Right now, the phrase “Middle East” is pretty much synonymous with “gigantic clusterf—k.” But how did things get to be so monumentally bad? How did a region once famed for its tolerance, wisdom, and learning turn into one famed for bloodshed, mayhem, and chaos? To figure that out, we need to delve into the region’s history.

10 The Sunni/Shia Split

In AD 632, things must have been looking pretty rosy for Islam. The outcast sect had swept through Mecca, uniting the entire Arabian peninsula. Muhammad’s clan was strong, they had God on their side, and there were fresh lands for conquering.

Then Muhammad died without naming an heir, and everything went to hell.

Between all his conquering and religion-founding, Muhammad hadn’t found time to father a son. This meant that no one knew who took over when he died. Many of his followers thought his father-in-law, Abu Bakr, should be the first caliph. A smaller, separate bunch thought his cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib should be the first Imam. From that minor disagreement arose the sectarian split that’s been haunting the region ever since—the divide between Sunnis (team Abu) and Shia (team Ali).

9 Centuries Of Disagreement

Despite their differences, the two teams rubbed along fine at first. After three Sunni-chosen caliphs, Team Abu even agreed to make Shia Ali their fourth caliph. Everyone was happy.

Then Ali died, and his son took over. Deciding that one Shia caliph was enough, the Sunnis deposed him. That event set the course for the next 1,400 years of history.

The Shia created their own hierarchy, recognizing imams descended from Ali instead of caliphs. Sometimes, these two systems got along, but when they didn’t, the Shia suffered. During the 16th century, the Ottomans mass executed 40,000 Shia. Later, the Indian Mughal emperors would burn Shia scholars alive. Later still, British colonialists would hire Sunni militias to hunt Shia rebels in Iraq.

Naturally, this led to simmering resentments. As history shows, such resentments have a tendency to eventually boil over.

8 Saudi Arabia’s Deal With The Devil

While these problems were ticking over, an 18th-century Islamic reformist named Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was getting mad.

At the time, Sunni Islam had a big list of stuff you couldn’t do (like worshiping images) that the Shia nonetheless did. Wahhab thought the restrictions should be even stricter and that those who broke them were apostates. That meant the Quran sanctioned their killing.

Wahhabism caught on big time in the Sunni world, so much so that the House of Saud decided to make an alliance with its preachers. In return for their endorsement of the fledgling Saud state, the House of Saud would promote the Wahhabists and shower them with funds.

The pact worked; the House of Saud became rulers of the powerful Saudi Arabia. But it also left them in hock to a dangerous, ultraconservative ideology. It wouldn’t be long before their alliance came back to haunt them.

7 Lines On Maps

For centuries, the Sunni Ottoman Empire was the beast of the Middle East. A superpower that styled itself as a continuation of the Caliphate, it was the glue holding the Middle East together.

Then World War I hit.

If the Great War was bad for Europe, it was a calamity for the Ottomans. Their empire disappeared overnight. The Allied powers divided it up into new nations by drawing a series of lines on a map. From the dust of Turkish rule, Syria, Iraq, and other modern nations arose.

The trouble was that these nations were made up of peoples with not much in common. Shias and Sunnis were thrown together and told to play nice. Kurds, Christians, Yazidis, and others were spread thinly between states. Essentially, a whole bunch of mini-Yugoslavias had just been created. And like Yugoslavia, it only worked so long as there was prosperity and no stoking of ethnic tensions.

6 Iran Gets The CIA Treatment

As all this was going on, there still remained one final player waiting in the wings. In 1941, Iran’s pro-Hitler shah was deposed by Allied forces. This led to a brief flirtation with democracy that would have ramifications for those ethnic tensions we just mentioned.

Although the Allies were happy to see the Iranians trying out democracy, they didn’t like who they democratically elected. Mohammad Mosaddegh was a secular, pro-democracy anti-Islamist who just happened to be a Marxist. As such, he nationalized the British-connected Anglo-Persian Oil Company. The Brits went running to the Americans, who orchestrated a coup to remove Mosaddegh and replace him with the shah’s son.

The new shah was just as corrupt and dictatorial as his daddy. Realizing that democracy had just gotten them more oppression, Iran’s masses began to look for alternative methods of revolution. They found them in the county’s marginalized hard-line Shia preachers.

5 Saudi Arabia’s Internal Problems

Back in Saudi Arabia, the House of Saud was in a worrying bind.

By the 1970s, Wahhabism had gotten very extreme. Its anti-Shia, pro-jihad ideology was attracting hate preachers who poured bile across the Middle East, stoking up Sunni-Shia tensions. It was from these teachings that Al-Qaeda would eventually emerge.

Unfortunately, the internal politics of Saudi Arabia had become so tense that pulling the plug on Wahhabism was impossible. The clerics would’ve whipped up a revolution. So the royal family kept quietly funding this poison, exporting Wahhabism to an ever bigger audience.

Like Chinese water torture, this constant drip-drip of hate was slowly taking effect. The Saudis were spending literally billions of dollars pushing an ultra-extreme version of Islam on Sunnis in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Bahrain—and people were listening. Suddenly, Sunnis and Shia were beginning to look at one another with a whole lot of distrust.

4 Iran Gets Its Revolution

January 7, 1978, marked the moment that all these little streams began to converge into one big, roaring river. It was the start of the Iranian Revolution, a revolution which would see the shah flee, the Ayatollah Khomeini take his place, and the establishment of a hard-line Shia theocracy. It was also the moment that Sunni Saudi Arabia went into panic mode.

The revolution challenged the Saud state’s very being. The Ayatollah explicitly argued that hereditary kingship was against Islam. He also declared postrevolutionary Iran to represent all Muslims, something Saudi Arabia already claimed about itself. Those old seventh-century problems about Sunni/Shia legitimacy were resurfacing again.

Over the following decades, both countries began to deliberately play on those issues to legitimize their own rule. Saudi Arabia fed the Wahhabists even more money to preach the evils of Shia Islam. Iran tried to foment a Shia uprising against Saudi Arabia’s ruling Sunni clique. Each interference brought the temperature ever closer to boiling point.

