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West Asia from the First World War

charles tripp

Introduction

The loss by the Ottoman Empire of its last Arab provinces during the First World War, and the dissolution soon thereafter of the Ottoman state itself, opened up the possibilities of radical political change in the region. The political map was to be remade, in terms not simply of the formal institutions of governance, but also of the economic and social processes associated with them, introducing new ideas of political community and authority. However, as the inhabitants of the mashriq (the eastern part of the Arab world) were to discover, they had exchanged one dominion for another. The French and British empires divided the region between them and the League of Nations formally approved these arrangements by awarding mandates to France and Great Britain to bring these territories to independence as sovereign states. This act led eventually to the creation of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. It also set in motion the process that resulted in 1948 in the partition of the territories of the Palestine mandate between Israel, Jordan and Egypt. In so far as the history of Islam in these countries is the history of Muslims

and their reactions to the new conditions, these developments represented both an opportunity and a threat to differently situated groups of Muslims. There were those who argued that the new political and economic frame- work could help to regenerate their societies. The particular configuration of states, and the continuation of British and French imperial control, came in for criticism. But for much of the urban, politically active Muslim population nationalism, secularism, capitalism and socialism represented ways of engag- ing with the modern world and offered means of escaping from the debilitat- ing influence of ‘tradition’. For many of those involved, this secular outlook was perfectly compatible with their beliefs as Muslims. Effectively calling for a functional separation of religion and state, they acknowledged the norma- tive power of Islam and its importance for social identity, but for them

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politics was a matter of struggling with the imperial powers, and with each other, for control of the state. However, there was also another kind of response. This came from

Muslims concerned about the consequences of such developments for the place of Islam in public life and thus for the future of Islam itself as a religion. Across the region, numerous individuals and movements fashioned distinc- tively Islamic rejoinders to the secular ideas and structures that had such a powerful hold on the lives and imaginations of their fellow Muslims. Some believed this was best achieved by reinstating and rehabilitating the tradi- tional scholarly hierarchies of the Islamic tradition. Generally more visible, however, were those who saw active engagement with the modern world as the best way of preserving and reinforcing the core values of Islam itself. These were the Islamists of the new century – individuals who developed distinctive ideologies that drew upon the normative and symbolic repertoire of Islam and of a variety of Islamic traditions. The modern history of Islam in this area is also, therefore, a history of the ideas and movements associated with this form of response, and these will be the focus of this chapter.

1920–48: imperial creations: new states and the politics of Islam

The awarding of the mandates for Syria to France and for Mesopotamia and Palestine to Great Britain by the League of Nations in April 1920 sanctioned the occupation of these territories and opened the way for their political reorganisation. In Syria, France created the state of Greater Lebanon, thereby greatly enlarging the territory of the old Ottoman mutas.arrifiyya (autono- mous sub-province, established in 1861) with its mainly Maronite Christian and Druze population and incorporating the predominantly Muslim popula- tions of Tripoli (Sunn�ı) to the north, of the Bekaa Valley (Sh�ıq�ı) to the east and of the Jabal qAmil (Sh�ıq�ı) to the south. France also occupied the rest of Syria, dismantling the short-lived Arab kingdom of Am�ır Fays.al ibn H. usayn (r. 1918–20) in Damascus, and including Dayr al-Z�ur in the east up to the newly established boundaries of Iraq.

Iraq

Iraq was the name given by the British to their mandate in Mesopotamia. It comprised the three Ottoman provinces of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, occupied by British forces during the First World War, and consolidated by

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the British authorities into a single state, as the best way of defending British interests in the Middle East. In this state-building project, the British had the support of many of the largely secular, Ottoman elites of these provinces, even if other sections of the population – most notably the Sh�ıq�ı clerics of the qatab�at (literally, ‘thresholds’, denoting the Sh�ıq�ı holy cities in Iraq) and their tribal followers in southern Iraq, as well as the chiefs of the Kurdish tribes in the mountains of the north–east – were anxious about the implications for their own autonomy and interests. Some of these fears appeared to be confirmed as the new state began to take

on definition. In searching for a figure of sufficient authority to command respect in Iraq, the British looked to the traditional religious hierarchy of the Sunn�ı Muslim community, choosing the elderly Sayyid qAbd al-Rah.m�an al-Kayl�an�ı (d. 1927), naq�ıb al-ashr�af (senior descendant of the Prophet Muh.ammad in a community) of Baghdad and head of the Q�adiriyya order of Sufis, to be the first prime minister of the country. Faced by political forces with which he was ill equipped to deal, the naq�ıb’s tenure of the premiership did not last long. However, for some it confirmed the impression that Great Britain would exclude the established Sh�ıq�ı leadership from the power structures of the new state and was looking instead to the hierarchies of the defunct Ottoman state. This impression was largely correct. British officials in Iraq at the time

acknowledged that the Sh�ıqa constituted a sizeable part, even a majority, of Iraq’s population, but had no intention of letting this count. The mandate system assumed that the populations of these territories were not ready for self-rule and needed to be trained in modern politics before being recognised as sovereign. In this respect, the British placed more faith in the bureaucratic and political elites of the Ottoman Empire, drawn almost exclusively from the Sunn�ı population, than in the clerical or tribal leaders of the Sh�ıqa. They regarded the clerics in particular as obscurantist, too close to the clerical establishment in Persia and fanatical in their opposition to the kind of modernity that Great Britain was planning for Iraq. British contempt for and exclusion of the Sh�ıq�ı hierarchy cost both parties dear. In 1920 it contributed to the outbreak of the Iraqi revolt which challenged

British rule and drove British forces out of much of the south of the country. Some of the groundwork had been laid by the activities of the sons of two of the most eminent Sh�ıq�ı mujtahids (Sh�ıq�ı clerics recognised as competent to deliver independent opinions on the shar�ıqa) of Iraq, �Ayat All�ah H. asan al-S.adr (d. 1935) and �Ayat All�ah M�ırz�a Muh.ammad Taq�ı al-Sh�ır�az�ı (d. 1920), through the predominantly Sh�ıq�ı political organisation, H. aras al-Istiql�al (Independence guard). Cooperating with Sunn�ı Arab officers in the organisation of al-qAhd

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(the Covenant), they raised the standard of revolt in the summer of 1920, when �Ayat All�ah al-Sh�ır�az�ı proclaimed a fatw�a permitting the use of force against infidel rule. This led to a widespread and bloody rebellion throughout much of southern Iraq. It lasted some four months and was finally suppressed, but cost thousands of Iraqi lives, as well as those of hundreds of British and Indian troops. The rebellion convinced the British to hand over a greater degree of self-

rule to the Iraqis, but the beneficiaries were not those who had fought hardest in the revolt. On the contrary, the rebellion of the Sh�ıq�ı clerics and shaykhs had persuaded the British authorities of their enmity and intransigence. They granted office and privilege instead to the largely Sunn�ı ex-Ottoman army officers and administrators. At their head, in 1921, the British placed Am�ır Fays.al ibn H. usayn (r. 1921–32) as the first king of Iraq. Purely secular and strategic calculations determined their choice, but they also believed that Fays.al, as a sayyid (descendant of the Prophet Muh.ammad), would appeal to the disgruntled and disappointed Sh�ıq�ı clerics. It was a vain hope, even if he did have some success in drawing into his own circle many of the Sh�ıq�ı tribal shaykhs of Iraq. In 1923 the disdain of the most eminent of the Sh�ıq�ı clerics for the kind of

state that was emerging became clear when �Ayat All�ahs al-Kh�alis.�ı (d. 1932), al-N�apin�ı (d. 1936) and al-Is.fah�an�ı (d. 1945) came out against the process whereby a constitution was being drafted for the new Iraqi state. Al-Kh�alis.�ı was arrested and sent into exile, first in Mecca and then in Qum. He was joined there by a number of prominent clerics, all of whom disliked what Iraq was becoming, as a secular state dominated by the same Ottoman elites who had long excluded the Sh�ıqa from political life. However, to the disappointment of the clerics, their self-imposed exile failed to provoke any widespread movement of protest and sympathy. Instead, Iraqi politics was firmly set on a course in which secular elites, both Sunn�ı and Sh�ıq�ı, would play the decisive roles, preoccupied by their struggles with the British and with each other, acting for themselves or espousing ideologies based on national identities or on class interests. Thereafter, distinctively Islamic issues or movements faded from view in

the politics of monarchical Iraq. Encouraged by the monarchy and disillu- sioned by their brief engagement with the politics of the modern state, many of the Sh�ıq�ı clerics turned their backs on Iraqi politics and concentrated on jurisprudence and on the well-being of the community. This did not mean that there was not a lively, sometimes acrimonious, internal politics within the Sh�ıq�ı community, as different families, factions and clerics sought relative advantage through a particular circle of learning (h.awza qilmiyya) or access to

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the resources of the shrine cities of Najaf, Karbal�ap and al-K�az.imiyya. Occasionally, aspects of sectarian prejudice would surface in public debate. However, the ostentatious disengagement of the clerics from politics turned many younger Sh�ıqa away both from the religious leaders, and from the idea that Islam had a role to play in modern politics. Instead, like many of their Sunn�ı counterparts, they espoused the secular ideologies of nationalism, militarism, liberalism, social democracy or communism.

Palestine

ItcouldbearguedthatitwastheferventwishoftheBritishauthorities inPalestine that politics there should take an equally secular direction. However, the peculiar situation of the territory meant that this was never likely. The declaration by the British foreign secretary, Sir Arthur Balfour, in 1917 that Great Britain ‘would view with favour the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine’ indicated that a distinctive and unsettling future awaited this country. The ‘religious question’ would become one of the defining features of Palestinian politics. Many in the majority community of Sunn�ı Muslims in Palestine feared theimplicationsofunlimitedJewishimmigration,landpurchaseandtheestablish- ment of a formidable Zionist political apparatus with easy access to the British authorities. As early as 1920, riots at the festival of Nab�ı M�us�a showed that the sectarian aspect of politics was already well to the fore. Partly in response, the British authorities established the Supreme Muslim

Council (al-Majlis al-Isl�am�ı al-Aqal�a, SMC) in 1922, hoping to reassure Palestinian Muslims that Great Britain intended to live up to the second part of Balfour’s pledge that ‘nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine’. Endowed by the British authorities with the wealth of substantial awq�af (sing. waqf – religious endowment), the SMC was charged with regulating the affairs of the Muslim community. However, in the absence of any secular representative body that might have bridged the communal divide between Muslim and Christian Arabs on one side and the Jewish community on the other, the SMC soon became the principal political institution for Muslim Palestinians. This was particularly so after the appointment of H. ajj Am�ın al-H. usayn�ı (d. 1974) as muft�ı of Jerusalem and thus as ‘grand muft�ı’ (al-muft�ı al-akbar – a title suggesting scholarly pre-eminence, but in fact invented by the British authorities) in 1921.1 Until his dismissal by the British high

1 Philip Mattar, The Mufti of Jerusalem: Al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni and the Palestinian national movement (New York, 1988), pp. 21–33.

