Thanks for coming back for the third installment of the complete survey of The Middle Eastern Region. Today we will cover the second part of the history of the region from the first disintegration of centralized Muslim power at the hands of the Mongols up to the final destruction of Muslim empire in World War I. Enjoy.
THE BREAKUP OF THE EMPIRE
In the 11th century, Turkic people known as the Seljuq (sell-juk) Turks conquered Persia and took Baghdad in 1055. These were peripheral, non-Arab Muslim people from Central Asia who had converted to Islam but had never been dominated by the Arabs. They mixed well with the Persians, taking on much of their culture, and went on to take Syria and Palestine before refocusing on Anatolia (modern day Turkey). They eventually defeated much of the Byzantine empire and resettled in the future Turkish heartland. Concern for the growing presence of Muslim invaders at Europe's gates led to the crusades in which Christian Europeans "liberated Jerusalem" before losing it to the Muslims under a Kurd, Saladin once again. The Christian states of Europe continued to desire the holy land. However their attention and that of the Muslims was diverted by the unprecedented conquests of the Mongols who, at their height, controlled an unfathomable amount of territory from China in the east to Persia and Russia in the west.
The Mongol advance was eventually stopped by the Mamluks (at this point a powerful military caste) in Egypt who had taken power after a variety of different dynasties. Shortly after their conquest of much of the Muslim world, and defeat at the hands of the Mongols, the Seljuq empire reverted to several different states where individual leaders occupied a small amount of territory known as a beylik in Anatolia. One leader, Osman I, founded a new dynasty (the Ottomans) who over the course of a few generations conquered many Christian states in the Balkans, Crimea, and the Caucasus mountains as well as other competing Turks and non-Turks in Anatolia. In 1453 under Mehmed The Conqueror, the Ottomans seized Constantinople, renaming it Istanbul. After capturing “ the city of the world's desire”, the Turks moved southward into the Islamic heartlands, conquering all but Persia over the next four centuries. Selim I succeed in conquering the holy places of Mecca and Medina in the Hejaz (western area of Arabia bordered by the Red Sea) giving himself and the future Ottoman sultans the (disputed) ability to claim themselves caliphs over the Muslim world.
The Empire was most powerful under Suleiman the Magnificent who after taking many Christian provinces was contained during the 1529 Siege of Vienna. Suleiman's reforms centralized the empire and had it not been for his weak decedents, the Ottomans may have avoided the decadence that would be their fate. Upon the death of Suleiman, the empire began to corrode from within and without.
The Ottoman Empire at its greatest extent (1683-99)
(6)
Around this same time in 1501, Ismail I founded the Safavid dynasty in Persia and forced a conversion of his people to Shia Islam. The Ottomans, subscribing to the Sunni branch, became rivals of the Safavids who refused to be defeated by the new powerhouse in the region. The ideological differences between these empires helped to set the scene for conflicts within Islam up to the present day.
The Safavid Empire at its height and the modern Middle East. Note the Shia influence of the Safavid
(7)
(8)
OTTOMAN PERIOD
As the modern European states began to take shape, the Ottomans were the dominant political and military force in the world. At the height of their reign they controlled huge amounts of territory on three continents. Trade with the fledgling European powers furthered Ottoman riches yet most of the wealth went straight to the top. As the Europeans expanded around them, the empire failed to create a comprehensive economy. In addition, new sea routes to the east around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa allowed the Europeans to bypass the Anatolian crossroads and led to a decline in commerce. As new riches poured in from the Americas, heavy inflation exacerbated the already struggling economy. The Turks, unlike the Abbasids before them, failed to advance their civilization and repelled European thought in favor of traditionalism. As a result of all of this, in the 19th century, the empire remained Medieval in its government and economic system. In short, the empire was wholly outdone by its European neighbors.
The decline of the empire came almost immediately after or even during the period of their greatest expansion and was a slow, painful process. Called “The Sick Man of Europe”, the empire’s decline was a consequence of its failing economy, weak central rule, and growing military and ideological pressure from the expanding European empires. While Europe still feared the idea of total war with the Turks, the powers were in favor of the slow fall of the empire. While smaller states worked to force the Muslim Turks out of Europe, the Ottomans continued to face pressure from the Persians in The East. An important point to understand throughout these sections is the role of puppet master that the European powers, especially Britain began to play. The following sections also hold importance because they will serve as precursors to the modern nation states of Arabia, Africa, and even parts of Europe.
