AHC: MIddle East Seen As Part of European Continent

Your challenge should you choose to accept it is to make the middle east (at least the parts as far east as Mesopotamia) be viewed as part of the European continent.
 

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Your challenge should you choose to accept it is to make the middle east (at least the parts as far east as Mesopotamia) be viewed as part of the European continent.
Europe as a continent is already very hazy in modern circles, being entirely a peninsula built of smaller peninsulas and their respective peninsulas. Adding the Middle East makes the peninsular thing irrational.

I guess you might be able to get Eurasia called Europe.
 
Your challenge should you choose to accept it is to make the middle east (at least the parts as far east as Mesopotamia) be viewed as part of the European continent.

I'd say that probably any parts that can be made to be Christian and easily accessible to Europe will be "Europe". So, a Christian Levant (Crusader preferred but not necessary), maybe a Christian Egypt, too. A Christian Mesopotamia, for example, I think would only be "Europe" if it's next to a Christian Levant (or, possibly, a Christian Greater Armenia...though that's a little questionable)
 
My first thought is that if the Muslim conquests are avoided and the Eastern Empire maintains control over Egypt, North Africa, the Levant they might come to be considered part of Europe. In this case Europe would be expanded to include the lands touching the Mediterranean. Mesopotamia is, in my opinion, too far.
My understanding, which, mind you, is quite possibly wrong, is that geographically and culturally Mesopotamia has is oriented toward Persia rather than the Levant.
 
Your challenge should you choose to accept it is to make the middle east (at least the parts as far east as Mesopotamia) be viewed as part of the European continent.

Really does depend on the area being 'Christian', and to a lesser extent 'white' (or with some proposed ethnographic theory that makes the inhabitants white).

A successful Outremer + surviving Byzantines would be the most obvious way to do this.

Of course it could go the other way and you can have some Islamic/Turkic/Persian empire conquer the entirety of Europe. The cultural/religious differences between the eastern Middle East and the Levant + Anatolia (until the region became thoroughly Islamicized, anyway) would probably cause the latter regions to be lumped in with 'Europe'.
 
The problem is that the Middle East has always been the first part of Asia to be defined as such. Ancient Greek maps split the three continents there - Europe begins at Thrace and the Balkans, Africa begins at the Sinai Peninsula, and Asia is everything else - Hence, Anatolia is Asia Minor. In order to change that, you either need a POD very far back, or you need the rest of Asia to be defined as a different continent with a different name than "Asia".
 
The problem is that the Middle East has always been the first part of Asia to be defined as such. Ancient Greek maps split the three continents there - Europe begins at Thrace and the Balkans, Africa begins at the Sinai Peninsula, and Asia is everything else - Hence, Anatolia is Asia Minor. In order to change that, you either need a POD very far back, or you need the rest of Asia to be defined as a different continent with a different name than "Asia".

Right. You can't define it as "Europe", but you might be able to include them as "the West".
 
If you have "Europe" defined in a cultural sense (which is kind of already is -- Europe and Asia are one big landmass, after all) and butterfly away the Islamic conquests, you could well see all the lands around the Mediterranean being considered European. I'm not sure about Mesopotamia, though -- since the rivers flow eastwards into the Persian Gulf, it's going to be easier for them to trade with eastern countries than with western, which in turn is going to affect their cultural outlook.
 
In a timeline in which Europe and the Middle East were united in Roman Christendom, the concept of Europe would not need to be anything other than a geographical expression - as it would be superseded by a concept of Christendom/Romanitas.
 
"Europe" as a supposed continent is entirely defined by ethnicity and cultural factors. Frankly, if you include the "Middle East" you might as well include the entire Mediterranean basin as well. I would tend to agree with those who have already noted that it would take a sucessful and permanent intrusion of large numbers European peoples and cultural traditions - especially Christianity - into the Middle East...or go even way farther back and have Alexander's conquests lead to a Hellenistic civilization all the way to India that eventually became part of the Roman Empire - and was evenually Christianized when the Roman Empire was.
 
Right. You can't define it as "Europe", but you might be able to include them as "the West".

I agree. Europe is too much of a geographic expression that the Middle East couldn't be seen as part of it. However, in the sense that Europe was shorthard for the cultural Western Civilization, then much of the Middle East could be included if the Levant remained part of the Western cultural sphere in some way.

