[wrp]

"Near East" is not used in academia as simply a geographic classification. It is used among historians as a standard term for a cultural realm and a specific time frame. "Middle East" is another standard term for a more expanded realm and a different time frame. By analogy, "the West" does not connote a precise geographic territory.

[dredmorbius]

I'm familiar with the term.

So far as I'm aware and some quick online checks suggest likewise[1], it largely came into widespread usage in the 20th century and tends to refer to either the Olttoman Empire or the post-WWI nation-states of the roughly from present day Turkey to Egypt to Iran. Wikipedia gives origin of the term to roughly 1855, at which point it would have referred to the Ottoman Empire, as opposed to India, China, the East Indies, and Indochina).

"Near East" has since largely been replace by "Middle East", though that term largely refers to the post World War Two states in the same region. The Wikipedia article noted here gives criticisms of the term largely along the lines I've suggested.

And I'm not aware of either term ("Near..." or "Middle...") being used to apply to the period from the 8th - 13th centuries, a/k/a the Islamic Golden Age.[2]

________________________________

Notes:

1. Largely Wikipedia and Google's Ngram Viewer: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_East> <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Near+East&year...>

2. For Middle East: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East#Usage_and_criticis...> <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Middle%20East&...>

3. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age>

[wrp]

> And I'm not aware of either term...being used to apply to the period from the 8th - 13th centuries

The Journal of Near Eastern Studies (https://www.jstor.org/journal/jneareaststud) is typical in defining its scope as the Near East, from the ancient times to pre-modern Near East. As I said, "Near East" is the standard term for referring to the history/archaeology of this cultural region in pre-modern times.

When you want to specify the pre-Islamic Near East, the standard term is "Ancient Near East", as this from the Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History (https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/janeh/html?lang=en).

The Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History seeks to encourage and stimulate the study of the history of the ancient Near East, which is broadly defined to include areas from Iran to the western Anatolian coast and the Black Sea to Southern Arabia from its prehistoric foundations to the Late Antique period.

The Late Antique period is very roughly the 3rd-7th centuries.

[dredmorbius]

Thanks, fair points.