In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France, invaded Egypt under nominal Ottoman rule. The Egyptian territory held by the Ottomans was actually a largely autonomous zone ruled by the Mamluks whom the Ottomans had defeated in the 1516 Ottoman-Mamluk war. Napoleon saw a conquest of Egypt as a victory in the larger British-French rivalry as well as a gateway to British-controlled India. Napoleon believed that if he moved quickly enough he would be able to crush the entire British empire as it was growing. Understanding this very real possibility, the British allied themselves with the Ottomans and Russia and succeeded in driving the emperor out of Egypt. The invasion of Egypt by Napoleon illuminated not only the lack of central authority in the Ottoman Empire but also the sultan’s military weakness compared to The West. The stage was now set for the era of Western imperialism in the Middle East which continues up to the present day.
EGYPT, THE (second) CROWN JEWEL OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE
MUHAMMAD ALI
After Napoleon’s withdrawal, a new leader took power in Egypt. Muhammad Ali, sometimes called “the father of modern Egypt” was not Egyptian or Arabic but in fact an Ottoman Commander of Albanian origin. Known as khedive, the Ottoman equivalent of viceroy, he enjoyed a level of autonomy in Egypt due not only to his victories over the former Mamluks but also due to his perceived allegiance to the sultan. Due to numerous problems facing the Ottoman government at the time, Muhammad Ali’s Egypt became arguably the new center for military and economic power in the region. His economy was built largely around the task of equipping his military machine (a quarter million men at its peak) as well as feeding the growing population.
The army was put to the test in 1811 when the Ottoman sultan ordered the khedive to take back the lost holy places of Mecca and Medina from the newly established Saudi State. This state was founded by Muhammad bin Saud (the patriarch of the House of Saud, the current ruling family of Saudi Arabia) and the religious thinker Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab in protest of what they called heretical practices by the empire. Al-Wahhab was the founder of Wahhabism, a strict, fundamentalist form of Islam which has dominated news cycles in recent years. Wahhabism seeks to return to the early days of Islam, maintains the absolute oneness of God and rejects any ritual practice such as veneration of saints, graves, or “innovation” of Islam. This hardline stance makes Wahhabists hostile towards Shia and Sufi Muslims as wall as “imperfect” Sunnis. After seizing the holy places of the Hejaz, their followers declared authority over the entire Muslim community or umma. The ramifications of this dangerous philosophy will play out later in this history. Muhammad Ali drove the conquerors out of the Hejaz and dismantled their state, reviving Ottoman hegemony. The House of Saud however survived and would go on to create two more states, a lackluster second and a third which survives as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
After this success, the khedive went on to quell a revolt in Greece and conquer the Sudan, incorporating it into his Egyptian domain. After being denied power in Syria, the khedive took it by force. The Ottomans were distracted by the Janissary revolt in Anatolia and so when Muhammad Ali’s army reached their heartland with ambitions of conquest, they had no choice but to consult the European powers for a solution. Britain came to the sultan's aid but her intentions were far from altruistic. Britain knew they could benefit from a slow fall of the empire and feared the idea of a more effective Muslim leader like Ali taking power in the region. When, in 1838, Muhammad Ali declared his own domain containing Egypt, Sudan, the Hejaz, and the Levant, the British and Ottomans both saw it as a calamity. Britain negotiated a trade deal which gutted the Ottoman system of monopolies and opened the empire for further European influence. In exchange, Britain gathered the European powers together at the Conference of London where they discussed “the pacification of the Levant”. A series of military and sedition campaigns were launched against the khedive which drove him back into Egypt. In one fell swoop, Europe both repelled a strong Muslim ruler and contributed to the fall of a weak one.
British intervention in this affair, and the dismantling of the Ottoman economy can be said to symbolize the trend which was coming to dominate the Middle East, a shift away from Muslim imperial control to a system benefitting the competing European powers. The British campaign against the khedive marked the beginning of the crown’s influence in Egypt and the opening of the Muslim world fully to Western interests.
BRITISH OCCUPATION OF EGYPT
Muhammad Ali’s successors continued to rule Egypt semi-autonomously under British influence. After the construction of the Suez canal, which drastically reduced the travel time to British-controlled India between 1859-69 and other massive infrastructure projects, Egypt found itself in insurmountable debt. Almost the entire financial system of Egypt was handed over to the British and French in return for debt forgiveness. The canal was largely seen to serve European rather than Egyptian interests and national groups began to form in protest of the Eurocentric policies of the khedive. The khedive Ismail was overthrown in favor of his son, Tewfik by the European and Ottoman powers after a nationalist revolt broke out across Egypt which he failed to quell. Led by Colonel Ahmed Urabi, the resistance grew in prominence to the point when full British intervention became necessary. In 1882, the British invaded and put the khedive back in power. While the khedive and to a lesser extent the Ottoman sultan nominally held power in Egypt, it was the British who remained in charge in various contexts up until after World War II. During WWI, after the Ottomans entered on the side of the Central Powers, the British officially declared Egypt a protectorate and used Cairo as their base of operations in the Middle Eastern campaign. While there were a series of revolts and revolutions against the British in Egypt, none of them succeeded in driving the Europeans from power until 1952. They will not be discussed in detail here because of their failure to affect much of history.
