Saudi Arabian Nationalism, MBS, Salafism, and Yemen War

A mix of dynastic and Salafist nationalism is on the rise in Saudi Arabia. Intervention in the Yemeni Civil War (named the 'Decisive Storm') has the intended rally around the flag effect. Simeon Kerr wrote about it in the Financial Times in May 2015:

Lines of green Saudi flags hang proudly along Riyadh’s wide highways while screens around the capital broadcast footage on a loop of warplanes flying into combat and massive explosions.Local companies have taken out giant billboards pledging allegiance to the “decisive and determined” King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, while ordinary Saudis have taken to social media to show their support for the new king and the county’s military campaign in Yemen.An unprecedented jingoism — hidden for decades — has swept through Saudi Arabia since King Salman ascended to the throne in January and the launch in March of the aerial campaign against Shia Houthi rebels.Although the air strikes have raised international concern and heightened tensions with Iran, its rival for regional dominance, they have been cheered in Saudi by an increasingly nationalist and sectarian sentiment.

Saudi cartoon showing Iranian cleric being hit by a missile on which Decisive Storm (عاصفة الحزم) is visible.

Source: Al-Watan, Saudi Arabia, March 27, 2015

The royalists, nationalists, and the servile media also have a young, tall, dark and handsome prince to gush about. In one year, Deputy Crown Prince and Second Deputy Prime Minister Prince Mohammad bin Salman has risen from being one of the dozens of grandsons of King Abdul Aziz al-Saud (the founder of Saudi Arabia) to arguably the most powerful man in the kingdom. Prince Mohammad is currently holding three posts:

• He is the head of the Royal Court, meaning he is not only King Salman's son but also his closest advisor; 
• He is the Defense Minister and as Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir is not a royal, Prince Mohammad is more powerful of the two men leading Saudi foreign engagements;
• He is the key economic decision-maker in Saudi Arabia. He chairs the Council of Economic Affairs and Development, the main decision-making body on economic and financial issues in Saudi Arabia. In his capacity as the lead economic player, Prince Mohammad announced his plans for Saudi economy and for the Aramco (the national energy company that drives the Saudi economy) in January 2016. In March 2016, he announced the Saudi Arabia’s Vision for 2030. 

For a country that has been ruled by septuagenarians and octogenarians for decades, it's unprecedented for a thirty-years old to hold such power. His youth and action-oriented leadership have made him popular but many are wary of such concentration of power.

Source: The National Interest

Is Saudi nationalism moving away from Salafism or is Salafism becoming more entrenched in the Saudi nationalism under King Salman?

There is evidence to support both sides of the argument. Since the late 1990s, Saudi Arabia has promoted a more dynastic and ecumenical religious nationalism and has tried to move away from Salafi nationalism. Official media and educational and cultural institutions have focused more on the exceptionalism of Saudi land and royal family than on the exceptionalism of Salafism. Some of the measures taken are given below:

• A cult of King Abdul Aziz has been cultivated;
• King Abdullah curtailed the power of Salafi clerics and religious police; 
• National Museum was founded in Riyadh;
• A new subject 'national education' was introduced in the schools (Saudi Arabia in Transition 2015, page 4-5);
• The first co-educational university in Saudi Arabia was established in 2009 by King Abdullah. He gave it his own name (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology) and quashed criticism of Salafi critics;
• In the early 2000s, Saudi Royals for the first time made some non-Salafi Sunnis and Shias (and women) included in the Shura Council, the highest advisory body. King Abdullah also started a dialogue with the Shiites, who are ten percent of Saudi population and more crucially are a majority in the oil-rich Eastern province;
• Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 announced recently called for 'a tolerant country with Islam as its constitution and moderation as its method.' It declared that the 'values of moderation, tolerance, excellence, discipline, equity, and transparency will be the bedrock of our success.' Emphasis on toleration and moderation show a change of focus and decrease in the power of Salafi religious establishment;
• Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 also had good news for women. It asserted that 'Saudi women are yet another great asset. With over 50 percent of our university graduates being female, we will continue to develop their talents, invest in their productive capabilities and enable them to strengthen their future and contribute to the development of our society and economy.' This was another defeat of Salafi clerics who want women to stay at home;
• The Saudi Arabian leadership has repeatedly said that Yemeni intervention was not  Salafi/Sunni fight with Shi'ism. They have clarified that it was a fight against Iran, which was trying to control the Middle East and carving a new Persian Empire. They have also condemned the sectarian rhetoric of the Daesh (Islamic State), which is mainly Salafi, and called for unity of all Muslims.