3 The Iraq Disaster

Throughout the Iranian-Saudi rivalry, there was one wild card keeping everyone in check: Both sides regarded Saddam Hussein as an existential threat. The Iraqi dictator’s wild temper and obvious insanity scared everyone and counterintuitively helped to stabilize the region. Like two fighters caged up with a rabid dog, neither side wanted to make the first move and risk being bitten.

Then 2003 rolled round, and the US shot the dog.

Saddam’s death removed the last check on Iran and Saudi Arabia’s power games. Worse, it encouraged the two regional superpowers to try to fill the power vacuum in Iraq. Saudi Arabia sided with Saddam’s deposed Sunni allies, arming them against the new Shia government. Iran, meanwhile, backed Iraq’s new Shia rulers as they went on a bloody rampage against the Sunnis who had ruled them for so long.

One group to benefit from this chaos were Sunni jihadists Al-Qaeda in Iraq. They would eventually become famous under another name—ISIS.

2 Power Games

With no Saddam and Iraq in flames, Iran and Saudi Arabia began to extend their power games across the region. In Lebanon, Bahrain, and Yemen, both backed their Shia or Sunni allies against the other. Propaganda was pumped into conflict-free countries through mosques and outlets like PressTV. Suddenly, the old divide between Sunni and Shia was at the forefront of Middle Eastern life once again.

As new sectarian conflicts erupted across the region, it became harder and harder for Sunnis and Shia elsewhere not to take sides. In the same way that the Irish Troubles stirred Protestant and Catholic rivalries in the UK, these conflicts magnified the ancient schism and made it seem a matter of life and death.

Then, the Arab Spring exploded. As dictators toppled, wars erupted, and old certainties fell, Iran and Saudi Arabia began to fight for control of the emerging new order. Their struggle would eventually come to a head in Syria.

1 Syria Goes To Hell

By 2011, the old sectarian rivalries had been brought to boiling point. Battle-hardened jihadists were preparing for an apocalyptic war. Two regional superpowers were willing to destroy everything in a deadly game of chicken.

Then Syria imploded.

It was like everything had been leading up to this. Saudi Arabia saw a chance to remove Assad, the Iran-friendly Shia dictator. Iran felt it couldn’t let Saudi Arabia establish a Sunni client state on its doorstep. When Assad gassed his own people and the West did nothing, many Sunnis saw it as confirmation that the US and Europe were siding with Shia Iran. Primed by decades of apocalyptic Wahhabist preaching, they went to fight, joining and empowering groups like ISIS.

The result is a region that is now more divided than it has been for centuries—a mess of factional alliances, dangerous power games, and two big beasts carelessly using an ancient schism to boost their agendas. Until the dust clears and a winner is eventually declared, it’s likely that the Middle East will remain completely screwed up.

The Middle Ages are an enduring staple of our popular culture; many films, books, and television series draw on the medieval period as a backdrop for their plots and characters. These fictional works often represent a view of magic in medieval Europe that lacks the fascinating (and often bewildering) complexity of beliefs medieval people held.

10Belief Was Considered A Pagan Superstition

In the early Middle Ages, it was not respectable to admit to a belief in magic. St. Augustine, an influential late antique theologian, denied that demons could grant people magical powers, allowing only that they could deceive people into thinking they had magical powers. This line of thought was followed by most early medieval legal and theological writing.

A Carolingian capitulary issued for the newly conquered (and newly Christianized) region of Saxony forbids killing a woman on suspicion of witchcraft on penalty of death, describing the crime as something done, “in the pagan manner.” The 10th-century text the Canon Episcopi instructs priests to preach to their flocks that the “phantasms” sent by the devil are false.

9Sailors From A Realm Of Clouds Would Steal Crops

Of course, church condemnation doesn’t mean people stop believing. Around the same time as the Capitulary for Saxony was written, the Bishop of Lyons, Agobard, composed a treatise denouncing belief in magic. In the process, he tells us a lot about what people actually believed.

Agobard mentions that it was thought that weather mages could raise storms—and, most remarkably, sailors from the land of clouds sailed the sky and stole crops in collaboration with these weather mages. Although he does not mention crop stealing, Gervise of Tillsbury repeats stories about aerial sailors, including one who “drowns” in the earthly atmosphere almost 400 years after Agobrad. A possible explanation for the commonness of these stories is the phenomenon of the superior mirage, which can fool the eye into thinking there are indeed ships in the air.

8Most Witchcraft Trials Involved A Single Defendant

While early medieval authorities were skeptical of the reality of magic, changing philosophical and theological opinions meant that by the 14th century, magic was considered a crime. However, these medieval witchcraft trials were different from the mass hysteria around witches that consumed the 16th and 17th centuries. There were very few cases where large numbers of unrelated people were tried at once.

The vast majority of witchcraft trials involved a single defendant or occasionally a small group. In cases were a group was tried, there was usually a relationship connecting them all, like belonging to the same household (servants being charged along with their masters or mistresses seems to be a common combination) or being political conspirators. The one exception is Philip the Fair’s mass executions during the suppression of the Templar order.

7Religious Figures Practiced Magic As Well

The popular image of the medieval witch hunt would not be complete without an accompanying priest or monk to signify the supposed role of the church in the persecution of suspected witches. But sometimes, clergy themselves practiced magic, particularly forms that required learning and access to written materials.

The monks of St. Augustine’s in Canterbury kept 30 magic books in their library. The texts gave information on the rituals needed to summon spirits. Priests, particularly rural parish priests, might also be called upon to perform rituals that mixed magic with orthodox rites. A 12th-century English ritual to make fields fertile involved sprinkling clumps of earth with milk, honey, oil, herbs, and holy water, reciting passages from the Bible, and saying four Masses over them.

