THE HEART OF THE MIDDLE EAST
The Heart of the Middle East is a classic account of the history and culture of Iraq. Written in 1925 at the height of the colonial era, it offers unique insights into a complex past that continues to influence events today, both in the region and far beyond it. Beginning with the earliest known inhabitants of what was called Mesopotamia, Coke describes Roman-Persian rivalry in the area, the collapse of both Persia and Constantinople before the onset of the Arabs, the golden age of the Abbassid Caliphate, the coming of the Turks and, with their decline, the coming of the English, the rise in the Middle East of European influence generally, and the parallel rise of a reborn Arab nationalism. Coke then focuses on the early modern period of the nations history, detailing the emergence of Mesopotamia on the stage of modern world politics, the involvement in World War I, and its aftermath. In 1920 the British Government, having emerged from the War with a mandate for Mesopotamia, proposed to facilitate the development of the area as a self-governing State, even though there was little evidence that the native population wanted to become a nation. Describing the people of the country, Coke asks Arabs, Jews, Kurds, Seljuk Turks, Persians, Assyrians, Telkaifis, Armenians - how mould such a composite collection of races into a single nation? Sunnis, Shiahs, Jews, Christians, Sabians, Yezidis - how to lessen the friction between such a variety of creeds? How to persuade the tribal sheikh to sacrifice his power for the sake of a non-existing State? Nonetheless, the new country was intended by the League of Nations and the British Government to be an experiment in nation-building, an exercise that would demonstrate that all such differences could be overcome by logic, reason and the application of strong political pressure from outside. Cokes account of the early years of the new state explains much about the present political, and is essential reading for all those with an interest in the history and politics of the Middle East.
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THE KEGAN PAUL ARABIA LIBRARY
THE SYRIAN DESERT
Christina Phelps Grant
THE TRAGEDY OF THE ASSYRIAN MINORITY IN IRAQ
R. S. Stafford
THE TRIBES OF THE MARSH ARABS OF IRAQ
Fulanain
THE VANISHED CITIES OF ARABIA
Mrs. Steuart Erskine
ARABIA AND THE ISLES
Harold Ingrams
STUDIES IN ISLAMIC MYSTICISM
Reynold A. Nicholson
LORD OF ARABIA: IBN SAUD
H. C. Armstrong
AVARICE AND THE AVARICIOUS
Jim Colville
TWO ANDALUSIAN PHILOSOPHERS
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Tufayl & Abul Walid Muhammad ibn Rushd
THE PERFUMED GARDEN OF SENSUAL DELIGHT
Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Nafzawi
THE WELLS OF IBN SAUD
D. van der Meulen
ADVENTURES IN ARABIA
W. B. Seabrook
SEAFARING IN THE ARABIAN GULF AND OMAN
Dionisius A. Agius
POEMS OF WINE & REVELRY
Jim Colville
THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF IRAQ
Henry Field
SOUTHERN ARABIA
J. Theodore Bent
IRAQ
Philip Willard Ireland
THE SAND KINGS OF OMAN
Raymond OShea
THE BLACK TENTS OF ARABIA
Carl S. Raswan
BEDOUIN JUSTICE
Austin Kennett
THE ARAB AWAKENING
George Antonius
ARABIA PHOENIX
Gerald De Gaury
HOW GREEK SCIENCE PASSED TO THE ARABS
DeLacy OLeary
SOBRIETY AND MIRTH
Jim Colville
IN THE HIGH YEMEN
Hugh Scott
ARABIC CULTURE THROUGH ITS LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
M. H. Bakalla
IBN SAOUD OF ARABIA
Ameen Rihani
IRAQ FROM MANDATE TO INDEPENDENCE
Ernest Main
THE ANCIENT ROAD
John Guest & Peter Gwynvay Hopkins
THE COUNTRIES AND TRIBES OF THE PERSIAN GULF
Samuel Barrett Miles
THE EMERGENCE OF QATAR
Habibur Rahman
THE LONG ROAD TO BAGHDAD
Edmund Candler
THE HEART OF THE MIDDLE EAST
Richard Coke
First published in 2006 by
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ISBN-13: 978-0-7103-1143-6
ISBN-10: 0-7103-1143-5
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Coke, Richard
The heart of the Middle East. (The Kegan Paul Arabia library)
1. Iraq History 2. Iraq Civilization
I. Title
956.7
ISBN-13: 9780710311436
ISBN-10: 0710311435
O F all the countries which have come prominently before the notice of the public either during or after the World War, none has evoked such discussion, or aroused such storms of alternate adulation and abuse as Mesopotamia, or, to give it its Arabic style, Iraq. From the days when this land of untapped wealth and virgin oil was thought to be only waiting, in the words of one enthusiastic patron, to pay the whole cost of the war, to the days of the furious bag and baggage campaign, which had for its object the severance of all connection with the accursed land, might seem a far cry indeed; but the two periods were, as a matter of fact, separated by less than forty months. That such a change in public sentiment was possible in so short a time was due in part, no doubt, to the general disappointment in the results, or lack of results, of the victory as a whole; to a common and perfectly natural feeling of lassitude and nervousness, at times amounting almost to a form of moral cowardice; but, in the opinion of the author, most of all to a complete ignorance of actual Mesopotamian conditions, of the past history of the country (and more particularly, perhaps, of the past history of the British connection with the country), and of its future possibilities.