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commissioner in 1937, Am�ın al-H. usayn�ı was the dominant figure on the SMC, using it to the advantage of his own faction in Palestinian politics, as well as to oppose the growing Jewish immigration which British policy continued to allow. One of al-H. usayn�ı’s strategies was to ‘Islamise’ the Palestinian cause, seeking

to mobilise sentiment across the Islamic world on behalf of Palestine and, specifically, for the defence of Jerusalem. In 1928 the Committee for the Protection of al-Aqsa Mosque and the Holy Muslim Places was set up, and highlighted the religious aspect of the first major outbreak of intercommunal violence in Palestine during the ‘Wailing Wall’ riots of 1929. The SMC also convened the 1931 Islamic Congress in Jerusalem, helped greatly by al-H. usayn�ı’s contacts with the Indian Khil�afat movement. There was little follow-up, but the congress attracted pre-eminent Islamic thinkers, such as Rash�ıd Rid.�a (d. 1935) and Muh.ammad Iqb�al (d. 1938), and made a public effort to bridge sectarian differ- ences between Sunn�ı and Sh�ıq�ı Muslims. It also passed a series of resolutions which drew attention not only to the dangers faced by the Holy Places of Jerusalem, but also to the threat facing the Muslim community in Palestine through the extensive programme of land purchase by the Jewish Agency.2

Land purchase and the threat to the established Muslim Arab society of Palestine became one of the main themes of politics during the 1930s. Unlike the international conference activities, this was a development that engaged the majority rural population. Using the networks of mosques, preachers and Islamic associations throughout the country, convening congresses of qulam�ap at regular intervals, the SMC mobilised against the ‘judaisation’ (tahw�ıd) of Palestine, declaring the whole country a sacred land, a trust (am�ana) of God. It embodied these ideas in a 1935 fatw�a against land sales. Signed by numerous Palestinian qulam�ap, but also by Syrian, Iraqi, Egyptian and Indian qulam�ap, it declared that whoever sold land in Palestine to the Jews ‘necessarily commits infidelity (kufr) and apostasy (irtid�ad)’, as well as ‘treason (kh�ıy�ana) to God and his Messenger’.3

It is unclear whether these declarations had much effect on land sales, but the issue contributed to the Arab revolt in Palestine which broke out a year or

2 Uri Kupferschmidt, The Supreme Muslim Council: Islam under the British Mandate for Palestine (Leiden, 1987), pp. 187–220; A.W. Kayyali, Palestine: A modern history (London, n.d.), pp. 138–44; Mattar, Mufti of Jerusalem, pp. 35–45, 56–64; H.A.R. Gibb, ‘The Islamic Congress at Jerusalem in December 1931’, in A.J. Toynbee (ed.), Survey of International Affairs, 1934 (London, 1935), pp. 99–108.

3 Kupferschmidt, Supreme Muslim Council, pp. 240–7; Martin Kolinsky, Law, order and riots in Mandatory Palestine, 1928–35 (London, 1993) pp. 184–6.

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so later. The SMC and al-H. usayn�ı inevitably became involved. They had already been criticised by populist Islamist movements, such as that organ- ised by Shaykh qIzz al-D�ın al-Qass�am (d. 1935), who declared that nothing short of armed jihad against the infidel would safeguard the Islamic com- munity of Palestine.4 Similar sentiments were voiced at many a local mawsim (religious festival), often becoming the focus of popular resentment. Tapping into another vein of largely urban Islamic sentiment, the Young Men’s Muslim Association (YMMA, Jamqiyyat al-Shubb�an al-Muslim�ın), originally established in Egypt, made inroads into Palestine during this period. Educational and recreational in intent, it also made young Muslims more aware of their own political identities as Muslims, by publicising causes from across the Muslim world. In such circumstances, it was not surprising that al-H. usayn�ı encouraged the formation of a secret organisation, al-Jih�ad al-Muqaddas (the holy struggle), led first by his cousin qAbd al-Q�adir (d. 1948), and then directly by himself.5

The defeat of the revolt in Palestine by 1939, the death of al-Qass�am and others, as well as the dismissal and exile of Am�ın al-H. usayn�ı dismantled much of the organisation of resistance structured around Islamic institutions. The focus of the Palestine question shifted away from its Islamic aspect and towards a secular, nationalist one. The pan-Islamic, communal sentiments encouraged by the YMMA continued, and from the mid-1940s the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was active in Palestine. By 1947 some twenty-five branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, with nearly twenty thousand mem- bers, had been established in the country.6 However, political debate revolved around the question of Arab, rather than Muslim, Palestine. When war came in 1948, due to the failures and ambitions of all the parties involved, Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood were active in the fighting, but could not make any difference to an outcome determined by the relative strengths of the armed forces of the Zionist movement, then of the state of Israel, and of the Arab states, respectively.

Transjordan

Some of those who participated in the war of 1948 were volunteers from the Muslim Brotherhood in Transjordan. In 1945 the Association of the Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Amman by Shaykh qAbd al-Lat.�ıf Ab�u Q�ura and

4 Kayyali, Palestine, pp. 180–2. 5 Kupferschmidt, Supreme Muslim Council, pp. 230–9, 253. 6 Ziad Abu Amr, Islamic fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza (Bloomington, 1994), p. 3.

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was warmly welcomed by Am�ır qAbd All�ah (r. 1921–51).7 Transjordan, initially a ‘territory’, then an emirate and finally, in 1946, a sovereign kingdom, had been carved out of the lands awarded to Great Britain as part of the mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia. By 1924 the country had been recognised as administratively distinct from Palestine, and the framework of the state was being consolidated, after a rather shaky start, under the leadership of Am�ır qAbd All�ah ibn H. usayn, elder brother of the newly installed king of Iraq, Fays.al. One of the aims of the British separation of Transjordan from Palestine

was to limit the area of the Jewish ‘national home’ promised in the Balfour Declaration. Transjordan was thereby closed to Jewish settlement, removing it from the sectarian and communal politics of Palestine, even if, as either Muslim or Christian Arabs, many Transjordanians sympathised with the struggle of the Palestinians in their attempt to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state. Am�ır qAbd All�ah, although also unwilling to see a Jewish state emerge on the other bank of the Jordan, did not object to the establishment of a Jewish community in Palestine, as long as it accepted the status of a semi- autonomous entity within a larger Arab state, preferably ruled by himself. In some respects he saw the Zionist movement at this stage as an ally against Am�ın al-H. usayn�ı and the Palestinian nationalist movement. When it became clear that war was inevitable in 1948 and that qAbd All�ah’s

Ottoman vision of autonomous millets (Ar. milal, sing. milla – religious community) thriving under the dynastic suzerainty of the Hashemite nobility had no appeal in a world of national self-determination, he committed his Arab Legion to the occupation and defence of Jerusalem, and as much of the west bank of the Jordan as they could hold. The Arab Legion succeeded in defending east Jerusalem and, importantly, the H. aram al-Shar�ıf. This allowed qAbd All�ah to present himself as the defender of one of the holiest sites of Islam, and thus, by implication, of Islam itself. However, the effect was somewhat lessened by the welter of mutual recrimination and suspicion that erupted in the aftermath of the failure of the Arab armies in Palestine to prevent the establishment of the state of Israel. For qAbd All�ah, whose politics were dynastic, secular and, in the consol-

idation of Transjordan, largely tribal and military in orientation, Islam was an integral part of his and of most of his subjects’ identity. However, in terms of his statecraft it was largely instrumental. It was, therefore, natural that he

7 Abd al-Fattah El-Awaisi, The Muslim Brothers and the Palestine Question, 1928–1947 (London, 1998), pp. 148–50.

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should commit himself to the defence of the H. aram al-Shar�ıf, since it was unthinkable that he should allow it to be occupied by non-Muslims. It was also natural that he should thereafter become the patron of the Islamic hierarchy of the city. Nevertheless, both in this and in his encouragement of the Muslim Brotherhood in Transjordan, he was clearly seeking to check the emergence both of an alternative Islamic leadership and of a Palestinian nationalism that would reject his own claims to rule and might look instead to a figure such as Am�ın al-H. usayn�ı.

Syria

Palestine was not the only target of qAbd All�ah’s ambitions. His vision of Greater Syria as a state under his own leadership, stretching across most of the Arab provinces detached from the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War remained a powerful theme in his policies until his death in 1951. The shaky attachment, as he saw it, of the Syrians to the truncated state of Syria that had emerged from the French mandate gave him cause to hope that his ambitions might be realised. However, by this stage two distinct states had been formed, the republics of Syria and Lebanon. Troubled as their politics were in many respects, they had developed as separate states, with distinctive patterns of politics, both Islamic and secular. In Syria there was an official Islamic hierarchy of muft�ıs, preachers and

im�ams based on the mosque network and the waqf administration. They were recognised by the French authorities, but the main interlocutors of the mandatory power were the notable families, which had formed the ruling stratum under the Ottomans. However, further down the social scale, particularly in the cities, a distinctive Islamic politics was developing. The 1920s and 1930s witnessed the emergence of a number of Islamic charitable organisations, known as jamqiyy�at (sing. jamqiyya – groups or societies), which were established as mutual welfare societies, often linked to educational projects and to the provision of services on a limited scale. Organised chiefly by the urban middle and lower middle classes, they were intended to soften the impact of rapid urbanisation and of the inequalities of Syrian society.8

The most active of these associations developed into the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria in the 1940s. Emerging from the Aleppo-based association of the D�ar al-Arq�am, among others, and much influenced by the example of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was essentially a federation of Islamic societies. In the early years of independence

8 Umar Abd-Allah, The Islamic struggle in Syria (Berkeley, 1983), pp. 88–90.

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they were brought together by Mus.t.af�a al-Sib�aq�ı (d. 1964), the chief ideologue of the movement and its leader until illness forced him to stand aside in the late 1950s. In 1946 he was elected al-mur�aqib al-q�amm (general supervisor) of the movement, the membership of which comprised urban professionals, traders and teachers, as well as some qulam�ap. Before a succession of military coups d’état in 1949 restricted the scope of

representative life, the Muslim Brotherhood was active in electoral politics. It stood for election in the Syrian parliament and sought to represent ‘the Muslim view’ in a political world otherwise dominated by the great land- owners, the upper middle class or their nationalist and socialist challengers. Al-Sib�aq�ı refused to see the Muslim Brotherhood as merely one party among many, claiming in 1947 that ‘our movement is neither a jamqiyya nor a political party, but a r�uh. (spirit) that permeates every being of the umma (Islamic community): it is a new revolution’.9 Nevertheless, it was also an effective political organisation, within the limitations of the political system in Syria. Its power could never match that of the established order, but it represented a growing movement, expressing the sentiments of those who were discon- certed by the intrusion of Western, secular culture into their country and who felt excluded from the benefits of an economy dominated by the great landowners, the new industrialists and the military.