6Not All Magic Was Serious

Medieval people also enjoyed that staple of Las Vegas stage and child’s birthday parties: sleight of height and magic tricks. A 14th-century book with the lofty title Secretum Philosphorum is mainly devoted not to the weighty matters of the Queen of the Sciences but to fun little experiments and tricks. One section instructs the reader on how to use invisible ink to play pranks on their friends, make an object appear to turn by itself, and escape after having their hands tied behind their back.

5The Norse Were More Suspicious Of Male Magicians

Temporarily turning away from medieval Christendom, we look to pre-conversion Scandinavia. While the Norse considered respectable for a man some things we would recognize as magic, like using runes or poetry to supernatural affect, they saw seidr as a woman’s domain. Men who practiced seidr were considered to have demeaned themselves.

In the sagas, male characters who practice seidr are portrayed in negative terms, and the texts comment on their unmanliness. Despite this, the chief god Odin is explicitly identified with seidr. But even Odin could not avoid being mocked, for Loki denounces him for it. This is in contrast to the respect paid to women practitioners when they appear in the sagas, as shown by the ritualistic and reverent welcoming of Thorbjorg in Eirik the Red’s Saga, “when she entered, all men thought it their duty to offer her becoming greetings.”

4Late Medieval People Thought Magic Respectable Science

In the High and Late Middle Ages, ideas such as astrology were part of respectable intellectual discourse. As an example, Albertus Magnus, who was one of the leading theologians in medieval Europe and wrote widely on natural philosophy, believed that stones had special curative powers and astrology was a genuine predictive science.

Many medieval royal and noble courts patronized astrologers and alchemists and even consulted the stargazers about important political decisions.

3Most Witchcraft Trials Were Carried Out By Secular Courts

We often assume that the Inquisition, the body of clergy authorized to combat heretics, played a leading role in witchcraft trials. Although some Inquisitors pursued suspected witches, most witchcraft trials were carried out by the secular authorities.

According to a survey of records of English witch trials, not only were most carried out by the government, but the alleged magic use was to carry out another crime like murder or treason. In 1258, Pope Alexander VI decreed that Inquisitors should not involve themselves in witchcraft cases unless there was a clear element of heretical thought. (However, authors of inquisitorial handbooks, like Bernard Gui, continued to advise inquisitors about how to question and prosecute sorcerers.)

2The 15th Century Started The Panic Around Witchcraft

The 15th century is critical in the history of witchcraft because it laid much of the intellectual foundation for the mass witch hysteria of the early modern period. It also marks a critical departure in legal practice from earlier medieval witch trials. There was a new focus on the alleged nature of the demonic pact that supposedly underlay all sorcery, as opposed to trials focusing on magic as the means by which another crime was committed.

It is in the early 15th century that the notion of the witches’ Sabbath, wherein witches gathered to commune with the devil, became both widely acknowledged as fact and a key element of witchcraft prosecutions. The stories about witches’ Sabbaths may have spread particularly quickly as a result of their strongly sensationalistic and prurient character.

1The Author Of The Malleus Maleficarum Was Unsuccessful In Convicting Witches

Possibly the most famous medieval text on magic, the Malleus Maleficarum was written in the 1480s as a practical guide for conducting your own witch hunts but also to justify its primary author, Heinrich Kramer, and his ideas about magic. Kramer was a member of the Dominican order and an inquisitor active in Germany in the late 15th century. Prior to writing the Malleus Maleficarum, Kramer tried to prosecute suspected witches but provoked outrage from the local citizenry.

Between 1482 and 1484, Kramer was stymied by local churchmen, who objected to his questioning local women about their sex lives in the course of his inquisition. Kramer sought to confirm the authority of inquisitors to investigate witchcraft, and the pope backed him. Even armed with this, he made little headway.

Initially, the Bishop of Innsbruck, Golser, acceded to Kramer. However, Kramer’s heavy-handedness caused the bishop and the local archduke to intervene. Bishop Golser halted the trial and ordered all the suspects to be released. It was only after this failure that Kramer wrote the Malleus, justifying his methods and exaggerating his own successes in witch-hunting.

+ Further Reading

For a further education on witches, warlocks, magic, and more, check out the following lists from our archives:

10 Ancient Books That Promise Supernatural Powers
10 Surprising Facts About Magic And Superstition In Ancient Rome
10 Folk Magic Traditions Of The Early Modern Era
Top 10 Magical Societies

Jim Lyons is a student who is passionate about history, speculative fiction, and traditional music.

Under the heavy influence of the Church, sexual acts during the Middle Ages were policed to an extreme. Despite this state of oppression, people still liked sex. And as you are about to find out, sex during those times was far more interesting than you would expect.

10 Prostitution Was Considered a Necessary Evil

Prostitution was rife throughout the Middle Ages, and while the clergy weren’t happy about it, they made little effort to stop it. Clerics realized that many men needed this outlet and that a lack of prostitution could do more harm than good. They feared that otherwise, men would corrupt respectable women or, even worse, turn to homosexuality.

Despite being tolerated, some ordinances reflected the prostitutes’ lowly standing in society. They were obligated to wear certain types of clothing so that they could be distinguished from respectable ladies. In addition, they had to live in certain areas of the city and had no legal standing in a court of law.^[1] Brothels were usually thinly disguised as bathhouses or craft shops like embroideries, where women could serve as “apprentices.”

9 Impotence Was Grounds for Marriage Annulment

Many European countries during the Middle Ages had laws that regarded consummation as an integral part of the marriage ceremony. Therefore, if someone was unable or unwilling to procreate, their partner could request an annulment. In addition, an inability to perform the marital duty could result in a trial where the man had to prove that he was physically capable of having sex.

There are dozens of reported cases of impotence trials in medieval times.^[2] One of the most famous occurred in 1198, between King Philip II of France and his second wife, Ingeborg, the daughter of the Danish king, Valdemar I. For some reason, Philip hated Ingeborg and didn’t want to have her as queen of France. In a strange twist, the man was actually the one arguing that the marriage had not been consummated, pleading “temporary impotence.”

