ECHOES OF WAR – ISLAM, MILITARY HISTORY AND 21ST

CENTURY

POLITICS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

__________________

A Research Paper

Presented to

Dr. George Martin

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

__________________

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for 88140

Islam within the Contemporary World

__________________

by

Mark David Harris

Goodmedicine1@verizon.net

April 26, 2015

2

ECHOES OF WAR – ISLAM, MILITARY HISTORY AND 21ST

CENTURY

POLITICS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Introduction

Several years ago I waited with my children at the school bus stop. It was a cool,

sunny morning and a neighbor and her child walked towards us. She had a Middle Eastern accent

and an olive complexion. Having learned some Arabic in Iraq, I greeted her with “Sabah al

khair” (“Good morning”) and she replied with “Sabah al noor.” Curious, I asked where she came

from, expecting the answer to be an Arab country in the Middle East. She replied “Iran,” where

the dominant language is Farsi. I asked if she spoke Arabic as well as Farsi and English. She

answered “no, but Farsi has adopted many Arabic words and phrases since they invaded us.”

What strange words to American ears, “since they invaded us.” Her explanation was shockingly

personal and immediate, as though it had happened to her, even though the invasion of which she

spoke was in 636 AD, climaxing in the famous Battle of al-Qadisiyyah. I couldn’t imagine

saying of the British “since they invaded us,” as though it happened to me personally, but the

history rolled off her tongue as if it was a current event. I asked if that was the invasion that she

was referring to and she said “yes.” The centuries that had passed had no bearing on her feelings

about it. Cultural chasms such as this form a huge barrier to Westerners who try to understand

the Middle East.

Muslims consider Islam to be the final revelation of God to man; the ultimate and

perfect religion. Many believe that eventually all other belief systems will fall away and the

whole world will follow the Faith of the Prophet. Unlike Christianity, Islam does not separate the

Islamic religion from the Islamic state. Therefore, even as the Islamic religion is seen as

preeminent over all religions on earth, so the Islamic state should be preeminent over all states

3

on earth. For hundreds of years, this scenario seemed to be exactly what was taking place, from

Spain to India and Indonesia. After the 16th

century, however, Islamic civilizations were

surpassed in glory and power by the Western, majority Christian world. This reality presents not

only a political but a theological problem for Muslims. If theirs is the true path, religiously and

politically, why are the infidels, the Dar al Harb (House of War), so prosperous and powerful?

This question resonates throughout the Dar al Islam (House of Submission), and in the 21st

century the Faithful as yet have no satisfactory answer.

With the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) advancing in the Fertile Crescent, with

Yemen convulsed in revolution, with Syria torn in two with civil war, with the Arab Spring of

2011 having deteriorated into chaos, and with Iran close to building a nuclear bomb, leaders

throughout the world must discover how to make the Middle East stable and prosperous. Muslim

leaders themselves are primarily responsible for transforming their region, and other leaders

throughout the world need to help them. One key to understanding why things are the way they

are in any region is to understand the past in that region.

Historical events always contribute to the current states of people and nations. We

could investigate how the history of economics, technology or education impacts 21st century

politics in the Middle East. This paper, however, will look at military history. Battles and wars

are the mileposts on the road of history; the parts that people remember more than any other.

The military history of the Middle East directly and indirectly influences 21st century

politics in the region. Leaders who understand history, whether military, political, or religious,

can assemble better strategies and more effectively accomplish their goals today.

Warfare in early Islam

The example of the Prophet Muhammad

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Unlike Jesus, who never raised a sword in anger and never made his followers fight,

Muhammad was a man of war. After fleeing Mecca to Medina in June 622 (the Hijra)1,

Muhammad gradually gained political strength, arbitrated disputes between rival tribes, and built

an army among his followers. He began his military career around 623 by raiding caravans

traveling from Mecca through Medina to Byzantine and Sassanid locations throughout the

Middle East. These raids provided loot for Muslims and weakened his Quraysh enemies in

Mecca.

With raiding success, Muhammad gained both authority and followers in Medina. His

greatest early success was the Battle of Badr (March 624)2, in which his forces prevailed over a

Qurayshi caravan and a relief force sent from Mecca. Most significantly, several leading

Meccans, who were Muhammad’s major enemies, were killed. The Battle of Badr was

undoubtedly the most important victory in the history of Islam because, thereafter, Muslims

believed that God was on their side.3 As a result, Muhammad’s ranks swelled and the Meccans

grew gradually weaker. After scores of assassinations, raids, and battles over the next seven

years, the Muslims conquered Mecca in December 629.

