ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses two quite different, quite large countries, first Turkey and then Iran. Neither is Arab, and each differs from the other as greatly as it does from the other fourteen. Although both are Muslim, each practices Islam differently from the other and in many respects differently from the Arab countries. Certainly, Turkey makes a startling contrast with the state just considered, Egypt. With its geopolitically strategic bridgeland location, Asia Minor has long been a transit land. Europeans moved down the valleys and over the passes of the Balkans into the Anatolian basins and beyond. Like Egypt and Iran, Asia Minor reflects a long history of cultures and empires, and intensified field research has pushed back both the beginning dates and the scope of early Anatolian cultures.
