By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Dec 4 2015 (IPS)

One hundred years ago, on 6 May 1916, two men, Briton Sir Mark Sykes and French diplomat François Georges-Picot, were entrusted by their respective governments with a rather exceptional task.

Baher Kamal

That task, which initially counted with the assent of the Tsarist Russia, was to divide among these powers the “inherence” of the still alive, though decadent Ottoman Empire. In short, to define Britain, France and Russia’s coming spheres of influence and control in their “new” Middle East, should this “Triple Entente” succeed in defeating the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

The deal was crowned with a brand new Middle East map that has divided the by then existing nations into artificial states.

In virtue of that agreement, Britain was allocated control of areas comprising the coastal strip between the Mediterranean Sea and River Jordan, Jordan, South of Iraq, and a tiny area including the ports of Haifa and Acre to allow access to the Mediterranean.

France was allocated control of Southeastern Turkey, Northern Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

An “international administration” was proposed for Palestine.

Supposedly, Russia was to mainly get Istanbul and the Turkish Straits.

The Ottoman Empire finally collapsed during the second decade of last century; a new, secular Turkey was born, and two self-proclaimed heirs of its territories and influences –Britain and France- implemented their Sykes-Picot agreement.

London and Paris rapidly managed to immediately “offialise” – not equivalent to “legitimise” – their unilateral plans. The League of Nations would, therefore, put new-born Syria and Lebanon under France’s mandate. Jordan, Iraq and Palestine would de allocated to Britain. And Egypt, among others, would be under British mandate.

What Happened Then?

In his “Four Key Reasons to Understand the Irresistible Attraction of Radical Islam,” IPS founder and Other News publisher, Roberto Savio has rightly managed to summarise the most dramatic consequences of the Sykes-Picot agreement.

“First of all, all the Arab countries are artificial. In May 1916, Monsieur Picot for France and Lord Sykes for Britain met and agreed on a secret treaty, with the support of the Russian Empire and the Italian Kingdom, on how to carve up the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War.

“Thus the Arab countries of today were born as the result of a division by France and Britain with no consideration for ethnic and religious realities or for history. A few of those countries, like Egypt, had an historical identity, but countries like Iraq, Arabia Saudi, Jordan, or even the Emirates lacked even that.

“It is worth remembering that the Kurdish issue of 30 million people divided among four countries was created by European powers.

“The colonial powers installed kings and sheiks in the countries that they created. To run these artificial countries, strong hands were required. So, from the very beginning, there was a total lack of participation of the people, with a political system which was totally out of sync with the process of democracy that was happening in Europe.

“With a European blessing, these countries were frozen in feudal times.”

States vs Nations

Two key issues come out of this analysis:

1. The fact that Western powers usually confuse the concept of “Nation” with that of “State”. Such confusion, apart from wrongful, could be due to either a historic negligence of the impact on their colonies, or be made following the famous “Divide and Rule” doctrine.

A “Nation” is made of a homogeneous group of people sharing common ethnic roots, language, beliefs, traditions and ways of life. Nation is a human, social, ethnic concept. A “State”, instead, is usually a “geographical” artificial grouping of peoples of different roots.

In the case of the Middle East, Syria and Lebanon, for instance, appeared as “States” following the British-French colonial policies, which were implemented as a consequence of the Sykes-Picot agreement.

Since then, the Middle East “new States” would divide the Kurds mainly between Turkey, Iraq and Syria; would force parts of Shii and Sunni to live under one flag, and would group diverse ethnic groups within the limits of artificial borders.

A State like Lebanon, for instance, is made of up to 18 different major and minor communities. Can you image a European State with less than six million inhabitants belonging to such a high number of different communities?

Inter-community, externally-fed tensions would necessarily be unavoidable. And all parties in conflict would be duly armed with Western weapons, and some of them with Russian armaments.

All that while a good number of Arab regimes have been used to blindly hear and listen to the their (Western) Master’s Voice. If they did otherwise, they would immediately be kicked out.

No wonder then that there have been, are and will always be big internal tensions in the region. Not to mention the huge business of oil and weapons and the big power games.

