The Near and Middle East are the cradle of two of the world’s three great, so-called monotheistic religions: Judaism and Christianity. The roots of Judaism reach back into the extremely distant past of high antiquity, while Christianity arose like a quirky manifestation of the debates that were raging in the Roman province of Judea, at the beginning of our era. It first spread westwards, into the Roman world of the Mediterranean.

As a religion born in the Orient, Judaism has followed the course of world and Mediterranean history from antiquity to our times. Its encounter with Islam has been as rich as it has been eventful.

At the heart of the Arab world, the Machreq, or “Orient” – a geographical space covering Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq – was the region where Christianity was born and where it first expanded. The churches of the Near East have retained not just their liturgical but also the theological diversity of their origins.

Thanks to the 19th-century contacts and confrontations between the states of Europe and the Near East, publications concerning Islam took off, produced by those who were then called Orientalists.

Seyyèd Ali Mohammed (20 October 1819 - 9 July 1850), known as The Bab, founded a new religion independent of Islam called the Bahá'í Faith. Baha'is claim that he was the forerunner of their own religion.