Javed 1

Talha Javed

Professor Ramey

Exam 1

29th March 2017

Question 3: The Era of Mandates

In 1916, during the Sykes-Picot agreement, the future of the territories of the

disintegrating Ottoman Empire were drawn up between Britain and France. These agreements

came to be realized in the aftermath of the war, when the League of Nations issued the mandates

for Ottoman Mesopotamia and Ottoman Levant between Britain and France, with the former

taking control over modern day Iraq and Palestine and the latter taking control over the regions

of Syria and Lebanon. The conceptions of Britain and France towards the task were influenced

by their own special interests, which, for the British, was principally the maintenance of peace

and trade to secure its interests in oil whilst the French interest was one of maintaining a

presence in the area. These different conceptions of the task provided the framework for the

attitudes towards the mandated territories they administered, with Britain attempting to secure

peace through collaboration and the French presence being maintained with a large official

bureaucracy and military force. Thus, the British ruled their mandate by indirect rule, whereas

the French ruled by direct civilian and military rule.

French control was met immediately with armed resistance, and, in order to combat Arab

nationalism, France divided the Mandate area into Lebanon and five semiautonomous areas,

which accentuated religious differences and cultivated regional. During World War II, Frances

government pledged to grant independence to the countries under its mandate, amidst the

loudening voices of the local political class that called for independence. Syria and Lebanon
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gained independence in 1943, two years before the end of WWII. The British Foreign Ministry

and others were generally much more pro-Arab, and through the efforts of British Government,

the country of Iraq was created in 1921. It was a monarchy with Faisal ibn Hussein, the son of

Hussein the Sherif of Mecca, as king. In 1923, the British installed Abdullah ibn Hussein,

another son of the Sherif of Mecca, as emir of the new country called Trans-Jordan, later Jordan.

Jordan was confined to the East Bank of the River Jordan and did not include any part of the

West Bank. By making sons of the Sherif of Mecca the rulers of these countries, the British

ensured alliances with all the Arab kingdoms.

Overall, the Era of Mandates did not pave the way for representative governments in

most areas, leading to widespread instability in the Middle East. In the case of Iraq, the British

set the parameters for political life that were to continue until the 1958 revolution. By choosing a

Hashemite, Faisal ibn Husayn, as Iraq's first King they brought an outsider to rule the local

residents of the region. Thus, there was always a resentment for Hashemite monarchic rule, also

could not be divorced from the image of imperial masters behind the monarchy. Similarly,

France had interest in the creation of a western state for the Christian minority and this was the

main reason for creating Lebanon in 1943. This decision proved to be a working concept as most

of Lebanon's newly acquired "citizens" did not want to be part of a Maronite-dominated Lebanon

and campaigned for union with the rest of Syria. Thus, for the next thirty years, Lebanons

government was in a state of political turmoil and eventually witnessed the start a civil war in

1975. Likewise, the numerous divisions and re-divisions of Syria over a quarter century

obstructed the development of a unified administrative elite. The process of political

radicalization was initiated during the era of the French mandate, the legacy of which was almost

a guarantee of Syria's political instability.

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Question 4: Rise of Radical Islam

Qutbs core message was the resurrection of the ideal of a God-centered world under a

sole governing power that would act as Gods representative on earth. According to Qutb, the

goal to be achieved is realizing the Islamic project worldwide and return mankind to God. Qutb

says that God has a plan for mankind as revealed by the Prophet Mohammed, which has not been

distorted as have earlier prophetic revelations. As Bergsen writes, He argues that the manner in

which religion and politics where connected in the first generation of Muslims constitutes a

viable model for today (Bergsen 14). Moreover, testimony to faith should be manifest in

behavioral action to change society and bring it in accord with Gods plan, rules or laws.

To achieve this goal of bringing back mankind to Islam, certain obstacles need to be

overcome, which for Qutb, include all humanly devised social relations and political systems,

and all other religions, especially Judaism and Christianity. All these obstacles are characterized

by Qutb as being involved in jahiliyyah and therefore all such were jahili societies that actively

resisted the implementation of the word of God on earth. Thus, if the religious and political are to

be fused, then the exercise of secular political sovereignty is actually an exercise in tyranny, and

submission to it is servitude. The Oneness of God means only one source of political sovereignty.

For Qutb, the means to overcome these obstacles is jihad. In Milestones, written for the vanguard

who would lead the removal of the obstacles to the Islamic project, Qutb states that Muslims are

entitled to wage war, jihad without limit, against all jahiliyyah, including other so-called

Muslims, such as Nasser and the Egyptian government during his time.

