Middle East Politics
...Ali’s, the fourth Caliph and the Prophets son in law, assassination in 661. Ali’s followers decided to break away from the Islam, which demonstrated tribal or ethnic Arab ties. Shi’ism was this new opposition to the existing political command, the “acquisition of goodness and the expulsion of evil” As authorized in the Qur’an. Shi’ism is also subdivided into certain sects as the Druze and Alawites. The main branch which is located in Iran holds the belief of the twelve Imams. During the sixteenth century came about the ottoman conquest. The ottomans did not submerge in Arab culture. The Sunni Turks made Turkish the administrative language of this enormous empire. The sultan in Istanbul came into power by use of a military that included Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Tribes were each given its own autonomy. The sultan opened up the system of capitulations to non-Muslims, which later caused the Europeans to intervene in Middle Eastern politics and weaken the Ottoman Empire “In 1683 the failure of the Great Turk’s armies in Vienna, against the German-Roman empire and a coalition of Christian princes, marked the beginning of Ottoman decline.” (Francois, Massoulie, Middle East Conflicts) pg.17. The empire was threatened, the Greeks wanted independence, and the Arab west was weakening. Wahabbis wanted to go back to a more rigorous Islam. People thought that Jihad ended because of the finality of the last great Muslim Empire, the Ottoman Empire. From here there was the rise of European powers in the Middle East. There was some attempt to reform Jihad during British Colonialism in India. In the 1820s the British established supremacy in India. A man by the name Sayyid Ahmed Barelwi founded the Tariqa-I Muhammadi, or the way of Muhammad, to revive Jihad. Sayyid was eventually killed while waging a Jihad, but “His struggle, however, went on; the Tariqa-I Muhammadi wsa not wiped out until 1883. There were other flare-ups against British rule….including the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, in which Hindus and Muslims fought together against the colonial enemy.” (Robert Spencer, Onward Muslim Soldiers) pg. 214. Jihad somehow took on a new theory from a Spiritual and weak Jihad to a Stronger Military Jihad. Some of these theorists include Hasan al-Banna who founded the Muslim brotherhood, and Abdullah Azzam. Resistance went beyond just prayer. The issue was whether British rule was part of Dar al-Islam. One of the basic responsibilities given to Muslims is Jihad, is a fundamental duty of every Muslim. It is important to defend the faith, “the house of Islam (Dar al-Islam), in which Muslim governments rule and Muslim law prevails, and the House of war (Dar al-Harb), the rest of the world, still inhabited and, more important, ruled by infidels.”(Bernard, Lewis, The Crisis of Islam) pg.31. Either the world adopts Islam or they surrender to being ruled by it. Hasan al-Banna found the exemplary Muslim radical organization in Egypt in 1928. al-Banna’s response was similar to Ahmed Khan’s in that they both opposed the west. The difference was that al-Banna’s would not be loyal to western influence, it would fight western influence. This Al-Banna person wanted to convert everyone to Islam and reclaim the lands that once belonged to Islam, therefore creating the unfeasibility of cooperating with Israel. this restoration of Islam’s land might does not sound like a realistic goal, but they did have weapons, “some of its guns were deployed against the Zionists in Palestine in 1948… they assassinated judges and struck down a prime minister in 1949.” (Robert Spencer, Onward Muslim Soldiers) pg. 219. Democracy developed the west during the nineteenth century and had no cultural ties to the east. Democracy was to be imported at the same time as the League of Nations. Western governments were perceived as an instrument of foreign oppressors. This anti western sentiment especially developed in Egypt. Some political parties became influenced during the thirties, “besides the Syrian Nationalist Party of Antun Sa’ade, there were the Phalangists founded by Pierre Gemayel in Lebanon, the Green shirts, the [Islamic Nationalist] from the Young Egypt movement, and the Futuwwa in Iraq who were inspired by the Hitler Youth movement.” (Francois Massoulie, Middle east conflicts)pg. 73. this is the kind of history that conflicts would be based upon later on during the Twentieth century. When Zionism came along, it provided more reasons for conflict. The Zionist movement was to establish a sovereign Jewish people and to return to the historical land. Zionism was a response to anti-Semitism in Europe and rejection from the west. Israel did not want to set itself up for conflict with ...