Middle East

The 'Fertile Crescent' — the arc from the Nile and the Levant through Anatolia to the Tigris and Euphrates — is where people first domesticated wheat, barley, sheep and goats, over 10,000 years ago. Göbekli Tepe in south-east Türkiye, a ring of carved stone pillars about 11,500 years old, predates farming itself.

In Mesopotamia, today's Iraq, the Sumerians built cities such as Uruk and invented cuneiform writing around 3200 BC. Empires followed: Akkad, Babylon, Assyria and then the Persian Achaemenids, whose capital Persepolis in Iran ruled from the Aegean to the Indus in the 6th–4th centuries BC.

Alexander the Great, then Rome and Byzantium, layered Greek and Roman cities over the region. Jerash and Amman in Jordan, Ephesus in Türkiye and Baalbek in Lebanon are among the best-preserved. The Nabataeans, Arab traders, carved Petra into rose-coloured rock and grew rich on incense caravans.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam all trace their story to Abraham, and their holy places cluster here. Jerusalem is sacred to all three. Christianity spread from the Levant across the Roman world; Anatolia holds the sites of early churches, and Cappadocia's rock-cut churches sheltered monks for centuries.

Islam began in Makkah in the early 7th century with the Prophet Muhammad. Within a century Arab armies reached Spain and Central Asia. Umayyad Damascus and Abbasid Baghdad became capitals of a civilisation that preserved and extended Greek science and mathematics. The split between Sunni and Shia Muslims dates from that first century; Iran and much of Iraq are Shia today, most Arab states and Türkiye Sunni, Oman mostly Ibadi.

For visitors: mosques that welcome non-Muslims ask for covered arms and legs, and headscarves for women. Makkah and central Madinah are closed to non-Muslims. Friday midday prayers close some mosques to visits; during Ramadan, avoid eating or drinking in public in daylight where local rules ask it.

The Ottoman Turks took Constantinople in 1453 and by the 16th century ruled Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, western Arabia and Egypt from Istanbul. Their mosques, bazaars, caravanserais and coffee houses are the common architecture from Sarajevo to Baghdad. Safavid Iran, their Shia rival, built Isfahan.

After the Ottoman defeat in the First World War, Britain and France divided the Arab lands under League of Nations mandates, drawing the borders of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Palestine. Türkiye became a republic under Atatürk in 1923. Israel was declared in 1948; the Arab–Israeli conflict that followed has shaped borders and travel ever since.

Oil changed the Gulf. Small pearling and trading towns — Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait — became some of the richest places on earth within two generations after the 1950s–70s. Saudi Arabia, founded in 1932, opened to leisure tourists only in 2019. The Gulf now invests in airlines, museums and events to build a future after oil.

Before 1979, travellers drove from Istanbul to India through Iran and Afghanistan on the 'hippie trail'. Since then, revolution in Iran, wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, and the Arab–Israeli conflict have closed most of those lines. Since October 2023, war in Gaza, strikes between Israel and Lebanon, Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, and direct Israel–Iran strikes in 2024 and June 2025 have repeatedly closed airspace across the region.

Syria's government fell in December 2024; a transition is under way but most Western governments still advise against travel. Iran has detained many foreign and dual nationals. Yemen remains at war. Lebanon's south has been under strikes.

The open countries — Türkiye, Jordan, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Cyprus — are generally safe and well-run, but events next door affect flights and moods quickly. That is why this site treats the region as a set of separate destinations connected by air, not as an overland circuit.

Hospitality is a point of honour. Coffee spiced with cardamom is poured in small cups with dates in the Gulf; tea in tulip glasses in Türkiye; sweet mint tea or sage tea in the Levant. Shake the cup gently side to side when you have had enough Arabic coffee.

Levantine mezze — hummus, mutabbal, tabbouleh, falafel — travels across the region; Jordan's mansaf, lamb with fermented yoghurt and rice, is eaten with the right hand; Türkiye's cuisine runs from kebabs to olive-oil vegetables and breakfasts of many small plates; Oman's shuwa is lamb slow-cooked underground for festivals; the Gulf's machboos is spiced rice with meat or fish.

In the Gulf, most residents are foreign workers; citizens can be a small minority, especially in the UAE and Qatar. Laws on alcohol, dress and behaviour are stricter than the glossy image suggests: drink only in licensed places, avoid public displays of affection, and do not photograph people, especially women, without asking.

Most of the region is desert or steppe. The Arabian Peninsula holds the Rub' al Khali, the largest continuous sand desert on earth; Wadi Rum in Jordan and the Wahiba Sands in Oman are the easy places to sleep in the desert. Mountains matter too: Oman's Hajar range, Türkiye's Taurus and Pontic chains, and Iran's Zagros.

Summer on the Gulf coast brings 45 °C and high humidity; people move from air-conditioned car to mall to hotel. The outdoor season is November to March. The Levant and Anatolia have four seasons with real winters. Oman's Dhofar turns green in the June–September khareef monsoon.

Water is scarce: much of the Gulf's drinking water comes from desalination. Carry more water than you think in the desert, never drive into dunes without a second vehicle, and respect flash-flood warnings in wadis — they fill fast after distant rain.