2. The second reason, which has been mentioned by Savio in his analysis as a consequence of the first one, is also clear:

“The colonial powers installed kings and sheiks in the countries that they created. To run these artificial countries, strong hands were required.”

In the case of the North of Africa – specifically Mauritania, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt as well as Sudan – these have been systematically ruled by military regimes that used oppression, suppression of freedoms, torture and corruption in the name of the recurrent argument of “national security.” Iraq and Syria suffered this very same fate.

As a consequence, the peoples of these countries would be irrationally impoverished and deprived from any kind of rights.

Such a situation has never been contested by Western powers. Yes, their leaders would from time to time, talk about the need to respect human rights, democracy, etc.

The fact is, however, is that none of the former colonial powers, nor their successor in the region – the United States has never lifted a finger to remove those regimes. Which by the way, have been labelled as “allies.”

Hosni Mubarak’s military regime in Egypt, for instance, would be considered as a “moderate” ally.

In the name of God

The systematic, lasting oppression of the peoples would be intensively exploited by political-religious movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

This would gain popular support among disparate populations, who would look at it as the “last hope” to save them from oppression and poverty – after all, their Imams would speak to them in the name of God. And God is fair, just, compassionate, exactly what they needed.

Who funds the terrorists?

In a rapid succession of events, a growing number of self-proclaimed “Islamic” groups would devote their “raison d’être’ to perpetrating brutal, inhumane, anything else but religious acts of terror. Some make highly lucrative business though illegally selling oil from occupied fields and refineries -mainly in Iraq and Libya – at half of market prices to big multinationals. See what former national security adviser, Mowaffak al Rubaie has just stated: ‘Oxygen for jihadists’: ISIS-smuggled oil flows through Turkey to intl markets – Iraqi MP).

On top of that, those extremist groups get cheap weapons mainly from dissolved former Iraqi army and from disintegrated Libya.

In fact, the first government “installed” in Libya after NATO intervened there following the 2011 popular uprising estimated that there would be up to 25 million weapons out of the central authorities’ control in this North African oil-rich country.

That’s not to mention the big money generated through their active involvement in migrants and refugees trafficking.

Last but not least: all the above mentioned facts are originated in Western sources!

(End)

Excerpt:

By Farhang Jahanpour
OXFORD, Nov 2 2014 (IPS)

When  the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) suddenly emerged in Iraq, it declared as one of its first targets the Shiites and what it called the Safavids. The Safavid dynasty (1501-1736) was one of the most powerful Iranian dynasties after the Islamic conquest. 

Farhang Jahanpour

At its height, the Safavid dynasty ruled an area nearly twice the size of modern Iran, including large parts of modern Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, eastern parts of Turkey and Syria, and large areas of western Afghanistan and Baluchestan, North Caucasus, as well as parts of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

However, what most irks Sunni jihadists is the fact that the Safavids made the Twelver school of Shi’ism the official religion of Iran, something that has continued to the present day.

The interesting point is that the Safavid dynasty had its origin in a Sunni Sufi order, but at some point they converted to Shi’ism and then used their new zeal as a way of subduing most of Iran.

The zeal of the Safavids was partly due to the fact that they were fighting against the Sunni Ottoman Empire, and therefore their adherence to Shi’ism was mainly political in order to set them apart from the Ottomans who also carried the title of Sunni Caliphs. The Safavids made their capital Isfahan into one of the most beautiful cities in Iran and the Middle East as a whole.

The Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1905-11) laid the foundations of modern Iran, with a constitutional monarchy. The two Pahlavi kings (1925-1979), while ruling as absolute monarchs, were militantly secular and tried to modernise Iran and turn it into a Western-style country.“One of the most important concepts set forth by the Sixth Shi’a Imam, Ja'far al Sadiq, was the separation of religion and politics. He conceded that the Caliphs possessed temporal power, but he argued that the Imams were spiritual teachers of society, and their inability to seize power should not be regarded as a sign of failure”

However, not only did the 1979 Islamic revolution end that period of secular reforms, but it also put an end to a 2,600 year-old Iranian monarchy, and replaced it with a clerical regime. What makes the Islamic revolution unique is that for the first time in the history of Iran, and indeed in the history of Islam, it brought clerics to power.