Abdullah Hamidaddin, a scholar, has also argued in Al-Arabia that the power of (Salafi) clerics is on the wane in Saudi Arabia:

In recent weeks, the Saudi government has been sending a clear message to its people and the world that economic development and religious extremism cannot coexist. This message is in line with the launch of Saudi Vision 2030, which depends on a social vibrancy that is antithetical to extreme religious values. Of course, people have the right to be religious, but religious institutions - formal and informal - shouldn't be allowed to be above the law to forcefully impose or propagate their views. 

Many analysts consider the recent government announcement to limit the ability of the “Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice" which is known in many foreign media outlets as "religious police,” to arrest and interrogate a significant move. But a much more important decision was the appointment during last week’s cabinet reshuffle of Sulaiman Aba al-Khayl as president of the University of Imam Mohammad bin Saud. I personally believe this cements the government’s focus to work closely with the religious institution for the greater good. His appointment came as a pleasant surprise to moderates and reformers. The university had been considered by some that it promotes nationally and internationally hardline views.

However, there is also evidence of the rise in Salafi nationalism after the ascendance of King Salman and Yemeni intervention. While Saudi government has tried to avoid stroking anti-Shia hatred, many official clerics and others people linked with the government have publicly portrayed Yemen and Syrian civil wars as a conflict between real Islam (Salafism/Sunnism) and false Islam (Shiism) and resorted to scaremongering after the start of Saudi campaign against Yemeni Houthis. Angus Mcdowall of Reuters gave examples of such instances:

"If they (Shi'ites) manage to win and control the state, they ravage Sunnis: clerics, women, children, the rulers and the ruled. They attack just like the lion attacks his prey," said Farid al-Ghamdi, a cleric at Mecca's Umm al-Qura seminary in a sermon visible on YouTube...."Decisive Storm came to sever any ambition of the Safavids to besiege Muslims in their own homes," wrote cleric Saad al-Breik to his 1.15 million Twitter followers after the air strikes began last month. 

That kind of scare-mongering has been evident in the Saudi press as well. A report in the daily al-Medina newspaper last week cited "military experts" as saying the Houthis wanted to turn Yemen's capital Sanaa into "an entirely Shi'ite city by 2017" and that the air strikes would thwart "this Iranian plan"....

An analysis of over seven million Arabic tweets from February to August 2015 done by Alexandra Siegel, a PhD student at the New York University showed that while both sides are using social media for hate speech, such tweets from Saudi Arabia are much more common (although it might be said that this conclusion would have something to do with only looking at Arabic tweets).

In the years following the escalation of the Syrian civil war, six main derogatory terms have been frequently used to disparage Shia Muslims online: rafidha (rejectionist), Hizb al-Shaytan (party of the devil), Hizb al-Lat (party of Lat), Majus (Magianism or Zoroastrianism), Nusayri (followers of Nusayr), and Safawi (Safavid). Rafidha refers to Twelver Shias, the largest of the Shia sects, and implies that they have rejected “true” Islam as they allegedly do not recognize Abu Bakr, the first caliph, and his successors as having been legitimate rulers after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. For example, Salafi cleric Abdulaziz al-Tarifi tweeted to his approximately 800,000 followers in February, “Jews and Christians did not used to collude with the rafidhaas they do today in this country and every country.”

The killing of Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr was considered as another sign of anti-Shiite bias although the Saudi government pointed out that dozens of Sunni terrorists were also executed on the same day as Sheikh Nimr and claimed that executions were against terrorism, not against Shia or Shiaism. Furthermore, the coalition of Muslim countries that was announced in December 2015 to fight terrorism does not have one Shia-ruled Muslim country as its members. Bahrain is the only Shia-majority country that is a member of the coalition but it is ruled by a Sunni monarchy. So, it appears that not only Iran but all Shia-ruled countries (Iraq and Lebanon) were excluded from this alliance.

Frederic Wehrey is not very hopeful of future and considers that Salafism has increased its role in Saudi nationalism under King Salman  (Authoritarianism Goes Global: The Challenge to Democracy, p-111-12)

At its core, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia remains an authoritarian state with a ruling family wedded to monarchical privilege and backed by a deeply anti-liberal and sectarian religious establishment. If anything, it appears to be becoming more so under King Salman. In contrast to King Abdullah, Salman has been wooing the Kingdom’s religiously conservative base of power to shore up public support for his domestic policies and to demonize Iran in the region. The result has been a rollback of Abdullah’s limited reforms and a new, more virulent Sunni-based nationalism. 