The Ottomans remaining North African territories were also lost to European powers. The French gained control of Algeria and Tunis (present-day Tunisia) in 1820 and 1881 respectively while Libya was seized by the Italians after the Italo-Turkish war in 1912.
DISINTEGRATION OF MUSLIM POWER
In the 19th century, reform movements swept the Ottoman empire. Disgruntled citizenry, horrible debt and education deficiencies plagued the Ottoman interior while continual war on the fringes of the empire weakened its military. Ottoman leadership understood that ethnic identity politics could come to drive the empire apart and began to promote "Ottomanism", the idea that all citizens in the empire were equal. The Tanzimat reform movement supported that idea and sought to bring the empire into the present by instilling European systems of management and education rather than relying on the failed religious and military techniques utilized since the formation of the empire. Opinion is split over whether this system encouraged further decline or helped usher the Muslim world into necessary modernization to combat Europe. What is widely understood is the fact that the reforms were not able to be fully implemented due to the lack of educated administrators and the crippling concessions made to the European powers.
In 1875, the Ottomans declared bankruptcy. It was plainly seen that drastic change was necessary. Educated citizens produced by the reforms and European scholarship traveled abroad to learn about other societies and were horrified to discover the poverty and backwardness of the Ottoman system and sought greater reforms. Some believed a constitution would be the best path while others were in favor of an Islamic solution. Both agreed that the powers of the sultan should be reduced. Sultan Abdul Aziz was deposed following protests in favor of a constitution. Abdul Hamid II took power and in 1877, the first congress ever established in the Muslim world met in Istanbul. One year later the sultan dissolved the body fearing for his own power. Ties to Germany became strong during this period as they helped the Ottomans modernize their infrastructure most notably through financing the Berlin-Baghdad Railroad.
In the 20th century, new reforms know as the Young Turk movement came to usher in the second constitutional era after the Young Turk Revolution of 1908. Political parties were established in the empire for the first time while the sultan became more of a figurehead as a constitutional monarchy was re-established. After the 1908 elections, the Committee of Union Progress or CUP took the majority of the seats in Parliament. Losses during the wars in the Balkans led to a mass migration of Muslims into Anatolia and an increase in Turkish (rather than the multicultural Ottoman) nationalism, exactly what the Tanzimat sought to contain. The transition from the system of Ottomanism which held that all Ottoman citizens were equal in the face of the law, to the Turkish nationalism preached by the Young Turks led to further divisions within the Empire. These divisions came to a bloody climax during World War I.
The Ottoman position became more and more enclosed as Russia and Britain met to settle diplomatic disputes concerning Persia and South Asia. As a result of these talks, British and Russian forces came to occupy much of Persia as corruption and economic problems led to calls for revolution and democracy. Fearing for their ability to control the situation, and understanding the potential for massive profits from the yet-to-be-discovered oil in Persia, the occupation served to re-establish the monarchy and quell the rebellion. This "Great Game" led to the eventual creation of the Triple Entente, the allied forces that would come to fight together in WWI.
As the imperial forces of Europe grew, treaties were signed and alliances were made, sometimes in secret. When Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian national (and self-proclaimed Yugoslav) assassinated the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a spiral of alliances came undone and Europe was flung into World War I.
MEANWHILE, IN PERSIA
Since the establishment of the Safavid dynasty in 1501, the fate of Persia has become ever more entwined with that of Shiism. Constant struggles against the Ottomans came to cement the Persian national identity as well as the divide between Sunni and Shia Muslims. While much more ethnically homogenous than the Ottomans to their west, the Persian people were largely poor and possessed a weak, outdated military forcing them to defend their territory much more than to assert their power. The Safavid dynasty ended in 1736 when Nadir Quli Beg deposed the shah (king) after forcing the Ottomans and Russians out of Persia, restoring their former borders.
The power that came to dominate the modern history of Persia was the Qajar dynasty which existed from 1794 until 1925. It was under this dynasty that Tehran came to be capital and when Persia came to be ever more encircled by competing imperial interests of the European powers. Throughout the 19th century, unlike the Ottoman sultan, the Persian shah retained absolute power and extravagant wealth. Class divisions were deep as the shah was separated from the majority of his subjects living in extreme poverty by an illusionary middle class. Made up of religious elites and merchants who all owed their status to the shah, all lacked the cohesion to stand against him. Children were unable to study abroad and education within the empire was atrocious.