Muhammad’s wars did not end, however, after his traditional enemies in Mecca were

destroyed. In the Battle of Hunayn (Jan 630), Muslims attacked and destroyed the Bedouin tribe

of Hawazin after they refused to accept the authority of the Prophet (Quran 9:25). As successful

conquerors have since the dawn of time, Muhammad ensured ample spoils for his soldiers.4

1 Marshall G.S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, Volume 1: the Classical Age of Islam, (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1977), 172.

2 Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 176.

3 Malise Ruthven, Islam in the World, 3

rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 52.

4 “Sahih Bukhari 4:53:370,” Hadith Collection, accessed May 8, 2015,

http://www.hadithcollection.com/sahihbukhari/86--sp-501/3896-sahih-bukhari-volume-004-book-053-hadith-

number-370.html.

5

Between the fall of Mecca and Muhammad’s death on June 8, AD 632, Arab Muslims subdued

the rest of Arabia and invaded Palestine in dozens of raids and expeditions.

Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, was a successful military commander in addition to

being a religious leader. While Jesus said that His kingdom was not of this world and so His

servants did not fight, Muhammad had a kingdom of this world and his servants fought. In

Rahman’s perspective, Muhammad “hoped to unify the multiplicity of these religions into one

single community, under his teachings and on his terms.“5 It is no exaggeration to say that

warfare was one of the most important activities of the earliest Muslims. As Ruthven notes, “at

times he would be utterly ruthless, resorting to war, assassination and even massacre to achieve

this purpose (of promoting Islam).”6

Muslims from the Hijra to the modern day have followed the Prophet’s example.

When they face persecution or trials of whatever variety, they leave the area as Muhammad left

Mecca and went to Medina in the Hijra. There they gain strength, soon to return to fight their

enemies in jihad. The Hijra/Jihad cycle recurs throughout the history of Islam.7

Warfare in the Quran

The Quran, the holy book of Islam, supports warfare, but scholars differ markedly on

the circumstances under which war is allowed. Two famous passages in the Quran on this matter

read:

“Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress. Indeed. Allah does not like transgressors. And kill them wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they have expelled you, and fitnah is worse than killing. And do not fight them at al-Masjid al- Haram until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers. And if they cease, then indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful. Fight them until there is no [more] fitnah and [until] worship is [acknowledged to be] for Allah. But if they cease, then there is to be no aggression except against the oppressors.” (Quran 2:190-193)

5 Fazlur Rahman, Major Themes of the Qur’an, 2

nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 138.

6 Ruthven, Islam in the World , 40.

7 Ibid., 77.

6

“Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled (Quran 9:29).”

Unlike the New Testament, which actively discourages violence, this passage in the

Quran tells its adherents to fight those who fight them. It also tells Muslims to fight disbelievers

until they cease, that is, until they become believers (convert to Islam). Also supporting

defensive warfare, Quran 22:39 reads, “Permission [to fight] has been given to those who are

being fought, because they were wronged. And indeed, Allah is competent to give them victory.”

Another passage suggests a militant Islam. In it, Muslims are not only to defend

themselves but also are to dominate their enemy and disperse them.

“Indeed, the worst of living creatures in the sight of Allah are those who have

disbelieved, and they will not [ever] believe - The ones with whom you made a treaty but then they break their pledge every time, and they do not fear Allah. So if you, [O Muhammad], gain dominance over them in war, disperse by [means of] them those behind them that perhaps they will be reminded.” (Quran 8:55-57)

These texts clearly teach that violence, at least in certain circumstances, is necessary and even

laudable.

While these passages also seem to support forced conversion to Islam, other passages

seem to reject it.

“There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion. The right course

has become clear from the wrong. So whoever disbelieves in Taghut and believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy handhold with no break in it. And Allah is Hearing and Knowing.” Quran 2:256

“Say, "O disbelievers, I do not worship what you worship. Nor are you

worshippers of what I worship. Nor will I be a worshipper of what you worship. Nor will you be worshippers of what I worship. For you is your religion, and for me is my religion." Quran 190:1-6

Apologists for Islam cite these passages when arguing that Islam rejects forced conversion. Some

Muslims agree with them and live accordingly, and others do not. But even if they are right, as

long as political Islam seeks to rule, religious Islam by de facto coercion is never far behind.

Bernard Lewis, in The Middle East, gives one perspective on how Muslims handled

the issue of forced conversion in its history: “Tolerance must be extended to those who reach the

7

required minimum of belief – that is, those who profess what Islam recognizes as a revealed

religion with authentic scriptures.”8 However, Joseph S. Spoerl countered with many examples

of Muhammad and the early leaders of Islam forcing Jews, pagans, and others to convert to Islam

or perish.9 Muslim scholars who hold to the doctrine of abrogation argue that Sura 2 of the Quran

was revealed to Muhammad during his early days in Mecca when Islam was weak and

persecuted, while Sura 9 was revealed later when Muslims had grown strong in Medina. Since

later revelation supercedes earlier revelation, Sura 9, which is far more combative, abrogates

Sura 2.