Although Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called his revolution of 1979 an Islamic revolution, in reality it was a Shi’a revolution and it derived its legitimacy from the Shi’a concept of the Imamate.

According to the Shiites, the true succession to Prophet Muhammad belonged not to the Orthodox Caliphs, but to the Shi’a Imams, starting from the first Imam, Ali Ibn Abi Talib, and ending with the 12th Imam who allegedly went into hiding and who would reappear in the End Times to establish the reign of justice in the world.

After Imam Ali, who was assassinated by a member of the fanatical breakaway group, the Khawarij, his oldest son Imam Hasan decided not to challenge Mu’awiyya I who had established the Umayyad Caliphate. However, after Hassan’s death in 669, his younger brother Hussein rebelled against Mu’awiyya’s son Yazid.

In a battle against Yazid’s forces in Karbala, Imam Hussein was martyred on Oct, 10, 680, an event that is still marked with great sadness and self-flagellation by Shiites throughout the world.

After Imam Hussein’s martyrdom, the rest of the Shi’a Imams led quietist lives, mainly acting as spiritual leaders of their followers, rather than challenging the Sunni rulers.

One of the most important concepts set forth by the Sixth Shi’a Imam, Ja’far al Sadiq, was the separation of religion and politics. He conceded that the Caliphs possessed temporal power, but he argued that the Imams were spiritual teachers of society, and their inability to seize power should not be regarded as a sign of failure.

This has been the interpretation of the role of the Imams – as opposed to the role of the Caliphs – by the vast majority of Shi’a scholars throughout the ages. However, not only did Ayatollah Khomeini reject monarchical rule, but he even replaced it with the rule of clerics.

Both Ayatollah Khomeini and the present Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei base their legitimacy on being the rightful representatives of the Hidden Imam until he returns. This is why the views of former President Mahmud Ahmadinezhad and his close friend Esfandiar Rahim Masha’i about the imminent return of the Hidden Imam caused such consternation among the leading clerics, because if the Hidden Imam were to return soon it would undercut the authority of the ruling clerics.

Thus started the birth of the Islamic Republic of Iran in February 1979, which continues to the present day. Initially, Ayatollah Khomeini declared that he wanted to export his revolution to the entire Muslim world, but being strongly Shi’a in nature and ideology the Iranian revolution was not very popular to the majority of Muslims who are Sunnis.

The devastating eight-year Iran-Iraq war waged by Saddam Hussein, which was massively supported by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, killed and wounded nearly a million Iranians and Iraqis. The bitter memories of that war still linger in the minds of the people in both countries.

Since 2003, when the U.S.-led coalition deposed Saddam Hussein and replaced him with a government led by the Shiites who form a majority of the Iraqi population, Saddam’s supporters in Iraq and the Persian Gulf littoral states have not forgiven the loss of power by the Sunnis. Saudi Arabia has refused to recognise the new Iraqi governments or to send an ambassador to Baghdad.

The glory of Iranian Islam was reflected in the Sufi literature written in Persian by great mystics such as Attar, Rumi, Hafiz and Sa’di who produced the most tolerant, the most profound and the most humane form of mysticism.

However, the Islamic Republic has been known for its narrow interpretation of Islam, a large number of executions, stoning women to death, lashings and other inhumane practices. Its dogmatic adherence to Shi’a Islam has not helped either Iran or the cause of Islam in the world.

The present ISIS uprising, with the assistance of tens of thousands of former Ba’thist officers and soldiers in Saddam’s army that Paul Bremer, the U.S. Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, fired because they were Baathists, is a kind of violent revenge against the Iraqi Shiites and ultimately against Iran for what is regarded as the loss of Sunni rule and Iran’s growing influence in Iraq. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

By Johan Galtung
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 28 2014 (IPS)

More senseless bombing of Muslims, more defeats for the United States-West, more ISIS-type movements, more West-Islam polarisation. Any way out?

“ISIS [Islamic State in Iraq-Syria] Appeals to a Longing for the Caliphate”, writes Farhang Jahanpour in an IPS column. For the Ottoman Caliphate with the Sultan as Caliph – the Shadow of God on Earth – after the 1516-17 victories all over until the collapse of both Empire and Caliphate in 1922, at the hands of the allies England-France-Russia.

