Download Please click here - the UK Defence Forum

John Callahan, March 28, 2012, UK Defense Forum
Historical Precedents for the Rise of Political Islam
The purpose of this work is to provide a brief background to key events surrounding the rise of
political Islam as a phenomenon. The first section deals with the Tanzimat Period which occurred during
the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire , followed by the colonial period up until the Second World
War, culminating with the establishment of the state of Israel and its impact on the Muslim world. The
final segment of this section looks at the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and how it developed from a French
or Russian style revolution into something fundamentally religious in nature.
I.
The Ottoman Empire era and the Tanzimat period (1800-1920)
The Muslim world was a reasonably unified whole during the lifetime of the prophet Mohammed, and
for some time thereafter. However, under pressure of the crusades from the west (primarily successful
in Spain), and Mongol attacks from the east, fragmentation was inevitable. The rise of the Ottoman
Turks arrested this general decay for over two centuries.
The Empire served as the secular expression of Islam as a nation state for nearly five hundred
years, from the overthrow of the Roman/Byzantine Empire in 1452 to its own fall in 1920. During that
time, the Ottoman Sultan served as the guardian of the Holy Places at Medina and Mecca, as well as the
Caliph and temporal leader of Muslims, although in real terms this extended only to the Muslims under
his direct military control. Thus, the non-Arab Ottomans stepped into a Muslim leadership role which
had been held exclusively by Arabs until the Mongol sack of Baghdad in 1258.
For a time, in the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire was simultaneously the military and
intellectual center of the world.1 However, even as the Turks expanded into the Balkans and to the
north and east, the Muslim world was in decline elsewhere, particularly in Spain and India. More
1
Caroline Finkel’s Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire, provides an excellent, if not exactly brief,
background on the Empire, both in its rise and in its decay and collapse.
1
John Callahan, March 28, 2012, UK Defense Forum
importantly, the fall of Constantinople set in motion a series of events which would paradoxically lead to
the fall of the Ottoman state. It is the fall of Byzantium that triggered the Italian Renaissance, which
eventually spread to northern Europe, provided Christendom with the intellectual and technical means
to expand beyond its continental borders and to successfully confront the Islamic presence to the south
and east. The two most significant Turkish invasions of Europe, in 1529 and 1683, were turned back at
the very gates of Vienna (as well as at Malta and through the naval victory at Lepanto), and following the
second defeat, Europe went on the counteroffensive. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment released
political, military, and economic forces which the aging Ottoman feudal system was ill equipped to
resist. In addition to external pressure, the Empire was also fragmented internally, with the various
regions under the command of leaders who were primarily interested in the accumulation of more
power to themselves.
By the 19th Century, Ottoman leaders were prepared to try Western methods in an attempt to
modernize their system. The first efforts, the Nizam e Jedid (New Model Army) brought in western
experts to train the Ottoman Army in contemporary methods of warfare. While helpful, the Nizam was
heavily resisted by reactionary forces, including the famous Janissaries2, and was imperfectly
implemented. This resulted in political some progress in reform. Overall, however, the Ottoman Army
never regained superiority, or even parity, with its European competitors.
The 1820’s saw the Nizam e Jedid augmented by an attempt at political reform. A series of
reforms known collectively as the Tanzimat, or “re-ordering” proceeded on various fronts. Efforts were
made to expand the tax base, which was heretofore based on contributions from non-Muslims in
accordance with Muslim law.3 In the reverse direction, efforts were made to integrate Christians into
2
Jannisaries were elite soldiers of the early Ottoman Sultans. The Janissary Corps survived many attempts at
reform and were known for their reactionary response to said efforts.
3
Caroline Finkel, Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire 1300-1923 (New York: Perseus Group, 2005).
447.
2
John Callahan, March 28, 2012, UK Defense Forum
the armed forces, which had, other than irregular forces, been dominated by Muslims or Christian
converts.
All of this was part of an effort to centralize control of the empire, which still ostensibly
stretched from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Fractious leaders such as Egypt’s Mehmet Ali and
ethnic/tribal groups such as the Mamelukes and the Druze were gradually brought back into line with
Istanbul by the efforts of Sultan Mahmud with significant clerical support.
The Tanzimat reforms were brought about with the assistance of the western powers. This
reflected the Ottoman Empire’s “Sick Man” status, and heavily impacted Turkish and Muslim cultural
identities. Internal problems of governance became international problems as the great powers
viewed these as opportunities to interfere. The Gulhane edict of 1839 attempted to rationalize reform
in terms of an Islamic state. This meant a formal governing process from the Sultan downwards, as well
as a promise of equity before the law for all citizens regardless of faith, and an appeal to an Ottoman
identity.4 Paper money was introduced as an attempt to end the practice of debasing metal currency in
order to fight inflation.
Conflict over the Holy Places of Jerusalem, primarily between France and Russia, dragged the
Ottoman state into the Crimean War in 1854. The Treaty of Paris, which ended the war in 1856, brought
the Empire recognition as a European great power, but clearly a second tier one, since the rights of the
Russians, French, British, and others to interfere internally (especially where Christians were involved)
grew as a result. The 1856 edict of freedom of religion was used as a stick with which to beat the
Ottoman state whenever it was felt that the Islamic state was in non-compliance.
These efforts at reform, however unevenly applied, began to meet significant resistance from
disparate quarters. Clerics, who had over the previous centuries been severely reduced in influence,
gathered enough power to successfully demand the ousting of Resid Pasha, on the grounds that his
4
Finkel, 450.
3
John Callahan, March 28, 2012, UK Defense Forum
French inspired reforms on the banking system flew in the face of Islamic Law. In 1849, the leading
cleric in Mecca declared the Ottomans to be “polytheists” and the Tanzimat to be counter to Islam.
Tanzimat efforts to limit slavery and promote a form of religious equality were also excoriated. A
growing political movement, the Young Ottomans, kept up the pressure (event after their suppression in
1867) to place Islam as the centerpiece of Ottoman culture and reform5.
In the end, economic crises combined with the social dislocation of Muslims caused by the
Tanzimat reforms to cause the overthrow of the Sultan Abdulaziz in 1863. His successor, Abdulhamid
“the damned” followed a more conservative, and violent path.6 Restlessness among the subject peoples
of the Empire led to atrocities against Bulgarians in the 1870s. This led to significant friction with the
Russians, and the eventual loss of Bulgaria, and Empire’s other Balkan provinces by the second decade
of the 20th century. With the gradual loss of outlying territories, however, the Empire became more
Turkish and less Christian. Succeeding Sultans attempted to capitalize on this to make Islam a source of
group pride equal to the nationalisms of Europe. Simultaneous efforts to assume a leadership role over
all Muslims, particularly through control of the Holy Places (in this case, Jerusalem, Mecca, and Medina)
took place.
The repressive nature of Sultanic rule led to renewed resistance, this time in the shape of the
secular “Young Turks”, who eventually gained power and ended the Sultanate after the failures of the
First World War. At the same time, efforts to appeal as Muslim leaders failed both in Africa (which was
outside the Empire in any case) and with other subject peoples, such as the Arabs, who had been
uniformly shut out of leadership roles in the Empire. In spite of this perennial rejection, it took an
outside force to shake down the traditional Arab allegiance to the Ottoman Sultan as Muslim Caliph.
5
Finkel, 489.
M. Sukru Hanioglu, A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). 109111.
6
4
John Callahan, March 28, 2012, UK Defense Forum
That force was provided by the British, who became heavily involved in Arab society and political life as
a result of the Ottoman loss of the First World War.
The Sultan’s attempted to harness the power of Islam to shore up their rule at home and press
their claims to lead the Muslim world. The dichotomy of this was that they simultaneously sought
equality for all citizens, for the same purpose. These two principles could not coexist indefinetly. With
the rise of the secular nationalist Kemalists, political Islam moved southwards. In retrospect, it would
appear that the Secular/Turkish nationalist of the Young Turks (led eventually by Mustapha Kemal
Ataturk) crushed political Islam as a force. However, the Tanzimat period (particularly its ending)
showed the power of the clerics in politics, when allowed to flourish, and when combined with a desire
to return to Islamic roots on the part of political leaders. These ideas would find their outlet, not in the
remnant Ottoman state, but in its former components, particularly to the south, in Saudi Arabia, and to
the east, in Iran.
II.
The First World War, the breakup of the Empire, the rise of the Arabs, and the role of the
Colonizers
Following the arrival of the German battle cruiser Goeben and the cruiser Breslau in fall, 1914,
the Ottoman Empire sealed its own fate by joining the Central Powers. Notable successes such as the
repulse of the Gallipoli invasion in 1915-16 could not hide the fact that the army of the divine Porte
would not survive an extended conflict with the west. As British forces pushed the Ottomans ever
northward, the challenge became how to use local Arab forces to support allied efforts without
inflaming a region wide Jihad which would engulf all parties.7 This was done by using the Hashemite
Sheiks of Mecca as allies, with the promise that they would take a leading role in the post Ottoman Arab
7
Although there are a variety of excellent sources on the period, including the work of Lawrence himself, the
author recommends a recent work, A Line In the Sand, by James Barr as an outstanding supplement.
5
John Callahan, March 28, 2012, UK Defense Forum
world.8 In spite of the efforts of T.E. Lawrence and others, this was an alliance and a promise that the
allies had no intention of fully honoring.9 Lawrence’s efforts there, in Palestine, and in stirring uprisings
among the Druze tribes of what is now Syria/Lebanon , though somewhat useful militarily, were not to
be rewarded.
In 1916, France and the UK agreed to a post war division of the Middle East into two spheres.
This was done by the Sykes-Picot treaty, which became notorious for the nonchalance with which
borders were drawn. A line was to be drawn from the “e” in Acre to the “k” in Kirkuk, with areas to the
north going to France, and those to the south going to the UK. Having set these standards (ignoring the
third player, the Hashemite Sheiks of Mecca), both parties proceeded to do their best to secure more
than had been agreed to. T.E. Lawrence and his Arab Forces pressed on toward Damascus, while
General Allenby’s forces took Jerusalem and quickly quelled French claims to co-rule the area. The
identification of oil reserves in Northern pushed the British claim westwards, (the British claim was not
resolved between the UK, France, and the U.S. until 1931.) At the same time French fought,
unsuccessfully, to push their influence south, into Palestine.
These acts were validated by the Paris Peace Conference (1919), the Sevres agreement (1920),
the treaty of San Remo (1922), and the Lausanne Treaty (1923), which, between the four, ended the
Ottoman Empire, established the Turkish State in lieu of the Sultanate, and assigned mandate status to
the former Ottoman Arab states, with responsibility for said mandates resting with the UK and France.
Those factors which are known as the damaging hallmarks of empire were in full bloom with this
act of exploitation. Pre-existing trade patterns and infrastructure were abandoned in favor of whatever
would benefit the metropole in question.10 The Middle East, which had never been divided up
ethnically, now had false national identities such as “Syrian,” “Iraqi”, and “Palestinian” imposed upon
8
Faisal and Abdullah, of this tribe, became Kings of Iraq and Jordan, respectively. The Hejaz area was lost to the
Saud family in the 1920s.
9
Barr describes this in chapter 9 of A Line in the Sand.
10
D.K. Fieldhouse describes this process in detail in Western Imperialism in the Middle East, 1914-1958.
6
John Callahan, March 28, 2012, UK Defense Forum
them from on high, with far reaching consequences. Minorities were supported by the colonial powers
in order to cement their local rule. In typical fashion, the French made some effort to Frankify their new
Arab colonies, while the British preferred to rule through a combination of career bureaucrats and local
chieftains. Moreover, both powers delayed the promotion of Arab statehood as long as they could. In
spite of the provisions of the treaty of San Remo, which compelled the mandate holders to do so as
soon as possible, their slow pace in implementation caused a challenge. This came in the form of the
Iraqi rebellion, which was finally quelled with the placing of Faisal on a new, Baghdad based throne in
1921. A near simultaneous revolt by the Druze in the French held areas, very likely with British support,
continued until 1927. In fact, Syria and Lebanon did not gain independence until after the Second World
War, after the British (under a Free French Flag) seized the area (with significant Jewish assistance) from
Vichy control in 1941-1942.
The seeds of the future were planted as a part of this complete upheaval of Middle Eastern life.
The Zionist movement, in search of a new Jewish homeland, became a political pawn of the two sides.
After initial reluctance, Britain’s initial support of the Zionists was done with the recognition that they
might provide more to the war effort long terms than the Arabs, and so that the French and Americans
would not steal a march on them by making their own promises to the Jewish movement. The much
heralded Balfour Declaration of 1917 was undertaken in this light, and formed a basis for the later
foundation of the state of Israel. 11
Britain continued to oscillate from support of the Arabs to that of the Jews, to the point that, by
the late 1930’s, support of the growing Zionist movement in Palestine was increasingly French backed.
The French did this largely to destabilize Palestine and further their push to the south.
In the two major UK mandates, Iraq and Transjordan, the results of British influence on Sheikh
Hussein’s two sons were radically different. While Faisal was never fully accepted by Iraqis, his
11
The text, along with those of the other treaties mentioned in this study, can be found in The Israel-Arab Reader,
edited by Walter Lacquer and Barry Rubin.
7
John Callahan, March 28, 2012, UK Defense Forum
placement on the throne required a British withdrawal from the area (notwithstanding a chain of
military bases which ensured British control over the vital infrastructure of the oil industry) earlier than
in most colonies, leaving a western style bureaucracy, but no protections for minorities and the strength
of the tribes unbroken.12 The same cannot be said for his Faisal’s brother, King Abdullah, in Transjordan.
After appealing to British protection against the encroachments of the Saudi’s from the south, he set up
an effective government. Indeed, British protection allowed Abdullah the time he needed to shape the
polyglot peoples of his Kingdom into the only mandate state to remain territorially and politically (read
here dynastically) intact to the present.
III.
Creation of the State of Israel and the rise of radicals
Although the state of Israel has its political roots in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the
struggle for colonial supremacy between France and the UK, it was the second world war and the
holocaust which provided the crucial catalyst, as large numbers of holocaust survivors provided Zionist
leaders with a psychologically motivated manpower pool and a certain amount of international
sympathy for the Jewish cause.
It must be remembered that the Arab world’s core issues with post-colonialism and
industrialization are shared by other peoples around the world. What makes the Middle East different is
that the peoples there are part of a common faith system, and were all once part of a single, allencompassing state in a way quite unlike the peoples of Africa, Asia, or Latin America. 13
In addition, unlike most other areas of the world, actual settlement of Arab lands took place in
the form of the rise of the state of Israel. This gave Arab and Political Islamic passions a focus and an
outlet which persist to this day.
12
13
Barr, Chapter 9.
Bernard Lewis “What Went Wrong” is an excellent source for discussion on Muslim perceptions of the world.
8
John Callahan, March 28, 2012, UK Defense Forum
Prior to the Paris peace conference which ended the War and helped divide up the Arabian
spoils of war, Sheik Hussein’s British supported heir, Faisal, was subsidized by the UK for up to 150,000
pounds per month. It is little surprise then that he agreed to meet with Zionist leader Chaim Weissman
to delineate a border between Palestine and the Hejaz, which was then defined as the rest of Arabia.
This dovetailed with the establishment of a Jewish Mandate in Palestine under the terms of the 1920
treaty of San Remo.
France, which, it has been demonstrated, provided significant support to Israel, was constrained
initially in its recognition of the Jewish state by the feared impact that such recognition would have
among its North African colonies.
Israel’s resounding victory in the 1947-1949 war sent massive reverberations throughout the
Arab and Muslim world. Palestinian’s still refer to that time as “al-naqba” or the disaster, and with good
reason, since, in the end, well over a million Palestinians left their homes during this time, the vast
majority never to return. For Arabs of the region, it was a body blow to their own ambition to establish
an Arab Palestinian state under the mandate system. Indeed, western support of Israel was perceived
across the region as a snub to the principle of self-determination which had been promised by the
victors of the First World War. Nevertheless, there is political fault to go around. Although a nascent
Palestinian state was set up by Egypt in the Gaza strip, the West Bank territories were occupied by the
Jordanians and annexed to greater Jordan.
Neo colonial meddling continued after the foundation of Israel. Although such interference
found its ultimate backlash in the Islamic Revolution in Iran, other short sighted acts of interference
continue to affect us today. The Muslim Brotherhood, for example, founded in 1928 (interestingly, as a
fascist leaning political party), received significant funding from the U.S. in the 1950s with the purpose
of counterbalancing Nasserism. Washington worked openly to overthrow Mossadegh in Iran and to
topple the pro Nasser Quwatli regime in Yemen in 1962.
9
John Callahan, March 28, 2012, UK Defense Forum
Meanwhile, the Arab world refused (and largely continues to refuse) to accept its repeated
defeats at the hands of the Israelis. In the years after 1949, an exodus of Jews left the Arab world for
Israel, although this exodus was not, as sometimes claimed, under similar conditions to those under
which the Jews left Europe. As Israel strengthened itself through the 1950s, Arab and Islamic response
continued to take shape. For Political Islamists and Arab nationalists alike, the loss of the territory of
Palestine, and particularly the control over Jerusalem, represented the latest in a series of western kicks
against an Islamic world which was reeling from the effects of the long collapse of Muslim fortunes
which dated back to Mongol destruction of the Caliphate in 1258. This wave of defeat continued to the
destruction of the Ottoman Empire and the refusal of the great powers to allow the Arabs to rule
themselves after its fall.
Jerusalem is the third holiest city of Islam (or, as Muslims call it, Al-Quds, or Sanctuary), and its
gradual loss between 1949 and 1967 came to represent a failure of religious devotion on the part of
Muslims, and gave fuel to Arab leaders such as Nasser, who were more than willing to whip up religious
fervor in service of their own nationalism. To a point, they found a nationalized Islam to be useful to
their own agendas. This capitalized on age old Muslim suspicions of Zionism and Judaism in general.
Jewish refusal to recognize the importance of Mohammed lay with their seizure of Jerusalem at the
center of the conflict. Racist texts such as the long refuted Protocols of the Elders of Zion are still
frequently used by Arab leaders from the Shah to Yasser Arafat in their efforts to make a fundamentally
political issue into a religious one. This has gone so far as Arafat’s 2000 claim that the Jewish temple
was located in Nablus, not Jerusalem, which, if true, would invalidate any Israeli claim to the city or the
Temple Mount.14
For radical Muslims (and even some not so radical, as the faculty of the influential al Aqsa
Mosque/University demonstrated in their ongoing discourse on the subject) elimination of Israel is the
14
David Hazony, "Temple Denial in the Holy City", The New York Sun, 7 March 2007.
10
John Callahan, March 28, 2012, UK Defense Forum
first step toward a reckoning with the Jews which will immediately precede the end of the world. In a
more immediate sense, they deem the existence of the Israeli state to be illegal under Islamic law, and
regional acquiescence can only be seen as a temporary expedient, something that is contemplated by
Sharia law.
IV.
Islamic revolution in Iran
The Islamic Revolution in Iran has deep roots in Persian, Iranian, and Shi’a Islamic history.
Beginning, appropriately, at the beginning, it is important to note that Persian history and culture have
deep roots, indeed, among the deepest in the world.15 The Persians trace their political history to Cyrus,
Darius, Xerxes, and other leaders who are vilified in the west, with its fascination with Greek history. It
is Persia (or, rather, as the Romans called it) Parthia which was Imperial Rome’s most consistent enemy.
Mongols notwithstanding (as if anyone could withstand them) Persia has remained unique and largely
independent throughout. This is a key facet to understanding the Iranian Revolution as well as why that
Revolution has, by and large, NOT spread throughout the region.16
Modern Iran:
It is inappropriate to term the Iranian revolution as a religious uprising, as has often been done.
The Revolution took place in response to several factors. One was the highly repressive nature of the
Shah’s government. Another was the modernization of the country and the subsequent dislocation of
many rural citizens, who became urban poor. Yet another was massive population growth, which could
not be sustained by job growth.
15
Social Origins of the Iranian Revolution, by Misagh Parsa, and The Last Great Revolution, by Robin Wright, both
provide further reading and served as sources for this section.
16
For purposes of this paper, the Iranian Revolution refers only to the overthrow of the Shah by conservative
religious forces from 1978-1979.
11
John Callahan, March 28, 2012, UK Defense Forum
The Shah’s government was known to have been put into power by the acts of the UK and the
U.S17., and came to represent westernism and unwanted change. A constitution, created in 1908, which
divided authority between the middle class, inteligencia, was invalidated by the Shahs, particularly after
the overthrow of the socialist Mossadegh regime in 1953. Interestingly, that same coalition would lead
the way in the 1970s.18 Mossadegh chose to repudiate UK and U.S. demands for greater physical
presence and control over key resources, namely, oil. In the end, the UK welcomed efforts, led by the
CIA, but including a cross section of Iranian society, (including clerics) to oust Mossadegh in a coup
which brought the Shahs back into power, this time more repressive than ever before. This was
followed by a massive economic downturn in the 1950s, followed by a building series of improvements,
the combined impact of which was to dispossess large sections of Iranian society.
With the withdrawal of UK forces from the region by 1970, the U.S. became more interested in
both Iran’s central position and its oil reserves. Massive U.S. investment followed patterns similar to
those across the Middle East, and served to give the 1978 revolutionaries a new slogan, calling those
who called for close ties with the west followers of “American Islam.”
How did Islam enter the picture?
To understand Islam’s role in the Iranian revolution, one must come to grips with a fundamental
fact. For Mohammed, there was no distinction between “God” and “Caesar” as there was for Christians.
No implicit division between church and state exists, and there has always been interchange between
the two, particularly in the Shi’a minority in Islam (which, it must be noted, form the majority both in
Iran, but also in Iraq and Bahrain.) A key tenet of Shi’i Islam throughout its history has been the search
17
The overthrow of the Mossadegh regime, largely done with clandestine help from western intelligence agencies,
cast a long shadow over revolutionary ideology.
18
Mohammed Ayoob, The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim World (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 2011). 51.
12
John Callahan, March 28, 2012, UK Defense Forum
for a “Just Social Order.” Clearly, the secret police and the Shah led dictatorship flew in the face of Shia
justice, and gave pretense to the revolution.19
In the 1960’s, the Ayatollah Khomeini broke with then common religious practice by becoming
an outspoken regime opponent. Thus he was forced to flee and to operate from outside the country,
first, from Iraq, then from France. At that time, Iran was known as one of the “Least observant and most
tolerant” cultures in the Islamic world.20 On the other hand, clerical leaders had extremely close ties to
the people, particularly the Bazaari (middle) class. Unlike Sunni Islam (in which clerics are backed in a
fashion more familiar to Christians), Shi’a clerics are funded by the communities in which they live,
making the local mullahs both more in-tune with local feeling and more beholden to pressure from their
local benefactors.21 Indeed, it is this fusion of what passed for a middle eastern middle class with
fundamentalist clerical groups which, to quote Fouad Ajami, which made the revolution a specifically
Iranian event.22
Meanwhile, because of the aforementioned melding of church and state, mosques became
hotbeds of revolutionary ideology. Friday services became a protected opportunity for anti-Shah forces
to spread their messages, as well as those of the exiled Khomeini; Cassette tapes and mimeographed
prayers and political diatribes were made available, and the masses were reached in a way that would
have been impossible to achieve by political demonstration alone. Indeed, the Shah’s government was
intimidated enough by this by 1978 to lighten their security clampdown, which gave the revolutionaries
the opportunity they needed to strike definitively and overthrow the regime. So what changed?
19
John Esposito, The Future of Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). 32.
Rouleau, Eric. "Khomeini's Iran." ForeignAffairs.com. Fall 1980.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/34265/eric-rouleau/khomeinis-iran (accessed January 26, 2012). 1.
21
Rouleau, 2.
22
Fouad Ajami, "Iran: The Impossible Revolution", Foreign Affairs, Winter 1988. 2.
20
13
John Callahan, March 28, 2012, UK Defense Forum
Islam is not monolithic. Shi’i culture, awaiting the return of the twelfth Imam (So called
“Twelver Shi’ites) has been served as a check against grand expressions of temporal power and imperial
authority. However, until the 1960s, the Islamic clerical section of society (the ulama) preferred to
recluse themselves from society in protest against authority rather than to challenge it.23 Khomeini was
able to tap this feeling extremely effectively, and drew direct lines between the Shah, secularism,
westernism, and the takeover of Iranian resources, particularly oil revenues, by the UK and the U.S.
Twelver Shi’i, who await the return of their so called “Hidden” Imam, turn to men of profound faith and
knowledge for temporal leadership in times of injustice and crisis. So it was with Khomeini, whose title
of Ayatollah reflects this uniquely Shia’ belief, and stands in for the Muslim manifestation of a savior, the
Mahdi.24
Perversely, Khomeini undid Shia tradition when he established in himself the state of Supreme
Law “Vilayat-e Faquih”25 or supreme leader. The result is a form of government (which we see today in
“Presidents” elected and guided by Supreme leaders), is unlike any in prior history, although time will
tell, particularly if the New “Brotherhood” Regimes in Egypt and Libya may prove to follow this model. A
grim view of this is that idea of the return of the Hidden Imam, combined with radical beliefs in a final
showdown with Israel as a prelude to the end of the world, may drive Iranian leaders as they enter what
can only be a dangerous spring in 2013.
Bibliography
Ajami, Fouad. "Iran: The Impossible Revolution." Foreign Affairs, Winter 1988.
Ayoob, Mohammed. The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim World. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011.
23
Ayoob, 47.
Esposito, 53.
25
Ajami, 4. Specifically, Ajami is referring to the suspicion of power and imperialism noted earlier in the paper.
24
14
John Callahan, March 28, 2012, UK Defense Forum
Barr, James. A Line in the Sand: The Anglo French Struggle for the Middle East, 1914-1948. New York:
Norton, 2012.
Esposito, John. The Future of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Fieldhouse, D.K. Western Imperialism in the Middle East, 1914-1958. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2006.
Finkel, Caroline. Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire 1300-1923. New York: Perseus
Group, 2005.
Hanioglu, M. Sukru. A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2008.
Hazony, David. "Temple Denial in the Holy City." The New York Sun, March 7, 2007.
Lacqueur, Walter. The Israel-Arab Reader. New York: Penguin Books, 2008.
Lewis, Bernard. What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East. New
York: Harper Collins, 2002.
Rouleau, Eric. "Khomeini's Iran." ForeignAffairs.com. Fall 1980.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/34265/eric-rouleau/khomeinis-iran (accessed January 26, 2012).
John Callahan is a PhD candidate in International Relations at Old Dominion University. He lives and
works in Tidewater, VA, as a Public Affairs Trainer for the Department of Defense. In the past, he has
worked as a Public Affairs Officer at the American Embassy in Baghdad and at the Office of the Director
of National Intelligence.
15