8 Women Used Contraceptives

Since ancient times, humans have developed numerous techniques to avoid conception. However, until recently, historians believed that usage of contraceptives dropped sharply during the Middle Ages. For starters, the Catholic Church frowned greatly upon them since they saw procreation as a gift from God and the entire reason to get married. Furthermore, scholars believed that women would not be interested in limiting pregnancies due to high infant mortality rates.

However, demographics studies show that pregnancy rates decreased significantly in women over 30, suggesting that they employed various contraceptive methods. Even so, written records of these practices are very scarce due to the Church’s influence and staunch opposition to contraception. Historians believed this created an “oral culture of contraception,” where the “tricks of the trade” were passed down from midwife to midwife. Coitus interruptus was a common birth control method, as were plant-based contraceptives, such as a pessary made out of lily root and rue.^[3]

7 The Church Thought Midwives Forced Women Into Sex With the Devil

The late Middle Ages were characterized, among other things, by prolific witch hunts, which saw tens of thousands of people (mostly women) persecuted for witchcraft. Numerous “suspicious” practices could get you declared a witch, and sometimes, this included midwifery.

Things got worse after Pope Innocent VIII issued the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus in 1484, acknowledging the existence of witches and approving their prosecution. In response, inquisitor Heinrich Kramer wrote the Malleus Maleficarum, still considered the most important treatise on witchcraft. Kramer claimed that nobody harmed the Catholic Faith more than midwives.^[4] He accused midwives of tricking young women into having sex with the Devil and then using unbaptized infants for witchcraft.

Despite the influence of the Malleus Maleficarum, many historians now argue that midwives were rarely accused of witchcraft. Although they are mentioned in other demonology texts, “midwives-as-witches” is regarded as a modern myth brought on by works of earlier historians like Margaret Murray.

6 Clergymen Could Sometimes Get Married

During the Middle Ages, the history of clerical marriages is long and convoluted, with numerous changes occurring over the centuries. At the start of the era, Byzantine emperor Justinian annulled all marriages of members of the Holy Order and declared all of their children illegitimate.^[5]

The law of celibacy remained in place for hundreds of years, but it wasn’t always enforced with particular fervor. There was also a distinction made between clergymen who were allowed to marry and married men who were allowed to become clergy. The latter was more common, although typically only if it was their first marriage, and the men were usually expected to show sexual continence once they joined the clerical ranks.

After the Great Schism of 1054, both churches became stricter, and celibacy was enforced again. Clerical marriages were prohibited at the First Council of the Lateran in 1123. These marriages became common again during the Protestant Reformation, as Martin Luther himself was married to Katharina von Bora.

5 Lesbianism Was Considered a Medical Problem

While homosexuality was a “hot topic” during the Middle Ages, attention was usually focused on men. Consequently, there is very little mention of female homosexuality. One of the few medieval laws that specifically target lesbianism comes from the mid-13th-century French treatise Li Livres de jostice et de plet (The Book of Justice and of Pleas). Female sodomy received a similar punishment to its male counterpart: mutilation for the first two offenses and burning for the third.

Lesbianism was regarded as a medical problem brought on by one of two disorders: The first came from the ancient Greek physician Galen, who advised that lack of sex would cause a seed buildup in women’s wombs. The treatment involved an orgasm, generally brought on by a midwife with a hot poultice.^[6] The other condition was called “ragadia of the womb.” It was believed that women could develop penis-like protuberances outside their vaginas, which would make them want to have sex with other women.

4 They Used Sex Toys

While sex toys were not invented during the Middle Ages, they were used. Actually, the first sex toys appear in the archaeological record about 30,000 years ago. They existed in various shapes and sizes, made from a wide range of materials, including stone, wood, ivory, tar, teeth, limestone, and even bones. Art from ancient Egypt depicts dildos—for both men and women. And the ancient Greeks—that’s a whole other list right there. Rather than earlier versions of stone or wood, the Greeks made theirs of leather or animal hair, using olive oil as a lubricant.

During the Middle Ages, dildos were commonly made of bread (something the ancient Greeks also did).^[7] Their use was generally done in secret as not to incur the wrath and punishment of the Church. Women would bake loaves of bread until they were hard enough to be used as dildos. I can’t imagine how that would’ve worked out. They must have hurt…

3 There Was Cross-Dressing

Cross-dressing hasn’t been regarded as an accepted practice until recently, and it’s still frowned upon in many parts of the world. Unsurprisingly, it was taboo in medieval England, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. One Oxford study presented the cases of 13 women who were cited for cross-dressing in England during the 15th century. Records show that male cross-dressing was just as, if not more, prevalent.^[8]

Most cross-dressers tended to be prostitutes who engaged in this practice for their (or their partner’s) sexual desire. Authorities of the time went to great lengths to downplay the pervasiveness of such acts, claiming they were vices from other cultures perpetrated by foreigners.

2 Missionary Was the Preferred Position

The Church considered sex a means to an end for procreation. That’s how missionary became the default position; man-on-top and face-to-face was thought to give the best chances for pregnancy. They feared that any other position might confuse the natural order. Some positions like sex a tergo (from behind) were considered “beastly” and were thought to blur the lines between man and animal.

Church authorities strictly forbade oral and anal sex throughout the Middle Ages. Since there was no chance of procreation, these would have been purely for sexual pleasure, which was viewed as a lustful sin.

As time passed, certain officials became somewhat more progressive. During the 13th century, German friar Albertus Magnus ranked five positions from most to least natural: missionary, side-by-side, seated, standing, and a tergo. While missionary was still the number-one pick, he regarded the others as “morally questionable but not mortally sinful.”^[9]

1 There Were Punishments for Every Sexual Sin

When it came to punishments, the Church wanted to make sure they got things right. That’s why the Middle Ages saw the appearance of penitentials—books detailing the rules for penance for every sin under the sun. They came about from priests who started documenting the sins they heard during confession and the penances set for each one.

Unsurprisingly, there were quite a few sins involving sex. There were also quite a few penitentials, but one of the most influential was the Paenitentiale Theodori by Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury.