Professor Madawi al-Rasheed, one of the most eminent scholars of Saudi politics, claims that the Yemen war is the latest incarnation of militarized Wahhabi nationalism. Writing in Politico, in a column titled "Wahhabi religious nationalism turns ugly," she traces the history of Wahhabi nationalism:

In the Arab world, religious nationalism was invented early in the 20th century in Saudi Arabia, a kingdom whose goal was to unite dispersed people and purify their religious beliefs and practices under the leadership of the Al-Saud. This unification took place as a result of a fringe Islamic revivalist tradition, commonly known as Wahhabiyya, which morphed into a military religious nationalist movement. With time, the project went beyond simple piety: Sharia law and conformity to Islamic teachings were rigorously applied. Under state patronage, this Wahhabiyya was turned into a quasi-nationalist project. Its ideology has proliferated and now inspires Muslims across the globe, fueled by petrodollars and globalization.

Early in the 20th century, an all-encompassing Wahhabi religious nationalism inflamed the imagination of a substantial section of the population of Arabia. It provided the ideological tool to band together to achieve independence from an ailing Ottoman empire that had little control over this peripheral region of its Empire. With a political leadership eager to expand throughout Arabia and to assert its control over the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, Al-Saud militarized the fragmented tribal population, united them under an Islamic flag and mobilized them to wage war against all those who refused their homogenizing theology and radical Wahhabi message.

From the heart of Arabia they spread across the rest of the Arabian Peninsula. They created a state that has remained hostage to the Wahhabi agenda, bigoted interpretations of religious texts, and violent strategies whose aim is to control the behavior of Muslims and non-Muslims in its jurisdictions.

Yemen war, according to Professor al-Rasheed, is linked with the Wahhabi nationalism's quest to obliterate its rivals, who are all heretics and idolators, and bring the people back to its "pure" version of Islam and she argues there is only one way to end the terrorism and recurrent sectarian wars:

The zeal of religious nationalism turns ugly when it moves from the mosque to the military. And even uglier when it becomes the religion of the state. Whether in Saudi Arabia or in the nascent so-called Islamic State, where religious nationalism holds people together by the power of the sword, it is difficult to imagine an alternative way of being Muslim.

In Saudi Arabia, the airstrikes on Yemen launched in March proved a shrewd move for the government: They sparked the imagination of many Saudis who saw them through the prism of their old Wahhabi tradition as countering the hegemony of a rival Shiite power, namely Iran and its alleged Zaydi Houthi clients. The Saudi leadership could not simply watch a rival power such as the Islamic State take all the credit for eradicating heretics. Both Saudi Arabia and the Islamic State came into being as a result of the same type of ideology. Their interests may clash but they share a common goal.

Unless religious nationalism is replaced by new identities about being citizens in a bounded nation in which people enjoy equality and rights, we will continue to see a repeat of the terrorist atrocities committed in the name of Islam.

Putin, wars, and Russian Orthodox Church

Mark Woods, the contributing editor of Christian Today, calls Russian Orthodox Church a tool in the hand of President Putin. In his article, How the Russian Orthodox Church is backing Vladimir Putin's new world order, focuses on growing Russian religious nationalism.

Thousands of miles away (in Russia), however, there's an ideological synergy between Church and State which is just as unhealthy. Under its leader Patriarch Kirill, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has backed the aggressive expansionism of President Vladimir Putin, which has seen him extend Russian power into Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Kirill described Putin at a religious leaders' meeting in 2012 as "a miracle of God". It supported a government crackdown on "gay propaganda" in 2013. The ROC has made billions from trading concessions granted to it  by the government. It is increasingly asserting its position as the largest of the 14 self-governing Orthodox Churches and is using its political muscle in support of Putin's aims. It's no friend to evangelicals, especially in the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, seeing them as puppets of the West.

Wood is particularly critical of the role played by the current head of ROC, Patriarch Kirill. He mentions that Kirill has been accussed of being a KGB agent and his usage of ROC's special previliges in the 1990s to earns billions for the Church and himself. Kirill, however, denies any personal benefits from the past financial dealings.

