7 Pan-Islamism and Pan-Arabism: Solution or Obstacle To Political Reconstruction in The Middle East?

7 Pan-Islamism and
Pan-Arabism: Solution or
Obstacle to Political
Reconstruction in the
Middle East?
Haifaa A. Jawad
INTRODUCTION
Pan-Islamism and pan-Arab ism are two major political move-

ments which have a profound effect on the politics of the Middle
East. Pan-Islamism emerged during the late nineteenth century;
it aims to unify the Muslim world via its commonly held Islamic
beliefs. It emphasizes the universality of Islam and hence the
union of Muslim peoples by arguing that 'the idea of political
unity is inherent in Islam, whose character is a priori interna-
tional, no less than a complete moral, cultural, legal, social and
political system.'1 This comprehensive character of the religion of
Islam therefore has deeply influenced and affected the politics of
pan-Islamism. The precedent to which the proponents of pan-Is-
lamism look is the dynamic period of early Islam, the 'golden age'
in which the Muslim peoples were united.
Pan-Arabism2 or Arab nationalism (al-quwmiyya al-arabiyya) is a
later movement and is typified by the ideal of unifying the Arab
peoples. Arab nationalists consider the Arab world, which stret-
ches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf area, and from the
Arabian Sea to the Mediterranean, to be a single, homogeneous
whole, and the Arab people to be a single nation bound by the
common ties of language, culture and history.3 The concept of
Arabism and the idea of unity are the major and common
elements of pan-Arabism: 'Arabism or Uruba, is a quasi-mystical
term denoting the essence of being an Arab, the sense of
belonging to the Arab nation, the possession of Arabic as mother
140
H. A. Jawad (ed.), The Middle East in the New World Order
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 1997
Haifaa A. Jawad 141
tongue, and the fact of having been born an Arab in an Arab

land'; unity or Wakda 'is implicit in the feeling and awareness of
Arabism: it involves political unity, and restores to wholeness
what has been violated by history, adversity and accident.'·
While pan-Islamism is multilinear and more universal in con-
cept in the sense that it seeks to unify all Muslims, Arab and
non-Arab, pan-Arabism is more unilinear, secular and ethnically
exclusive. The promotion of Muslim political unity and of Arab
unity has been taking place since the late nineteenth and early
twentieeth centuries respectively. Each competes with the other,
claims to be the legitimate force and believes it can provide the
proper solution to current political, social and economic decline
in the region. This chapter will look at the roots and develop-
ments of the two ideologies. Such a perspective on the origins of
pan-Islamism and pan-Arabism may help further understanding
of current events in the region. The divergent roles of the two
movements will be considered, plus the type of political concepts
that have been utilized, and the reasons for their implementation
or the lack thereof. Finally, the chapter will assess the successes
and failures of the two movements and offer some conclusions as
to whether they constitute a solution or an obstacle to political
reconstruction in the Middle East.
THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PAN-ISLAMISM
During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the world of Islam

was incorporated into three major empires: the Ottoman, the
Safavid and the Mughal. All the present Arabic-speaking coun-
tries, with the exception of some parts of Arabia, Sudan and
Morocco, were included in the Ottoman empire. The empire also
contained Anatolia and south-eastern Europe, which included the
whole of present-day or recent Romania, Yugoslavia, Greece,
Bulgaria, Albania and Cyprus, as well as part of Hungary and the
Crimea. The capital of the empire was Istanbul. It was thus one
of the largest political structures to exist after the disintegration
of the Roman empire. It ruled over lands with various political
cultures, many ethnic groups and different religious communities.
Turkish was the language of the ruling family and the military
and administrative elites. The empire was a bureaucratic state,
controlling various regions within a single administrative and

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7 Pan-Islamism and

Pan-Islamism and pan-Arab ism are two major political move-

tongue, and the fact of having been born an Arab in an Arab

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PAN-ISLAMISM

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the world of Islam

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