Islam and the Middle East in a Nutshell

I lost interest in my promised series on Islam and the Middle East. Instead I will attempt to cover about 1400 years of history in one, long post. The following Is my own, highly-opinionated work and I will not reference experts so you’ll have to trust me on this.

Around 200 years after Christianity dominated much of Europe and had consolidated its own orthodoxy (hard to pinpoint but around 400 AD), an Arab merchant began getting visions from God, whom he called Allah in his native tongue. He began a long career as a prophet of the one God/Allah and, descending from Abraham, was the last prophet (and only official prophet per himself) in a line of prophets from Moses to Jesus and on to himself. He recorded his visions in a book called the Qur’an or Koran and founded a religion called Islam (to submit, or surrender, to God). But this man, Mohammed (Mohammad, Mohamet, etc), was also a military genius and a cunning diplomat. Not exactly a prince of peace.

Islam expanded rapidly by voluntary conversion and conquest, but mostly by conquest. It expanded to all of what we call the Middle East, eastward to India and even into China, westward into northern Africa, and northward into Spain, southern France, the Balkans, and parts of Russia. In 1683, Islam besieged, but did not take, Vienna. During this time when Europe was mostly in its Dark Ages, science, art, and literature blossomed under Islam.

The lands of Islam were sometimes invaded and factions within Islam came to power and then lost it to others. But Islam absorbed outsiders and remained steady within its realm. The head honcho was the caliph (a descriptive term meaning both follower and successor of Mohammed). He ruled only by following Allah’s law (per Mohammed’s Qur’an, of course) and could and was sometimes removed by assassination or other means if he was judged as not following Allah’s law and was not too careful of his personal security. The concept of a nation was not in Islam’s dictionary but there were definable countries and states and Islam ruled throughout. It became a shared moral code, consistent set of laws covering all aspects of individuals and states, and most of all it was an experience and set of values shared across all Islamic lands.

Writers like to compare Islam with Christianity but, beyond Abraham, there is very little to compare. The central figure in Christianity, Jesus, had a strong pacifist streak and he wasn’t interested in the affairs of state (render unto Caesar and all that). Our Bible was written/compiled after Jesus’ death, parts of it long after his death, and there is much inconsistency as different story tellers relate their own versions of events and opinions. Mohammed wrote all of the Qur’an and, though I find it a totally disorganized and boring text, its message is very consistent. Mohammed was a warrior who was interested in conquering and managing an empire and his Qur’an also thoroughly instructs in matters of war and statecraft. The Bible displays a distrust of governments on Earth but offers little help in what to do about them. It took over a millennium for Christianity to realize this distrust of governments and nearly all Western nations observe a separation of church and state. In Islam, the separation of church and state is unnatural and runs against the idea that Allah is in charge on Earth. We should keep this in mind when promoting our kind of freedom in Islamic lands.

There is one other comparison that I think is important. Whereas in Christian lands, the family and community is apparently declining as a societal force, in Islamic countries the family, tribe, and community are important forces – sometimes far more important than the state. A code of honor, I’ll call it the primitive honor code, is also a force in Islamic lands. The primitive honor code was never compatible with Christianity and finally died with dueling early in the 1900s, although it seems to be reappearing in modern gang cultures. The primitive honor code predates Islam but seems quite compatible with it. It is a zero-sum game where one can often gain or regain honor primarily by taking honor away from someone else. As our troops practice the new COIN operations, they are also becoming adept at using that primitive honor code to our advantage.

Life was good under Islam when it was dominant (or at least perceived to be good), but Islam had four inherent problems.

1. After Mohammed’s death there was an argument of succession. Some voted for a family member and this faction became the Shia. Some voted for trusted lieutenants and they became the Sunni. The schism has sometimes been bloody and it remain alive today.
2. Although science blossomed under Islam, it did not translate into technology or industry. I saw an interesting comparison of mills in, I think, about 1600 AD. England alone had more wind and water mills than in all of the Middle East (they were taxed so numbers are known). Whether this lack of technology or industry was caused by Islam or culture is debatable but the difference is certainly with us today and is a source of Middle East’s inability to compete in the modern world. Oil revenues only mask the problem when the price is high and lead to discontent when the price is low.
3. Perhaps like all great civilizations Islam eventually declined.
4. Because subjects of Islam considered Islam to be the only way of life, they ignored the rest of the world and didn’t even notice their own decline until the infidel knocked on the door.

Problem 4 became painfully obvious when Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798. Napoleon was soon driven out of Egypt by the Brits. Two things became clear to anyone in Islam. Westerners could invade Islam with impunity and only another Western power could dislodge the infidel invaders. Then Britain and France proceeded to conquer much of Islam from northern Africa in the west through India in the east. Only the Arabian Kingdom was left untouched as only a wasteland and not worthy of colonialism. Britain and France created countries where none had existed and even named some of them using names from Western history.

