The Shaping of the Modern Middle East (30 page)

Many misunderstandings arose from the widespread assumption that the United States was an imperial power and the natural successor of Britain and France in the region. But the United States was not an imperial power, and it had neither the interest nor the ambition for such a role. Its purposes in the Middle East had been almost entirely defensive-during the Cold War, to prevent Soviet penetration; in the Gulf crisis of 1990 and 1991, to prevent a stranglehold on a large part of the world's oil resources by a megalomaniac dictator, and the collapse of the world order into anarchy. These purposes having been achieved, the American people, to whom the American government is ultimately responsible, were unlikely to approve any further military involvement in the region.

In the sixteenth century, with the Ottoman conquest of Egypt and the Fertile Crescent and the rise in Iran of a new radical Shiite state, the Middle East was once again contested, as it had been in the early centuries of the Christian era, between two rival and expanding powers, one based on the plateau of Iran, the other on the plateau of Anatolia, with its capital in the imperial city by the Bosphorus. The advent of Islam and the expansion of the Arabs from the seventh century had interrupted that process and for a few centuries had reinstated the river valley civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, making them once again, as they had been in a more remote antiquity, the dominant centers of the Middle East. That period, which began with the Arab invasions, ended with the coming of the steppe peoples-first Turks and then Mongols-and the creation of new empires, whose policies and rivalries restored an older pattern.

This, too, was ended by a third wave of conquest and invasion, this time from both ends of Europe. The domination of the European did not equal that of either the Arab or the Turk in its duration or in the range, scope, and depth of the changes that it brought. But while this domination lasted, it had considerable effect, reshaping the political configuration of the region and initiating far-reaching developments, principally in its economic and social life. The period of domination by rival powers and superpowers drew to an end in the last decades of the twentieth century, and it is too soon to judge how deep and how durable these changes will be.

Will the region once again be dominated, as in the days of the Ottomans and Safavids, or of the Byzantines and Sasanids, from the plateaus of Anatolia and Iran? There is much to support such a view: superiority in numbers, in political sophistication, and in virtually all resources other than oil. Or will the peoples of Egypt and the Fertile Crescent succeed in overcoming their differences, realize their potential, and once again restore the power and the glory to these ancient lands? What is new is that now, for the first time in centuries, the course of events in the Middle East is being shaped not by outside but by regional powers-by the governments they form, the policies they choose, the actions they take. The choice, at last, is their own.

Notes

Chapter 1

1. A. T. Mahan, "The Persian Gulf and International Relations," National Review (September 1902): 26-45, especially p. 39: "The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen ... ," reprinted in A. T. Mahan, Retrospect and Prospect (London, 1903); V. Chirol, The Middle Eastern Question (London, 1903), especially pp. 1-6. See also R. H. Davison, "Where Is the Middle East?" Foreign Affairs (July 1960): 665-75; and B. Lewis and P. M. Holt, eds., Historians of the Middle East (London, 1962), pp. 1-3, where some of these points are discussed.

2. Pliny, Natural History, vi.5.

Chapter 2

1. See, for example, R. F. Kreutel and O. Spies, Leben and Abenteuer des Dolmetschers Osman Aga (Bonn, 1954), p. 171; and, on the gardens of the Trianon, Yirmi Sekiz Mehmed Efendi, Paris Sefaretnamesi (Istanbul, [A.H.] 1302), p. 99.

2. Asim, Tarih (Istanbul, n.d.), vol. 1, p. 376, cited in B. Lewis, "The Impact of the French Revolution on Turkey," Journal of World History 1 (1953): 118.

3. A. Adnan [Adivar], La Science chez les Tures ottomans (Paris, 1939), p. 57.

4. Muhammad Igbal, Peyam-i Mashriq ]Lahore, n.d.], p. 255; French translation by Eva Meyerovitch and Mohammad Achena, Message de l'Orient (Paris, 1956), p. 189.

Chapter 3

1. Sadullah Pasha, "1878 Paris Ekspozisiyonu," in Ebiizziya Tevfik, Numune-i Edebiyat-i Osmaniye, 1st ed. (Istanbul, [A.H.] 1296); 3rd ed. (Istanbul, [A.H.] 1306), p. 288. In this, Sadullah Pasha is echoing an old dictum recorded by the ninth-century Arabic author Ibn Qutayba and repeated by many subsequent Muslim authors, that "there is no rule without soldiers, no soldiers without money, no money without prosperity, no prosperity without justice and good government." The change in the text is significant. See Ibn Qutayba, `Uyun al-Akhbar, ed. Carl Brockelmann (Berlin, 1900), vol. 1, p. 26; cf. A. K. S. Lambton, "Justice in the Medieval Persian Theory of Kingship," Studia Islamica 17 (1962): 100.