Lebanon

Similar dissatisfactions had characterised the emergence of a distinct Muslim politics in Lebanon. However, it was given a very specific colouration both by the confessional structure of the Lebanese state and by the differences between the social and economic situations of the two principal Muslim communities of Lebanon: the Sunn�ıs of the coast and the north and the Sh�ıqa of the east and the south. The Sunn�ı urban elites of Beirut and Tripoli had been prominent in the Ottoman establishment, although, as elsewhere, they had also produced some of its main critics. The collapse of the Ottoman state in 1918 saw the formation of institutions of self-government, including the revival of the educational charity Jamqiyyat al-Maq�as.id al-Khayriyat al-Isl�amiyya (called simply the ‘Makassed’ in Western writings on Lebanon), which gave a voice and a sense of purpose to a Sunn�ı urban community in which scions of the great families such as the Sal�am, the al-S.ulh. and the Kar�am�ı played a prominent part.

10

9 Ibid., p. 93. 10 Michael Johnson, Class and client in Beirut: The Sunni Muslim community and the Lebanese

state, 1840–1985 (London, 1986), p. 14.

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The arrival of the French army of occupation and the creation of Greater Lebanon in 1920 caused deep disquiet among the Sunn�ı Muslim leaders. Having been part of the dominant architecture of the Ottoman state, with family and financial ties to Damascus, Latakiya, Aleppo and Homs, the Sunn�ı Muslim notables found themselves representing a minority within a state dominated by the Maronite Christian community, under the control of the French authorities, administratively separated from Syria. It was not surpris- ing that in the first two decades of Lebanon’s existence the most vocal opposition, not simply to the French occupation but also to the very existence of a separate Lebanese state, should have come from the Sunn�ı Muslim community. They boycotted the first elections of 1922 and protested vehe- mently against the Lebanese constitution of 1926 which both confirmed their minority status and fixed the boundaries of Greater Lebanon. Greater urbanisation and the consequences of the global economic depres-

sion of the 1930s led to new forms of mass politics in the streets of Beirut in particular. Fearful of the secular, radical ideologies that began to appeal to the mass of the dispossessed, elites of all communities adopted new, populist political strategies. Increasingly, the language they used was that of a com- munalism defined by sectarian identity. In March 1936, as negotiations for a treaty with France took shape, bringing the prospect of an independent Lebanon closer, one of the leaders of the Sunn�ı Muslim community, Sal�ım qAl�ı Sal�am (d. 1938), convened a Conference of the Coast, bringing together Sunn�ı and Sh�ıq�ı Muslim notables, to protest against the status quo and to call for the separation of the Muslim areas of Lebanon and their re-attachment to Syria. The conference paved the way for the Sunn�ı muft�ı of Lebanon to form a Muslim consultative council, which then convened an Islamic congress to give voice to Lebanese Muslims’ discontents. Some of these, however, found a more direct and violent expression. In response to the formation of groups such as the predominantly Maronite Falangist party militia, al-Kat�apib (the Squadrons), the Sunn�ı Muslim community formed a counter-militia, al-Najj�ada (The helpers). It was not long before bloody clashes occurred between the two.11

The violence of these events and the pretext they gave for France to continue its occupation of Lebanon, as well as changes in the national economy and within the Maronite community itself, caused the Sunn�ı Muslim leadership to draw back from the abyss of communal confrontation. Under the leadership of Riy�ad. al-S.ulh. (d. 1951), in particular, the Sunn�ı Muslim

11 Ibid., pp. 19, 23–6.

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notables began to see the advantages of collaborating with the leaders of other communities, specifically the Maronites, in securing the Lebanese republic and national economy, free of French control. This sentiment was shared by a growing number of Maronites, led by Bish�ara al-Kh�ur�ı (d. 1964). The result was the agreement of 1943 known as the National Pact. Effectively an agreement between the leaders of the two principal communities to work together within an independent Lebanon, the National Pact reinforced the confessional nature of the republic by fixing the formula for sharing govern- ment offices. It was this pact that formed the basis of the politics of inde- pendent Lebanon.

1948–70: independence: nationalism, socialism and Islamism

The era of independence ushered in by the 1940s was also an era of great hopes for the remaking of the new states of the mashriq. Even the early conspicuous failure, al-nakba (the catastrophe) of 1948 in which the hopes for an independent Palestine were shattered by war, became a catalyst for the emergence of radical movements. For the most part, their ideas of reform were secular in orientation. The participants were almost all Muslim in terms of their religious identity, but this meant little for their political orientation. The young army officers, state servants and urbanised peasantry who played an increasingly prominent part in the politics of the region were driven by the visions of Arab nationalism, of state socialism and of Marxism. These ideol- ogies provided the blueprints for social transformation, echoing the concerns of the Cold War and the process of decolonisation. It is against this background that Islamist thinkers and their followers in the

mashriq tried to position themselves. Some took a traditional view, generally supported by the state-backed Islamic establishments, which advocated the maintenance of personal status laws based on the shar�ıqa, and concentrated on educational initiatives and lobbying of those in power. Others saw this as dangerously passive. They developed a distinct set of ideas to counter secularism and to reinstate Islamic values at the heart of public life. This demanded a more active political strategy. Constrained during much of this period by popular indifference or by the counterblasts of secular ideologies and the regimes that espoused them, these ideas would only later become the basis of effective political mobilisation as disenchantment with the new secular state elites set in.

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Palestine and Jordan

It was not surprising that the site for one of the earliest expressions of radical political Islamism should have been Palestine. After the war of 1948 and the establishment of the state of Israel on the territory of much of the Palestine mandate, the remainder of the country was divided between the kingdom of Jordan, which took control of Jerusalem and the West Bank, and the kingdom of Egypt, which occupied the Gaza Strip. Palestinians who remained in the various segments of historical Palestine found themselves under the juris- dictions of three different states. Expressing a radical disillusionment with the secular powers that had so conspicuously failed to prevent the dismember- ment of Palestine, Taq�ı al-D�ın al-Nabh�an�ı (d. 1977) wrote his most famous works in the early 1950s.12

In these he set forth his ideas for an alternative political and economic order, founded on Islamic principles, repudiating the dominant models of the territorial nation-state and of the capitalist economy. Strongly influenced by the writings of contemporary Islamists, al-Nabh�an�ı nevertheless brought to his thesis a distinctive sensibility, forged in the struggle for Palestine. His call for a general Islamic liberation from the forces of materialism and secular power was a protest against the dead-end into which compromises with imperialists or alliances with Arab states had led the Palestinians. In its transnational scope, this vision went far beyond the nation-state, expressing outrage at the territorial carve-up of the region. In founding H. izb al-Tah.r�ır al-Isl�am�ı (the Islamic liberation party) al-Nabh�an�ı drew about him like- minded Palestinians and other Muslims, but the hostility of the Jordanian government limited its effectiveness as a movement.13

More effective as an organisation among the Palestinians was the Muslim Brotherhood, now split between branches operating under Egyptian control and those active under Jordanian auspices. The presence of the Egyptian army in Gaza, with its Brotherhood members and sympathisers, had given a boost to the organisation there.14 However, it was also vulnerable to the troubled relations between the Brotherhood in Egypt and the Egyptian government. Banned by the Egyptian government in 1949, it transformed itself into an educational establishment, Jamqiyyat al-Tawh.�ıd (Monotheism

12 Taq�ı al-D�ın al-Nabh�an�ı, Niz.�am al-h.ukm f�ı al-Isl�am (Jerusalem, 1953); Taq�ı al-D�ın al-Nabh�an�ı, al-Niz.�am al-iqtis.�ad�ı f�ı al-Isl�am (Amman, n.d.).

13 Suha Taji-Farouki, A fundamental quest: Hizb al-Tahrir and the search for an Islamic caliphate (London, 1996), pp. 76–90.

14 El-Awaisi, Muslim Brothers, pp. 150–71.

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society). With the overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy in 1952 it gained greater freedom to organise, given the close relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Free Officers, but again suffered from repression after 1954 when the government of Nasser clamped down on the organisation in Egypt. Thereafter it operated behind various front organisations, occasionally

coming into the open, as in its opposition to the Israeli occupation of 1956, but the Egyptian security apparatus kept it under close surveillance. This culminated in the purges and arrests of the mid-1960s which decimated the Brotherhood in Gaza and drove many into exile, significantly weakening it on the eve of the second Israeli occupation in 1967.15 However, one of the results of the Brotherhood’s activities in Gaza among students was the formation in Cairo of the League of Palestinian Students. It was dominated by student sympathisers of the Muslim Brotherhood, among them Yasser Arafat (d. 2004), Sal�ah. Khalaf (d. 1991) and others who were to be founders of the organisation Fatah. (reverse acronym of H. araka Tah.r�ır Filast.�ın (Movement for the liberation of Palestine)). It appealed to young men impatient with the Brotherhood’s inaction and was intended to provide a secular focus for Palestinian resistance, but it had its origins in a distinctive Palestinian Islamist milieu, expressing a generation’s protest against the fate of the Palestinians and the incompetence of their leaders.16

For the branches of the Muslim Brotherhood on the West Bank, the relationship with the Jordanian authorities was more stable. Soon after the annexation of the West Bank in 1950, King qAbd All�ah had brought all Palestinian religious institutions under Amman’s direct control. This became the main centre for the administration of the shar�ıqa courts, the appointment of religious officials and the oversight of awq�af on both sides of the river.17

King H. usayn (r. 1952–99), who came to the throne in 1952, followed the policies of his grandfather and saw the Muslim Brotherhood as a useful ally in facing down the challenges of Palestinian nationalism, radical Arab natio- nalism, socialism and radical Islamism of the kind represented by al-Nabh�an�ı. In return for legal recognition and freedom to organise, the Brotherhood gave the king its loyal support. Under its new leader, Muh.ammad qAbd al-Rah.m�an Khal�ıfa, it participated in parliamentary elections and portrayed the king as ‘defender of Islam’ when confronted by the attempted coup d’état

15 Abu Amr, Islamic fundamentalism, pp. 7–9. 16 Khaled Hroub, Hamas: Political thought and practice (Washington DC, 2000), pp. 25–7. 17 Kupferschmidt, Supreme Muslim Council, pp. 257–8.