The final blow was the dissolution of the Ottoman Empireand removal of the last caliph in 1924, , after picking the wrong side in World War I, after picking the wrong side in World War I. Times were not good in Islam. Their internal problems were becoming painfully obvious and their subjugation by infidels seems permanent. Between the wars, Muslims continued their fascination with the wrong side with a growing interest in fascism. Fascism’s racial intolerance was not attractive and was mostly ignored. However, fascism also taught that power would come to those countries that gave up individual rights to create a more powerful state – something that resonated in Islam.

Those who entertained fascism soon found Britain’s heavy hand in World War II. Further, as WW II continued, the peoples of Islam watched the Western powers fight, conquer, and re-conquer, while they stood by powerless to affect their own fate or that of anyone. Britain and France dissolved their empires at the end of WW II and Muslims suddenly found themselves free of infidel governments, but not necessarily free of infidel influence. Some briefly experimented with Western ideas of democracy and individual freedom. Most failed when dictators, autocrats, or kings took control. And most were brutal leaders, but their main failure, in the eyes of their peoples, were that they were secular. They did not follow Allah’s law. And this brings us to apostasy.

An apostate is one who has accepted Islam and then rejects it. Within Christianity there is no longer much condemnation of apostates, or any non-believer for that matter. Although a few Christians may do the work of God (as they see it) and will speed heretics and non-believers on their trip to Hell, most are willing to allow God to make the travel arrangements. Not so within Islam where an apostate is the worst kind of human. While Islam is a conquering religion, it does not force people to become Muslim – it is their choice to accept the obvious benefits of Islam. But those who accept Islam and then reject it are to be put to death. No question. The Qur’an is firm in that. Although it seems the West is the prime target of radical Muslims, we are actually a secondary target. They have uniformly failed to remove their own “apostates” from power and have convinced themselves that Western support of such governments keeps them in power. The sad thing is that we’ve done just that in enough cases to give a measure of truth to the mostly false claim.

Islamic countries have lots of problems, especially in the greater Middle East (to include northern Africa, east to Pakistan, and north to the ex-USSR-istans). Most problems are now of their own making with bad governments, poverty, unemployment, little industry or international commerce. Some have pointed out that most of the terrorists who’ve struck in the U.S. and Europe are educated and therefore poverty is not a main factor. I don’t buy that. Poverty is rampant and those who danced in the streets after 9/11 included a lot of poor folks. Probably more to the point is that those terrorists were educated, middle-class men who had few employment opportunities.

But some of Islam’s problems are caused by Western actions. Of late, the U.S. has supported the Shah of Iran, even Saddam of Iraq, and backed Israel who occupies property recently owned and settled by long ago by Islamic peoples. The Ayatollah Khomeini coined the “Great Satan” to describe us. Note that this term evokes, for Muslims, the image of “who whispers into the hearts of humans.” We whisper into their hearts via TV and other communication techniques and we cause them to draw away from teachings of Islam with such dastardly concepts as equality for women, close dancing, and questionable sexual practices. Or at least that’s what the radical Muslims preach.

The average Muslim may hate secular rulers like Saddam Hussein but those same leaders are also loved when they stand up to the U.S. Saddam was wildly popular during the Gulf War and remained popular until his death. Accordingly, the U.S. was hated, but perhaps not more so than usual. Ahmadinejad of Iran is possibly even more popular throughout Islam.

It is worth noting that, after WW II, Muslims had a serious flirtation with the USSR even though their experience with the USSR and Russia was similar to that with the West. Islam conquered some of southern Russia and later lost it back to Russia and then the USSR. Yet, even while the USSR was invading Afghanistan it was rare to find any Muslim condemnation of the USSR outside of Afghanistan. In fact, while the U.S. was arming future Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, we were roundly hated by most of Islam. It’s hard to find a plausible reason for all this might be the simple fact that the USSR was not of the West.

We destroyed a lot of Iraq’s Army in the Gulf War (to free Kuwait), and we invaded Iraq later to destroy WMD/remove a bad dictator/bring freedom to the Iraqis/ or pick a year and pick your favorite reason from Bush’s changing list. Muslims think we warred on them twice to protect our oil sources and to just generally make things bad for Muslims. And this, too, is mostly untrue but contains just enough truth to make the lie believable.

Those who say that oil was not a factor in those wars, as well as most of our other Middle East actions, should look at the map of the Persian Gulf, the chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz, and especially at the Shat-al-Arab that divides Iran from Iraq. Many years ago we deployed troops to Bahrain and Saudi Arabia (near the Gulf by the way), and we’ve warred twice starting at the Shat-al-Arab through which much of the world’s oil passes.

And what is wrong with protecting our national interests, even protecting our oil sources? Even the dysfunctional UN recognizes a nation’s right to protect its vital interests. But wouldn’t it be nice if the average American was more concerned over the death of a soldier and the dollar cost of war than about the cost of a tank full of gas? Why are we more interested in those parts of the Middle East that have oil than those who do not?