According to Theodore, men fornicating with men or with animals had to do penance for 10 years. Women fornicating with women had to do penance for 3 years. Masturbation meant that men had to abstain from meat for four days, while women had to repent for a whole year. This only applied to virgins or widows, as married women earned more penance, of course. Ejaculating seed into the mouth was the worst evil and required penance for life.^[10]

The Middle East was once thought of as a beautiful and exotic far-away land. But unfortunately for those of us alive in modern times, the term now conjures up images of war, terrorism, subjugation, and suffering. The vivid images of the Islamic Golden Age are now gone, and the exciting fantasies in “One Thousand And One Nights” are but a fading memory.

But those far-away lands still contain much of their original beauty and, in many cases, are building upon it to create some of the most awe-inspiring modern architecture. This list takes a tour around the Middle East focussing entirely on the beauty to be found there. Let’s take the journey together and forget—even if for but a moment—the horrible news reports confronting us daily.

15 Bahrain

Bahrain is the smallest of the Arabian states and was the first to discover petroleum in the 1930s. It is thought by some to be the site of the Garden of Eden. In 2002 women received the right to vote in Bahrain and today its constitution guarantees religious freedom. Homosexuality was legalized in 1976 (for people over 21). The incredible twin-peaked building is the Bahrain World Trade Center.

14 Egypt

Home to the ancient culture so loved by the west, Egypt is now a modern democracy (founded in the 1950s). As evidenced above, there is more to Egypt’s beauty than pyramids! Modern Egyptians are largely descended from post-islamic settlers (mid 600s AD) while the Ancient Egyptian people “[were] most closely related to Neolithic and Bronze Age samples in the Levant, as well as to Neolithic Anatolian and European populations”.^[1]

13 Iran

Iran (Persia in days gone by) means “the land of Aryans” in the Persian (Farsi) language. Iranians have managed (despite frequent invasion from outside) to maintain their identity. Even the Islamization of the country has not managed to eradicate all aspects of its ancient past.

12 Iraq

For many of us, Iraq stands out mostly due to the Gulf Wars. Enormous amounts of damage were sustained by the nation during those wars, but a strong recovery is now underway, though the area is still relatively unstable. Iraq has been a republic since the dissolution of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958.

11 Israel

The very existence of Israel is a great bone of contention for the Islamic population of the Middle East. Despite the might of the surrounding nations, Israel continues to focus on expanding the amount of land it controls. The recent move of the nation’s capital to Jerusalem has not gone down particularly well with many people and there is no telling whether the conflicts in the region will ever be truly resolved.

10 Jordan

Jordan is a constitutional monarchy and the current King is Abdullah II. Home to some incredibly historic sites, Jordan holds the distinction of having discovered the oldest known statues of humans, the Ayn Ghazal statues. Pictured are Petra, the Roman city of Jerash, Jordan Valley Dead Sea, and Wadi Rum, the red desert.

9 Kuwait

Kuwait is a constitutional monarchy governed by an Emir. Until 1961 when it gained independence, Kuwait was a British protectorate. It was the invasion of this small nation in 1990 by Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi military that led to the gulf war.

8 Lebanon

Lebanon is the oldest country name in the world at 4,000 years of age. It has a unique political system called confessionalism in which the parliament is shared by all religions operating in the country. More peculiarly, the president must be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker of Parliament a Shiite Muslim. Lebanon has a 40% Christian population—the largest of any Middle Eastern country.

7 Oman

Oman has natural beauty, from the dry Wahiba Sands to the verdant city of Salalah, and historic beauty in the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, and the Nizwa Fort. Oman is one of the oldest inhabited places on earth having been peopled for over 100,000 years. Mountain Dew is the most popular drink in the nation, so much so that Coca Cola products are virtually nowhere to be found. It is also virtually crime-free. Coincidence? I’ll let you decide. Unlike some Islamic nations, alcohol is allowed but you must be licensed to buy it and can spend no more than 10% of your monthly income on it.

6 Qatar

Qatar, like Kuwait, was a British protectorate. Independence was declared in 1971, and from 1995 women were allowed to vote. Qatari men traditionally wear a long white shirt (called a thoub) over white trousers or shorts and women wear a black cloak. The National Museum of Qatar (top image) opening was attended by David and Victoria Beckham and KAWS and Johnny Depp. Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar and punishable by death.

5 Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia contains virtually no rivers or lakes but has many wadis which are valleys that fill with water during certain times of the year. Pictured above (third image) is the Kingdom Center which is the third tallest building with a hole in the world. Work is underway to build the Kingdom Tower which will be one kilometer tall (0.62 miles) and the tallest building in the world.

4 Syria

Pictured are the Umayyad Mosque, Citadel in Aleppo, and City of Palmyra before its destruction by ISIS in 2015. There are currently troops from over thirty countries fighting in Syria due to its civil war against ISIS. It is the Syrian war that has led to the migration crisis in Europe.

3 Turkey

Turkey is home to some of the most beautiful places in the world. Troy (of the Trojan wars) is located in Western Turkey and many ancient monuments are to be found there due to its important position in Western history. Its capital (Istanbul) was once Constantinople, the capital of the Roman Empire from 330–395 AD and then the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) to 1453. Pictured above are Cappadocia, Pamukkale, Safranbolu,and Hagia Sophia.

2 United Arab Emirates

United Arab Emirates is a collection of emirates: seven provinces governed by constitutional monarchs called Emirs. The seven emirates are Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain. Abu Dhabi is the capital city and the federation as a whole is governed by a President who is also the ruler of Abu Dhabi. Additionally, the ruler of Dubai is also the Prime Minister of the Emirates. Confused? Me too.

Seen here are Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, the amazing Yas Waterworld and the Al Ain Oasis (the first UNESCO world heritage site in United Arab Emirates).

1 Yemen

Pictured here are Socotra, the old town of Sana’a (the capital city), Aden, and Ibb. Socotra is an island with a great variety of alien looking plants and wildlife (as you can see from the picture). It evolved into this bizarre landscape due to being isolated from the African continent six or seven million years ago. It is a UNESCO natural heritage site.