Qutbs visions for Islamic civilizations and the role of science and reason were different

from the visions of Al-Afghani and Abduh, who were similar in the way they viewed what

should be the ideal Islamic society. Qutb was much more radical in his approach of denying all
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and any Western influence. Al-Afghani and Muhammad Abduh wanted to reconcile Islamic

traditions with the rapid pace of the modernizing world. Whereas both al-Afghani and Abduh

believed that science and reason had a place within Islamic society, Qutb did not want to have

anything to do with notions associated with Western society. To form an Islamic state capable of

world domination, Qutbs strategy was to undermine the philosophy that Western Civilization is

built upon. Thus, for Qutb, The Islamic worldview must be identified and exalted, while

modernity must be denigrated beyond repair. For Qutb, this is a natural struggle between two

systems which cannot co-exist for long (Qutb 1964, 73).

Overall, Qutbs perspective on political history seem inconsistent with the happenings in

the real world but none the less still remain relevant. For Qutb, the reason that Muslims have not

progressed was the separation of Islam from society. As it can be seen throughout history that

this was not only reason. In the case of Ottomans, their success was partly based on the

independent government which functioned separately from the religious clerics. Furthermore, it

is difficult to determine exactly what Qutb considers to be a political because he views all

institutions that affect the social order as political. Qutb forcefully criticized capitalism and

communism, stating the perils of these Western ideas on Islamic governance and highlighting

that only Islam offers the solution needed. Qutbs political message was so potent thirty years

ago in part because he voiced a deep philosophical criticism of the two superpowers at that time,

the United States of America and the Soviet Union and it still remains extremely powerful today.
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Question 1: Tanzimat

The Tanzimat were a wide-ranging series of educational, political and economic reforms,

carried out between 1839 and 1876 in the Ottoman Empire. They were an attempt at

modernization to stop the decline of Ottoman power. The reforms involved adopting models and

practices of European countries and societies and it was primarily motivated to compete with the

growing European powers. They included the 1839 Hatt-I Sharif of Glhane which guaranteed

life and property rights, instituted tax regulations, outlawed execution without trial, and other

liberal reforms; and the 1856 Hatt-i Hmayun. Both edicts asserted the equality of Muslim and

non-Muslim Ottoman subjects and aimed to secure the loyalty of the empires Christian subjects

at a time of growing nationalist agiation in the European provinces (Cleveland, 78).

Until the 18th century, the Ottomans were at least as powerful as the great European

powers. However, from the mid-1750s, Ottoman power declined and they could no longer

compete militarily with Russian and the Hapsburg Empire. In successive conflicts, the armies of

the Sultan, once invincible, were consistently defeated and the Empire lost territory. Their

Christian adversaries slowly dismembered the Empire and that survival of the empire was

threatened. Just as the Ottoman military power was marginalized, their old economic system was

becoming less viable. The antiquated economy could not compete with the European nations that

were being transformed by the industrial revolution. The leaders of the Ottoman recognized that

there needed to be an economic revolution accompanied by extensive political and legal reforms,

thus the Ottoman Empire had to modernize in order to survive.

The Tanzimat reforms focused heavily on reforming the Ottoman education system.

Ottoman education had been dominated by the Islamic Clerics, but the reforms reduced their

influence. The Ottoman government created schools and universities based on the western
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European model. The reforms also attempted to restrict the power of the Sultan and to ensure the

rule of law throughout the land. There were even attempts to start a multi-party system and the

Ottoman government began to centralize authority into its own hands The Tanzimat reforms

attempted to introduce a series of economic and financial reforms, including the abolition of

guilds, free trade, the right to private property and a new tax system. New banks were

established, despite the Islamic religious elite denouncing interest payments as Riba. The Sultan

also moved towards the lifting of barriers on trade and abandoned protectionism. The Ottoman

government also established courts that oversaw economic regulation.

The reforms had a real but limited impact on the Ottoman Empire. The education system

was completely secularized. A new secular elite was created through the education in the new

schools. The economic reforms did change the nature of the Ottoman Economy and ended the

religious regulation of the economy, bringing a measure of prosperity to the population. This was

mainly because as the Turks traded more with Europeans they had access to new technologies

and this helped to modernize the economy. Perhaps one of the greatest factors contributing to the

ultimate failure of the Tanzimat Era was the fact that though laws were passed, the majority

Muslim population was not ready to accept them. Centuries of inequalities proved hard to undue

with a population unwilling to accept change and thus many of the inhabitants lives in the

Empire were not really changed. Even though the rights of individual citizens were technically

improved but in reality, the Sultan still had almost unlimited power over his subjects and

remained the absolute ruler of the Empire. Furthermore, there was always a fatal lack of financial

resources. Overall, the reforms had changed the Empire but they had failed to modernize the

realm. The Ottomans still remained behind their European neighbors, to whom they continued to

lose territory, in the Balkans.