Wood quotes Ukrainian academics, mainly from Ukrainian Catholic University, to details the closeness of the ROC and Russian state or the subordination of the  ROC to Putin agenda. The choice of experts is problematic and raises doubts about Wood's thesis.

Wood quotes Mykhailo Cherenkov, a Ukrainian Baptist and a Professor in Philosophy at Ukrainian Catholic University, as arguing that fall of communism left an ideological vacuum, which has been filled with Orthodoxy. t was the "new ideological binding agent" that Russia needed to survive:

It was Orthodoxy that served as the main ferment in the formation of a new Russian identity from the beginning of Putin's presidency. If, in Soviet times, the mark of the majority was political atheism, then now it is political Orthodoxy.

Being partiotic and Orthodox became synonyms and wars of the Russian state became holy wars. Cherenkov argued:

The goal of the 'Holy War' is not seizure of territory, or change of power, or defeat of opponents, but the victory of faith over all lack of faith and false teaching, of the only right picture of the world over all wrong ones, of truth over all untruths. If Rus is Holy, then her faith and truth are the only Orthodox ones.

Wood then quotes a more extreme view by Joshua Searle, a lecturer at Spurgeon's College and Visiting Professor at Ukrainian Catholic University. Searle contends that the ROC is not real Christian Church:

It needs to be made clear that the ROC hierarchy is essentially a political construct. The church structure is based not on gospel values of freedom, truth and enlightenment, but on fear, authoritarianism and the promotion of nationalism under the guise of religious zeal. This kind of fake patriotic religion deifies the State and gives divine sanction to a nation's imperialism.
The ROC can even invoke the name of "God" as an idol who has bestowed a special blessing and favour on Russia, which then allegedly gives 'Holy Russia' the right to invade and conquer neighbouring territories and subdue their peoples. Such a sham Christianity, which is a denial of Christ and the gospel, will always refuse to accept any higher power and will ruthlessly destroy any forms of genuine Christian faith that go beyond cultural or national identity.

George Soroka does not agrees with Wood as he sees not only harmony but also tension in the ROC-state relations in Russia. He has written a very insightful article on ROC's relations with the Russian state in Foreign Affairs. In his article, Putin's Patriarch: Does the Kremlin Control the Church?, Soroka explains that the ROC and the state in Russia do not have a dominant-submissive relationship. The widely-held perception that the Church is the handmaiden of the Russian state is not true. President Putin and Patriarch Kirill support each other most of the time and Putin is usually the more assertive partner but there are differences. 

Source: Foreign Affairs

The Church has prospered since the break-up of Soviet Union and more so under Putin as Soroka illustrates:

Meanwhile, the church has benefited from the close ties between its leadership and the government. In 2011, then President Dmitri Medvedev granted the patriarch a residence in the Kremlin. In late 2010, Russian legislators passed a long-awaited bill allowing the return of Church property seized by the Soviet Union, codifying and expediting a process that had been proceeding piecemeal since the 1990s. The Russian Orthodox Church and affiliated organizations have also been the country’s biggest recipients of presidential grants in recent years, receiving more than 256 million rubles in funding between 2013 and 2015.

And Putin has used the ROC despite the separation of church and state in the 1993 Constitution. Putin has used the Church's symbolic power to not only defeat his enemies both inside and outside Russia (Chechens, liberals, democrats, terrorists, etc.) but also to unify the new Russian state under a defensive, inward-looking nationalism.

Soroka concludes the article contending that the Kremlin and the ROC still have many differences so the real partnership is not between them but between the civil religion “Orthodoxy without Christ” and Putin’s rhetoric and defensive nationalism.

Symphonia, or harmonious, mutually respectful coexistence, represents the ideal of Church-State relations in Orthodox thought. Unfortunately, it has seldom been achieved, and post-communist Russia is no exception. Russia today is still in the process of exiting the ideological vacuum that resulted from the Soviet Union’s collapse. What is emerging in its stead remains inchoate, a selective culling of the past that mixes Orthodox imagery with Soviet triumphalism, interspersed with an increasingly inward-looking nationalism.
Yet this is not ultimately a coherent narrative; it will eventually crumble under the weight of its own historical contradictions. Putin’s conundrum is that he wants the Russian Orthodox Church to help legitimate the restored Russian state while eliding the abject persecution the church suffered under the Soviet regime, just like he wants to emphasize the Red Army’s victory over Nazi Germany in WWII without coming to terms with the horrific crimes of Stalin.