Take your pick of either Islam never happening, Byzantium winning Battle of Yarmuk, a Byzantine reconquest, successful Crusades, or something else. The earlier the POD, the more of the Middle East could be included as part of the West. At minimum, it would need to include the Levant. Maybe Arabia. Maybe Mesopotamia. Both are barely possible depending on the POD, but neither are likely.

However, Persia would almost always be excluded. Even in a world where Persia was Christian, culturally it has always been the antagonist to the West (whether Greece or Rome) and whatever form of Christianity it followed would be considered a kind of Oriental non-Western version. It doesn't mean relations would need to be hostile, but without the cultural inheritance of Greece and Rome, it won't be Western.
 
Israel. Plays in the European football cup OTL. If the Levant is part of a big Jerusalem and Anatolia divided between Armenia and Greece they could be considered European especially if the Jerusamelite are speaking a weird French-Arab Hybrid.
 
A couple of thoughts for the Middle East to be considered more of Europe,

1.) Christianity has to be the dominant religion for Turkey (if it would be called Turkey), Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Egypt and North Africa. The map and countries might be different. Basically, Islam has to be isolated to Arabian peninsula and horn of Africa. The Byzantine Empire would have to morph into something. Maybe Greece would be OTL Greece and Thrace and eastern Turkey, Armenia would be bigger, dare I say a Kurdistan. Maybe instead of a larger Greece, there would be a Byzantia.

Or what if the Russians backed by Britain and France really kicked some ass and dominated the area and set up a New Byzantine after its fall.

2.) I also wonder if oil was not in abundance in the middle east, the economy would be tied more to Europe. The Middle East and North Africa would compete even more with Eastern Europe for lower wage labor as an alternative to western Europe like how manufacturing was outsourced to Mexico for American companies.

No oil in abundance in the Middle East would suck for the rest of the world though.

So thinking about it a little more, instead of the Ottoman Turks dominating the region after the Byzantines and the Arabs, what if it was the Russians who came in and propped the Byzantines up. So basically, you would have an even greater semblance of two Europes, East and West.
 
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Israel. Plays in the European football cup OTL. If the Levant is part of a big Jerusalem and Anatolia divided between Armenia and Greece they could be considered European especially if the Jerusamelite are speaking a weird French-Arab Hybrid.

Turkey is closer to Europe and part of it actually lies in Europe. Yet it's not considered whi errr European country......

Anyway, something I touched upon earlier I think Anatolia (or modern day Turkey + Caucasus) could be considered "Europe" but that's about it.

But as was said upthread, it's mostly cultural, if Anatolia is part of same cultural group as Europe then it's Europe. If it's different it's not.
 
As noted, the very concept of "Europe" begins as "whatever lies east of the Aegean". Classical geographical tradition, and its Christian elaborations, were pretty unanimous about it. At the same time, "Europe" wasn't a culturally relevant concept back then, it started to become such only during the Renaissance at earliest. With a Medieval POD, you might have a Christian Middle East, but it won't be seen as Europe. Rather, you'd have "Europe" seen as an almost purely geographical concept whereas "Christianity/West/Romanitas/whatever" is seen as the broader cultural concept.
For the ME to be seen as "cultural Europe" you'd need an *Ottoman world that is perceived as integrated into the "Western" heritage, tradition and intellectual space (as Febvre and Chabod had shown extensively, "Europe" as a cultural construct was largely an intellectual space shared by literate people at first, particularly during the Enlightenment). To be fair, I don't think it would be so hard. Intellectual contact between the West and the Ottomans was always extensive, although somewhat superficial. There could be ways to deepen and strengthen it. I'd start with a more tolerant Spain in the 1500s-1600s, which retains at least part of its Arabicized communities, both of Islamic and Jewish heritage. That could possibly build huge bridges.
 
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Well, the definition of Europe is instead hazy.

If you check the book "Why the West rules (for now)" it states Europe is actually just an extension of the Western cradle originated from the Euphratus/Tigre region as opposed to the Eastern cradle of China, which would, in a way, answer your question.

Alternatively, if the Vandal invasion didn't destroy agricultural infrastructure as well as the (Christian) centres of learning (see St Augustine) at the end of the Roman Empire, I think northern Africa would have kept bigger ties with Europe (with Maghreb being the richest part of the lot and all). After that it's not that difficult to imagine a unified culture between the North and South of the Mediterranean Sea spreading Eastward
 
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