Johan Galtung

Imagine the collapse of the Vatican, not Catholic Christianity, at the hands of somebody, Protestant or Orthodox Christians, meaning Anglo-Americans or Russians, or Muslims. A centre in this world for the transition to the next, headed by a Pope, an emanation of God in Heaven. Imagine it gone.

And imagine that they who had brought about the collapse had a tendency to bomb, invade,  conquer, dominate Catholic countries, one after the other, like after the two [George] Bush wars in Afghanistan-Iraq, five Obama wars in Pakistan-Yemen-Somalia-Libya-Syria and “special operations”.

Would we not predict a longing for the Vatican, and an extreme hatred of the perpetrators? Fortunately, it did not happen.

But it happened in the Middle East, leaving a trauma fuelled by killing hundreds of thousands. The Sykes-Picot_Agreement between Britain and France of 16 May 1916 led to the collapse, with their four well-known colonies, the less known promise of Istanbul to Russia, and the 1917 Balfour Declaration offering parts of Arab lands as “national home for the Jewish people”. Jahanpour cites Winston Churchill as “selling one piece of real estate, not theirs, to two peoples at the same time”.“Imagine the collapse of the Vatican, not Catholic Christianity, at the hands of somebody, Protestant or Orthodox Christians, meaning Anglo-Americans or Russians, or Muslims. A centre in this world for the transition to the next, headed by a Pope, an emanation of God in Heaven. Imagine it gone”

The Middle East colonies fought the West through military coups for independence; Turkish leader Kemal Atatürk was a model. The second liberation is militant Islam-Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Salvation Front in Algiers and so on against secular military dictatorships.

The West prefers military order against history.

The longing cannot be stopped. ISIS is only one expression, and exceedingly brutal. But, damage and destruction by U.S. President Barack Obama and allies will be followed by a dozen ISIS from 1.6 billion Muslims in 57 countries.

A little military politicking today, some “training” here, fighting there, bombing all over, are only ripples on a groundswell. This will end with a Sunni caliphate sooner or later. And, the lost caliphate they are longing for had no Israel, only a “national home”. This is behind some of the U.S.-West despair. Any solution?

The way out is cease-fire and negotiation, under United Nations auspices, with full Security Council backing. To gain time, switch to a defensive military strategy, defending Baghdad, the Kurds, the Shia and others in Syria and Iraq.

The historical-cultural-political position of ISIS and its successors is strong.

The West cannot offer withdrawal in return for anything because it has already officially withdrawn. The West, however, can offer reconciliation, both in the sense of clearing the past and opening the future.

Known in the United States as “apologism”, a difficult policy to pursue. But for once the onus of Sykes-Picot is not on the United States, but on Britain and France.

Russia dropped out after the 1917 revolution, but revealed the plot.

Bombing, an atrocity, will lead to more ISIS atrocities. A conciliatory West might change that. An international commission could work on Sykes-Picot and its aftermath, and open the book with compensation on it.

Above all, future cooperation. The West, and here the United States enters, could make Israel return the West Bank, except for small cantons, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital – or else! – sparing the horrible long-lasting Arab-Israeli warfare.

This would be decency, sanity, rationality; the question is whether the West possesses these qualities. The prognosis is dim.

There is the Anglo-American self-image as infallible, a gift to humanity, a little rough at times civilising the die-hards, but not weak.

If not an apology, at least they could wish to undo their own policies in the region since, say, 1967. No sign of that.

So much for the willingness. Does the West have the ability? Does it know how to reconcile?

After Portugal and England conquering the East China-East Africa sea lane around 1500, ultimately establishing themselves in Macao and Hong Kong, after the First and Second Opium wars of 1839-1860 in China, ending with Anglo-French forces burning the Imperial Palace in Beijing, did Britain use the “hand over” of Hong Kong to reflect on the past?

Not a word from Prince Charles.

China could have flattened those two colonies – but did not. Given that Islam has retaliation among its values, the West may be in for a lot.