Rahman writes that “the central aim of the Quran is to establish a viable social order

on earth that will be just and ethically based.10

In this spirit the political domain of Islam was

spread by the sword. In summary, the Quran does not condemn warfare per se, but encourages

the use of warfare when necessary to accomplish its societal goals.

Islam as a religion vs. the kingdom of Islam

The New Testament says nothing about governance, while the Quran contains quite a

bit about how the Muslim community should rule itself. The New Testament commands personal

purity and discusses the organization of the Christian Church. The Quran commands personal

purity and discusses the organization of the Muslim state. Jesus was never king over Jerusalem,

much less Rome, but Muhammad was certainly the ruler of Medina, Mecca, and most of Arabia

at the time of his death.

To understand Islam it is critical to understand this distinction between Christianity

and Islam. Christianity is a religion that does not specify any governmental style or context.

8 Bernard Lewis, The Middle East: 2000 Years of History from the Rise of Christianity to the Present Day

(London: Phoenix Giant, 1996), 230.

9 Joseph S. Spoerl “Islam and War: Tradition Versus Modernity,” Comparative Islamic Studies 4, no. 1-2

(2008): 191-95.

10

Ruthven, Islam in the World, 37.

8

Islam is a religion and a system of government. The Sharia, based on hadiths (episodes from the

life of Muhammad) lays out Islamic governance in detail. Since Israel assigned the scepter to

Judah (Gen. 49:10) and Moses assigned religious leadership to Levi (Numbers 3:38), the Hebrew

religion and its successors, Judaism and Christianity, have recognized a separation between

religious and secular power, between “church” and “state.” Samuel rejected King Saul for

assuming religious power (1 Sam. 13:7-14) and God struck King Uzziah with leprosy for doing

the same thing (1 Chron. 26:18-21). The Old Testament of the Bible contains religious as well as

civil rules, as does the Quran. The only New Testament admonition concerning civil government

is that believers should submit themselves to their earthly rulers (Rom. 13:1).

Muhammad was the political, military, and religious leader in his day, as were the

caliphs after him. The Leader of the Faithful in war was also expected to be the Leader of the

Faithful in worship. Malise Ruthven, in his widely acclaimed Islam in the World, makes the

same point in his discussion of the Hajj, stating “Since Islam made no distinction between

religious and political activity, the Hajj was inherently political, and those who had tried to make

it a purely spiritual occasion had deviated from the true path of the Prophet.”11

He further notes,

“If imitatio Christi meant renouncing worldly ambition and seeking salvation by deeds of private

virtue, imitatio Muhammadi meant sooner or later taking up arms against those forces which

seemed to threaten Islam from within or without.”12

Truly, “Islam is a total way of life that

makes no distinction between God and Caesar.”13

Warfare in the Sharia (Dar al Islam, Dar al Harb)

The Sharia, the sacred law of Islam, is derived from the Quran and from Hadiths,

episodes from the example of Muhammad. It covers many aspects of personal life, from adultery

11

Ruthven, Islam in the World, 9.

12

Ibid., 7.

13

Ibid., 355.

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to zakat (almsgiving), and also includes guidance for rulers as they lead Muslim nations. In al-

Misri’s Reliance of the Traveler, the caliph is commanded to raise armies, establish an

administration, protect the religion, lead Muslims in worship, and “undertake jihad against

enemies.”14

The Sharia divides the world into two spheres, the Dar al Islam (House of Islam), in

which an Islamic state rules over a mostly Islamic population, and the Dar al Harb (House of

War), which is characterized by three things:15

1. The security of Muslims no longer exists and security is now provided by non-Muslims. 2. Muslims of the country are unable to receive aid from other Muslims. 3. Sharia is not heeded.

Depending upon how one interprets these criteria, either every country that is not

specifically Muslim falls into the Dar al Harb, or very few (if any) countries in the world

comprise the Dar al Harb. A few pacifistic Muslims contend that most countries fall into a de

facto Dar al Sulh (House of Peace), in which they are not Muslim but are friendly towards

Muslims. In modern times, groups like al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al-Shabab, and ISIS have an

expansive view of Dar al Harb, while Western academic Muslims and journalist argue that

insofar as the concept still exists, the Dar al Harb is very small.

