Preface

The History of the Middle East is a single volume account of the region’s development from the time of Muhammad to the eve of the 2001 al-Qaeda attacks. It is intended to serve as the main textbook for a single semester or term class and is designed to be accessible to students who do not possess prior knowledge of the region or its history.

This book is an adaptation of the Portland Community College textbook A History of the Middle East version 1.01 and was written by Dr. Robert J. Flynn. I have adapted the book to eliminate footnotes, add additional material, and edited some sections for greater clarity. Unlike Dr. Flynn, I have not utilized one consistent transcription of Arabic or Turkish and instead have used spellings that students would most often see in popular usage. A History of the Middle East by Portland Community College is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Original content contributions from my revision are licensed CC BY.

The original work was completed as an Open Educational Resource (OER) with the assistance of a grant from Open Oregon. This current version was updated and edited by Travis Ritt of Palomar College with the support of the 2024 California Community College Chancellor’s Office (CCCCO) OER Grant. As such, people are welcome to engage in the 5Rs of OER. They may retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute this textbook so long as they adhere to the following conditions: that they do so for non-commercial purposes, that they assign the same licensing conditions to any revised versions as have been applied to the original work, and that they acknowledge Robert Flynn as the original author.

I would like to wholeheartedly thank Dr. Flynn, Portland Community College, and Open Oregon for their work in this area of open educational resources.