Let me try to clarify what is the Middle East as this was my specialty as a history major many, many moons ago (575 and counting).

Historically the Middle or Near East has been the area between the Persian gulf and the Mediterranean Sea, that is modern day Iran and Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and whatever will be Palestine; also Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the Emirates. Additionally, part of Armenia and Eastern Turkey are generally included. (Western Turkey was largely influenced by Greece in ancient times...Troy, Lydia, Phrygia, et.al.) Egypt was generally considered apart from the Middle East, though often included, often, when the term Near East is used, owing to its intensive interaction with the Hittites, Syro-Palestine city-states and Assyria.

Northern Africa, except Egypt as noted, has never been considered part of either the Middle or Near East, and I don't think it is even today, notwithstanding the map linked above. That is a map of the Arab League, but is more accurately The Muslim League, as many of those countries are not Arab, and don't have Arabic as the national language. Several of countries are officially "The Islamic Republic of", for instance, Mauritania, which is only only partially Arab. Comoros (or Comoro Islands) is not at all Arab. However, The Arab League calls itself what it calls itself, and I guess that's it's right.