Where does this leave the church? It is not as an institution subordinate to the Kremlin, but neither does it stand on equal footing with the regime in Putin’s Russia. Moreover, despite recent internal efforts to quell dissent, the church still embodies diverse opinions and viewpoints. As a result, the real synergies are not between the church and the Kremlin but between a burgeoning civil religion that Chapnin terms “Orthodoxy without Christ” and Putin’s muscular brand of statist rhetoric. In a society where over 70 percent of citizens identify as Orthodox even though the percentage of active churchgoers is in the single digits, the cultural resonance of the church is as obvious as its doctrinal relevance is moot, making it ripe for political exploitation. In contemporary Russia, it is not the Orthodox Church but the jingoistic Orthodox atheist that is the regime’s greatest ally. 

Religious nationalism: A new development in the Middle East

Nationalism is a concept linked with modernity and so are its numerous variants, including religious nationalism. Although Islam has been the dominant religion in the Middle East for the last 1500 years, religious nationalism is a recent phenomenon. Like European feudal states and empires, Muslim feudal states and empires of the pre-modern era did not propagate or even espouse religious nationalism.

Brian A. Catlos, the religious studies professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has written an excellent column in the Washington Post on religious nationalism in the Middle East. Following are some excerpts, but do read the Religious Nationalism finds a footing in the Middle East

With many reports of this violence come adjectives such as “barbarous” and “medieval,” along with the intimation that this sort of intolerance is particularly characteristic of Islam and antithetical to the enlightened and rational secularism of the West.

But brutal as this sectarian violence may be, the fact that there are so many religious minorities in the Middle East stands testament to the reality that, despite long-standing antagonisms, myriad ethnic groups and religious denominations have not only survived but even thrived in this region through some 1,500 years of Islamic domination. The richness of the culture, where many of the ancient sects and arcane languages — often surviving only in small, highly localized communities — predate Christianity, Islam and even modern Judaism, has no parallel in Europe. The Yazidi religion, for example, goes back to Mesopotamia; Aramaic, the language of Jesus, continues to be spoken in a clutch of villages near Damascus...

This reflects an entirely different model of political compromise than that which has developed in the West, and it may seem regressive to us. But it is an arrangement that developed organically and has functioned for about 14 centuries.

The breakdown of religious tolerance and plurality in today’s Middle East is not, then, a manifestation of some particularly Islamic barbarism or evidence of a return to the Middle Ages. Nor is it religious in motivation, although it may be in expression. It is a symptom of what we call modernization, and its political framework: nationalism...

Muslim yearning for caliphate and ISIS caliphate

ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) or ISIL (The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) has declared itself a Caliphate and named its leader as Caliph of all Muslims. The group spokesman said:

He is the imam and khalifah (Caliph) for the Muslims everywhere.......Accordingly, the "Iraq and Sham" (Levant) in the name of the Islamic State is henceforth removed from all official deliberations and communications, and the official name is the Islamic State from the date of this declaration.......It is incumbent upon all Muslims to pledge allegiance to (him) and support him...The legality of all emirates, groups, states, and organizations, becomes null by the expansion of the khalifah's authority and arrival of its troops to their areas.( See ISIS Declares Islamic 'Caliphate' And Calls On Groups To Pledge Allegiance)

Powerful words indeed. While president of Indonesia or Prime Minister of Pakistan, democratically elected leaders of around 200 million Muslims, would find it difficult to call themselves caliph of around 1.5 billion Muslims, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, commander of fewer than fifteen thousand fighters, has claimed the coveted title. As Al-Qaida's rejection of ISIS shows, al-Baghdadi is not even an accepted leader of militant,trans-national, anti-West extremist Muslims in Iraq or Syria.  

Huff post quotes John Esposito, one of the most eminent scholars of Islam in the West, defining Caliphate in the following way (See What Is A Caliphate? ISIS Declaration Raises Questions) :

Historically, the caliph was the successor to the prophet, the political leader of the community, and therefore the head of the early transnational Islamic empire. That's important -- the idea of it being a transnational empire, that reflected the ummah, and transcended national boundaries.

Does it matter that al-Baghdadi has declared himself caliph? Some have argued that now more Muslim militants would be attracted to him. Fair point. But others have argued that this might be a disastrous outreach (See Jihadis in Iraq and Syria declare a caliphate? Why that's good).

