The Middle East:
A Clash of Civilizations?
A Region of Contrasts
• Saudi Arabia: home of Muhammad and tribes • Israel: Modern, industrialized • Saudi Arabia: Desert • Israel: Fertile, agricultural
The Elephant in the Room
• Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, –
OIL!
• Israel: Must import or make all energy
“Fault Lines”
• “„Culture and cultural identities„are shaping the patterns of cohesion, disintegration, and conflict in the post-Cold War world„” •Samuel P. Huntington
The Remaking of World Order
• Samuel P. Huntington: –The “Islamic Resurgence”: •“„the latest phase in the adjustment of Islamic civilization to the West„ •“„an effort to find the “solution” not in western ideologies, but in Islam.
“Islamic Resurgence”
• Islamic reawakening involves:
–Increased attention to religious observances –Proliferation of religious programming and publications –More emphasis on Islamic dress and values –Increase in religiously oriented governments, organizations, laws, banks, welfare organizations
The Dark Side
• Religious Clashes:
“Pakistanis Attack Christians„” Aug. 3,
’09
NY Times
„and political ones:
“Jews evict Palestinians„” Aug.3 ‘09
“Enemies are essential„”
• “For peoples seeking identity and reinventing ethnicity, enemies are essential, and the potentially most dangerous enmities occur across the fault lines between the world’s major civilizations„”
Islam: In the beginning„
Muhammad: Born c. 570 CE, in Mecca •Father died before he was born •Mother died before he was six
–Raised by his grandfather –Lived with bedouins –We know little of his childhood
We know more about Muhammad than Jesus„
• Grew up to be a capable and honest merchant • Married Khadijah, a merchant’s widow.
–Had six children by her –Took no other wives while she lived
• Became a wealthy man • Was troubled by religious climate of Mecca
First Revelations
• Muhammad often went to a cave to meditate • 610 CE: visited by an angel, who exhorted him to read. • Muhammad was terrified; cried out “I cannot read!” Most Muslims believe he was illiterate. • Angel embraced him, and exhorted him again to read.
• Everywhere he looked in the cave, Muhammad saw the same angel looking back at him and saying: “O Muhammad, thou art the messenger of God, and I am Gabriel.” • Fearing he was going mad, he hurried home and asked Khadijah to cover him with a coat. • He saw the angel again, and the angel said:
“Oh thou who are shrouded in thy mantle, Rise and warn! Thy Lord magnify, Thy robes purify, and from iniquity flee!
Quran, 74:1-5
Muhammad realizes he is hearing the voice of God
• God wanted him to proclaim His existence to the Arabs. • God wanted Muhammad to warn the Arabs that the Day of Judgment was coming, when all would be called to account.
A prophet with doubts„
• Muhammad was unlettered, middle aged, a businessman, and an orphan. • Was tempted to ignore the call; yet when he heard no new messages for awhile, he thought God had abandoned him. • A few friends and relatives believed him, and gradually he convinced himself.
Muhammad’s message:
• God is good and all powerful • God will call all men and women back to Himself on the Day of Judgment • People should thank God through worship for His blessings • God expects people to share their worldly goods • Muhammad is God’s messenger
Muslim:
“One who submits.”
First Converts
• Young men from the upper stratum (Nearly haves.) • Men from outside the system – no clans to protect them. • Muhammad’s uncle never embraced Islam, but his son, Ali, did„and later married Muhammad’s daughter, Fatimah.
Persecution
• Not all was olive and dates for the Prophet and his followers„ • Many Meccan businessmen feared Muhammad wanted to take away their wealth and power. • Muslims were persecuted by the businessmen, and decided to emigrate to another village, about 270 miles away.
Rise to Power
• Muhammad became chief judge, as well as a religious leader. His followers became thieves. • Raided Meccan caravans passing nearby. • Climactic battle at Badr, won by Muslims, enhanced Muhammad’s prestige. • Meccans gave in to Muhammad„ but prospered under his rule.
Consolidating Power
• Other tribes also gave in, made alliances with Muslims, and became converts. • By 632 CE, 22 years after his first revelation, almost all tribes in the Arabian penninsula were Muslim. • Muhammad died in June, 632.
Succession Battle
• Muhammad did not name a successor • Abu-Bakr, Muhammad’s closest friend and the first person he converted outside his own family, became “Khalifah” (Caliph) (successor). • Newly Muslim tribes recanted, so they would not have to pay religious taxes. • Abu Bakr fought the tribes, eventually bringing them back into the fold.
The Spread of Islam
• Umar, strongest and most decisive of Muhammad’s friends, became Caliph after Abu-Bakr. • United tribes again by enlisting them in a holy war against neighbors of Arabia. • Within a century, Muslim troops were serving from Spain to the borders of China, and into the Midde East and North Africa.