The historical context of the Dar al Harb is telling. The Hindu religion was never a

serious threat to Islam, and after the initial conquest, the Muslim rulers of India had little trouble

with their Hindu subjects. China never had a prolonged war with the Muslims either. Excepting

Christianity in Ethiopia, Sub-Saharan Africa had no world-wide religion to challenge the

supremacy of Islam. In Christian Europe however Islam had a real foe, and Muslims knew it.

Christianity rivaled Islam as an international faith, and the states of Europe, while losing ground

to Islam, retained the strength and the will to stand against it. Thus the historical target of Dar al

Harb was the West, and the people of Christ.

14

Ahmad ibn Luʼluʼ Ibn al-Naqib, Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law

ʻumdat Al-Salik, rev. ed., trans. Noah Ha Mim Keller (Beltsville, MD: Amana Publications, 1999), 647.

15

Ibid., 946-7.

10

The specific definitions of Dar al Harb and Dar al Islam are not as important as the

fact that Muslim sacred law divides the world into Muslims and everyone else. Other religions

distinguish between people spiritually, but Islam does it spiritually and politically. The Bible

differentiates between those who follow God and those who do not; the line between people is

based on their beliefs and motivates evangelism. Many of the most dedicated Christians became

monks. Muhammad said “there is no monasticism in Islam – the monasticism of my community

is the jihad (holy war).”16

Fault Lines and Military History in Islam in the Middle East

Fault Line 1 – Shia vs. Sunni

Muhammad died suddenly in AD 632 without a successor or plan of succession. In the

crisis, Muslims agreed that they needed to find a new leader, an Imam, to lead the faithful. Such

a man should have seniority and a good reputation. Many Muslims held that any man from

Muhammad’s tribe, the Quraysh, could be the Imam, while others believed that only a man from

the household of the Prophet was qualified.17

The former, the Sunni, believed that the

community had the authority to choose their Imam while the latter, the Shia, disagreed.

Ali, Muhammad's cousin and son in law, was the first young man to accept Islam.

After the assassination of Uthman, Ali reigned as Caliph (AD 656 to 661). Sunnis consider him

the fourth of the Rashidun (rightly guided Caliphs) and the Shias regard him as the first imam

(religious leader of Islam) after Muhammad. Shias consider Ali and his descendants to be the

only legitimate successors of the Prophet. This incident marks the fundamental split between

Sunni and Shia Islam.

16

Ruthven, Islam in the World, 153.

17

Majid Khadduri, The Islamic Conception of Justice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), 16-

17.

11

In the first Fitna (civil war), Muawiya (governor of Syria) rebelled against Ali's

caliphate. The Kharijites in Ali's army, members of which had assassinated the prior caliph

Uthman, turned on Ali. Though he defeated the Kharijites in battle, one of their number, Abd-al-

Rahman ibn Muljam, assassinated him in the Great Mosque of Kufa in AD 661.18

Husayn, the grandson of Ali and considered by Shia to be the second Imam, rebelled

against Muawiya's son Yazid. Husayn’s tiny force was overwhelmed and he was killed near

Karbala in 680.19

Shia and Sunni got along under the Umayyad Caliphate (AD 661-750) but tensions

rose under the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258). By 909 centrifugal forces had pulled parts of the

empire of Islam away from the Caliph in Baghdad. One group, the Fatimids of North Africa,

were descended from Fatimah the daughter of Muhammad. They followed of the Ismaili sect of

Shia Islam, which was founded in Syria by the eighth imam Abd Allah al-Akbar.

Friction between Shia and Sunni Muslims waxed and waned but generally grew over

the centuries. In the 11th

century Hasan-i Sabbah, a Shia leader was expelled from Fatimid Egypt

and traveled to Persia. Over time he attracted followers and in 1090 rebelled against the Seljuk

Turk rulers of the area. Shia from all over the Fertile Crescent flocked to Iran, and Sunni in Iran

fled west to more Sunni lands.

Today approximately 90 percent of the Muslim world is Sunni, predominately in

North Africa, Syria, Turkey, Arabia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. About 10

percent are Shia, with high percentages in Iraq and Iran.20

Often the bitterest of enemies, news

accounts are replete with Sunni vs. Shia violence, especially in unstable countries such as Iraq,

Syria, and recently Yemen.

18

Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 215.

19

Ibid., 216.

20

“Middle East: Iran,” CIA The World Factbook, April 21, 2015, accessed April 25, 2015,

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ir.html.

12

Fault Line 2 – Arab vs. Persian

After the death of Muhammad, Abu Bakr became caliph of the Muslim community

until his death on August 23, 634. The Muslims had consolidated their power on the Arabian

Peninsula, and were increasing their raids into the fertile Sassanid Persian and Byzantine Greek

lands to the north. In 633 the Arabs, able to attack at will at any point in Mesopotamia and then

withdraw into the safety of the desert, seized much of the area. Only later were they forced to

withdraw. In the fall of 636, under the third caliph Umar (634-644), Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas led a

large Arab army against the Persian capital at Ctesiphon on the Tigris River.