The Middle Ages spanned from roughly AD 500 to AD 1500. It was a period filled with famine, plague, and war. Ruled by the king, the people of medieval England lived under a feudal system heavily influenced by the Roman Catholic Church.

During the Middle Ages, both laws and the penalties for breaking them were very different from the ones we are familiar with today. From football being outlawed to the practice of witchcraft being punishable by death, here are ten ludicrous laws from the Middle Ages that, thankfully, are no longer in place.

Related: Top 10 Ridiculous Laws That Are Still Enforced Across The World

10 Playing Football Was Forbidden

While football players today have a reputation of being dramatic over the smallest of injuries, their predecessors were the exact opposite. Medieval football was a violent game. While there were not as many rules, there was a lot more bloodshed. Rather than a ball, an inflated pig’s bladder was kicked up and down the entire length of a village, with the goals sometimes miles apart. Players could kick and punch both the bladder and their opponents, resulting in many injuries and the occasional death.

Football was banned in 1349 by Edward III, not because he was concerned about public health but rather about national security. Not only was England at war with France in 1349, but the country was also suffering the loss of many lives due to the Black Death, a global epidemic of the bubonic plague. Edward III wanted his remaining, healthy men to be focused on their archery practice rather than getting distracted by football. The punishment for playing football was six days imprisonment.^[1]

9 Blowing One’s Nose Was Illegal

Newmarket, a town in the English county of Suffolk, is known as the birthplace of horse racing. The practice dates back to the 12th century, but James I popularized it after building a palace there in 1606, which drew in a lot of people.

Over time horse racing in Newmarket grew into a large business, and the town was forced to establish laws to protect the horses, including one that made it illegal for people to blow their noses in the street. This was to reduce the risk of the horses getting sick. What a nightmare it must have been for people with hay fever!

Blowing one’s nose wasn’t the only thing that could get a person in trouble. Anyone walking around with a head cold or temperature had to pay a fine. Obviously, Horse racing was a serious business.^[2]

8 You Had to Have Your Master’s Permission to Get Married

Today, it’s daunting enough having to ask the father of your partner for their child’s hand in marriage. While this practice is done out of respect, the answer given does not decide your future, and you can still get married—even if the father does not give his blessing. This, however, was not the case in the Middle Ages.

Societal rank played a large role in medieval life, especially for those at the bottom of the pyramid. Peasants and serfs working and living under landowners essentially had no freedom. A man wanting to get married not only had to get the father”s permission but also their landowner’s.

For a woman, the situation was even worse. If her husband died, the landowner could force them to marry another man in a relatively short amount of time. If they refused, they could receive punishment. ^[3]

7 Wearing Long, Pointy Footwear Was Forbidden

Fifteenth-century Britain was a time of flamboyance. Along with short shirts, long, pointy-ended shoes known as crackows, or pikes, had become the height of men’s fashion. It was believed that the longer the toe, the more masculine and rich the wearer, so much so that shoes sometimes extended up to five inches beyond the toe. This led to the ends occasionally having to be tied around the wearer’s ankles.

As the fashion continued growing and peasants began wearing more extravagant clothing, the English crown finally decided to step in. They wished to preserve the feudal hierarchy and stop people from dressing above their social rank. Between 1463 and 1604, a law passed that said that “No knight under the rank of a lord, esquire, or gentleman, nor any other person, shall wear any shoes or boots having spikes or points which exceed the length of two inches.” The punishment was a fine of three shillings and four pence, which is just over US$136.^[4]

6 People Could No Longer Eat More Than Two Courses

In the Middle Ages, there were many sumptuary laws that restricted what people could eat and drink. They were intended to reduce excessive eating and prevent people of lower social status from matching the lifestyles of those above them.

In 1336, a law banned that people, no matter their rank, shall be served a meal with no more than two courses. Soup, it made sure to specify, counted as a full course meal and wasn’t just a sauce. The exception to the law was on certain festivals, such as Christmas, where three courses were allowed.^[5]

5 Commit a Crime, Go through an Ordeal

In medieval England, the peasants had strength in their numbers. To stay in power and prevent revolts, the upper-class authorities made it so that even the smallest of crimes committed had harsh penalties. The idea of this was to make the poor fear stepping out of line. Even petty crimes (theft, disturbing the peace—which often meant the king—or vagrancy) sometimes resulted in harsh punishments, from flogging to having some part of the body cut off (hands were quite common). Until 1215, even being accused of a crime resulted in the punishment of enduring an ordeal that revealed a person’s innocence or guilt.

There were three ordeals:

Ordeal by fire: The accused held a red-hot iron bar in their hands and walked three meters. After three days of being bandaged up, the wound on the hand would be looked at to determine the accused’s fate. If it was healing, they were innocent; if it wasn’t, they were guilty.

Ordeal by water: The accused was tied up and thrown into a body of water. If they sank, they were innocent. If they floated, it was seen that the river had not accepted them, and, therefore, they were guilty.

Ordeal by combat: This was combat between the accused and accuser. It was believed that God would give strength to the innocent. It must be noted that the fight often ended in the loser’s death.

The practice of ordeals was declared over by the Pope in 1215 and was replaced by a jury process.^[6]

4 No Sex on Certain Days of the Week

Throughout the Middle Ages, there were a number of religious laws that tried to restrict when a person could have sex. In an average seven-day week, a married couple could only have sex on four of the days. Days in which sex was prohibited included Thursday and Friday because people were supposed to prepare for Holy Communion and Sunday—because it was the Lord’s day.

And that wasn’t all. Throughout the year, there were many other periods where sex was banned, including 47 to 62 days during Lent, the 35 days before Christmas, and the time around the Feast of Pentecost, which could be anywhere from 40 to 60 days.

Medieval people believed that eye contact was an important part of sexual attraction. It was said that “the eye was not a passive receiver but was instead active in sending out rays of sight toward the object of vision. The very act of looking could stimulate desire in the observer and the observed.” Women were advised to be careful about when they looked at men—so as to not tempt them at the wrong time.^[7]

8 Playing Tennis Was Forbidden

Football wasn’t the only sport banned in the Middle Ages. In 1485, it became illegal for young men who weren’t nobles to play tennis, with the only exception being on Christmas day. Medieval tennis was believed to disrupt labor and encourage gambling in workers because participants were left in unsupervised situations without their masters around.