Yesterday's declaration of a caliphate by the leading jihadi army in Iraq and Syria – and its demand that Muslims swear oaths of fealty to its leader – could prove the most disastrous piece of jihadi overreach since Al Qaeda in Iraq's routine use of torture and beheadings spurred a Sunni Arab backlash in 2006. 

The formerly Al Qaeda-linked jihadis are generally reported as going from strength to strength in Iraq, taking and holding cities like Mosul and Tikrit from the central government. But the success of the uprising in Iraq in the past month has rested heavily on the backs of Sunni Arab tribes and former Baathists with formal military training. And the grandiose announcement – a telegraphed intent to impose a harsh and regressive vision of Islam on as much territory as possible – is unlikely to make them happy.

I personally think this announcement does not matter much. Does al-Baghdadi become more legitimate or get more recruits? Some recruits but not much else. ISIS is a like a fringe of a fringe. Al-Baghdadi is a brutal callous killer and it is difficult to find many Muslims, except for the militants, giving his message any serious thought. As an NPR reporter described, even in his own country Iraq, he is considered a nut job. Most of the Muslim probably do not know who he is and those, who have heard of him, would most likely try to keep as much distance from him as possible. In conclusion, ISIS caliphate has not changed much on the ground or elsewhere. As Juan Cole explains in his brief history of Caliphate, hundreds of fringe groups have been claiming caliphate for probably more than a thousand years (See The Debacle of the Caliphates: Why al-Baghdadi’s Grandiosity doesn’t Matter).

What is a more interesting question is why Caliphate still mesmerizes many Muslims today. Why pine for a medieval government/empire? 

Nowadays, the Caliphate has captured the imagination of many Muslims worldwide mainly because they are concerned about the abject condition of the Muslim Ummah today. Despite a plethora of resources and around fifty independent Muslim-majority states in the world, Muslims are followers/lackeys, not leaders. Decisions about Muslims and Muslim-majority states are made by others in Washington, Moscow or Beijing and Muslim leaders (with a few exceptions) kowtow to these capitals, instead of charting their own independent course for the benefit of their own people.

Many Muslim relate these circumstances to the lack of unity among Muslims and hark back to the times when Muslims were successful and leading the world. It is commonly believed that under the erstwhile caliphate, Muslims were united as one nation, within one political state and that was why they were so successful. There is also the notion that caliphate is blessed by Allah. Many Muslims, therefore, desire a new caliphate so that there would be an Islamic renaissance and Islamic civilization would reach another apogee by the blessings of Allah. The message of Hizb-ul-Tahrir, one of the most prominent organizations trying to establish caliphate (Khilafah) today, shows the allied themes of current humiliation; success in the past; and renaissance under a new caliphate (See Hizb-e-Tahrir: About us)

Hizb ut-Tahrir is determined to work within the Ummah in order to implement Islam and achieve its objective by endeavouring to gain the leadership of the Islamic Ummah so that she could accept it as her leader, to implement Islam upon her and proceed with it in her struggle against the Kuffar and in the work towards the return of the Islamic State as it was before, the leading superpower in the world.....

The rise of Hizb ut-Tahrir was in response to Allah (swt)’s saying: T.M.Q. “And let there arise from amongst you a band that calls to the good and commands what is right and forbids what is evil and those are the ones who will attain felicity.” in order to revive the Islamic Ummah after the severe decline to which she has sunk, to liberate her from the thoughts, systems and rules of Kufr, its systems and from the hegemony and influence of the Kufr states,  and  in order to work towards establishing the Islamic Khilafah State so that the rules by what Allah (swt) has revealed returns to the realm of life.

While not denying that erstwhile caliphate was a big Muslim state and a big Muslim state now would probably be more powerful than numerous small Muslim states, the notion that all Muslims were united under caliphate is historically not true. Muslims were only under one caliphate for a quarter of a century during the time of first three Rasidun Caliphs and then again for some decades under Umayyads. The whole period of one united caliphate is less than one century compared to more than thirteen centuries of many Muslim states/caliphates constituting the Muslim ummah. So thinking that just because there is a caliphate, Muslims are united under it, is false.   