The Sassanids responded with a large but poorly trained and led force. The Arabs,

hearty warriors inspired by their new faith and with confidence in their ultimate victory, met

them at the Battle of Qadisiyya (November 16-19, 636). The Persians were crushed. The Muslim

Arab armies seized vast amounts of treasure, including wealth, weapons and slaves, and were

able to settle the eastern portion of the Fertile Crescent. Forced to withdraw to the Iranian

plateau, the Persians skirmished with the marauding Arabs until 641, when they were again

smashed by Arab arms at the Battle of Nahavand. In retaliation a Persian slave assassinated the

Caliph Umar in 644, but the Persian Empire was destroyed. However, the advanced civilization

of Persia provided the resources for the subsequent Muslim conquests. Early Islamic power was

based on the riches, population and skills of the Persians at least as much as on the Arabs

themselves.

Fault Line 3 – Muslim (Arab and Turk) vs. Greek

The most direct route from Mecca to the rest of the Middle East, and the one that

follows the caravan routes, is north through the Hejaz to Palestine. Muhammad led a raid into

Palestine shortly before his death and was planning to lead another, but Damascus did not fall to

Arab forces until 634. The Byzantines tried to strike back, sending an army to recover Syria, but

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this plan met with disaster at the Battle of Yarmuk (August 636). This was the first major battle

illustrating what would become known as the Arab way of war after the birth of Islam; high

morale, a sense of inevitable victory, lightning hit and run strikes against enemies from the

deserts followed by equally fast withdrawals, and brutality. After Yarmuk, Khalid’s army hunted

down and slaughtered refugees without mercy.21

Jealous of his skill and growing power, Caliph Umar dismissed General Khalid ibn

Walid in 638. At the same time a great famine and plague descended upon Arabia and many

died. The famine helped convince Umar to invade Egypt, the bread basket of the Eastern

Mediterranean (640). Weakened by chronic warfare between the Byzantine and Sassanid

Empires, and last changing hands in 629, Egypt was ready prey. After a series of sieges and

small battles, generally won by the Muslims, Alexandria surrendered when the leader, Cyrus of

Alexander, lost heart. Soon Arab and Berber armies had spread Islam’s political dominion across

the Maghreb and into Andalusia. With its fertile soil from the annual flooding of the Nile, Egypt

had been the bread basket of the Roman Empire.22

Because Egyptian grain had to be shipped to

Rome, it was also a source of skilled mariners needed for a Muslim navy. In conquering Egypt,

the Muslims gained expertise and resources needed to continue their expansion against the

Byzantines, and denied those same resources to their Greek foes.

Muslim armies attacked Constantinople in 654, 717, 1453, and many times in

between, each time except the last faltering against the famed Theodosian walls. For eight

hundred years Byzantine Christians fought for the survival of their empire and the Arab (later

Turkish) Muslims fought to conquer it. In the mid-7th

century, Arabs in Syria, Egypt and North

Africa developed naval power to challenge the Greeks in the Mediterranean and soon gained

naval dominance.23

Over the centuries Arab power against Byzantium was replaced by Turkish

21

John Haldon, The Byzantine Wars (Stroud, Gloucestershire.: The History Press, 2008), 63.

22

Tim Cornell and John Matthews, Atlas of the Roman World (New York: Checkmark Books, 1982), 164-

66.

23

Haldon, The Byzantine Wars, 66.

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power, but overall Eastern Roman Christendom grew steadily weaker and Islam grew steadily

stronger. After the defeat of Romanus IV at the Battle of Manzikert (August 25-26, 1071), the

ancient Byzantine Empire, bulwark of Christendom against Islam for four centuries, looked as

though it was about to fall.24

Despite the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Roman Churches in 1054,

the defeat at Manzikert played a vital role in prompting Pope Urban II to launch the Crusades

(1096). The success of the First Crusade took considerable pressure off of Constantinople and

allowed the Empire to recover somewhat, but the Latin sack of the city in 1204 weakened it. In

the middle of the 14th

century the Ottomans advanced across the Dardanelles Straits into Europe.

Despite the Western Christian armies attempting to relieve Constantinople at the Battles of

Nicopolis (1396) and Varna (1444), the Sultan Mehmed and his armies conquered the city (April

6 to May 29, 1453). Nicolo Barbaro, a Venetian surgeon living in Constantinople at the time it

fell, wrote:

“All through the day the Turks made a great slaughter of Christians through the city. The blood flowed in the city like rainwater in the gutters after a sudden storm, and the corpses of Turks and Christians were thrown into the Dardanelles, where they floated out to sea like melons on the canal.”