Le Nouvel Observateur lists “groupes terroristes islamistes” in the world: Iraq-Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Libya, Algeria, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Indonesia, Philippines, Uzbekistan, Chechenya.

The groups, named, grew out of similar local circumstances. Imagine that they increasingly share that longing for a caliphate; the Ottoman Empire covered much more than the Middle East, way into Africa and Asia. And more groups are coming. Invincible.

Imagine that Turkey itself shares that dream, maybe hoping to play a major role (in the past, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu a superb academic, a specialist on the Empire.)

Could that be the reason for Turkey not really joining, as it seems, this anti-ISIS crusade?

The West should be realistic, not “realist”. Switch to rationality. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

Israeli settler home in the middle of Sheikh Jarrah, a predominantly Palestinian neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, following the eviction of a number of Palestinian families. Credit: Mel Frykberg/IPS

By Mel Frykberg
RAMALLAH, West Bank , Oct 12 2014 (IPS)

A deliberate Israeli policy to Judaise East Jerusalem has forced thousands of Palestinians out of their homes and created a chronic housing shortage in the occupied part of the city.

Simultaneously, Israeli settlers have been encouraged by the Jerusalem Municipality to settle in the growing number of settlements mushrooming in East Jerusalem neighbourhoods, all illegal under international law.

The municipality has employed a number of strategies to ensure a Jewish majority so that the city remains under Israeli control indefinitely while preventing Palestinians from establishing East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

“Since 1967 the Israeli government has pursued a declared policy of maintaining a 72 percent majority of Jews over Palestinians in the city,” according to Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).The municipality [of Jerusalem] has employed a number of strategies to ensure a Jewish majority so that the city remains under Israeli control indefinitely while preventing Palestinians from establishing East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state

“Towards that end it has not allowed Palestinians to build new homes, creating an artificial shortage of some 25,000 housing units in the Palestinian sector, while Palestinians are not able to access most of the Jewish neighbourhoods.

“This induced shortage raises the price of renting or buying, and since 70 percent of Palestinians live under the poverty line, they are forced to move outside the Jerusalem borders to acquire affordable housing where they can be stripped legally of their Jerusalem residency,” explains Halper.

“Such are the political machinations behind the seemingly justified policy of demolishing ‘illegal’ homes, a key element of a broader policy of ethnic cleansing,” he adds.

The International Peace and Cooperation Centre (IPCC) – a Palestinian non-governmental organisation specialised in urban planning and community development – issued an East Jerusalem Housing Review 2013 report describing some of the obstacles Palestinians face in trying to build new homes or extend current homes.

“House construction is severely stifled by deficiencies in the planning and, to a lesser extent, delivery systems, both of which have been derailed by Israeli policy makers,” stated the report.

“Building legally, by obtaining a permit through the planning system, is impossible within the majority of land in East Jerusalem. The permit system rigidly maintains requirements that cannot be met as a result of the planning and infrastructural deficiencies.”

According to IPCC, these include “insufficient outline and detailed master plans, inappropriate zoning of urban areas as low density or ‘green’ land, insufficient physical infrastructure, including road, sewage and water networks and the near total absence of registered land.”

Most of the land in East Jerusalem (92 percent) is unregistered, making it impossible to obtain building permits.

The IPCC report said that “development is further stifled by institutional shortcomings such as the unavailability of suitable housing loans, insufficient capacity or willingness of the private sector to plan and deliver large housing projects, the limited amount of suitable development land for sale and its extraordinary cost.”

As a result, Palestinians have been forced to build without the requisite permits. Over 70 percent of new construction from 2001 to 2010 was undertaken without building permits, with informal dwellings comprising between 42 and 54 percent of all housing.

Average room density is 1.9 people per room, making it 90 percent higher than in Jewish West Jerusalem.

While the Israeli authorities have set strategies concerning the Judaisation of East Jerusalem, Israeli settlers have been using other methods to slowly take over.

Muhammad Sabbagh is a resident of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem who, together with other Palestinian activists, is involved in a long, ongoing battle with Israeli settlers over home ownership and possible eviction.

His extended family is part of a group of 28 Palestinian refugee families who live right next to several Israeli settlement homes.

