Take five members of the public in the West and ask them to define the Middle East, and you will be lucky if they can find it on a map.
Take five professors of international relations, ask them the same question and you will end up with five different answers.
The geographical expanse that is the Middle East is virtually impossible to define.
The region spreads into three continents, from West Africa’s Berber-speaking nations, through the Arabic heartland and arguably onwards and eastwards.
Is Pakistan a part of this complicated region? What of Djibouti? Do any of the Muslim republics of the former USSR fit in?
Geographically, many of these nations have nothing in common, for reasons of geology, topography and just plain distance.
Society and culture also makes this an odd region: from tent-dwelling Bedouin to oil-rich sheikhs; imams to kibbutzniks; monks to belly dancers.
The one thing that brings together most people in this vast diversity is Islam. Not the best news for the various other minority groups, including the Christians and Jews.
However, one cannot argue that Islam and the Middle East are mutually inclusive, after all there are Muslims in Malaysia and Indonesia, and none of the international-relations boffins would put them in the Mid-East.
Perhaps a better way to refer to these countries would be via their ethnic/religious make-up: Muslim bloc, West African countries, Arab states, because to be honest, there really is no Middle East, despite the human desire to create categories of convenience.