25

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the fall of Constantinople in the mind of

much of the Muslim world both at that time as well as today. From its inception the Dar al Islam

had two major enemies; the Persians, which were dispatched within 40 years, and the

Byzantines, which required 800. Both were now gone. Cretan historian George Trapezountios,

called to Mehmed’s court, told him “No one doubts that you are the Emperor of the Romans.

Whoever is legally master of the capital of the Empire is the Emperor, and Constantinople is the

capital of the Roman Empire.”26

The city was one of the greatest in Europe and considered by

24

Ibid., 177-81.

25

“The Siege of Constantinople (1453), according to Nicolo Barbaro,” accessed May 9, 2015,

http://militaryrevolution.s3.amazonaws.com/Primary%20sources/Barbaro.pdf.

26

Patrick Balfour Kinross, The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire (New York:

Morrow, 2002), 112.

15

some to be the de facto capital. Mehmed was the embodiment of Khan (Mongol ruler), Caesar

(Roman ruler), and Ghazi (Muslim warrior-king). He fulfilled a divinely appointed role of

bringing the just society, the Islamic one in their view, to all the world.

At the end of the 15th

century the Ottomans seemed poised to overrun the fractious

elements of Christendom in Europe, Arab traders from Yemen and Omen plied the lucrative

spice trade to the Maluku and other islands in the Far East, and most of the Indian subcontinent

was under Muslim control. Islam was moving into Central Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The

New World was not yet known to most people in the Old World, but the goal of Muslim global

political hegemony looked not only plausible but inevitable. Surely Allah was blessing the arms

of the Faithful to accomplish his will.

Marching south after Constantinople, the Ottomans conquered Athens in 1458 and the

rest of the non-mountainous areas of Greece by 1500. Cyprus fell in 1571, Crete in 1669, and

thus Greece was subject to the Muslim Ottomans until the Greek War of Independence (1821-

1832). Only in the mountainous areas did the Greeks retain their freedom. After independence

the Greeks and Turks clashed again in 1897, ending in a stalemate. The Greeks played a minor

role in World War I (1914-1918), but after the war they attacked Turkey to try to regain

Constantinople and the historical Greek cities around the Aegean. In the Greco-Turkish War

(1919-1922) the Greeks were soundly beaten. While the Allies who had defeated Turkey in

World War I did not allow Turkey to take any Greek territory, large numbers of Greeks were

deported from Anatolia and Western Turkey into Greece, an early “ethnic cleansing”.

Fault Line 4 – Muslim (Arab, Turk and Berber) vs. Latin (Western)

Spain

After the fall of Alexandria, Arab Muslim armies moved west to engage the Berber

tribes. After decades of war and trade many of the Berbers adopted Islam. After years of raiding

16

across the Straits of Gibraltar the Muslims of the Maghreb moved into Spain, defeating King

Roderic and his Visigoths in the Battle of Guadalete (711). All of Hispania except for a small

mountain territory in the north, kept free by the Spanish victory at Covadonga (718),27

fell under

the political power of Islam. Had the Franks led by Odo of Aquitane not crushed an Umayyad

Army at Toulouse (721) and those of Charles Martel not smashed another in the Battle of Tours

(732), France would have bowed its knee to the power of the Prophet.28

Unlike Persia, which forsook its native Zoroastrianism within a few generations of the

Arab conquest and embraced Islam, Spain never forgot its Christian heritage. The Spanish

Reconquista began with the Battle of Covadonga (718) and continued with smaller engagements

through the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212) in which Christians under Alfonso VIII of

Castille defeated Muslims of the Almohad Caliphate under Muhammad al-Nasir. With this

victory all of the Iberian Peninsula escaped Berber/Arab control except for the southern province

of Granada. Further skirmishes and battles slowly weakened the Moors and they were gradually

pushed back. The Reconquista ended with Fall of Granada in 1492.

For centuries Islam had advanced against what it saw as the armies of Christ. There

were temporary setbacks and minor defeats but beginning in the 7th

century the banners of Islam,

whether carried by Arabs, Persians, Turks, or someone else, advanced. The Reconquista was the

first time that Muslim arms were permanently rolled back, and a population which had known

Muslim rule definitively rejected it. According to the Islamic metanarrative, this was never

supposed to happen. Allah was supposed to ensure that His armies never (permanently) failed,

and people, once they had tasted the rule of the “Just Society” of Islam, were never supposed to

want to return.

