Please upvote the comment that you agree with, and reply to them if you have more things to add.
I made this post because I've been feeling bleh about using "Middle East". Feels like a term made up by Usania, also feels like otherizing Anatolians-Arabians-Iranians, despite being from the Continent of Asia.
Idk why I feel this, but yeah. I also wanted to know how y'all refer to it (also want to know how I should refer to it, since I'm at a crossroads myself)
Several people have told me I'm wrong and bad for this, but when I say "Middle East" I usually include most of Central Asia and North Africa. Kazakhstan to Pakistan to Mauretania to Somalia.
I think it's useful to have a term to refer to the lands historically contested by the various Muslim Caliphates; these areas form a sort of historic-geographic unit very similar to Europe, which is itself an arbitrary subdivision of Eurasia.