Ottoman Sultan and Caliph Suleiman, the magnificent (1494 - 1566)

Source: Poetic Voices of the Muslim World

Linking the glory of Islam/Muslims with caliphate is also problematic. It can be true, partially true or false depending on how glory is defined. Is it the military success or the social development or the cultural refinement or the control over maximum territory? In terms of military successes, united caliphate of the seventh century is unparalleled in Muslim history. However, the height of (comparative) social development and cultural refinement was achieved by the Muslims in the times of early Abbasids when the caliph ruled majority of Muslims but not all Muslims. There were many independent Muslim emirs/king/rulers, alongside Abbasid caliphate. Comparing Muslim history on the basis of territory under control, probably 16th and 17th centuries can be considered the height of Islamic grandeur, a time of more than dozen Muslim states/empires (not one united caliphate). 

As Dr Muhammad Iqbal (poet par excellence,  Muslim philosopher and one of the founding fathers of Pakistan) wrote supporting the decision of Ataturk to abolish caliphate, for most of its history caliphate has worked more as an empire than as an Islamic state. Therefore, its religious sanction is doubtful, to say the least:  

In its essence Islam is not Imperialism. In the abolition of the Caliphate which since the days of Omayyads had practically become a kind of Empire it is only the spirit of Islam that has worked out through the Ataturk. In order to understand the Turkish Ijtihad in the matter of the Caliphate we cannot but seek the guidance of Ibn-i-Khaldun—the great philosophical historian of Islam, and the father of modern history. I can do no better than quote here a passage from my Reconstruction:

Ibn-i-Khaldun, in his famous Prolegomena, mentions three distinct views of the idea of Universal Caliphate in Islam: (1) That Universal Imamate is a Divine institution and is consequently indispensable. (2) That it is merely a matter of expediency. (3) That there is no need of such an institution. The last view was taken by the Khawarij, the early republicans of Islam. It seems that modern Turkey has shifted from the first to the second view, i.e., to the view of the Muttazilla who regarded Universal Imamate as a matter of expediency only. The Turks argue that in our political thinking we must be guided by our past political experience which points unmistakably to the fact that the idea of Universal Imamate has failed in practice. It was a workable idea when the Empire of Islam was intact. Since the break-up of this Empire independent political units have arisen. The idea has ceased to be operative and cannot work as a living factor in the organization of modern Islam.

  

         

Arab Nationalism: The end?

Adeed Dawisha's article remember's Arab nationalism (See Requiem for Arab Nationalism), once a powerful force, aiming to revive the glory of Arab nation.

He talks about Nasser, the undisputed leader of Arab nationalism, and the effect of 1967 defeat.

It took some time for the light to go out on Arab nationalism, but its power generator went down in June 1967. After the Six-Day War, the slide of Arab nationalism toward political marginality became irreversible. And what finished it was the fact that Egypt, under Gamal Abdel Nasser, lost the war. Egypt's devastating defeat was Arab nationalism's mortal loss, for the fate of Arab nationalism during the struggles, triumphs, and reversals of the 1950s and 1960s was inexorably linked to Egypt and its charismatic president.

Had Syria or Jordan, or even both, lost the war, it would not have been the unmitigated disaster for Arab nationalism that it proved to be. But Arab nationalism could not survive the abject humiliation inflicted on its acknowledged prophet, who, through his shrill and overzealous propaganda machine, had promised a fabled triumph in al-Ma'raka al-Masiriya, the battle of destiny.

Arab countries and their flags 

Source: Islam and Arab Nationalism الإسلام و العربية الجنسية in the 21st century

The main competitor of Arab nationalism was, of course, individual country/territorial nationalisms. Arab nationalism was all about unity and indivisibility of the proud Arab nation but gradually borders between Arabs became important. 

Part of the reason for this "sanctification" of borders was that Arab political and economic elites developed a vested interest in the survival of each particular state. Not surprisingly, these elites were loath to put themselves at risk for the sake of Arab unity.So they argued that Arab nationalism was really just a license for some elites to browbeat others. The advocates of territorial nationalism also relied on geo-political and cultural arguments in making their case. They insisted that Arab nationalists had failed to understand that while various Arab states might accept an overarching Arab identity, geographic and even cultural differences were real enough to preclude an organic unity. And they were right: the decline of Arab nationalism from 1961 validated their argument.

But territorial nationalisms were not the only enemy. Many sub-state and supra-state identities also damaged the Arab nationalist's cause. Tribal loyalties, argues Adeed, were powerful in many Arab countries and didn't disappear as Arab nationalism and territorial nationalisms fought for the primary loyalty of the Arabs.