The Muslim loss of Spain less than 40 years after the fall of Constantinople still

irritates some of “The Faithful”. Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri called on Muslims to

27

Michael Byfield et.al., The Christians: Their First Two Thousand Years, ed. Ted Byfield (Edmonton:

Christian History Projct, 2004), 5:247.

28

Byfield, The Christians: Their First Two Thousand Years, 248-49.

17

reconquer Al-Andaluse (Iberia).29

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi promised to conquer Spain

and even Rome.30

These leaders probably represent the views of tens of thousands of others, if

the number of people in ISIS is any indication.

The Crusades

Modern Westerners often use the Crusades as an example of early Western

imperialism or the Church sinking to its lowest depths. While these interpretations have an

element of truth, one can equally hold that the Crusaders were a long overdue counterattack

against Muslim aggression in the Holy Lands and Egypt.31

At Damascus and Yarmuk it was the

Muslim Arabs, not the Christian Byzantines, who were the aggressors. For several centuries

following it was the armies of the Prophet who attacked the “infidel” in Anatolia, Egypt, Spain,

India, and elsewhere; not the other way around.

With the Byzantines steadily weakening, Pope Urban II spoke at Clermont (1095)

calling for a Western army to go deliver the Holy Land from Muslim control and to help their

Eastern brethren. He mentioned the Muslims killing Christians, destroying the churches and

devastating the Empire.

Following this call the First Crusade was launched. Knights and footmen from France

and elsewhere in Western Europe marched overland through Anatolia and into Palestine,

conquering Antioch, Edessa and finally Jerusalem (1099). The fighting was terrible and the issue

29

Aaron Hanscom, “A Fatwa in Spain,” Assyrian International News Agency, September 1, 2006, accessed

April 25, 2015, http://www.aina.org/news/20060901125345.htm.

30

Jessica Elgot, “Isis Head Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi Warns 'we Will Conquer Rome',” Huffington Post UK,

February 7, 2014, accessed April 25, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/02/rome-conquer-

islam_n_5550646.html.

31

Rodney Stark, God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades, harpercollins pbk. ed. (New York, NY:

Harper One, 2009), 9.

18

often in doubt, and this reality contributed to a massacre once the Holy City finally fell. Frankish

chronicler Raymond D'Aguilers wrote of “piles of heads” and “blood up to the horses’ bridles.”32

Still, the massacre of Christians when Baibars and the Mamelukes retook Antioch in

1268 was at least as bad, if not worse.33

There is no doubt that accounts of Muslim and Christian atrocities reflect the truth and

yet must be taken with a grain of salt. Chroniclers are notorious for their hyperbole. Raymond

D'Aguilers may have tailored his account to fit with the prophecy in Revelation 14:20, which

predicts that in the judgment, an angel of God will strike men down and the blood will be to the

horses’ bridles. He probably saw the Crusader army as God’s avenging angel.

The Second Crusade (1147) failed to conquer Damascus. Saladin decimated the

Crusader army at the Battle of Hattin (1187) and took Jerusalem but was unable to conquer the

rest of Palestine. The Third and subsequent Crusades to reconquer the Holy City failed. With the

fall of Acre in 1291, the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem ceased to exist. Crusaders invaded Egypt

in the 5th crusade (1218-1221) and 7th crusade (1249-1250) but were beaten by their Fatimid

foes.

If the military purpose of the Crusades was to conquer and hold the Holy Land in

perpetuity against the Muslim enemies, they were a failure. Many crusaders behaved abominably

in their wanton killing of Jews and Muslims, even non-combatants. The fact that Muslims did the

same or worse at Antioch and in many other places is no excuse. The crusades certainly are a

modern public relations disaster. In 1999 many Protestants had a “reconciliation walk” from

Germany to Palestine, apologizing on the 900th

anniversary of the conquest of Jerusalem in the

32

Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, s.v. “Crusades,” accessed May 9, 2015,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades#CITEREFSinclair1995.

33

Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, s.v. “Siege of Antioch (1268),” accessed May 9, 2015,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Antioch_%281268%29#cite_note-3.

19

First Crusade.34

The crusades also contributed mightily to the birth of the Renaissance. Science

and philosophy from east and west mixed in ways hitherto unknown, and trade grew.

Muslims have used the crusades as a cause célèbre and even a casus belli. As the

power of Islamic states waned in the 18th

century, and as European nations began to acquire

colonies and ultimately worldwide hegemony, Muslims began to see the Crusades as the first

example of European Imperialism. When such imperialism was discredited after two world wars,

the crusades faced increasing censure. In reality the crusades came at a time when Muslim Turks

were destroying most Westerners who resisted them. To condemn Europe for the crusades is like

condemning the French for their counterattack against Germany at the Marne in World War I.