These Palestinian families were allocated land by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Jordanian government in 1956 when the West Bank was under Jordanian rule. The Jordanian government had said that after three years the Palestinians would be given the homes.

However, following Israel’s occupation of the territory in 1967 Israeli settlers tried to evict the Palestinians claiming they had documents proving ownership of the homes from the late 1800s during the Ottoman Empire.

The case went back and forth to the Israeli courts until an agreement was reached that the Palestinians could stay for the next 90 years if they agreed to pay rent.

When some of the families refused to pay the rent on the basis that the homes belonged to neither the Israeli government nor the settlers, they were evicted in the middle of the night by heavily armed soldiers and police.

Subsequent court action and original Turkish documentation proved that the settlers’ documents were forged and that the homes had never belonged to the Jewish community several hundred years ago as the settlers had claimed.

Further evictions have currently been frozen by the Israeli courts on the basis of the documents being forgeries but Sabbagh says that is insufficient.

“We are now fighting to have the homes returned to us as their legal owners and so that the families who were evicted can return home.”

(Edited by Phil Harris)

By Farhang Jahanpour
OXFORD, Sep 24 2014 (IPS)

When, all of a sudden, ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) emerged on the scene and in a matter of days occupied large swathes of mainly Sunni-inhabited parts of Iraq and Syria, including Iraq’s second city Mosul and Tikrit, birthplace of Saddam Hussein, and called itself the Islamic State, many people, not least Western politicians and intelligence services, were taken by surprise.

Farhang Jahanpour

Unlike in the Western world, religion still plays a dominant role in people’s lives in the Middle East region. When talking about Sunni and Shia divisions we should not be thinking of the differences between Catholics and Protestants in the contemporary West, but should throw our mind back to Europe’s wars of religion (1524-1648) that proved to be among the most vicious and deadly wars in history.

Just as the Hundred Years’ War in Europe was not based only on religion, the Sunni-Shia conflicts in the Middle East too have diverse causes, but are often intensified by religious differences. At least, various groups use religion as an excuse and as a rallying call to mobilise their forces against their opponents.

Ever since U.S. encouragement of Saudi and Pakistani authorities to organise and use jihadi fighters following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, to the rise of Al Qaeda and the terrorist attacks on Sep. 11, 2001, followed by the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, and military involvement in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria and elsewhere, it seems that the United States has had the reverse effect of the Midas touch, in the sense that whichever crisis the United States has touched has turned to dust.“Now, with the rise of ISIS and other terrorist organisations, the entire Middle East is on fire. It would be the height of folly to dismiss or underestimate this movement as a local uprising that will disappear by itself, and to ignore its appeal to a large number of marginalised and disillusioned Sunni militants”

Now, with the rise of ISIS and other terrorist organisations, the entire Middle East is on fire. It would be the height of folly to dismiss or underestimate this movement as a local uprising that will disappear by itself, and to ignore its appeal to a large number of marginalised and disillusioned Sunni militants.

In view of its ideology, fanaticism, ruthlessness, the territories that it has already occupied, and its regional and perhaps even global ambitions, ISIS can be regarded as the greatest threat since the Second World War and one that could change the map of the Middle East and the post-First World War geography of the entire region, and challenge Western interests in the Persian Gulf and beyond.

When Islam appeared in the deserts of Arabia some 1400 years ago, with an uncompromising message of monotheism and the slogan “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the Prophet of God”, it changed the plight of the Arabs in the Arabian Peninsula and formed a religion and a civilisation that even now claims upward of 1.5 billion adherents in all parts of the world, and forms the majority faith in 57 countries that are members of the Islamic Cooperation Organization.

Contrary to many previous prophets who did not see the success of their mission during their own lifetime, in the case of Islam not only did Muhammad manage to unite the Arabs in the name of Islam in the entire Arabian Peninsula, but he even managed to form a state and ruled over the converted Muslims both as their prophet and ruler. The creation of the Islamic umma or community during Muhammad’s lifetime in Medina and later on in the whole of Arabia is a unique occurrence in the history of religion.