In some states, tribal affiliations formed the backbone of popular support that shielded local leaderships from the advancing tide of revolutionary Arab nationalism. Such was the case in Saudi Arabia, where the tribal-based demographic structure contributed to the stability of the political order.Successive Saudi monarchs, in the process of shifting the loyalty of the Bedouin from tribe to state, made sure to act and be perceived as tribal overlords.

Bedouin military personnel were also responsible for the survival of Jordan's young King Hussein, in the face of seemingly impossible odds. Jordan's "Arab Legion" was initially formed to combat Bedouin anarchy in the new country. In a stroke of genius, the Arab Legion's founder, the British officer John Bagot Glubb, decided to harness the warlike qualities of the Bedouins by recruiting them into the army. Very quickly, the Arab Legion became the Arab world's most disciplined fighting force. But one thing that Glubb did not change was tribal solidarity, which he nurtured every step of the way to make the Arab Legion "the Bedouin prop of the Hashemite polity.

Source: Arab League, Wikipedia

Coming to the focus of this blog, religious identities also didn't allow Arab nationalism to take hold. Sectarian loyalties divided Arabs and in many countries, especially when they were politicized as in Iraq. These loyalties were weakened and laid dormant during the heyday of Arab nationalism and Nasser but they were back with a vengeance in the 1970s.

Iraq's sectarian divisions formed another hurdle in the Arab nationalist march. The country's Shi'ite majority never overcame its suspicion of Arab nationalism as a Sunni project. Shi'ite grievances against the Sunnis were primarily political, pertaining to Sunni dominance over Iraq's political order. The Shi'ites would point to the paucity of their numbers among the decision-making elite and in the ranks of the administrative and military institutions.

It is not that the Shi'ites did not believe in Arab nationalism, or that they did not consider themselves to be Arabs. Shi'ite men of letters penned some of the marvels of Arabic literature. Iraqis of all religions and denominations flocked to the Arab nationalist cause under Abdel Nasser's leadership in the 1950s and 1960s. But that did not mean that tribalism and sectarianism were erased. They were too deeply ingrained to disappear; they simply retreated into the recesses of people's consciousness. Once Arab nationalism began to suffer reverses and setbacks, and Abdel Nasser's ability to work his magic came into question, all the particularistic, anti-national tendencies reemerged and even surged to the forefront.

Although Adeed talks about 'radical Islam', as the last competitor of Arab nationalism, how he explains it, this 'radical' Islam is closer to what others have called political Islam or religious nationalism ('Radical' Islam is usually used to describe militant Islam). Political Islam and Arab nationalism share many myths. The glory and grandeur of Arab nation happened after Arabs accepted Islam and Islam is empty without Arab contribution.

In one sense, this competition is surprising. The vast majority of Arabs are Muslims, and the most glorious periods of Arab history occurred during the dazzling medieval Islamic empires. Similarly, all Muslims, moderates or radicals, could not but admit the central role of the Arabs in their religion. After all, Islam was born in the Arabian Peninsula, the Prophet Muhammad was Arab, and God's message was revealed in Arabic. One would think that the two social movements would share a cooperative relationship.

Instead, it was downright hostile. Arab nationalists, from Husri to Abdel Nasser and Michel Aflaq, founder and philosopher of the Baath Party, accepted the special place that Islam occupied within the Arab nationalist movement. But they stressed only those aspects of Islam that were moral and spiritual in nature. They resolutely rejected Islam's political and constitutional implications and insisted on its complete subordination to Arab nationalism. The nationalists vehemently argued that it was not religious but linguistic and historical ties that would knit the Arab nation into a cohesive whole.

Religious nationalists, of course, could not accept religious loyalty being relegated by ethnolinguistic loyalty. They denounced Arab nationalists and claimed Arab nationalism means denying the primacy of Islam/God/Prophet. Adeed, in the following section, only talks about militants but there were many more Arab Muslims who silently disliked Arab nationalism than those who attacked it militarily.

This was sheer blasphemy to the radical Muslim groups, and nationalists became the target of these groups' jihad. The concept of jihad, holy struggle, was central to the lexicon of Islamic militancy. Jihad was to be waged against the perceived enemies of Islam—i.e., all those who would try to infuse Muslim society with alien and blasphemous ideas, imported primarily from the West. To the Muslim radicals, perhaps the greatest offenders were the secular nationalists, who propagated ethnicity at the expense of religion and advocated the separation of Islam from politics.

Adeed then talks about causes of Arab nationalism failure. But let's leave it for some other time.