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of Sulaiman Nabuls�ı (d. 1976) and qAl�ı Ab�u Nuww�ar (d. 1991) in 1957.18

Although critical at times of Jordan’s alliances with Western powers, the Brotherhood was unswerving in its support for the monarchy, seeing it as a bastion against Nasserism, Baqthism and other secular or socialist creeds.

Syria

Across the border in Syria, the fate of the Muslim Brotherhood made these dangers only too visible. It had only participated intermittently in public life after the restoration of parliament in 1954, devoting itself chiefly to educa- tional and welfare activities. In 1957, due to increasing ill-health, al-Sib�aq�ı handed over control of the organisation to Is�am al-qAt.t.�ar, who led the Brotherhood until ousted in 1970. Like all other political organisations, the Brotherhood was banned in 1958 when Egypt effectively took over Syria with the formation of the United Arab Republic (UAR). Ironically, whilst the organisation was suppressed, Nasser’s government appropriated al-Sib�aq�ı’s best known work, Ishtir�akiyyat al-Isl�am (The socialism of Islam), as a means of legitimising and mobilising public support for the socialist development programme of the UAR, known variously as ‘Arab socialism’ and ‘Islamic socialism’. In fact, al-Sib�aq�ı’s work, developed from his writings of the 1950s, was

intended as a critique both of the social injustice of Syria’s class-divided society and of the socialist and Marxist ideas that were winning adherents among the Syrian intelligentsia. In keeping with his view that Muslims should establish their values in the world through social and political action, al-Sib�aq�ı wanted to show that all the principles for the radical reconstruction of society could be found in Islam. He was trying to persuade a younger generation of Syrians that they need not look to secular ideologies for an alternative to capitalism. On the contrary, social justice through ‘mutual social responsi- bility’ (al-tak�aful al-ijtim�aq�ı), through the regulation of property in the public interest and through the restraint of hedonistic egoism could be achieved by a dynamic interpretation of Islamic traditions, informed by a burning sense of social justice. Beyond the strategic concerns of the Brotherhood in Syria, al- Sib�aq�ı was also expressing a more widespread concern for the moral econ- omy. For him, a distinctive Islamic sociability had been fractured by the forces of European colonialism and liberal capitalism. His task was therefore

18 Ziad Abu Amr, ‘La monarchie jordanienne et les Frères musulmans ou les modalités d’endiguement d’une opposition loyaliste’, in B. Kodmani-Darwish and M. Chartouni- Dubarry (eds.), Les états arabes face à la contestation Islamiste (Paris, 1997), pp. 130–1.

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the re-founding of the moral economy, imbuing people’s everyday transactions with Islamic values, while encouraging them to engage fully with a world transformed by new technology.19

With the breakup of the UAR in 1961, parliamentary life was briefly restored and al-qAt.t.�ar led the Brotherhood to relative electoral success. However, representative life was fragile and soon succumbed to the power of military factions and conspiracies, culminating in the Baqthist coup d’état of March 1963. The new regime of radical, secular Arab nationalists and socialists lost little time in suppressing its critics, including the Muslim Brotherhood, forcing al-qAt.t.�ar into exile. This created a dilemma for those remaining in Syria. Some advocated armed resistance as the only way of engaging with an authoritarian system seemingly bent on eliminating Islam from public life. Strongly advocated at the time by Marw�an H. ad�ıd (d. 1976) from Hama, and supported by others from the north, this remained a minority position, partly because of the strength of the Damascus Brotherhood, still under the control of al-qAt.t.�ar. Gauging accurately the strength of the Baqthist regime, especially in the security apparatus, al-qAt.t.�ar recognised that armed confrontation would be suicidal. However, it was to be an issue that recurred with increas- ing bitterness and desperation in Brotherhood debates as regime repression intensified.20

Iraq

During the same period in Iraq a similar set of concerns about secularism, socialism and the iniquities of a capitalist order had led to debates among Sh�ıq�ı and Sunn�ı scholars alike. The overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy in July 1958 had been unmourned, but the regime of qAbd al-Kar�ım Q�asim (prime minister 1958–63), which gave new freedoms to organisations such as the Iraqi Communist Party, seemed to some to represent a threat to Islam and to Islamic values in Iraqi public life. At the forefront of those Islamic scholars who tried to formulate an Islamic riposte to the dangers of the age was the Sh�ıq�ı cleric, �Ayat All�ah Muh.ammad B�aqir al-S. adr (d. 1980) of Najaf. Al-S.adr was preoccupied with the influence of secular, Marxist and socialist ideas on the younger generation of the Sh�ıqa, turning them away from the clerical authorities and causing them to neglect the role of Islam. Yet at the same time, given the glaring social injustices in Iraq, he saw why Marxism

19 Mus.t.af�a al-Sib�aq�ı, Ishtir�akiyyat al-Isl�am (Damascus, 1960), pp. 174–211, 319–24; Mus.t.af�a al-Sib�aq�ı, Akhl�aqun�a al-ijtim�aqiyya (Beirut, 1972), pp. 41–9, 74–80, 110–14.

20 Abd-Allah, Islamic struggle, pp. 101–6.

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had such an appeal. He felt strongly that unless Sh�ıq�ı clerics modified their traditional disdain for political engagement and their silence on material and economic concerns, they would lose the attention and loyalty of their communal following, placing not only the hierarchy, but also the values they espoused in jeopardy. B�aqir al-S. adr sought both to present a refutation of historical materialism

and to demonstrate that a searing critique of capitalism could be found in the Islamic tradition. These were the themes on which he expounded with great originality in his two major works Falsaf�atun�a (Our philosophy) and Iqtis.�adun�a (Our economy). Similarly to al-Sib�aq�ı in Syria, although with a greater degree of sophistication and a more informed awareness of the counter-arguments of both capitalism and communism, al-S. adr was deter- mined to prove both that Islam had something important to say in a fast- changing world and that it represented a system that would be both ethically more sound and more efficient at delivering the greatest benefits to the greatest number.21

This was an implicit reproach to much of the Sh�ıq�ı clerical hierarchy in Iraq, although al-S.adr had many admirers amongst the clerics, particularly since the radical nature of the Q�asim regime and its Baqthist and Arab nationalist successors made the nature of the threat all too plain. In fact, the relative freedoms allowed by qAbd al-Kar�ım Q�asim permitted al-S. adr and others to lay the foundations for al-Daqwa (The call), an organisation dedi- cated to the promotion of a more activist and engaged Islamism. Based in the Sh�ıq�ı urban population of Iraq, it tried to counter the influence of secular and socialist organisations. Al-Daqwa established networks, set up educational groups, put out publications and organised demonstrations over particular issues. However, like all other public actors in Iraq it had a limited stage on which to operate, given the absence of representative life.22

In 1960 Q�asim introduced licences for political parties and, possibly fearing the sectarian implications of communally defined parties, only permitted the formation of a unified Islamic Party (al-H. izb al-Isl�am�ı). In practice, Sh�ıq�ı representation in the party was weak – the Sh�ıq�ı Grand �Ayat All�ah Muh.sin al-H. ak�ım (d. 1970) discouraged participation – and its leadership was domi- nated by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Nevertheless, the Islamic Party had much in common with members of al-Daqwa when it came to

21 Muh.ammad B�aqir al-S. adr, Iqtis.�adun�a (Beirut, 1982), pp. 255–356, 628–37; Muh.ammad B�aqir al-S.adr, Falsaf�atun�a (Beirut, 1982).

22 Abdul-Halim al-Ruhaimi, ‘The Daqwa Islamic Party: Origins, actors and ideology’, in Faleh Abdul-Jabar (ed.), Ayatollahs, Sufis and ideologues (London, 2002), pp. 149–61.

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criticism of Q�asim’s government, especially its nationalisation of land, which they saw as counter to shar�ıqa injunctions to respect private property. It was not long before the Islamic Party was being harassed by a government irked by being told repeatedly that its measures were contrary to the shar�ıqa. Some of its branches were closed down and its publications restricted. More importantly, in the absence of representative institutions, there was no effective way in which its voice could be heard, and it had more or less ceased its activities before the overthrow of Q�asim in 1963.23

With qAbd al-Sal�am q�Arif’s (pres. 1963–6) dismissal of the radical and chaotic Baqthist government in November 1963, it seemed to some that power had passed into the hands of a man who wished to restore Islam to its central place in public life. q�Arif made much of his personal piety and had contact with Sunn�ı Islamist circles, leading initially to a number of regulations requiring greater public observance of Islamic rulings. However, he was also an admirer of Nasser in Egypt and was determined to introduce a similar set of socialist measures in Iraq, in support of which he co-opted the Sunn�ı religious establishment, as well as much of the Muslim Brotherhood, per- suading them to endorse these measures as a form of ‘Islamic socialism’. q�Arif could not exercise the same kind of authority over the Sh�ıq�ı clerics or

organisations. On the contrary, eminent members of the Sh�ıq�ı clerical hier- archy publicly condemned the nationalisation measures and the expropria- tions of landed property that accompanied them. At street level, their sentiments were echoed and amplified by al-Daqwa, giving q�Arif cause for concern. In fact, his shift away from Nasserist socialism well before his sudden death in 1966 removed the possibility of serious confrontation. Nevertheless, the mobilisation among the Sh�ıqa, their concern about the substance of social and economic legislation and the establishment of novel forms of political organisation suggested that the influence of B�aqir al-S. adr and others like him was making itself felt.24 The exile to Najaf in 1964 of the Iranian cleric �Ayat All�ah Ruh. All�ah Khomeini (1903–89) with his own political, activist ideas further stimulated the debate.

Lebanon

At more or less the same time, in another part of the Sh�ıq�ı world, stirrings of discontent and the beginnings of new forms of political mobilisation were

23 Basim al-qAzami, ‘The Muslim Brotherhood: Genesis and development’, in Abdul-Jabar (ed.), Ayatollahs, Sufis and ideologues, pp. 166–71.

