ome o| lilt most cvt，cial events in the history of mankind took place in the are<br > and during the lime span that this volu~e attempts to survey. Agricultur<br > began in Mesopotamia and later， in this "land between the rivers，" the first citie<br > grew up， with tl~e attendant development of laws， crafts， trade， and writin~<br >From llle broader area we call the Middle East came the basic elements of mathematic，<br >Ihe wheel， tile architectural arch， sciences such as astronomy and medicine， and th<br >lramework of organized trade and commerce. From this region， too， came the thre<br >great monotheistic religions: Judaism， Christianity， and Islam. Indeed， civilization itsel<br >-- the triumph of human experience over time--began in the land that lies between th<br >valleys ot the Nile and the Indus.<br > Over the past six thousand years great cultures have sprung from this source anq<br >ebbed and flowed across the map of the Middle East. Some of them rivaled and eveJ<br >surpassed the levels of culture later reached by the Greeks and Romans of classicr<br >times， who rightly acknowledged their debt to the civilizations of Mesopotamia and th<br >Nile. And when the lambent Greek and Roman civilizations dimmed and sank into th<br >shadows of the Dark Ages， their afterglow lingered in the Byzantine lands -- whic]<br >included Syria and Egypt -- and much of their scientific and practical knowledge an~<br >philosophy was preserved in the new classical language， Arabic， by the new torchbearer<br >of civilization， the Muslims. The great flowering of Arab culture between the ninth an~<br >thirteenth centuries owed much to this heritage. When the Golden Age of classic~<br >Islam ended it was passed on again， vastly enriched， to the renascent West which in turJ<br >came once more to play an important role in the political， economic， and cultural histor<br >of the region.<br >