2. W. G. Browne, Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria from the Year 1792 to 1798 (London, 1806), pp. 432-33.

3. Lutfi, Tarih (Istanbul, [A.H.] 1328), vol. 8, p. 15; B. Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 2nd ed. [London, 19681, p. 112.

4. Sheikh Rifa`a Rafi` al-Tahtawi, Takhlis al-Ibriz fi Talkhis Bariz, 1st ed. (Bulaq, [A.H.] 1265), ed. Mahdi `Allam, Ahmad Badawi, and Anwar Luga (Cairo, n.d. [19581), p. 150; French translation by Anouar Louca, L'Or de Paris (Paris, 1988), p. 138.

5. Sadik Rifat Pasha, Miintahabat-i Asar (Istanbul, n.d.). Cf. Serif Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought (Princeton, 1962), pp. 16995; and Lewis, Emergence, pp. 132-33.

6. Dufferin to Granville, 6 February 1883, Parliamentary Papers, c. 3529, Egypt no. 6, 1883, vol. 83, p. 43.

7. Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman and London, 1991), pp. 266-67.

8. T. E. Lawrence, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (London, 1940), p. 36.

9. Cited in Malcolm H. Kerr, "The Emergence of a Socialist Ideology in Egypt," Middle East Journal 16 (1962): 142-43.

10. AI-Ahram, 4 August 1961; French translation in Orient 5 (1961): 151-58.

11. B. Berenson, Aesthetics and History (1948; New York, 1954).

12. Interview with R. K. Karanjia, 28 September 1958, reported in Al- Ahram, 29 September 1958; English translation in President Gamal Abdel Nasser's Speeches and Press-Interviews 1958 (Cairo, [1959]), p. 402. The Protocols were also featured in an article in the official Egyptian cultural journal: Salah Dasugi, "Al-Khitat al-Sahyuniyya fi majal al-tatbiq," AlMajalla 4 (November 1960): 7-11; cf. Al-Majalla 5 (January 1961): 134-36, where a reader in Damascus, `Umar al-Tibi, provides additional "information" of the same kind.

Chapter 4

1. Ahmed Refik, ed., "Ali Efendinin Sefaretnamesi... ," in Tarih-i Osmani Encumeni Mecmuasi ([A.H.[ 1329), p. 1459; Lewis, Emergence, p. 329.

2. Lewis, Emergence, pp. 333-40; B. Lewis, Islam and the West (New York, 1993), pp. 166-73; Mardin, Genesis, pp. 326-36.

3. Mustafa Nihat Ozon, Namik Kemal ve Ibret Gazetesi (Istanbul, 1938), pp. 81-85; cf. Mardin, Genesis, p. 327; and Lewis, Emergence, pp. 336-37.

4. Sir Lewis Namier, Vanished Supremacies (1958; London, 1962), pp. 49, 50.

5. Cited in ibid., pp. 62, 63.

6. U. Heyd, Foundations of Turkish Nationalism (London, 1950), p. 43; Lewis, Emergence, p. 351.

7. Al-Tha`alibi, Fiqh al-Lugha (Cairo, (A.H.( 12841, p. 3, cited in A. A. al-Duri, Al-Judhur al-ta'rikhiyya li'l-qawmiyya al-`Arabiyya (Beirut, 1960), p. 46.

8. Midhat Cemal Kuntay, Sartkh Ihtilalci All Suavi (Istanbul, 1946), p. 59; Mardin, Genesis, p. 372.

9. Ozon, Namik Kemal, pp. 263-71, cf. p. 81; Mardin, Genesis, pp. 327-38; Lewis, Emergence, pp. 332-33.

10. Mehmet Akif [Ersoy], Hakkin sesleri (1913), in Safahat, 6th ed. (Istanbul, 1963), pp. 205-6.

Chapter 5

1. M. Plessner, "Ist der Zionismus gescheitert?" Mitteilungsblatt (Wiener Library, London), no. 42, 24 October 1952.

2. Cited in A. Bausani, "Note su Shah Waliullah di Delhi (17031762)," Annali dell'Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, n.s. 10 (1961): 99.