24 Charles Tripp, A history of Iraq, 3rd edn (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 179–83.

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becoming visible. The Sh�ıqa of Lebanon had witnessed two decades of confessional politics based on the National Pact of 1943, leading to a division of the spoils among the zuqam�ap, the heads of the leading families of the confessional communities of Lebanon. These had been the chief beneficiaries of the unprecedented growth of the Lebanese economy in the decades following independence. An entrepreneurial free-for-all, largely unregulated by an intentionally weak state, suited the interests of the business world of the coastal cities. Although dominated by members of the Christian commun- ities, the expanding world of economic opportunity provided openings for the many Sunn�ı Muslim business and community leaders, long established in Beirut and Tripoli, and gave them a stake in the status quo. Less enchanted by this situation were the poorer urban Sunn�ıs. For them,

the hopes of independence had come up against the harsh reality of class privilege and the insecurity of poverty. In some cases this was alleviated by the philanthropic activities of individual Sunn�ı leaders. By and large, how- ever, Sunn�ı urban politics at the lower end of the socio-economic scale was dominated by local strongmen – qabad.�ay�at – or by the emerging parties of Arab nationalist or socialist dissent. These ideas, especially those of Nasserism, gained a significant following. Secular and Arab nationalist in character, they also called for a radical revision of the existing order which, in a Lebanese context, easily translated into a sectarian call for an end to Maronite Christian dominance. As the civil war of 1958 demonstrated, such resentments could have violent repercussions, even if sparked off by political conflicts that were secular at heart. Thus President Chamoun’s (pres. 1952–8) manoeuvres, as the time approached for his retirement in 1958, combined with the regional drama of the formation of the UAR in neighbouring Syria, the ambitions of President Nasser (pres. 1954–70) and the need by many of the Sunn�ı zuqam�ap in Lebanon to shore up their declining authority, led to the first major outbreak of intercommunal violence that year.25

This was eventually resolved, although not before the eruption of even greater violence when elements of the Maronite community felt themselves under siege and fought back. However, key players, such as the Maronite General Shih�ab (pres. 1958–64), refused to see this as a sectarian matter and, trusted by many, he put himself forward as the solution. In some respects the regime he then introduced, under the label of ‘Shihabism’, was one that took account of the needs of those whose resentments had fuelled the violence of 1958. In particular, the more active state and its intervention in areas hitherto

25 Johnson, Class and client, pp. 127–35.

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neglected by the zuqam�ap held the promise of alleviating the worst conditions of the Sunn�ı Muslim poor. At the same time, he was careful not to antagonise the entrepreneurial class and those who saw the state primarily as a permis- sive, stable framework for the pursuit of their own financial interests. In this respect, the secular and inegalitarian framework of the Lebanese political economy continued to grow apace, fuelled by investment from the emerging oil economies of the Middle East. In all of these events there was one community which, although well on its

way to becoming the largest single confessional community in Lebanon, had been largely neglected. The Sh�ıqa who inhabited much of the Bekaa Valley, most of the south of the country and, increasingly, the burgeoning slums of southern Beirut had taken little part in these events, remaining under the control of their traditional, virtually feudal zuqam�ap, such as the al-Asqads of Nabat.iyya. These families also controlled the clerical establishment, prom- inent among whom at the time was the conservative mujtahid Sayyid Muh.ammad Taq�ı S. ad�ıq (d. 1966). His message of quietism and political abstention was welcomed by the leading families, who saw no advantage and some danger in popular mobilisation, having witnessed its effects among the Sunn�ıs. Nor did the zuqam�ap have much quarrel with the Maronite- dominated order since the two elites saw each other as potential allies against the Sunn�ı Muslim leaders, whom they equally mistrusted, although for rather different reasons. Nevertheless, changes were beginning to affect the Sh�ıqa as much as others

in Lebanon. Demographic growth and migration, both to the cities of the coast and to South America and West Africa, had placed many beyond the reach of their traditional leaders and the customary networks of social support. Similarly, in the countryside, the capitalisation of agriculture intro- duced hardheaded and market-oriented relations of production, eroding some of the feelings of mutual obligation that had characterised relations between landlord and peasant. Equally, the opening up of educational opportunities through the secular school curriculum was fostering a gener- ation of young Sh�ıqa with a waning respect for the clerics who had hitherto dominated the education of the community. These elements comprised the diverse but increasingly self-conscious constituency of the Sh�ıqa which became receptive to the message of Sayyid M�us�a al-S. adr (d. 1978) when he arrived in Lebanon in the late 1950s.26

26 Majed Halawi, A Lebanon defied: Musa al-Sadr and the Shiqa community (Boulder, 1992), pp. 49–81.

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M�us�a al-S. adr was a key figure in the transformation of the Sh�ıqa of Lebanon into a significant political force which challenged the old confessional agree- ments hammered out mainly between the Sunn�ı Muslim and Maronite leaders. He came from a long line of distinguished clerics, and could trace his ancestry back to the Sh�ıqa of southern Lebanon. However, for the preceding four generations, the family had been established in Najaf, Mashhad and Qum. His father, �Ayat All�ah S.adr al-D�ın al-S. adr (d. 1940), one of the most eminent scholars in Najaf, had joined the clerical migration of the 1920s from the newly established state of Iraq to the more congenial sur- roundings of Qum.27 M�us�a al-S. adr himself was born in Iran, but much of his extended family remained in Iraq, including his cousin Muh.ammad B�aqir al-S. adr. M�us�a al-S. adr did not produce mature philosophical works like those

written by his cousin, but his concerns were very similar. He was an activist cleric, ready to engage and if necessary to do battle with the world. His aim was to right the injustices he believed were being done to his community and to ensure that Islamic principles were respected by making them relevant to contemporary concerns. Aware of the impact of European ideas and power on the Islamic world, he was critical of that power and of its values, but saw the need to engage with it because, as he said, ‘Europe, with all its good and evil, is the future of this part of the world’, and to understand it is to be able to deal ‘with the destruction that this European invasion brings in its train’.28 He had no time for the obscurantism and conservatism of many of his fellow clerics since he believed this ill equipped them to give advice, guidance or protection to the community in the social conflicts developing in Lebanon. He was not a social revolutionary, but his message was a radical one in the

context of Lebanese Sh�ıqism. For that reason he was regarded with suspicion by the traditional clerics, and with alarm by the great families. However, he gained support amongst many who were becoming more conscious of their Sh�ıq�ı identities, but felt excluded either because they did not come from notable families, or because the concerns of the Sh�ıqa were rarely taken into account by Lebanon’s political leaders. This support led to the formation of the Supreme Islamic Sh�ıq�ı Council (al-Majlis al-Isl�am�ı al-Sh�ıq�ı al-Aqal�a), set up and headed by M�us�a al-S. adr in the mid-1960s. It was not a radical body and was made up largely of the established clerical and lay figures of the Sh�ıq�ı

27 Fouad Ajami, The vanished Imam: Musa al-Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon (Ithaca, 1986), pp. 32–41.

28 Ibid., p. 96.

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community, but, under al-S. adr, it became the voice of the Sh�ıqa, organising around issues of resource allocation, deprivation and communal protection. As the political situation deteriorated in the early 1970s its role – and that of al-S. adr – became increasingly prominent.

29

1970–2007: authoritarian rule and Islamist political engagement

Given the disappointments of the first twenty-five years of independence, it was not surprising that the 1970s should have ushered in a period of unrest in the mashriq. It allowed Islamist movements to put into practice many of the ideas developed in the preceding years – ideas that had increasing appeal following general disenchantment with nationalist and socialist regimes. Nevertheless, despite their universal vision of an ascendant Islam, the ideas and strategies of the Islamist organisations were shaped more by the political realities of the states in which they operated. The struggle to control state policy now came to the fore.

Lebanon

It was in Lebanon that this militancy first made itself felt. Communal disaffection, sectarian politics and the emergence of party and communal militias contributed to the turmoil of Lebanese politics in the early 1970s. In this setting, M�us�a al-S.adr founded a militant political organisation, H. arakat al-Mah.r�um�ın (Movement of the deprived). It staged its first public show of strength in March 1974 and soon its militia – Amal (an acronym of Afw�aj al-Muq�awamat al-Lubn�aniyya (Battalions of the Lebanese resistance)) – had become a visible sign of this new style of militant Sh�ıq�ı politics.30 The move- ment accepted the plural, confessional nature of Lebanese politics, but called for its overhaul and redress for the Sh�ıqa. This was not radical enough for some, and in the civil war that engulfed

Lebanon from 1975, al-S. adr’s calls for reconciliation with the other commun- ities often fell on deaf ears. However, Sh�ıq�ı militancy was creating increasing friction between the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) forces and the Sh�ıqa of southern Lebanon, whose villages bore the brunt of Israeli reprisals.

29 Augustus R. Norton, Amal and the Shiqa (Austin, 1987), pp. 37–44; Ferdinand Smit, The battle for South Lebanon: The radicalisation of Lebanon’s Shiqites, 1982–1985 (Amsterdam, 2000), pp. 64–5.

30 Johnson, Class and client, pp. 171–2; Smit, Battle for South Lebanon, pp. 73–80; Halawi, Lebanon defied, pp. 182–7.

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The attempt to resolve this tension cost al-S. adr his life. In 1978 he disappeared while on a visit to Libya, almost certainly killed by the Libyan authorities because he was seen as an obstacle to Libyan leader Gaddafi’s plans for the PLO in Lebanon. Al-S.adr’s death led to greater emphasis on Amal’s secular, communal nature

as an organisation operating within the existing Lebanese political system. However, this coincided with the dramatic events of the revolution in Iran of 1978/9 which brought to power �Ayat All�ah Khomeini and led to the establish- ment of the Islamic Republic. The repercussions were felt across the Islamic world, particularly amongst the Sh�ıqa of Lebanon, and, although Amal’s leadership supported the Iranian revolution, few of them shared Khomeini’s political vision of wil�ayat al-faq�ıh (rule of the jurisconsult). However, enthusi- asm for Khomeini’s uncompromising ideas about Islamic government grew.31

Even so, most Sh�ıqa looked to �Ayat All�ah Abupl-Q�asim al-Kh�up�ı (d. 1992) of Najaf as their marjaq(source of emulation), and to Amal, now led by the lawyer Nab�ıh Barr�ı, for their political representation. Barr�ı rejected the idea of an Islamic state, believing that the secular state in Lebanon should be strength- ened, precisely to redress the imbalances in power among the communities. He also reflected Sh�ıqa resentment at the continued presence of the PLO in Lebanon, leading to frequent clashes between Amal and PLO forces in the period preceding the Israeli invasion of June 1982. This dramatic and violent event brought Israeli forces to Beirut, driving

both Syrian and PLO forces before them and causing thousands of casualties in Lebanon’s coastal cities. At first welcomed by many of the Sh�ıqa of the south as deliverance from the PLO, the invasion drew Iran more closely into Lebanese affairs, with the despatch of Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley. This was both cause and effect of the radical- isation of a section of the Sh�ıqa. Within Amal it led to the formation of Amal Isl�am�ı (Islamic Amal) under H. usayn al-M�us�aw�ı, whose views were so much at odds with Barr�ı’s that he and his followers were expelled from the organisation in 1982.32

Enthusiasm for Islamic government was soon expressed in a more formi- dable organisation. In early 1984 H. izbull�ah (The party of God) appeared in strength in Baalbek, although its constituent parts had already been cooper- ating, particularly in the southern suburbs of Beirut and increasingly in the south of the country. Many of the clerics who helped to set up the

31 Smit, Battle for South Lebanon, pp. 105–8. 32 Stephan Rosiny, Islamismus bei den Schiiten im Libanon (Berlin, 1996), pp. 111–20.

