The Middle East as a civilization extends past the Soviet border into Central Asia

Evidence

We may define the area historically as that of the great Islamic empires of the caliphs and their successors, and of the classical Islamic civilization that grew up under their aegis. Its early, formative period ended before the Crusades. Its final flowering took place under the Turkish and Persian empires, which, from the sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries, divided what we call the Near and Middle East between them. Essentially, it was a civilization of three peoples and of three languages—Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. Its territorial core was Northeast Africa and Southwest Asia. In this sense the Middle East does not stop at the Soviet border, as in the rather artificial diplomatic and military usage, but includes extensive areas in Transcaucasia and Central Asia, which, from the Middle Ages until the Russian conquest, were under Arab, Persian, or Turkish rule and which are still inhabited by Persianor Turkish-speaking Muslims. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1173

Categorization

• XREF: This civilizational-redrawing frame echoes debates in post-colonial geography about how Cold War strategic cartography carved the region; connects to Said’s critique of manufactured region boundaries. — connects to: The region called the Middle East was invented by imperial and Cold War interests; Turkey pivoted toward Central Asia using cultural identity as an economic lever
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: does Gibb’s civilizational definition here predate and perhaps inform Said’s critique of ‘the Orient’ as a constructed unit?