History

Links

This web site aims to bring a wide variety of resources on Arab culture and civilization to your computer, but there is much more online. This list includes a number of other sites that you may wish to visit. For additional print resources, consult the supplemental bibliography.

General

These sites provide general information on the history of the Arab World

UNESCO World Heritage Sites
A list of UNESCO World Heritage site in the Arab states.

Muslim Heritage.com
This site celebrates Islamic contributions to science, technology, the arts, and civilization.

Middle East Historical Timeline from Global Connections
A timeline for the last 100 years of Middle East history from “Global Connections: The Middle East,” , is an online resource produced by the PBS station WGBH to help teachers, students, and the general public learn more about events occurring in the Middle East.

Middle East Photography Archive
The Middle East Department of the University of Chicago Library’s archive of early photographs of the Middle East.

Islamic History from the BBC
This page from BBCi deals with the history of Islam from its beginning through the Moghul Empire.

History E-Book Project
The History E-Book Project contains a large collection of books relevant to the history of the Arab world. See the subject list for entires on Arabs, Islam, and Middle East, for example.

Arab.net
This site is a gateway to Internet sites about the Arab World. By clicking on the flag links at the bottom right corner of this page, you will be taken to a fact page about each country that includes a brief history.

An Encyclopaedia of the Orient
An encyclopedia style collection of articles on topics related to the Arab and Muslim Worlds.

The Middle East Institute
A Washington based think tank on Middle East policy

Country Notes
"Country Notes" from the United States State Department. Each entry contains a very brief history of the nation, from the perspective of the U.S. State Department.

Middle East History from the University of California Press
Online publications available through a partnership with the University of California Press and the California Digital Library's eScholarship program. Many of the titles are available to the general public; the rest are for University of California faculty, staff, and students only.

Specific Periods, People and Places

Sites with a more narrow focus.

Ancient and Medieval Middle East
A list of links about the Middle East in ancient and medieval times, compiled by Columbia University Libraries.

The Umayyad Dynasty
An overview of the history of the Umayyad Dynasty, written by Richard Hooker.

The Ottomans
A website containing a history of the Ottoman Empire, written by Richard Hooker.

A History of Two Countries
This April 3, 2003 broadcast of the NPR program The Connection deals with the history of the interaction between the United States and Iraq up to the US invasion in 2003.

Almoravids
Encyclopedia of the Orient article for the Almoravids, a North African dynasty. Includes a brief history and timeline. See also the article on the Almohads, for a similar entry on another North African dynasty.

PBS Frontline: The Long Road to War
This is the website for the PBS Frontline Program on Iraq. This site provides a great deal of information about the history of Iraq since 1990.

Mamluk Bibliography Online
"The Mamluk Bibliography is an on-going project of the Middle East Documentation Center at the University of Chicago, the aim of which is to compile comprehensive bibliographies of all primary sources relating to the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt and Syria, as well as all research and discussion--scholarly and popular--germane to the subject."

Muslim Spain and European Culture
A personal page with an essay by Dean Derhak on Islamic Spain in the Middle Ages.

Al Mashriq - History
Links to articles on the history of Lebanon and Syria.

Arabs and Young Turks
Full text of this book focusing on the turn of the century and interactions between Arabs and the Ottoman empire.

Shifting Sands: NPR Report on Saudi Arabia
This site contains NPR correspondent Michael Goldfarb's Extended Report from Saudi Arabia, as well as supplemental maps, links and other material.

InfoPlease: Saladin
Information about Saladin (1137?-1193), Muslim warriar and Ayyubid sultan of Egypt.

Baghdad: Metropolis of the Abbasid Caliphate
An essay by Gaston Wiet on this city in Iraq during the Abbasid Caliphate that ruled the Islamic lands from the middle of the eighth century to the middle of the 13th.

Iraq Primer from InfoPlease
This Primer on Iraq includes a timeline, maps, and a great deal of historical information about the situation in Iraq

20 Years of King Fahd
A review of the 20 years of King Fahd's rule from the Arabic News, a Saudi Arabian news service.

Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Arguably the most important issue in the recent history of the Middle East has been the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Certainly no other single issue provokes such strong feelings across the region. Inevitably all sides in the conflict resort to history in order to help justify their position. Some of the many varied historical perspectives on the issue are represented in the links below.

Understanding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
An extensive list of annotated links concerning the conflict, centered on a Palestinian perspective.