In general, the history of Persia was one of isolation from the European world however this stance changed just as the Ottomans were being dismembered. In 1899 the Shah Nasir al-Din granted the British a concession which allowed them to open the Imperial Bank of Persia and to search for oil. Nasir al-Din was assassinated in 1896 by followers of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, a preacher who came to support revolutionary ideas in Persia. Al-Afghani’s opposition to the concessions has led to the growth of anti-western feeling within Persia.
In 1906, due largely to the work of Malkom Kahn, a Persian ambassador, a parliament was established along with a constitution. The shahs of Persia opposed such an institution and for generations attempted to reverse the development. The 1907 Anglo-Russian agreement pacified the country in the wake of World War I, split it into two spheres of influence, and settled differences between the British and Russians. Essentially, these powers believed that there were great gains to be made in maintaining Persia’s puppet status and the assumption proved correct. In 1908, oil was discovered in Persia under a British concession and the Anglo-Persian oil company (later BP) was formed. In 1911, the British government bought a controlling interest in the company.
Persia remained neutral and occupied by the British and Russians during World War I however some important developments took shape following the war. Reza Kahn, a cavalry commander, became prime minister and was later made shah by the parliament with the support of the religious elite, choosing Pahlavi as the name of his dynasty. In 1935, he renamed the country Iran and set forth a program of westernization, obviously a favored development for the Britain. While he was seen as a westernizer he was no less a despot. The shah’s luxurious extravagance once again left much of his population out of the picture and relegated the parliament to a symbolic representation of democracy.
WORLD WAR I, THE TURNING POINT OF HISTORY
The Ottomans, under the reformed CUP government with a desire to keep or expand their territory, sought an alliance leading up to WWI. After remaining neutral at the start of the war, the Ottomans eventually decided to open their strategic waterways to the Germans and shortly after, joined the war on their side. This decision proved disastrous for the Ottomans and perhaps more than any single event in human history has had long lasting and far reaching consequences for the entire world. It would turn out that the empire was not prepared for an industrialized war. In addition, the Ottomans failed to realize the lack of cohesion within their domain.
The Ottomans fought a multi-front war. In the north, they squared off against Russia. At Gallipoli, they defended the Dardanelles from Britain and in Arabia, they sought to contain a civil revolt among their Arab subjects longing for a unified Arab state (with much inspiration and organization from the British). While largely successful at defending the Turkish heartland of Anatolia, the civil unrest and superior military power of the Entente led to their eventual defeat.
In the Early days of World War I, the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek subjects within the empire were thought to be aiding the Russians against Turkey. Turkish nationalism, now at the forefront of Ottoman politics contributed greatly to this assessment. In response, the government forced a deportation and later, the brutal, systematic killing of these subjects. This became recognized as a genocide by many world powers. Between 1 to 1.5 million Armenians (75% of the Turkish-Armenian population) along with 150,000-300,000 Assyrians and 450,000-750,000 Greeks were killed. Known as one of the worst genocides in human history, it is important to note that the atrocities committed by the CUP were against the native population of Anatolia. The Turks themselves had migrated to the land from Central Asia and had come to dominate the indigenous population centers. This migration and genocide is important to understand when considering the current Turkish government's opposition to the indigenous Kurdish minority fighting for its independence.
For a history of the Middle East, the most important events in WWI occurred in Arabia. This land, while mostly conquered by the Ottomans, was administered by local rulers. Sharif Hussain of Mecca was one such leader who, like the sharifs before him was regarded as the steward of Mecca and Medina. He was responsible for the safety of Muslims on pilgrimage, or Hajj, to Mecca. Sharif Hussain belonged to the Hashemite family of Arabia, the ancient house of which the prophet Muhammad was a member. As a member of this house, Hussain was a proud Arab often at odds with the Ottoman leadership in the Hejaz. After the Young Turk Revolution and the growth of Turkish nationalism, the rift between the Hashemites and the Ottomans deepened. Hussain viewed the first world war as an opportunity to gain an independent Arab state and with help from Britain, he and his sons Faisal and Abdullah organized a resistance which helped to dismantle the Ottoman Empire. While the uprising is usually seen as unsuccessful, after WWI the Hashemite family gained a level of autonomy in Arabia. Unfortunately for the rulers of the Hejaz, their destiny as unifiers would not be realized and their cooperation with The West would leave them as mere puppets in the game of global hegemony.