ABSTRACT
The West tends to perceive the Middle East as a stretch of sand dunes and deserts with few scattered oases. The experience of the Arabs before Islam formed the matrix for the rise of Muhammad and his mission as a prophet. Surface and underground water systems largely shaped the majority of Middle Eastern environmental landscapes. Several Middle Eastern religions and mystery cults spread among the Romans, including Mithraism, a cult that had begun in Persia and attracted many Roman soldiers, and Christianity, originally a Jewish sect whose base of support was broadened by Paul and the apostles. Cultural fusion continued later, when Rome ruled the Middle East. By uniting under its rule all the peoples of the Mediterranean world, the Roman Empire stimulated trade and the interchange of peoples and folkways. Sassanid Persia's imperial kingship, bureaucratic traditions, and tolerance of dissident faiths set a pattern for later Muslim-ruled, multicultural, dynastic states.