A Brief History of Israel and Palestine and the Conflict
A detailed and hyperlinked history of the region and the conflict. From the MidEastWeb, whose "opinions reflect a spectrum of voices for peace and coexistance."

The Middle East: A Century of Conflict
This seven part series from NPR news traces the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in an attempt to "bring context and perspective to the story, and to help listeners understand the complex situation in the Mideast, the history, and the consequences of the confrontation."

Friends of al Aqsa
Friends of al Aqsa is a non-profit organisation, based in the UK, that is "concerned with upholding the human rights of the Palestinians and the defence of al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem." The site includes maps, photographs and a great deal of other information.

International Middle East Media Center
International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) is a media center developed in collaboration between Palestinian and International journalists to provide an English language media coverage of Israel-Palestine.

The United Nations Information system on the Question of Palestine
This site intends to provide users with full-text documents of the United Nations system relevant to the question of Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East since 1946. See, also, this UN page on the Question of Palestine.

Graphic History of the Arab-Isreali conflict
A brief, concise history with maps from USA Today

The Palestinians
Washington Institute for Near East Policy publications on this conflict.

Middle East Maps
This website has maps tracing the impact of various treaties and wars on Palestinian territory.

The Middle East Research and Information Project
A primer on the uprising in Palestine from the Middle East Research and Information Project.

Facts about Israel
An official account of the recent history of Israel from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Electronic Intifada
"The Electronic Intifada", is a site that gives the Palestinian side of what it calls "myth and distortion from the Israeli war machine."

The Arab Israel Conflict in Maps
This site is sponsored by the Department of Jewish Zionist Education in Israel.

Palestinian Refugee Research Net
"Palestinian Refugee ResearchNet is a non-partisan project devoted to the dissemination of ideas and scholarly information, in an effort to foster scholarly collaboration, policy research, and innovative thinking on the Palestinian refugee issue. PRRN is maintained by the Inter-University Consortium for Arab Studies (Montreal), with the support of the Arts Computing Network, McGill University, the International Development Research Centre and the Canadian International Development Agency."

Journal of Palestine Studies
Web site for The Journal of Palestine Studies, including the full text of many articles.

Selected Documents Regarding Palestine
The full text of numerous documents relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict, including the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the Israel's Proclamation of Independence (1948), UN Resolutions on the Conflict, and the Hamas Charter (1988), and much more. The site is maintained by the The Palestine Center, a project of The Jerusalem Fund.

Weblog special: Israel and the Palestinians
Part of the Guardian Online's Weblog section, this page links to what the editors consider to be "the best online journalism on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the prospects for peace."

CNN: MidEast Land of Conflict
This site focuses on the Arab-Israeli conflict and includes interactive timelines, biographies of key figures, maps, etc.

Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the UN
Web site of the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations, including the UN chronology and many relevant UN documents on the Arab-Israeli contflict

Islamic History

Islam and Islamic History in Arabia
A history of Islam focusing mostly on Sunni Islam, divided by era. Produced by Islamicity, a website devoted to the Muslim faith.

A Brief Chronology of Muslim History
A chronology of key dates in Muslim history from the 6th through the 20th centuries. Organized by century.

Islam: Empire of Faith
Web page for this PBS documentary on the early history of Islam and the rise of the Islamic empires. Includes a well developed timeline.

MuslimHeritage.com
This handsome, interactive site was developed by a site called the Foundation for Science Technology and Civilization: "A community and non-profit initiative aimed at providing an educational forum to present and discuss the contribution of Muslim Heritage to present day Science, Technology and Civilisation."

"The Roots of Muslim Rage"
A controversial 1990 article by the historian Bernard Lewis which purports to explain "Why so many Muslims deeply resent the West, and why their bitterness will not easily be mollified." More recently published by The Atlantic (January 2002), Lewis's article "What Went Wrong?" in which he attempts to diagnose the political, social and economic ills of the contemporary Islamic world.

"Impossible Histories"
In this essay, from the July 2002 issue of Harper's Magazine, Edward Said addresses what he sees as the tendency to oversimplify Islamic history, particularly in the books Islam: A Short History by Karen Armstrong and What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response by Bernard Lewis.

Internet Islamic History Sourcebook
An excellent sourcebook of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts, presented cleanly and intended for educational use.

Muslim Scientists and Islamic Civilization
This page is put together by Dr. A Zahoor and deals with the contributions of Muslim intellectuals to Civilization.