“Golden Age of Islam”
Source: Wikipedia
Keys to Success
• Small armies, but cohesive • Chose battles with care • Decisive victories brought huge expanses • Fought in deserts, where speed and mobility allowed escape, if needed. • Horses gave them speed • Camels gave endurance to fight in
Islam led in:
• • • • • • Prose Poetry Commerce Industry Arts Sciences, particularly astronomy
Years of Expansion
• “Rightly Guided” Caliphs – (632661 CE) Friends of Muhammad, related to him by marriage. Considered a “golden age” of Islam. • Also period of strife, adjustment to changing conditions, improvisation in government. • Islam was doubling and redoubling in area, population and wealth.
Years of Expansion
• Umar, second Caliph after Muhammad, began a period of systematic expansion. • Umar would not permit his Arab soldiers to occupy cities they conquered. Stationed them in garrison towns on edges of captured towns. Purpose: To keep them and townspeople apart. • Garrison towns became hotbeds of
Problems of Power
• Government ceased to be extension of Arab tribal democracy, or Muhammad’s prestige • Government was a mixture of Arabs and Syrians based in Syria. • Some new subjects became Muslims; the majority remained Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians.
Rise of Shiism
• One branch of Muslims vowed never to accept the Caliphs elected after the “Rightly Guided” caliphs. Became called “Shi’at Ali” – The “party of Ali,” – Ali being one of the “Rightly Guided” caliphs. Today, called “Shiites,” the second largest branch of Islam. • Shiites today believe only the descendants of Ali can lead Islam.
Zenith of Islamic Power
• 685 – 945, CE – Often called the “High Caliphate.”
–Militarily strong relative to Western Europe, the Byzantine Empire, China and India. –Economically prosperous, based mainly on agriculture, enhanced by commerce and manufacturing. –These growth factors facilitated the spread of people and spread of ideas.
Zenith of Islamic Power
Islam: 10th – 13th Centuries
• Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr., author of “The Concise History of the Middle East,” calls this period simply “One damned dynasty after another.” • Power of Islam waxed and waned. Arabs gave way to Berbers in North Africa, and to the Persians and Kurds in lands east of the Euphrates.
Islam: 10th – 13th Centuries
• Islam managed to stop the Mongol invasion, expel the Crusaders, overcome factionalism and sectarianism, and continued to prosper.
Islam and the Intellect
• Islam preserved classical learning until the West could relearn it during the Renaissance. • Muslim mathematicians made advances in algebra, plane and spherical trigonometry, and the geometry of planes, spheres, cones and cylinders. • “Arabic” numerals were probably a Hindu invention, but Arabs transmitted them to Europe.
Islam and the Intellect
• Muslims were using decimal fractions at least two centuries before Westerners knew about them. • Muslim scientists knew that the earth was round and that it revolved around the sun long before Copernicus or Galileo expounded their theories. • Much of what we know about Black Africa from the 9th to 15th centuries comes from Arab travelers and geographers.
The Gunpowder Era
• Use of gunpowder changed power relationships, beginning in the 14 th century. • Transformed European and Middle Eastern politics and societies • Canons and muskets require disciplined footsoldiers to load, fire and maintain them. • Need to recruit, train, and pay footsoldiers led to rise of central
The Gunpowder Era
• Feudal lords who fought on horseback and protected themselves with plated armor and walled castles declined. • States that successfully made transition to gunpowder were those that strengthened their administrative and commercial classes at the expense of the aristocracy. • No Middle Eastern country was as successful as England and Holland.
The Mamluks
• Mamluks: Turkish slaves who fought for Islam.
–Turks sold sons to Islamic dynasties who trained them to be great fighters and horsemen, then freed them when they were trained. –Mamluks stopped the Mongol advance at the gates of Cairo.
• Over time, the Mamluk system became corrupt. Training and discipline declined.
The Mamluks
• Mamluks scorned gunpowder, relegating it to a minor corps of mercenaries. Main troops still fought with swords and spears and bows and arrows. • Caused dramatic downfall before the Ottoman army, which did use gunpowder, in 1516 and 1517.
Use of Gunpowder
• Long range ships, and cannons allowed Europeans to expand, at expense of Muslims. • Spread of gunpowder and firearms was as momentous a technological change as the proliferation of nuclear weapons since 1945.
Example: Ottoman Empire
• Ottoman Empire besieged Vienna in 1683, for the second time. • Ottoman army was thrown back by superior arms and tactics of Europeans. • 1699: Ottomans ceded Hungary to Habsburg Empire. • Ceased to be the scourge of Christianity. In another century, would be referred to as “The sick man of Europe.” Power had shifted.