This paper examines the ideological and social origins of political parties in the Middle East. The Arab Awakening has provided an environment conducive to new party formations in the region. Starting from the theoretical accounts of party formation in Western Democracies, the paper investigates the principal dimensions of emerging party systems in the Middle East. Political competition is characterized in a two-dimensional space composed of historical legacies and modernization. It is argued that political elite exploit the opportunities created by the Islamic versus secular cleavage and the outcomes of asymmetric modernization (i.e. multiple modernities) to appeal to the larger electorate. The paper explores the role of socio-economic factors and the ideology in party formation within this two-dimensional competition space. While the analysis pays more attention to the recent party formations and the reshuffling of parties after the Arab Revolutions in countries like Tunisia and Egypt, the explanatory insights are also driven from other countries with more institutionalized party systems in the Middle East (e.g. Turkey and Morocco). The paper uses comparative historical method, the analysis of party programs, and the more recent media coverage of parties in the Middle East to unfold the contours of party competition. Cross linkages between party formations and three central notions, -a historical legacy of secular-Islamist cleavage, the demands of shari’a implementation, and the consequences of differential modernization paths- are analyzed to explain the origins of political parties in the Middle East. The study has implications beyond the Middle East and provides insights about the larger question of origins of political parties and party system institutionalization.