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organisation had studied under B�aqir al-S. adr in Najaf and were admirers of Khomeini and of the achievements of the Iranian revolution. Men such as Sayyid qAbb�as al-M�us�aw�ı (d. 1992) and Shaykh Subh.�ı al-T. ufayl�ı were sympa- thetic to the Iranian government at the time, even if they did not always echo its policies. When, towards the end of 1983, the relationship between the Israeli occupying forces and the local Sh�ıq�ı population began to deteriorate, it was H. izbull�ah that exploited the situation and launched a series of devastat- ing attacks on Israeli forces and installations.33

In 1985 H. izbull�ah outlined its main goals: the expulsion of Israeli forces from Lebanon and the eventual establishment of an Islamic state in Lebanon. These goals seemed to commit the organisation to a war on many fronts, against formidable odds. However, the ground had been prepared by the influence of the cleric most closely identified with the spiritual guidance of H. izbull�ah, Sayyid Muh.ammad H. usayn Fad.l All�ah. An Islamic scholar who had written extensively on contemporary political concerns, Fad.l All�ah stressed the right to use force in self-defence, and the need to uphold Islamic principles and, if necessary, to fight to defend them. For him, Islam was both a ‘call’ and a state (daqwa wa-dawla). He remained constant in his belief that an Islamic state should be established in Lebanon, but believed that it must be the result of a long process of persuasion which would bring all Lebanese, even the Christians, to see the advantages of an Islamic order.34

These twin goals have shaped H. izbull�ah involvement in Lebanese politics, particularly after the T. �apif Accords in 1989, which brought the civil war to an end. From 1992, under its new secretary-general, Sayyid H. asan Nas.r All�ah, it deployed a twofold strategy of fighting the Israeli occupation forces in south- ern Lebanon and organising itself as an effective communal party represent- ing the Sh�ıqa. The guerrilla campaign precipitated Israel’s decision to withdraw in 2000 and greatly enhanced H. izbull�ah’s reputation across the country, contributing to its electoral success. In 2005 it was included in the government for the first time, but the following year its actions against Israeli forces provoked the devastating, if indecisive, war of 2006. Undefeated and undaunted, H. izbull�ah made numerous demands of the Lebanese govern- ment, from which it resigned, turning to direct action in an effort to bring it down. In the increasingly turbulent politics of Lebanon, H. izbull�ah showed

33 Ibid., pp. 126–36. 34 Smit, Battle for South Lebanon, pp. 247–57; Rosiny, Islamismus bei den Schiiten, pp. 142–5;

Chibli Mallat, Shiqi thought from the south of Lebanon (Oxford, 1988), pp. 35–42; Muh.ammad H. usain Fad.lall�ah, Isl�am wa-mant.iq al-q�uwa (Beirut, 1979).

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that its combination of paramilitary might and community support had made it a formidable player.

Syria

Syria’s involvement in Lebanon following its 1976 military intervention, effectively in support of the Christian forces, helped to precipitate violent conflict between the Baqthist government and its Islamist opponents. Dominated by Hafiz al-Asad (pres. 1971–2000) and his fellow qAlaw�ıs the regime laid itself open to the charge that Syria was ruled by a narrow sectarian community. The issue had surfaced in 1973 when al-Asad introduced a new constitution, omitting any mention of the role of Islam. This enraged clerics and Muslim lay people alike and sparked off widespread rioting. The Muslim Brotherhood rallied the traditionally disdainful qulam�ap, and the combined protests had some impact. Al-Asad inserted the stipulation that the president of the republic must be a Muslim. Since many of the protestors regarded al-Asad and the qAlaw�ı as infidels, this did little to placate them. However, al-Asad also obtained a fatw�a from M�us�a al-S. adr in Lebanon that the qAlaw�ı were a branch of the Sh�ıqa and thus part of the Muslim umma. The general sense of outrage had, however, allowed the new, more aggressive leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood to organise actively in defiance of the regime.35

In 1970 al-qAt.t.�ar had been challenged by the members of the Brotherhood precisely over the issue of armed jihad. This resulted in a rift between al-qAt.t.�ar’s followers and those who looked to Marw�an H. ad�ıd, Saq�ıd H. aww�a (d. 1989) and qAdn�an Saqd al-Din. Their more militant attitude dictated the pace of the growing confrontation. The death of H. ad�ıd in custody in 1976 preceded a mounting campaign of violence on both sides, marked by the massacre of over sixty qAlaw�ı military cadets in Aleppo in 1979 by the Brotherhood, and the killing of scores of Brotherhood prisoners in the infamous Tadmur prison in 1980.36 Strikes, demonstrations and police repres- sion, as well as bombings, assassinations, shoot-outs and extra-judicial killings of the regime’s opponents were becoming so much of part of Syrian life that it seemed that the country was heading towards civil war. The formation of the Islamic Front in Syria (al-Jabahat al-Isl�amiyya f�ı S�uriyya) in 1980 brought the

35 Abd-Allah, Islamic struggle, p. 111; Abbas Kelidar, ‘Religion and state in Syria’, Asian Affairs, 1 (1974), pp. 16–22.

36 Nikolaos van Dam, The struggle for power in Syria: Politics and society under Asad and the Baqth Party (London, 1996), pp. 89–100; Middle East Watch, Syria unmasked (New Haven, 1990), pp. 61–2.

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two wings of the Brotherhood together under the leadership of qAl�ı S. adr al-D�ın al-Bay�an�un�ı, qAdn�an Saqd al-D�ın and Saq�ıd H. aww�a, making it a more effective countrywide organisation, and intensifying the armed struggle.37

In April 1982 the decisive confrontation took place in Hama. Groups affiliated to the Islamic Front seized control of the city, but found themselves isolated. In a few days of ferocious fighting, al-Asad’s Special Brigades reduced much of the old city of Hama to rubble, killing not only all the units of the Islamic Front, but also thousands of its trapped civilian inhab- itants.38 This broke the back of the Islamist resistance. Small radical groups continued a campaign of intermittent violence, but the Muslim Brotherhood abandoned armed jihad as a means of changing the regime in Syria, and by the 1990s some elements had entered into a dialogue with the government. Al-Asad made no concessions, but did make various symbolic gestures towards Islam. After 1996, under the exiled leadership of al-Bay�an�un�ı, the Brotherhood placed less emphasis on the establishment of an Islamic state in Syria, and joined instead the secular calls for greater liberalisation of political life, which became more vocal after the succession of Bash�ar al-Asad to the presidency following his father’s death in 2000.39

Jordan

These events in Syria inevitably affected Jordan, since it represented a safe haven from the Syrian security services. At times the issue became so critical that it threatened to result in open conflict between the two countries, but it also led to sporadic attempts by the Jordanian government to curb the Brotherhood in the interests of better relations with Syria. However, by the late 1980s the king needed the Brotherhood’s help to defuse growing public dissatisfaction over the critical state of the Jordanian economy. The unrest, with its overtones of tribal and provincial disenchantment with the dynasty, was as serious as the disaffec- tion of the Palestinians had been in the 1970s. It was then that the bond between the regime and the Muslim Brotherhood had proved its worth for the king, helping him in the violent confrontations between Jordanian security forces and the PLO in 1970–1 and in the troubled years that followed.

37 Abd-Allah, Islamic struggle, pp. 112–17, 123–4; Raymond Hinnebusch, Syria: Revolution from above (London, 2001), pp. 97–101.

38 Van Dam, Struggle for power in Syria, pp. 111–17. 39 Chris Kutschera, ‘L’éclipse des frères musulmans syriens’, Les Cahiers de l’Orient, 7

(1987), pp. 121–31; Hans Gunter Lobmeyer, Islamismus und sozialer Konflikt in Syrien, Ethnizität und Gesellschaft Occasional Papers no. 26 (Berlin, 1990), pp. 56–61; Annabelle Bottcher, Syrische Religionspolitik unter Asad (Freiburg, 1998), pp. 107–19, 149–65; Eyal Zisser, Asad’s Legacy (London, 2001), pp. 196–203.

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The king’s answer to the crisis of 1989 was to hold parliamentary elections – the freest since the 1950s. The Muslim Brotherhood threw itself into the election campaign and emerged as the largest single bloc in the new parliament where, together with some independent Islamists, it formed the Islamic Action Front (IAF). This proved useful for the king in the summer of 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait. The Brotherhood backed his opposition to Western military action against Iraq and supported him when the dire financial consequences of break- ing ranks with the Gulf states became apparent. As a reward, members of the IAF were appointed as ministers in January 1991, bringing Muslim Brothers into the Jordanian government for the first time. However, acceptance of government office was controversial in a way that

participation in the elections had not been and, in the aftermath of the Gulf War, the king’s rapprochement with the United States and participation in the peace process with Israel led to a falling out with the Brotherhood. The IAF left the government and the king amended the electoral law to favour traditional and independent candidates. In the 1993 elections the Brotherhood lost many of its seats, and no longer dominated the parliament. However, part of the reason for its electoral loss was the disillusionment felt by some of the electorate that the Brotherhood had achieved so little during the previous four years. More radical expectations were also putting a strain on the Brotherhood’s

support for the dynasty, particularly after the signing of a peace agreement between Jordan and Israel in 1994, leading some to support H. izb al-Tah.r�ır or the activist, radical Islamist group Jaysh Muh.ammad (Muhammad’s army). Founded by S�amih. Ab�u Zayd�an, and composed initially of Jordanians who had joined the muj�ahid�ın (Islamist resistance fighters under the Soviet occupation) in Afghanistan, it attracted younger Islamists who shared the belief that they had an obligation to pursue armed jihad wherever secular government rein- forced j�ahiliyya (ignorance (of the message of God)) and condoned shirk (idolatry). These views and associated acts of violence meant that it was soon targeted by the Jordanian security forces and had limited impact. However, there exists a violent and unreconciled element in the Islamist movement in Jordan, even if it remains on the margins of mainstream Islamist politics. In fact, after the election boycott of 1997, the pragmatic leadership of the Brotherhood reasserted itself, ready to re-establish a working relationship with King qAbd All�ah II, who succeeded his father in 1999.40

40 Abu Amr, ‘La monarchie jordanienne’, pp. 129–34; Shmuel Bar, The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan (Tel Aviv, 1998), pp. 47–50.