The banning of tennis in the lower classes helped to maintain the feudal hierarchy. Tennis began to be seen as an exclusively upper-class sport because it needed expensive equipment and required an understanding of complex rules and social etiquette.

Tennis eventually became known as “the sport of kings,” with Henry VII and Henry VIII both apparently very into the game. A Venetian Ambassador who watched Henry VIII play in his youth said, “It was the prettiest thing in the world to see him play; his fair skin glowing through a shirt of the finest texture.” Thankfully today, tennis can be played by all.^[8]

2 Blasphemy Resulted in the Loss of One’s Tongue

In the Middle Ages, people had to watch their tongues, both physically and metaphorically, to avoid breaking the religious law regarding blasphemy, the action of speaking ill about God or sacred things. The law was put in place by the medieval Catholic Church to maintain control and order.

The church viewed blasphemy as a severe crime and gave it an equally severe punishment. The penalty for blasphemers was harsh. Often a person would be bound and tied while their tongue was removed with hot pliers, leaving them mute for the rest of their lives. Other punishments included stoning and hangings.^[9]

1 Practicing Witchcraft Was Punishable by Death

In the Middle Ages, people did not understand how many things worked around them, especially natural phenomena, as much was unknown to the scientific world. Humans, in general, do not like uncertainty, and the people of the Middle Ages were no different. Usually, God was their answer for things that could not be explained. However, when it came to naturally occurring ill-fortunes such as sickness, bad harvests, and the deaths of animals, they blamed witches because God, in their eyes, could not do evil.

Witches were believed to be able to summon evil spirits and demons, but in reality, they were usually just poor, elderly women who owned a cat. While widespread witch trials throughout Europe didn’t reach their peak until the late fifteenth century, certain women were ostracized and punished when seen as different.

In 1542, the Witchcraft Act was passed by parliament and established that witchcraft was a crime punishable by death. Witch-hunting became huge after that, especially in southeast England, and it is believed that over 500 people were put to death between the 15th and 18th centuries.^[10]

In 2022, cannibalism became a popular subject again for mass media purposes. First, there was the 2022 three-part series House of Hammer about disgraced actor Armie Hammer who was accused of sexual abuse and cannibalistic fantasies. Then there were shows like Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and Yellowjackets as well as the movies Fresh and Bones and All.

Cannibalism is nothing new, though. Shakespeare even tackled the subject in Titus Andronicus. By and large, cannibalism involves one adult eating another. However, there’s a long, dark, and forgotten corner of history about cannibals eating children. This article examines some of the most terrifying cases from the medieval ages about filial cannibalism or the cannibalism of children.

10 The People of Lamuri

Odoric of Pordenone is a Franciscan friar who lived from 1286 to 1331 and documented his travels during the 14th century. Odoric’s reports were subsequently popularized and even later plagiarized by Sir John Mandeville, who is likely to have never left his abbey or dispensary.

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville are how great minds like Columbus, da Vinci, and Shakespeare first learned about the wonders of the ancient East.

One of the many places that Odoric visited was Lamuri, a kingdom in northern Indonesia that lasted until the beginning of the 16th century. The area is believed to be one of the earliest places where Islam arrived in the Indonesian archipelago.

During Odoric’s travels, he passed through Lamuri, which is derived from the medieval Arabic word for the area of Sumatra, where the population traded. The populace of Lamuri walked around without clothing and made fun of Odoric for his clothes. The people of Lamuri also did not believe in marriage, sharing all women among each other. Odoric, however, noted that the people of Lamuri had one “wicked habit”: children were bought if adequately “plump” or reared until they were bigger. The people of Lamuri commented to Odoric that child flesh was the “sweetest meat in the world.”^[1]

9 The Siege of Ma’arra

The Siege of Ma’arra occurred in late 1098 in what is now Syria during the First Crusade. After capturing Antioch, Crusaders moved to the south and began raiding and pillaging each town they found, which is where they encountered the city of Ma’arra on December 11, 1098. It was a peaceful city whose economy was based on the growth of olives, figs, and grapes. Ma’arra was subsequently devastated by the Crusaders, who killed thousands of people.

But Ma’arra was also the site of cannibalism. Radulph of Caen, who chronicled the genocide, observed that adults classified as pagans were boiled in pots while children were impaled on spits, then grilled and eaten. Fulcher of Chartres, another observer at the time, wrote that the Crusaders, driven by hunger, removed the buttocks from corpses found in the city, which they then cooked and ate mostly rare.^[2]

8 The Waldenses

The Waldenses began as a Christianity movement in France during the late 1170s. The group was named after its founder, Peter Waldo, who was a wealthy Lyon merchant. Waldo had heard a troubadour sing about St. Alexius, the patron saint of beggars and pilgrims. This song, combined with the loss that Waldo experienced at the sudden death of his friend, led him to believe that all his belongings were worthless. This led him to give away his property to the poor and begin street preaching.

The Waldenses were persecuted heavily throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1655, the Duke of Savoy ordered the Waldenses to attend Mass or be removed from their homes. The Waldenses had twenty days to sell their land. The Waldenses chose to leave their homes and move to the upper valley, which required them to make a trek through the Alps in the middle of winter. The Duke sent his troops after the Waldenses and required the Waldenses to allow the troops into their homes, which gave the troops easy access to the group.

On April 24, 1655, a signal for a massacre was given, known as the Piedmont Easter. Writer Peter Liegé observed that children were separated from their mothers, clasped by their feet, and smashed against rocks or held between two soldiers and torn apart. During the Piedmont Easter, troops also cooked the arms and legs of people, including children. Other people were roasted alive.^[3]

7 The Ming Dynasty

The Ming Dynasty ruled China from 1368 to 1644, during which time China’s population increased substantially. The Ming Dynasty is remembered for expanding trade, creating long-lasting drama and literature, and making porcelain.

