Middle East & North Africa

Throughout the past years, the “Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline,” an ambitious pipeline project launched in 2020 following the agreement signed in Athens by Greece, Cyprus, and Israel, has frequently appeared in international news, particularly those concerning the oil and gas industry. According to the original plans, the pipeline should transport natural gas from the Israeli gas field Leviathan through the Cypriot one, Aphrodite, to Greece and then to neighboring Italy as well as other European countries. Undoubtedly, it seemed the perfect alternative to decrease the EU’s dependence on Russian gas. But what caused the project’s demise?

In the past few years, Middle Eastern governments have deepened their ties with the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin and his regime were equally enthusiastic about intervening in Middle Eastern politics and propping up the region’s autocracies to restore Russia’s status as a global superpower. Today, both sides collaborate on various political and security issues affecting the Middle East. This relationship now influences how various Middle Eastern governments respond to the ongoing war in Ukraine. The response has been mostly ambivalent, as most of the region’s governments see Russia as a valuable ally that they cannot afford to alienate.

The Muslim Golden Age is a historiographical creation like many other conceptions that influence our view of Medieval history. Muslim culture and civilisation flourished throughout an age of exception stability and wealth until at least the early thirteenth century (Kafadar, 2010). The Golden Age highlights the greatest achievements accomplished by the Muslim world between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, with the Ottomans and Mughals, who are normally disregarded, being included as part of this time period.