In some of the readings it is touched on how it can be hard to define the exact borders of the “Middle East”. In my last GHS course which covered North Africa and the Middle East we discussed the idea of “nation states” and how they came to be. I learned that the current borders of countries typically considered in the Middle East were drawn up by European nations mainly France and Great Britain. With that being established it’s hard to even legitimize what is considered the Middle East because it goes deeper than borders it’s more culturally based.
It is a geological fact that the Middle East lays in the continent of Asia. Typically, the Middle East is regarded as the east of Istanbul in Turkey, all the way to the southern parts of Yemen and Oman and stretching out all the way to Pakistan. But this is where it can get complicated because there are countries that you could say are culturally in the Middle East but not part of Asia. A good example of this would be the country of Egypt, it’s located in North Africa but is a predominantly Muslim nation and is much more in line with middle eastern values. I would say that in general the North African region fits more into the culture of the Middle East than that of Africa.
Overall, this region can be hard to define because of the culture overdoing the borders, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a prominent region the Middle East has been making headlines good or bad for quite some time.