The Ming Dynasty popularized a practice that had become popular during the earlier Tang Dynasty. In the 700s, a physician, Ch’en Tsang-ch’I, became the first Chinese doctor on record to prescribe human flesh for various ailments. Three requirements were necessary before the good doctor prescribed human flesh. First, the act must be voluntary—the donor had to donate parts of themselves for this intended purpose. Second, the donor and the recipient needed to bear a close relationship, which often meant that the donor was a child or child-in-law. And finally, the recipient could not know they were consuming human flesh, so the flesh was disguised in ordinary food.^[4]

6 The Great Famine of 1315

In the 14th century, cold weather and famine in England led to the Great Famine of 1315 to 1322. Before the cold came, Europe pushed itself to the limits of its resources. Four centuries of mild temperature led the country’s farmers to grow crops on vast quantities of land that were previously not suitable for agriculture. This led to an increased food supply which led to a population explosion and tripled the number of people in Europe. When these lands stopped being able to produce food due to frosts and floods, millions of extra mouths needed to be fed. This led to civil wars and rebellions. Two harvest failures in 1314 and 1315 turned into years of famine.

While all of Europe was hit, Europe’s towns were where the Great Famine hit the worst. Corpses piled up in streets, bodies were flung into open pits, and countless stories abound of cannibalism and child abandonment. The cannibalism of children was so common during this time that the folk tale “Hansel and Gretel” was created.^[5]

5 The Tupinambá

The Tupinambá are a group of South American Indians who speak the Tupian language and live on the eastern coast of Brazil. In the past, the group lived in villages that ranged in size from 400 to 1,600 people who supported themselves by farming and fishing in the ocean. War among the Tupinambá was a common occurrence. The group was focused on war and is alleged to have practiced cannibalism.

Manuel de Nóbrega was a Jesuit priest who lived from 1517 to 1570 and founded the Jesuit mission in Brazil. Nóbrega wrote in his book Reports on the Lands of Brazil that the Tupinambá only waged war out of hatred for the enemy. Nóbrega wrote that the Tupinambá fought one another and that when enemies were captured, they were kept as prisoners. At the same time, their daughters were taken as wives, and the prisoners were then killed with great celebration. They smoked corpses in the fire and then ate them. If the enemies left children, these were eaten too.^[6]

4 The Caribs

The Caribs are indigenous people on the northern coast of South America. Today, the Caribs live in villages along the shores of Venezuela, Brazil, Guyana, and French Guiana and speak a language called Carib. Christopher Columbus was the first to report on cannibalism among the Caribs. Amerigo Vespucci wrote that the Caribs ate little meat except that which came from humans and that the Caribs ate all of their enemies, whether man or woman.

Observing the Caribs, Padre Augustin de Frias wrote that the Caribs from the Guarapiche/Guanipa area chose to eat young children instead of prisoners. The Caribs in this area also practiced a form of euthanasia in which the elderly were eaten so they would not have to face a lingering death. Some historians argue that these practices were merely the result of propaganda against Indigenous people, though, who resisted the Spanish.^[7]

3 The Aztecs

The Aztecs began sacrificing humans in the early fourteenth century. At first, sacrifices were uncommon but grew in number as time passed and the empire expanded. The Aztec sacrifice of humans was inspired by the idea that the human body contained energy that kept the sun in motion through the sky and subsequently renewed time, crops, and human lives.

During Aztec sacrifices, human hearts were offered to the sun, and blood was smeared on the walls to make sure Aztec temples were coated with energy. In addition to men and women, children were sacrificed too in the first quarter of the Aztec year. Children were purchased from their parents specifically to be sacrificed. Hernando Cortes’s man allegedly came across roasted babies, which the Aztecs carried as provisions but abandoned when they noticed the Spaniards.^[8]

2 The Korowai

The Korowai tribe of Papa New Guinea practices a type of revenge cannibalism that impacts children. The Korowai were in full swing during the Middle Ages and, for centuries, have believed in sorcery, witchcraft, and revenge on a widespread social level. Abnormal behavior among the Korowai can lead a person to be accused of participating in sorcery. Additionally, because the culture has had no breakthroughs regarding medicine and health, they have their own methods for explaining sicknesses.

Before someone passes away in the Korowai tribe, they might claim that they know who the sorcerer is. This might lead to a child being named. After the person’s death, the alleged sorcerer is then found, made to stand in a clearing, shot with arrows, cooked, and eaten. The alleged sorcerer’s body is then dismembered and placed on branches to warn others.^[9]

1 The Siege of Suiyang

China’s An Lushan Rebellion started in 755. The following year, the rebel Yan army had control of most of northern China. In 757, emperor An Qinxu ordered general Yin Ziqi to take control of Suiyang (which is the current day site of Shangqiu, Henan) because the city was situated between two major ones. Yin Ziqi’s 130,000-man army then took control of Suiyang while fighting against Zhang Xun and the Xu Yuan army of around 6,800 men.

Through clever tactics, Zhang Xun was able to kill around 5,000 Yan troops at first. Zhang Xun then killed general Yin Ziqi, which greatly disorganized the Yan army. In 16 days, the Yan army had lost around 20,000 men, which led Yin Ziqi to order a retreat. Yin Ziqi returned to take Suiyang later with 20,000 new men. The Xu Yuan and Zhang Xun had prepared for the battle by storing food inside the city of Suiyang. This was lessened when it was shared with neighboring kingdoms. Soldiers received very small rations. Zhang Xun was soon left fighting 1,600 soldiers who were starving and sick. The soldiers grew further desperate without outside help. Before long, Zhang Xun’s men were eating tree bark, tea leaves, and paper.

The dwellers of Suiyang during this time traded their children to eat and cook corpses. Zhang Xun even killed his concubine in front of his soldier and proceeded to cook and consume her flesh. When the woman was eaten, the troops ate the old and young. Before long, there were no more people to eat. Eventually, Suiyang fell to the rebels, and Zhang Xun was captured.^[10]