Abstract

This study deals basically with a critique of ideological and policy-oriented approaches in area studies, and problems of political interventions and ideological inclinations in the Middle Eastern studies. Politics and ideology not only makes the area more complex to understand, since they aim to meet the needs of the governments, but also prevents the academic studies to develop independently. The study aims at putting forth a historical analysis required both to take the issues of the Middle East studies within their unique socio-economic settings, and to regard them from the historical point of view. Central for the paper is to propose bases for the development of area studies depending on the interactions of regional histories and politics with each other. The study argues that Middle East studies in particular and area studies in general would produce reasonable knowledge and add up to the literature within a working relationship with world history, and in a comparative and multi-dimensional manner