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Palestine

Similar processes had affected the Muslim Brotherhood and its relations with other Islamist groups in Palestine following Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967. Initially, the Muslim Brotherhood was in a poor condition to organise any form of resistance, and this was largely left to the PLO. Some members of the Brotherhood, impatient with inaction, broke with it to form smaller groupings, strongly influenced by Islamist radicalism in Egypt. They rejected gradualism and called for violent opposition to the Israeli occupation, forming the networks which became al-Jih�ad al-Isl�am�ı (Islamic Jihad) in the 1980s.41

The Brotherhood leadership recognised that the Israeli occupation and Palestinian nationalist, sometimes socialist, resistance were pushing Islamic institutions and values to the margins. It therefore adopted a strategy of communal development, through educational programmes and preaching. Financially assisted by Palestinians in the oil-rich states of the Gulf, the results were soon visible in the occupied territories, as the number of mosques, for example, doubled on the West Bank and trebled in Gaza in the two decades following 1967. In 1973 the Brotherhood in Gaza set up al-Mujamaq al-Isl�am�ı (the Islamic centre) to coordinate its welfare and educational activities, including the newly established Islamic University of Gaza. This became a leading institution in forming a new generation of Islamist intellectuals, numbering among its founders men who shaped Islamist politics in Palestine for the next thirty years: Ah.mad Y�as�ın (d. 2004), qAbd al-qAz�ız al-Rant�ıs�ı (d. 2004) and Muh.ammad al-Zahh�ar.

42 During the 1980s the Brotherhood also made inroads into the campuses of Palestinian universities, raising its visibility and often capitalising on disillusionment with the appa- rent lack of success of the secular PLO.43

The outbreak of the intif�ad.a (uprising) in 1987 galvanised the Muslim Brotherhood into new forms of activity. The intif�ad.a was a spontaneous response to years of anger at Israeli military occupation. It was led by young men who had only known the condition of occupation and sharply resented it. This impassioned movement challenged established Palestinian organisa- tions, which then tried to channel and direct it. Prominent among these was H. am�as (acronym of H. arakat al-Muq�awamat al-Isl�amiyya (Movement of Islamic resistance)), which emerged in late 1987 to facilitate Brotherhood

41 Hroub, Hamas, pp. 31–3. 42 Abu Amr, Islamic fundamentalism, pp. 14–16. 43 Kh�alid Nimr Ab�u al-qUmrain, H. am�as – H. arakat al-Muq�awamat al-Isl�amiyya (Cairo, 2000),

pp. 180–93.

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participation in the intif�ad.a, and to protect it from the consequences of doing so. In large measure, it was a successful strategy. H. am�as, with its military apparatus, Kat�apib qIzz al-D�ın al-Qass�am (The qIzz

al-D�ın al-Qass�am brigades), became deeply involved in the intif�ad.a, and its 1988 charter showed how its aspirations were shaped by the contours of the Palestinian national struggle. It stated that H. am�as was ‘a distinctively Palestinian movement’, the object of which was to ‘raise the banner of God over every inch of Palestine’, sacralising Palestinian national aspirations by declaring that ‘the land of Palestine is an Islamic land entrusted to the Muslim generations until Judgment Day. No-one may renounce all or even part of it’.44

This was also the case of the initially more radical organisation, al-Jih�ad al-Isl�am�ı, the leaders of which, qAbd al-qAz�ız al-qAwda and Fath.�ı al-Shiq�aq�ı (d. 1995), had been calling for armed resistance to Israel since 1980. Critical of the quietism of the Muslim Brotherhood, al-qAwda gained a following among the same generation that was to spark the intif�ad.a, rearticulating the views of Egyptians H. asan al-Bann�a (d. 1949) and Sayyid Qut.b (d. 1966), as well as those of Khomeini, on the need for Islamic government to dispel the forces of j�ahiliyya. Nevertheless, al-Jih�ad al-Isl�am�ı is also a product of Palestinian history and is focused on the condition of Palestine. Al-qAwda acknowledged this, declaring: ‘I am a Palestinian Muslim; I consider Palestine to be the most important nation in the Islamic world. I hope that an Islamic state can be established there; we dream of this.’45

The Oslo agreements of 1993 and the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) under President Arafat (pres. 1993–2004), generated an optimism that gave way to disappointment in the years that followed. Negotiations between the Palestinian and Israeli authorities were intermit- tent and unequal, while resentment mounted at the corruption of politics under Arafat. As the situation deteriorated, and attitudes hardened, the Islamists prepared for a more militant stance against the Israeli occupation. This erupted in the second intif�ad.a – intif�ad.at al-aqs�a – the armed uprising of 2000 which initiated years of violence, devastated the Palestinian territories and embittered relations on all sides.

44 Hroub, Hamas, pp. 270, 273; Jaw�ad al-H. amad and Iy�ad al-Bargh�uth�ı (eds.), Dir�asa f�ı al-fikr al-siy�as�ı li-H. arakat al-Muq�awamat al-Isl�amiyya (H. am�as), 1987–1996 (Amman, 1997), pp. 155–71.

45 Abu Amr, Islamic fundamentalism, pp. 90–7, 103–5; Fath.�ı al-Shiq�aq�ı, ‘Al-qad.iyyat al-filast.�ıniyya’, al-Mukht�ar al-Isl�am�ı (13) July 1980’, in Rifqat Sayyid Ah.mad (ed.), Rih.lat al-damm alladh�ı h.azama al-saif – al-aqm�al al-k�amila li-l-shah�ıd al-dukt�ur Fath.�ı al-Shiq�aq�ı (Cairo, 1997), part 1, pp. 172–89.

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Under the pressure of these events, the ranks of the Islamist organisations in Palestine swelled, giving H. am�as a dominant position in the municipal elec- tions in Gaza in 2005 and in the elections for the Palestine Legislative Council (PLC) in 2006. It won over half the seats and formed a government, under Prime Minister Ism�aq�ıl Haniyya, thereby presenting a challenge to Fatah.’s Mah.m�ud qAbb�as who had been elected president of the PNA in 2005, following the death of Arafat. Since H. am�as refused to recognise Israel, President qAbb�as could not easily press forward with negotiations for further Israeli with- drawals, nor could he do much to remedy the deteriorating economic sit- uation in Palestine, where vital aid from the European Union and the United States had been cut off when the H. am�as government took office. Stalemate was characterised by a worsening security situation as well, with clashes not only between Palestinian and Israeli forces, but also between forces loyal to H. am�as and those of Fatah.. Temporarily resolved by the formation of a H. am�as–Fatah. coalition government in 2007, these developments put increas- ing pressure on H. am�as as it tried to govern an embryonic nation-state from an ideological vantage point that made compromise uncomfortable.

Iraq

Like their counterparts in Syria and Palestine, both the traditional Islamic hierarchy and the activists of various Islamist organisations in Iraq were also faced by the problem of how best to respond to established state power which they regarded as oppressive and hostile. In this case, the Baqthist regime that came to power in 1968 was manifestly secular, yet also expected public backing from the clerical establishment, whether Sunn�ı or Sh�ıq�ı. In 1969 the most senior Sh�ıq�ı cleric in Iraq, �Ayat All�ah Muh.sin al-H. ak�ım, clashed with the government over this, as did his successor �Ayat All�ah Abupl-Q�asim al-Kh�up�ı. In many respects he represented a very prominent trend in Sh�ıq�ı Islam which holds that worldly power corrupts and which discourages active clerical engagement in politics. With the increasing repression of Sh�ıq�ı organisations by the government, �Ayat All�ah Muh.ammad B�aqir al-S. adr and al-Daqwa seemed to some to be more effective in protecting the community. However, the ferocity of the government response to the intif�ad.a s.afar (uprising of the month of S. afar) in 1977 showed that there were clear limits to open defiance.46

46 Hanna Batatu, ‘Shiqi organizations in Iraq: Al-Daqwah al-Islamiyyah and al-Mujahidin’, in J. R. I. Cole and N. Keddie (eds.), Shiqism and social protest (New Haven, 1986), pp. 192–7.

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In 1978 events in Iran gave new heart to al-Daqwa and to those who believed that an Islamic ordering of the state was possible, despite the formidable odds against it. With the overthrow of the shah and the establish- ment of the Islamic Republic in Iran, the Iraqi government was faced by dangers from without and within. To the east, Iran made no secret of its desire to ‘export the revolution’. At the same time, the success of the revolution and the establishment of a state founded on distinctive Islamic principles, presided over by Sh�ıq�ı clerics and suffused with the symbolism of Sh�ıq�ı sacred history, acted as a powerful influence on large sections of Iraq’s Sh�ıqa. It was the hope of some, and clearly the dread of the Iraqi government, that these two powerful forces would come together and overturn the existing political order in Iraq itself. This combination of factors led Saddam Hussein (pres. 1979–2003) to take

over the presidency of Iraq in mid-1979. Al-S.adr was placed under house arrest, and the protests across the Sh�ıq�ı south and in Baghdad were met by violent repression: thousands were arrested, many disappeared into the prison network of the regime, scores were executed, including both Sh�ıq�ı and Sunn�ı qulam�ap, and others fled into exile. At the same time, al-Daqwa agreed with some of the smaller radical Islamist organisations – Jund al-Im�am (Army of the Im�am) and Munz.amat al-qAmal al-Isl�am�ı (Islamic task organ- isation) – on the need for armed force to overthrow the regime. Unusually, the generally conservative and cautious Jam�aqat al-qUlam�ap (Society of reli- gious scholars, founded by �Ayat All�ah al-H. ak�ım in 1958) endorsed this strategy. When, in 1980, members of the Islamic Task Organisation tried to assas-

sinate the deputy prime minister the repression intensified. Membership of al-Daqwa was made punishable by death and �Ayat All�ah B�aqir al-S.adr, and his sister, Bint al-Hud�a (d. 1980), an Islamic scholar in her own right, were seized by the authorities and summarily executed in Baghdad in April 1980. In Najaf the senior cleric, �Ayat All�ah al-Kh�up�ı, was placed under close guard, and tens of thousands of Sh�ıq�ı Iraqis were deported on the pretext that their Iranian family origins made their loyalties suspect. These measures were a prelude to the war that broke out in September 1980, when Iraqi forces invaded southern Iran. The war was to last nearly eight years, costing about one-and-a-half million casualties on both sides and effectively ruining the economies of these two hitherto oil-rich countries. As the war dragged on, the Iraqi government tried to mobilise its own

population. It launched a campaign of sustained public religiosity, including a programme of mosque building, restoration of the great Sh�ıq�ı shrines of Iraq

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and the honouring of religious scholars. �Ayat All�ah Khomeini and his fellow clerics were depicted as thinly disguised Iranian nationalists and ‘Magians’. By contrast, Saddam Hussein was portrayed not simply as a pious Muslim, but also as a direct descendant of the fourth caliph, Im�am qAl�ı. The war years witnessed the attempted ‘nationalisation’ of Islam in Iraq, bringing together the discourse of hitherto secular Baqthism and that of Islamic identity in ways that would have seemed unimaginable only a few years before.47

It is hard to know how much effect this had on the bulk of the Iraqi population. For some, it clearly had no effect at all. In 1982 Muh.ammad B�aqir al-H. ak�ım (d. 2003), a son of the late �Ayat All�ah al-H. ak�ım, formed al-Majlis al-Aqal�a li-l-Thawrat al-Isl�amiyya f�ı al-qIr�aq (Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)), amongst the growing Iraqi exile population in Iran, subscribing both to Khomeini’s doctrine of the wil�ayat al-faq�ıh and vowing to dedicate the organisation to the establishment of an Islamic state in Iraq. Its armed wing, the Badr Brigade, was intermittently active, but had no visible impact on the course of the war, which ended in the summer of 1988. The Iranian government had finally accepted the UN ceasefire, acknowledging that it could not achieve its war aim of setting up a like-minded Islamic government in Baghdad. The ending of the war, proclaimed as a victory in Iraq, was a hollow victory.