Hatred of the U.S., Europe, Australia, and Canada now has a life of its own. We’ve become a tool of authoritarian governments and jihadist caliph wannabes. Authoritarian regimes, even our bosom buddies, either allow or promote hatred of the U.S. to hide their own failures. As to the second part of caliph wannabees, some recent history is in order. The current rash of jihadist organizations (and there are many more than just al Qaeda) are outgrowths of a very severe form of Islamic theory and practice that developed in Saudia Arabia (our most bosomy buddy) in the 1700s. Wahabism became the ruling version of Sunni Islam in that country and they were able to export this puritanical religion after taking the Holy Cities (Mecca and Medina) in 1924 and especially after oil brought power and bucks to the ruling class.

Elsewhere, some of the more radical malcontents adopted this puritanical version of Islam, especially in Egypt where a man named Sayyid Qutb wrote about his visit the U.S. and about our sinful morals as displayed by male and female teens partying together, even in our very churches, and even dancing together and touching. We were pretty bad back in the 1950s and Sayyid recorded all of it and then helped found the Muslim Brotherhood before being executed in Eqypt. The Muslim Brotherhood was the role model for most Islamic terrorists groups.

I think we must also guard against apologists for Islam who reside in the U.S. and Europe. I allow that many Islamic charities operate honestly in Western countries, but I am troubled by the many dual connections with the Muslim Brotherhood and related terrorist organizations. I will leave the history part of this post with a note on term “jihad.” Jihad means "striving in the way of God." It has two aspects. The greater jihad is the individual struggle to become a better person in the eyes of Allah and to promote justice and help the less fortunate. The lesser jihad is holy war and, in theory, should only be undertaken in defense of Islam. Further, modern apologists would have us believe the greater jihad of personal struggle is the most accepted and used aspect of jihad. Yet several scholars of Islam point out that throughout history jihad is most often used in its lesser jihad, war sense. That such war should be defensive is recognized when we hear bin Laden claim that his war against infidels is in defense of Islam. This is also the source of reputed role as Crusaders. The Crusades were around 800 years ago and they were complete failures. Further, the Crusades had nearly no impact on Islam and they were not even reported in Islamic history until very recently. It’s use is totally modern and is used to evoke the image of Islam defending itself against infidels. It falls in the same usage category as the Great Satan.

Still, most of the peoples of Islam have been attracted to the U.S., and most of those who hate us do not necessarily want to see us defeated. Once upon a time, we were a beacon of wealth and individual freedom and the two were inextricably linked. We are still the beacon of wealth, but our dedication to individual freedom is faltering. We offer no human rights to those we capture, we’ve begun spying on America at large, and we have allowed our government to increase its power over us while claiming Republican principles and erecting shields of secrecy. We’ve also lost respect by bullying our few friends in Europe and the UN. We’ve lost respect, critically injured our national honor by mismanaging a war in Iraq and by forgetting that there is still a war in Afghanistan that once had something to do with al Qaeda.

Now here’s my punchline summary:

• Most of the peoples of Islam don’t like us, but it has less to do with our actions and more to do with our inheriting the titles of “Leader of the West” and “The Most Powerful and Wealthy Nation.” We can’t change our titles and we can’t expect to change the minds of most Muslims in my lifetime.
• Nearly all the terrorists that we need to worry about are Muslims. Many Muslims do not like our use of the term, “Islamic terrorists,” but that I is what those terrorists call themselves and Islamic terrorist are the ones we need to stop.
• We will be fighting more “small” wars against Islamic radical terrorists and insurgents and we need to increase our military strength accordingly and soon.
• We will be dealing with peoples who value the primitive honor code. We need to respect the code in our dealings with them, but we must also recognize that we need to protect our own honor. Therefore, I suggest that we strive to finish our efforts in Iraq with honor as long as such an end is possible. Lost honor makes our troops more vulnerable and damages our standing as an effective negotiator.
• But few Muslims are terrorists or even radical jihadists. We should try to work with that majority. Whether they like us or we like them is a secondary issue. We do need to work together to improve the lot of most Muslims, and we need to find means to coexist on this planet.
• We should recognize that the Qur’an does promote conquering in the name of Islam, and we should never be misled into believing that jihad has only a peaceful interpretation. But we also need to understand that most Muslims have more important priorities than conquering the world.
• And finally, we should recognize that Muslims are united in Islam. Islam is a greater glue that unifies all Muslims. It is greater than country or nationality and it unifies Muslims when threatened from outside. Muslims have tried Western forms of democracy and individual freedoms and usually failed, and they blame those institutions for their own failure. Nation building in the Middle East inevitably involves Islam as a necessary component of government. We should expect that as their reasonable desire.

I apologize for leaving out important detail. Each time I read my draft, I added more detail I considered important until I decided I had to stop and publish.