3. Ozon, Namik Kemal, p. 33, cited in Lewis, Emergence, p. 341.

4. Thomas Hope, Anastasius (London, 1819; Paris, 1831), vol. 1, pp. 110, 257.

5. Lutfi, Tarih (Istanbul, 1302/1885), vol. 6, p. 51.

6. Cevdet, Tezakir, ed. Cavid Baysun (Ankara, 1960), vol. 2, p. 152.

7. Muhammad `Abduh, AI-`Urwa al-Wuthga (Cairo, 1957), p. 10, cited in P. J. Vatikiotis, "Muhammad `Abduh and the Quest for a Muslim Humanism," Arabica 4 (1957): 62.

8. Muhammad al-Bahay, Al-Fikr al-Islami al-hadith wa-silatuhu bi'l- isti`mar al-gharbi (Cairo, 1957).

9. Liman von Sanders, Funf lahre Turkei (Berlin, 1920), pp. 330-31; English translation, Five Years in Turkey (Annapolis, 1928), p. 312. The Ottoman general Ali Fuat Pasha, in his memoirs, records a similar approach by Nuri Said late in 1918. See Ali Fuat Cebesoy, Milli Mucadele Hatiralari (Istanbul, 1953), pp. 28-29.

10. Cited in Mahmud Kemal Inal, Osmanli devrinde son Sadriazamlar (Istanbul, 1940-1953), p. 1892, translated in Lewis, Emergence, p. 358.

11. Cited in P. Rondot, L'Islam et les musulmans d'aujourd'hui (Paris, 1958), vol. 1, p. 253.

12. W. Cantwell Smith, Islam in Modern History (Princeton, 1957), pp. 156-57.

13. Cited in Shaul Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs (New York, 1984), pp. 22, 24, 26, 28, 34.

Chapter 6

1. Cevdet, Tarih (Istanbul, (A.H.) 1309), vol. 5, p. 14. See T. Naff, "Reform and the Conduct of Ottoman Diplomacy in the Reign of Selim III, 1780-1807," Journal of the American Oriental Society 83 (1963): 310.

2. Cevdet, Tarih, vol. 6, pp. 400-401.

3. J. G. McDonald, My Mission in Israel, 1948-1951 (London, 1951), pp. 181-82.

4. U.S. Department of State, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939-41. Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Office, ed. R. J. Sontag and J. S. Beddie. Department of State publication 3023 (Washington, D.C., 1948), p. 259, cf. pp. 244-45, 270.

5. Cantwell Smith, Islam in Modern History, p. 159.

Bibliographical Note

There is now a vast literature on the modern Middle East, an increasing proportion of which conforms to accepted scholarly standards. For premodern history, R. Stephen Humphreys, Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry, rev. ed. (Princeton, 1991), provides invaluable methodological and bibliographical guidance. For comparable help in more modem history, the reader must have recourse to a variety of works. A useful and readable general account, as well as a critical guide to the literature, may be found in the two volumes by M. E. Yapp, The Making of the Modern Middle East, 1792-1923 (London, 1987), and The Near East Since the First World War (London, 1991 ).

Numerous surveys, outlines, and chronologies of events are available in journals and other publications. The best by far over a long period of time is the Italian journal Oriente Moderno, published since 1921 by the Istituto per l'Oriente in Rome, and dealing with cultural and religious as well as political, military, and economic matters. An approximately annual analysis of events and developments is provided in The Middle East Record (1960-1970), followed by The Middle East Contemporary Survey (1976). Two French publications, Cahiers de l'Institut de l'Orient Con- temporain (1945-1955) and Orient (1957-1969), have unfortunately ceased publication.

The Quarterly Index Islamicus (London) furnishes a comprehensive classified bibliography of current books, articles, and papers on Islamic subjects. Diane Grimwood Jones, Derek Hopwood, and J. D. Pearson, eds., Arab Islamic Bibliography: The Middle East Library Committee's Guide (Hassocks and Atlantic Highlands, 1977), contains much useful material. On more recent issues, George N. Atiyeh, The Contemporary Middle East, 1948-1973: A Selective and Annotated Bibliography (Boston, 1975), provides extensive coverage. Among specialized works of reference dealing with the region, mention may be made of the Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed., and the Encyclopedia Iranica. Both contain numerous articles, with documentation and bibliography, on places, persons, and topics relevant to the modem period.