So great were the problems confronting Saddam Hussein in its aftermath that in 1990 he embarked on another risky military adventure, the invasion and annexation of Kuwait. Intended to pressurise the oil-rich Gulf states into cancelling Iraq’s multi-billion-dollar debts and contributing to its reconstruc- tion, the invasion of Kuwait had disastrous consequences for Iraq. An interna- tional coalition, led by the United States, under the authority of the UN, carried out a brief military campaign in January and February 1991 which destroyed whole sectors of Iraq’s infrastructure and routed the Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait. It was then that the accumulated anger of the predominantly Sh�ıq�ı

population of southern Iraq exploded into what was known as the intif�ad.a shaqb�an (uprising of the month of Shaqb�an). Led by neighbourhood commit- tees and by Sh�ıq�ı Islamist organisations, the rebels captured towns across southern Iraq. However, despite the formation of a committee to keep order, which had the blessing of �Ayat All�ah al-Kh�up�ı, the rebellion lacked coordina- tion. Saddam Hussein used the Special Republican Guard in a systematic and

47 Arab Baqth Socialist Party, Iraq, The Central Report of the Ninth Regional Congress, June 1982 (Baghdad, 1983), pp. 245–84.

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ruthless campaign of reconquest and the Sh�ıq�ı rebels, confined to the towns they had captured and denied US air support, were crushed city by city with terrible loss of life. By the end of March the rebellion was over and al-Kh�up�ı was forced to declare his support for Saddam Hussein and to call for an end to the revolt. Saddam Hussein had survived, but Iraq paid a fearsome price since the

international economic sanctions imposed when Iraq invaded Kuwait were maintained for the next twelve years. Under these conditions the Iraqi government continued to pose as the true guardian of the Islamic commun- ity, inscribing ‘All�ahu Akbar’ (God is most great) on the Iraqi flag, patronising favoured clerics in the Sh�ıq�ı establishment, and lavishly restoring the shrines at Najaf and Karbal�ap, damaged by its own forces in 1991. It also patronised the Sunn�ı qulam�ap, helping to revive some of the prominent Sufi orders so charac- teristic of Sunn�ı Islam in Iraq, such as the Q�adiriyya, the Naqshbandiyya and Sahrawardiyya. Among the population at large there was a noticeable increase in religios-

ity, possibly due to the miserable conditions of the sanctions era, which emphasised the importance of mosque networks and charitable foundations. One of the most prominent of these was organised by �Ayat All�ah Muh.ammad S.�adiq al-S. adr (d. 1999). The size of his following, and his protest when a succession of senior Sh�ıq�ı clerics were murdered by government agents in the mid-1990s, made him a marked man, and he too was murdered in 1999, together with two of his sons. The extensive riots that followed were swiftly suppressed. However, there was little that the principal marjaq and senior Sh�ıq�ı cleric, �Ayat All�ah qAl�ı al-Sist�an�ı, could do. He shared his late mentor al-Kh�up�ı’s mistrust of political activism, but he had also been placed under virtual house arrest in 1994 because of the regime’s fear of his independence and authority. The only area of Iraq to escape Saddam Hussein’s control was the part of

north-eastern Iraq under the control of the Kurdish Regional Government – set up under the protection of the allies following the failed rebellion of 1991. Dominated by two secular Kurdish nationalist parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and their sometimes violent relationship, the region witnessed the emergence of a relatively plural politics. Kurdish Islamist parties took advantage of this – most notably the Kurdistan Islamic Party. Their critique of the Kurdish government was a conventional Islamist one, focusing on the lack of shar�ıqa-based legislation and the absence of enforced observance of distinctively Islamic practices in public life. Nevertheless, they accepted the framework of the regional admin- istration and the emerging forms of representative life. This distinguished

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them from the more radical Ans.�ar al-Sunna (Followers of the Sunna), who rejected the existing order and held to a strict interpretation of Islamic obligations, which they tried to enforce in a few inaccessible villages of north-eastern Kurdistan to which they had been forced to retreat. In the event, Saddam Hussein’s downfall came about as a result not of

internal opposition, but of the invasion of Iraq by the United States and some of its allies in March 2003. For over a year Iraq was administered by the United States through the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), assisted by a British administration in Basra. Many exiles returned, al-Daqwa resurfaced and �Ayat All�ah qAl�ı al-Sist�an�ı emerged as a figure whose following among the Sh�ıqa of Iraq made him a national leader, courted by the occupying powers. Although wary of endorsing the occupation of Iraq, he called for cooperation with the occupiers while order was restored. This was of immeasurable benefit to the US forces, who discovered that governing Iraq was a difficult, contested and increasingly violent business. Partly to address these problems, the CPA looked to the communal leaders of Iraq to assist in the maintenance of order. Thus, al-Daqwa re-emerged as an active player, as did the SCIRI, while in

various parts of Iraq the Islamic Task Organisation, H. izbull�ah and other Sh�ıq�ı Islamist groups began to organise openly. Given the breakdown of security following the dissolution of the Iraqi armed forces and police, armed militias associated with the different groupings appeared. This was the case of Jaysh al-Mahd�ı (the Mahdi’s army), led by Muqtad.�a al-S. adr, one of the surviving sons of the late �Ayat All�ah S.�adiq al-S. adr. Muqtad.�a gained influence among the younger generation of poor and unemployed Sh�ıqa because of his Islamist populist message, mixing demands for social justice with defiance of foreign occupation. For many of the Sh�ıqa, resentment of foreign occupation was tempered by

the belief that it could allow the development of representative institutions which would ensure that the Sh�ıq�ı majority in Iraq (about 55 per cent of the population) would for the first time in Iraqi history have an influence propor- tionate to their numbers. The same prospect filled others in Iraq with dread. For secularists the role of Islam was of concern, while for many of the Sunn�ı Arabs, whether Islamist or nationalist, the possibility of being ruled by a Sh�ıq�ı majority seemed to herald a world turned upside down. In these conditions a violent resistance movement emerged among the resentful former members of the Iraqi security forces and among the Sunn�ı Islamist groupings. The sectarian implications of this development soon became apparent.

Sh�ıq�ı neighbourhoods and political figures were targeted, including �Ayat

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All�ah Muh.ammad B�aqir al-H. ak�ım, killed in Najaf in August 2003. Sh�ıq�ı militias retaliated, and this, in turn, encouraged the growth of self-consciously Sunn�ı Muslim organisations. The Muslim Brotherhood in Iraq had long existed, in the shape of the Iraqi Islamic Party, but its cooperation with the occupying powers led to challenges from more radical groups, such as Jaysh Muh.ammad and al-Jaysh al-Isl�am�ı (Islamic army). Meanwhile Ans.�ar al-Sunna, dislodged from their refuge on the Iranian border, spread through Iraq, linking up with like-minded groups, some identifying themselves as part of the transnational organisation of al-Q�aqida, recruiting Iraqis and non-Iraqis alike for a violent struggle against the foreign occupiers and their Sh�ıq�ı allies. The elections of 2005 confirmed the victory of the United Iraqi Alliance,

known as the ‘Sh�ıq�ı list’, endorsed by al-Sist�an�ı and comprising the SCIRI, al-Daqwa and the followers of Muqtad.�a al-S. adr. They and the Kurdish nationalist parties drafted the new constitution and dominated parliament, alienating many of the Sunn�ı Muslims of Arab Iraq, mainly represented by the Iraqi Islamic Party. Although the latter was included in a ‘government of national unity’ in 2006, this did little to halt the sectarian warfare and insurgency, especially in mixed cities such as Baghdad, and the violence across Iraq cost some 36,000 lives that year alone. The irony was that the collapse of the dictatorship had led to more open and plural politics. But this generally followed communal lines, and appeared to encourage a murderous struggle between sectarian and ethnic communities to establish their domi- nance in different parts of the country. The challenge was how to harness and reconcile these passions, if the state as a whole were not to fragment.

Conclusions

Three major themes recur in the history of distinctively Islamic responses to the forces that shaped the modern Middle East in the twentieth century. The first is the ambivalence shown towards the state as an apparatus and as an idea. For many Islamists the territorial nation-state has been at best a ques- tionable object of loyalty and at worst a secular institution that demanded the kind of submission a Muslim should give to God alone. Yet most of the Islamist organisations in the region were deeply implicated in the politics of specific states and their associated societies – even where such movements had transnational affiliations. By the end of the century, therefore, the territorial nation-state had become a powerful presence in the mashriq, the

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centre of gravity both of political action and of the political imagination, whether Islamic or secular. Equally, the dominant economic system of market-driven development

had drawn the region into the global capitalist economy and had set in motion forces within these societies of enormous transformative potential. New understandings of property rights, capitalist investment in agriculture and the beginnings of industrial production, as well as the financial institu- tions to organise and regulate the pace of development – all of these processes intensified as the foundations of national economies were laid down in the new states. For Muslims concerned about the impact of these developments on the communities of Islamic belief there were two main preoccupations. The first was a fear for the degradation of the moral economy caused by new techniques of wealth creation and the normative framework of capitalism. However, there was also a wish that Muslims should work effectively within the global economy in ways that combined economic productivity with distinctively Islamic values. Finally, partly as a consequence of these debates and movements, an

increasingly sectarian definition of Islamic identity emerged. Discourses of Islamic communal identification within the arena of the nation-state encour- aged a sharply critical, sometimes utilitarian attitude to existing Islamic traditions. Defensive preoccupations led some to reduce what it means to be a Muslim to a set of prescriptions which did violence to traditional scholarship and sharpened sectarian differences among Muslims, as well as with non-Muslims, reinforcing fault lines in communally divided societies. Ironically, in the search for authenticity, many Islamist movements had adopted the idioms of the very nationalism that they had dedicated them- selves to oppose. The working out of these tensions and their implications for the handling of power thus constitute the basis of an important aspect of the history of Islam in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine during the twentieth century.

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