originally the birthday of Mithras or the sun god. After the spread of Christianity the festival remained only to be claimed as the celebration of the birth of Christ. Other customs like the decoration of the Christmas tree and exchange of gifts etc. All have their roots in the Middle Eastern customs.

As well as religion Europe owes its original knowledge of Mathematics, Astronomy, Medicine, Philosophy, Chemistry, Geography and many other branches of science and art to the work of Middle Eastern people.

Excavations in Mesopotamia proved that Pythagoras Theorem was discovered 1800 years before his time by the people of Mesopotamia to whom with their knowledge of Astronomy and Mathematics, we owe our units of time, arcs and angles. Middle Eastern civilization not only knew the Earth was spherical but had measured its diameter 800 years before Christ's birth, a measurement which is within five percent of the accuracy of the present day measurements. The details of their measurements can be found in any reputable Astronomy text.

In Astronomy many stars have Middle Eastern names which suggest the origin of their discoverers.

Pascal's famous triangle which predicts the coefficients of binomials was originally discovered 600 years before him by the great Persian mathematician, astronomer and poet Omar Khayyam who is more famous because of his poetry. Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat made him well known in English speaking countries. Khayyam is also responsible for the astronomical measurements which led to the calculation of his extremely accurate calendar which is still in use in Middle East.

The advancement of the Middle Easterners in Medicine is well documented. According to western sources "the greatest single influence on medieval medicine was Canon, the medical work of Avicenna the famous Persian physician and philosopher".

The name Chemistry comes from Alchemy or Kimya which was the art of turning copper and other base metals to gold, the elusive aim of middle eastern scientists, which led to many discoveries and the establishment of Chemistry as a distinctive branch of science.

From the geographical point of view we are dealing with Eurasia which is the greatest land mass on Earth. It extends from 10 degrees west to 190 degrees east of Greenwich meridian, which is more than half way round the globe.

It's area is 54,791,162 square kilometer, 36% of the entire area of land on this planet. It's population is over 3.6 billion, 67% of the entire population of the world.

Due to Eurasia's enormous size it was artificially divided into two continents, mostly to distinguish between the civilizations of the Caucasians (white race) in the west and the yellow race in the east.

Since the division was made by Europeans, originally Western Europe was carved out of Eurasia and was given a different identity as Europe.

The borders of Europe and Asia were considered to be the eastern borders of Germany.

Peter the Great the famous Emperor of Russia, who had the dream of turning Russia to a modern country, persuaded the German cartographers to extend the borders of Europe towards the east as far as the Ural Mountains which extends from north to south and lie 60 degrees east of Greenwich.

This would include St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev and most of the major cities in Russia.

At this time it was politically expedient to keep the Ottoman Empire and the whole Muslim Middle East out of Europe. So, they also considered a very peculiar southern border which consisted of the Ural River, The Caspian Sea and the Caucasus. Later on after the inclusion of Georgia, Armenia and parts of Azerbaijan which all lie south of the Caucasus by the Russian Empire, these three countries were also included in European maps.

Had they not considered this patch work of southern borders for Europe purely for political reasons, the 60 degrees meridian or the continuation of the line on which Ural mountains lie would pass the border of Persia and Afghanistan and the whole of the Middle East would be considered as a part of Europe.

This new division would reflect the difference of culture, civilization and racial texture of the two main parts of Eurasia.

This division would be between the monotheism of the west and polytheism of the east, between peoples who all contributed to the western civilization and those who created distinctly different civilization.

What is sometimes over looked by some scholars is the fact that Islam has its roots firmly in Judaism and basically is viewed to be the continuation of Christianity. This is in complete contrast with Hinduism, Buddhism and the rest of the religious beliefs of the people in the subcontinent, China, Tibet, Japan and some of the South East Asian countries.

From the social and political point of view, inclusion of the Middle East in Europe and European organizations would help the process of democratization and would bring about much needed peace and stability.

On the question of existing Arab and Israeli conflict which has been a major cause of international terrorism and a persistent thorn in the flesh of the world community, the inclusion of both sides in European organization would provide the European community the opportunity to mediate between the two sides. The consequence of losing the backing of the other European countries and fear of expulsion from European organizations would persuade politicians to seek peaceful and rational solutions to their problems.

From the economic point of view the union would be beneficial for both sides.

On the one hand Middle Eastern countries would have access to western technology and capital. On the other hand the West would be provided with rapidly expanding market of 200 Millions, as well as cheap labour and access to abundance of raw material and energy resources.

Marshal plan alongside the opening of the world market for all and the consequent prosperity and economic interdependence brought peace and stability for market economies in Europe after second world war. There is no reason that the same policies can not be successful in the Middle East.