The Arab World, Islam and the Middle East (a serial blog)

Since 9/11/2001, it seems likely that many Australians and members of other so-called “Western societies” have begun to think about Islam much more than they previously did and when they do, it also seems likely that many have a negative impression of it. They may not all associate it inexorably with violence and fear but many probably don’t regard it in its best light and there are many reasons for this besides what may be inherent in Islam itself. I want to explore this in the course of my blog posts and that is what I, as an Australian, aim to do.

We in the so-called “West” have a history with Islam whether we are aware of it or not. The first two major political encounters with Islam in Europe occurred mainly in Spain and Portugal, in a part of Italy and in the far East of Europe roughly a millennium ago and they involved territorial disputation; hence Muslims are today in a sense archetypal representatives of the so-called “East” in apparent opposition to “our” West. I want to explore whether we are making a Muhammadan mountain out of a peaceful molehill, as it were, because of this unconscious history.

There are at least two questions which possibly arise from what I have just written so I'll address two of them. One is that I have talked about Islam, a religion, as a political force but should I? Another is that I have talked about Muslims being in an eastern political opposition to the West but should I. These are the questions which I hope my subsequent posts WILL address.

Muslims, of course, claim to follow Islam, a religion, but not all of the people living in “Muslim” Spain or Eastern Europe or for that matter anywhere in the then Muslim world were Muslim when disputes have occurred. I will expand on what this means in the course of these posts. It may mean that we have to consider factors other than Islam as contributing to political history, for instance.

Another point I wish to make at the outset is that Europeans also claimed new territory in this history in the East during the various “Crusades” and long after reclaiming parts of Europe went on to claim much more, world wide (that they have (arguably) only relinquished recently (in the last fifty or so years)). I say arguably because many serious thinkers do argue that European and Western colonialism is not yet at a real end. So they would say that the claims have still not been actually relinquished. Again, I will expand on this much more later.

I want to try to explain the history of Islam’s change from merely a religion to much more in world affairs and to do that I will also need to consider the history of its region of origin, the Middle East (a region incidentally defined by Europeans for strategic reasons), and of the people of its origin, the Arabs. I will begin the posts with a survey of ideas of the modern Middle East, modern Islam and Muslims and the modern Arab world. I will then progress through history to examine what we are ACTUALLY dealing with. We had a coalition of religious, political and nationalist ideas that exploded onto the Old World stage in the 7th Century. That was followed by a new political system that had a place adjacent to a fearful, vengeful and hateful Europe and conflict occurred. I will hopefully trace this process in my posts. After those posts I will consider what was happening between Islam and the rest of the world before that rest of the world along with the Middle East itself came to be dominated by the West. That is just a beginning of what I will be posting about. I will also discuss the ideas and learning that were inspired and perhaps later crushed by this new force, its economy, the development of the religion in its sphere of influence and its laws and legal philosophy before discussing the period of domination by the West and the experience of confronting an alien idea of modernity with which the Middle East still grapples.

Islam, the religion, and its politics, economics, science and culture, and its people, all became important to the history of Africa and Asia as well of Europe from its very beginning so I hope my exploration of this will also go some way to explaining the idea of the West itself and much more as at least Europe, in a sense, defined itself as 'not Eastern'.

The influence of Islam in Australia and the Americas has grown, too, and not merely because of bombs but also because the Europeans who settled there (along with possibly some African slaves) were and continue to be constructively shaped by their encounters with Islam and Muslims and the political world of Islam. I hope to discuss this process also in my posts.

I will also discuss the links between this history and extremism. Though I will focus on what we may call the central lands of Islam around the Arabian Peninsula including the lands of the so-called “Fertile Crescent” to its north (from Greater Palestine and the lower Nile to Persia) , North Africa and Asia Minor in my history, all of the globe has been affected by Islam but especially until recently many other parts of Asia and Africa which I will also consider in some detail. Places from Kenya and Nigeria to Afghanistan, Indonesia and Pakistan often figure in the 'Western' news these days (and often for unfortunate reasons) and so the history of Islam and extremism in these places deserves to be considered, too, if more briefly, and so I will consider it in these posts.

The purpose of these posts is to provide a history that will help to (relatively simply) answer questions that many people have today, especially in the West. One in particular is: are all “Muslims” out to get “us Westerners”? These posts will explain that some are but that most aren’t and more importantly why this may be. Beyond that, I also hope to clarify what, if anything, is to be done. Understanding history is at least the first step.

I will thus begin an analysis of what Islam has been in its history up until today and will conclude with what 'true' Islam may be now in Australia as a result and hopefully may be able to remain. I don't say it will be easy to define a religion but I'll give it a go. Those people in Australia who have been able to watch Salam Café on Australian television may be aware that it is a humorous programme presented by Muslims and is roughly about being Muslim and/or living with Muslims in Australia. A central character attempts to poke fun at the fear some people in Australia have of Muslims being a sinister political and cultural force in Australia. Part of his alleged Camden mayoral election platform included renaming Camden (arguably a bastion of these fears) “Iz-LAMB-dn” (my spelling – as pronounced). A key to understanding what to do now, if anything, is in fact, I feel, being able to see the humour along with the history in this situation thus bringing our mindsets forward from the state of fear of Islam to a present and future mindset of being able to laugh along with the rather black humour of our current plight and see the occasionally alleged 'existential threat’ posed by Islam for what it actually is. What that is will require a full examination of this history.

It may be thought based on what I have already written that I aim to be an apologist for Islam or the Arabs and Middle Easterners in some way and can not be expected to present this history objectively. I must therefore state at the outset that I do not have Middle Eastern or Arab or Islamic origins. I am in fact not a theist. However I believe I am able to present the story of Islam and its effects in the world today in a sympathetic yet objective way due to my experience of study of this area.

In these posts (when I remember and have got it right), I will use the symbol ’ in place of the Arabic letter hamza (representing a glottal stop in Arabic) and also in place of the Arabic letter ‘ayn (which sounds a bit like the “ahhh” you make when the doctor wants to examine your throat with a tongue depressor) when writing Arabic words and names. I'll generally also attempt to give the names as usually pronounced in Arabic so if I refer to "al-Shabab", for instance, I'll probably generally write "ash-Shabab". Where an Arabic person's (or group's) name is well known in a particular transliteration or the person or group uses that transliteration, I may follow that transliteration regardless of the pronunciation.

I hope people will feel free to enhance my understanding of the history I am writing by comments and emails and will adjust it where possible to correct my evident errors. Now on to the posts: