The Middle East: A Political History from 395 to the Present
Jean-Pierre Filiu
Polity, £30, 356 pages
This is a work of detailed knowledge about its subject and comprehensive in scope, even if its readability masks the scholarship behind the text. It alleges that other histories of the Middle East have concentrated on the religious factors underlying the nodal events which characterise the region, and which are now once again the focus of world attention. The author declares that his is a “secular” history (une histoire laïque du Moyen-Orient of the original French title). If by this he means that there are factors such as power struggles, greed for territory or wealth, corruption, gratuitous cruelty and the like, this cannot be gainsaid.
If, however, the claim is that religious beliefs, practices and worldviews have not been a significant factor in both the glory and the turbulence of the Middle East, then this is very much open to question. One other point to make is that a secular examination of events is not in itself neutral. Secularism, as the name suggests, is also a way viewing the world, just as much as any religion.
The Middle East is not only the birthplace of the three monotheistic faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – but also of Zoroastrianism and of pharaonic religions, which have interacted with them. Many of the ideas and events described here in learned detail have religious or religio-political backgrounds. The notion of Eretz Israel, for instance, is certainly territorial, political and even ideological – but who can deny its background in the Bible?
On the other side, the Ikhwan al-Muslimin, or Muslim Brotherhood, is a social and political movement but it has strong underpinnings in traditionalist Islam. Even tragic events like the assassination of the Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin are ascribed a “messianic” inspiration.
Whether Byzantium and Persia were theocracies (as Filiu claims) or not, they were definitely imbued with religious ideas of Christian or Magian persuasion. The date given for Zoroaster is debatable, but who can question his influence not only in Persia but beyond that?
Given the commitment to laïcité, it is not surprising that any misbehaviour by Christians is given prominence, but there is little about the persecution of Christians in the Persian Empire and the Dhimma – the systemic discrimination according to Shari’a, under which Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians lived in the Islamic world for centuries – is treated with circumspection and hardly matches accounts given of living under it by those affected. There is a sanitised account of devshirme, whereby Christian boys in the Ottoman domains were rounded up, compulsorily converted to Islam and trained for military service. Further detail about the involvement of successive regimes in the Middle East in slavery would also have been illuminating.
Although the conversion of mosques into churches is mentioned, the systematic conversion of churches into mosques – including the famous Hagia Sophia – which continues to this day, is not given the coverage it deserves. The cruelties of the Crusaders are detailed but not to the same degree as those of their opponents. It is true that the Crusaders were guilty of massacres of people in the first taking of Jerusalem (but not the second), but massacres of Armenians, Assyrians, Syrian Christians and Copts have taken place throughout history, including during the time of the Crusades.
Regarding the latter, there is a surprisingly negative account of St Francis’s visit to the Ayyubid Sultan Al-Malik al-Kamil in around 1219. All previous accounts that I have seen note the friendliness of the encounter and the Sultan’s favourable view of the Poor Man of Assisi. It is this which Pope St John Paul II, no doubt, had in mind when he presented Francis as a model for dialogue. Although the Franciscans did not always follow Francis in his eirenic attitude towards Muslims, the fact that his order became committed to a serious study of Islam (with scholars like Ramon Llull standing out as pioneers) should have been noticed. Filiu, however, prefers to side with the Enlightenment philosophes in traducing Francis’s attitude, methods and disposition in his approach to Islam.
Meanwhile, Europeans – medieval or modern – are described as “invaders”, “imperialists” and “colonialists”, but the successive Arab, Turkish and Mongol invasions of settled communities in the Middle East and Southern Europe and the Balkans are rarely seen in the same way, even though there was often large-scale movement of people into conquered territories and the expulsion of others.
We need a balanced conversation about Ottoman plurality (with a large part of the empire being Jewish and Christian) and of the fratricides, pogroms and jihad which cannot be described by euphemisms like “elimination” or “liquidation”. Filiu mentions the later homogenisation of modern Turkey as overwhelmingly Muslim yet secular, but standing behind this is the historic “Arabisation” of the Levantine populations, which needs further discussion – especially as some Christian and Jewish minorities have questioned their identification in this way.
The author is at his best in describing developments in matters like trade, politics and social change, although more attention to the cultural aspects of the Nahda, or Arab renaissance, and the Christian contribution to it, would have been interesting in a book of this scope. There is hardly anything on the role of Christian schools in reviving interest in the Arabic language and its literary heritage.
The book returns, again and again, to Persia/Iran. Filiu records how it turned to Shi’ism, the role of militant Sufism there, as elsewhere, in bringing dynasties to power and then being discarded by them, and, most importantly, the tension between the politically quietist ulema (scholars) and those wishing to play a more active part in public affairs, leading to the constructivist theocracy of Imam Khomeini, creating the polity of Wilayat Al Faqih, or rule of the Islamist jurisprudents.
Filiu is very good at showing contradictions in Western imperial policy, such as British encouragement of an Islamic identity for Palestinians (thus marginalising what was then a large Christian minority) and their establishing of a Grand Mufti of Palestine, who then became a collaborator with the Axis powers. Similarly, American foreign policy since the Second World War has been based on the two seemingly opposed pillars of Jewish immigration to Israel and the defence of Saudi Arabia and its oil. Regarding Jewish immigration, he seems to recognise only the Ashkenazi (or Central and Eastern European Jews) and the Sephardi of the Levant and North Africa. The Mizrahi (oriental Jews of places like Yemen or India) are given scant attention.
There is a tendency in the book to blame the West or Russia for the political turbulence and the sustaining of despots in the Middle East. There is some truth in this, but two points have to be made. First, there should be a more rigorous examination of political and social history of the Middle East to ask what are the inherent weaknesses of societies where cycles of authoritarianism alternate with episodes of violent upheaval. Secondly, given that “there be monsters” in the region, we often have to identify which of them is the lesser evil.
Take Syria, for instance: no one can exculpate the Ba’ath Party from its authoritarian history, but if the alternative is the Islamist extremism of many of the rebel groups, what are minorities like Christians, Yazidis and even some Muslim groups to do? Filiu mentions the atrocities of the regime there but not of the rebels, especially against Christians and other minorities. As far as Aleppo is concerned, it would be good to know when he last visited. When I was there, a part of the city was severely damaged but most of it was intact with hospitals and schools functioning.
There were shortages and power cuts and there was frequent rebel bombardment, but no one could say the city had been destroyed. At a Christian ecumenical service, held in an Armenian church, the entire corps of the city’s imams turned up and insisted on attending to show the city’s solidarity in a time of civil war.
Filiu may have set out to write a “secular” history, but religion occurs on every page. It is true that rulers and ruled act from complex motives having to do with power, greed, marginalisation of minorities, corrupt elites and the desire to purify society of such corruption. Religious reasons, however, both good and bad, cannot be discounted and, paradoxically, the book shows their importance. We need, perhaps, a dedicated religious history of the region to balance this distinguished attempt at discounting its importance altogether.
Mgr Michael Nazir-Ali is a Prelate of Honour to His Holiness.
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