Ideological & Political Trends after WWI Today Brief look at Islamism Mandate control over many of the newly-formed countries (Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Iraq if we have time)

Last time: Watershed @ Turn of 20th Cent. WHY? Conflicting promises and messy diplomacy Indirect rule through mandates (focus of next class) Political vacuum in many Middle Eastern states as Ottomans could not assert control and European powers became targets of indigenous liberation movements TODAY: Increase in political expression and activism in the first decades of the 20th century. Emergence of new social and political movements FOCUS ON: Pan-Arabism, Statist Nationalism, Islamism

End of 19th and beginning of 20th century saw the emergence of numerous social and political movements, well before the war and Ottoman dissolution. Political expression and activity increased heavily. WHY? Reacting against: Ottoman centralization (& secular Europeanization) Colonial domination CREATING A VOID Responding to cultural, ideological, political void after foreign influence waned FILLING THE VOID

The MENA region

Various trends… but first, some key distinctions. Islam vs. Islamism – Islam is a religion. Islamism is an ideology defining economic & legal systems based on Islam Muslim vs. Islamist – Muslims follows Muslim religion, but is not necessarily an Islamist. Islamist has ideologies following Islamism Arab vs. Arab nationalist – Arab is an ethnicity. Arab nationalist wants a unified political system and state for all Arabs Judaism vs. Zionism – Judaism is a religion. Zionism is a nationalist effort to define political and legal systems based on Judaism and advocating a Jewish state.

Some trends: Some places competitive, some places monopolistic. Islamism - many types. Liberalism – Taha Husayn Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan) Jama’at Islami (Pakistan), Mawlana Maududi Ethno-nationalism (Lebanese Christians at the time) Pan-Islamism Communism (i.e. Iraqi Communist Party) Ottomanism Turkism (and Pan-Turkism) Zionism: the Jewish experience in Europe, Jewish nationalism to create a Jewish homeland, various types of Zionism Ataturk and Kemalism – reformism, republicanism, secularism, nationalism, populism, and etatism Regionalism (unity of Levant or Maghrib, Yemen) Arab Nationalism (single nation) Secularism (Turkey, Tunisia) Pan-Arabism (single state) Idiosyncratic (Muammar Qaddhafi) Nasserism  Gamal Abdel-Nasser and socialist program Some places competitive, some places monopolistic. Baathism  Michel Aflaq started Ba’ath movement in Syria (Christian Arab). Conflicting Ba’ath ideology in Syria & Iraq

Islamism: Is the belief that Islam provides comprehensive bases and sufficient guidance for political, economic and legal behavior, as well as other aspects of life like social norms.

Differences of Islamist thinking – Differ on: How progressive and how traditional Degree of cultural difference Gender issues What economic systems should look like Interpretation and Enforcement of Shari’a

Basic components of the Islamist framework and ideology: Islam is total and all-encompassing way of life, personal and political. The Quran and Sunnah provide models for daily life and action Shariah is the ideal blueprint for society Dependency on the West and relaxation of religiosity caused Muslim decline. Science and technology must be adopted and used to achieve goals. Struggle (jihad) on the personal and communal level will bring reform and revolution and Islamization of society and the world.

Jamal al Din al Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, Rashid Rida

Al Banna & Qutb

A Radical Version Ibn Taymiyyah (13th c.) 18th century revivalism Lived during period of fitnah (disorder) Mongols and end of Abbasid Empire Fatwa against the Mongols 18th century revivalism Focus on Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia Muhammad ibn Abd alWahhab Taymiyyah as exemplar Called for new interpretation of Islam Tawhid (God’s unity) – strict monotheism Alliance with Muhammad ibn Saud (legitimacy) Ibn Taymiyyah (13th c.) – fitnah: fall of Baghdad and the Abbasid Empire to the Mongols from the East (end of Golden Age) Espoused a literalist interpretation of the sacred sources (Quran, Sunnah) and the connectedness of religion, state, and society. Islamic community of Muhammad at Medina was the model of an Islamic state. Division between religion and culture (denounced superstition and popular practices like worshipping saints) while advocating the connectedness of religion and the state. Set precedent with fatwa against the Mongols who said they were Muslim but did not implement Shariah. This fatwa serves as precedent for today in which the same logic is used to call for jihad against “un-Islamic” Muslim rulers and elites and against the West. Wahhabi movement – tawhiid and muwahiddun (unitarians). Rejected shrines, tombstones, sacred objects as “idolatrous” shrines and against strict reverence to Allah in singular form. Religio-political movement once he allied with the military might of local tribal chief ibn Saud. Melded the political and the religious. House of Saud’s use of Wahhabi Islam for legitimacy has been used against it. Militants seized grand mosque in 1979 and called for overthrow of Saud government. 1990s movements (and Nasiha petition). Saudi Arabia has exported this puranical (and sometimes militant) form of Islam to other parts of the world.

Case Study: Iraqi Political Development

Why are individuals more favorably inclined to adopt one ideology rather than another? Identity, inclusion versus exclusion. Betting on a change in global or regional balance of power (communism, pro-West Sadat) Desire to forge a domestic coalition Ideological influence/ transnationalism Outside funding Desire to ride a popular wave Sincere beliefs