Consequently, while most religions look forward to an ideal state or to the “Kingdom of God” as a future aspiration, Muslims look back at the period of Muhammad’s rule in Arabia as the ideal state. Therefore, what a pious Muslim wishes to do is to look back at the life and teachings of the Prophet, and especially his rule in Arabia, and take it as the highest standard of an ideal religious government.

This is why the Salafis, namely those who turn to salaf or the early fathers and ancestors, have always proved so attractive to many fundamentalist Muslims. Being a Salafi is a call to Muslims to reject the modern world and to follow the example of the Prophet and the early caliphs.

When, in 1516-17, the armies of Ottoman Sultan Selim I captured Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Muslim holy places in Arabia, the sultan assumed the title of caliph, and therefore the Ottoman Empire was also regarded a Sunni caliphate.

Although not all Muslims, especially many Arabs, recognise Ottoman rule as a caliphate, the caliphate nevertheless continued in name until the fall of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War when the caliphate was officially abolished in 1922.

The fall of the last powerful Islamic empire was not only traumatic from a political and military point of view but, with the end of the caliphate, the Sunnis lost a unifying religious authority as well.

It is very difficult for many Westerners to understand the feeling of hurt and humiliation that many Sunni Muslims feel as the result of what they have suffered in the past century. To have an idea, they should imagine that a mighty Christian empire that had lasted for many centuries had fallen as the result of Muslim conquest and that, in addition to the loss of the empire, the papacy had also been abolished at the same time.

With the end of the caliphate, Sunni countries were left rudderless, to be divided among various foreign powers which imposed their economic, military and cultural domination, as well as their beliefs and their way of life, on them. The feeling of hurt and humiliation that many Muslims have felt since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and the strong longing for its reinstatement, still continues.

To add insult to injury, before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Western powers, especially Great Britain, had promised the Arabs that if they would rise up against the Ottomans, after the war they would be allowed to form an Islamic caliphate in the area comprising all the Arab lands ruled by the Ottoman Empire.

Not only were these promises not fulfilled, but as part of the Sykes-Picot_Agreement on 16 May 1916, Britain and France secretly plotted to divide the Arab lands between them and they even promised Istanbul to Russia. Not only was a unified Arab caliphate not formed, but the Balfour_Declaration generously offered a part of Arab territory that Britain did not possess to the Zionists, to form a “national home for the Jewish people”.

In Winston Churchill’s words, Britain sold one piece of real estate (to which it had no claim in the first place) to two people at the same time.

The age of colonialism came to an end almost uniformly through military coups involving officers who had the ability to fight against foreign occupation. From the campaigns of Kemal Ataturk in Turkey, to the rise of Reza Khan in Iran, Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, the military coups in Iraq and Syria that later led to the establishment of the Baâthist governments of Hafiz al-Assad in Syria and Abd al-Karim Qasim, Abdul Salam Arif and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and so on, practically all Middle Eastern countries achieved their independence as the result of military coups.

While the new military leaders managed to establish some order through the barrel of the gun, they were completely ignorant of the historical, religious and cultural backgrounds of their nations and totally alien to any concept of democracy and human rights.

In the absence of any civil society, democratic traditions and social freedom, the only path that was open to the masses that wished to mobilise against the rule of their military dictators was to turn to religion and use the mosques as their headquarters.

The rise of religious movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Ennahda Movement in Tunisia, FIS in Algeria and Al-Dawah in Iraq, were seen as a major threat by the military rulers and were ruthlessly suppressed.

The main tragedy of modern Middle Eastern regimes has been that they have been unable not only to involve the Islamist movements in government, but they have even failed to involve them in the society in any meaningful way.

This is why after repeated defeats, divisions and humiliation, there has always been a longing among militant Sunni Muslims, especially Arabs whose countries were artificially divided and dominated by Western colonialism and later by military dictators, for the revival of the caliphate. Even mere utterance of ‘Islamic caliphate’ brings a burst of adrenaline to many secular Sunnis.

The failure of military dictatorships and the marginalisation and even the elimination of religiously-oriented groups have led to the rise of vicious extremism and terrorism. The terrorist group ISIS is making use of this situation and is basing its appeal on the reinstatement of the caliphate. (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

(Edited by Phil Harris)

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