To see the crusades as imperialistic is historical anachronism in the extreme; if anyone was

imperialistic in the 11th

century it was the Muslim empires, not the Christian ones. Nonetheless

the theme of “Crusaders as Imperialists” suits political purposes from Marrakesh to Jakarta and

from New York to San Francisco, so people use it.

War in the Balkans

Immediately before the collapse of Byzantium, Western nations tried to help their

Eastern co-religionists. In the Battle of Kosovo (1389), a Serbian army under Prince Lazar was

devastated by a larger Ottoman force. At the Battle of Nicopolis (1396), an army of Franks,

Wallachians and Hungarians, after initial success, was inundated and destroyed by another

Turkish army. A turning point in this battle occurred when Serbian horsemen under Stephen

Lazarevich, a vassal to the Sultan, attacked the Western Christian forces.35

The Battle of Varna

was the last significant attempt to relieve Byzantium. An army from Poland, Hungary, Bohemia,

Lithuania, Wallachia, Moldava, and the Papal States, joined by Bulgarian rebels and Teutonic

34

Stark, God's Battalions, 5. 35

Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, trade ed. (New York: Knopf,

1978), 560.

20

knights, moved against a larger Ottoman army near a small town of Varna on the Bulgarian

coast. After King Władysław III of Poland was killed, the allied force wilted and the battle was

lost.36

The Hungarians and Wallachians tried one more time at the Second Battle of Kosovo

(1448) but could not prevail against the much larger Ottoman force. Five years later,

Constantinople fell.

With their rear secured the Ottomans were able to range deeper into the Balkans than

ever before. Hungarians under John Hunyadi beat back the Turks in the siege of Belgrade

(1456), but losses were heavy and Hunyadi died of plague three weeks later. Sultan Mehmed II

turned his attention to conquering farther east in Moldavia and the Crimea. Mehmed’s son,

Suleiman the Lawgiver finally conquered Belgrade (1521) and then routed a smaller Hungarian

army in the Battle of Mohacs (1526). Suleiman besieged but failed to conquer Vienna (1529). He

maneuvered to supremacy of the Balkans by the end of his life (1566) but never took the

Austrian capital.

Time, however, was against the Turks. Their success against the Theodosian walls of

Constantinople was helped by the heavy siege guns built and deployed for them by a Hungarian

engineer named Orban. Advanced Venetian warships called galleases proved decisive against

Ottoman galleys in the Battle of Lepanto (1571). Western technological supremacy in

gunpowder weapons, naval technology, tactics, and other areas grew and made itself felt on the

battlefield. Despite the catastrophe of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), which decimated

central Europe, the Ottomans were still not able to conquer Vienna (1683), and so they began

their long retreat. A series of wars between Russia and Turkey in the 18th

century resulted in

nearly continuous losses for the Ottomans. In the 19th

century, Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, and

most of the Balkans wrested independence from their Turkish overlords.37

36

Kinross, The Ottoman Centuries, 91.

37

Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 228.

21

Other Struggles

Muslims fought others in the early years and were generally successful. Islamic forces

conquered Sardinia (810), Crete (826), and Sicily (827-878). The Normans finally reconquered

these areas in the 11th

century.38

Abbasid forces defeated a Chinese army at the Battle of Talas

(751), securing control of Central Asia. Arabs invaded Sindh (modern Pakistan) in 712, lost to a

Hindu alliance at the Battle of Rajastan (738), but then conquered most of India in the 11th

to 13th

centuries. Under the Mughal Empire (1526-1857), all India except for the southern tip and Sri

Lanka came under Islamic rule. Within 900 years of the Prophet, men who considered

themselves warriors of Islam ruled much of the known world and seemed poised to conquer the

rest.

Muslims against the West in the Modern Era

By 1789, the Ottoman threat to Europe had receded and France, though historically

allied with the Turks against the now defunct Holy Roman Empire, was more concerned with

foiling English ambitions than with anything one of the once-great Muslim civilizations might

do. After rising to power in the chaos of the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded

Egypt, then held by the Mamelukes under Ottoman suzerainty. He intended to conquer Egypt,

thereby threatening British trade from India through Egypt into the Mediterranean and through

Gibraltar to England. Eventually the ambitious Frenchman wanted to dig a “Suez Canal” from

the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.

Napoleon landed at the Nile Delta on July 2, 1798, and crushed the Mameluke armies

in the Battle of Shubrakhit on July 13. He did so again at the Battle of the Pyramids on 21 July.

Thus the French did in three weeks what the Crusaders had failed to do in 35 years. Napoleon

followed with a successful invasion of Palestine, a failed siege at Acre, a crushing victory over

38

Ted Byfield, ed., The Christians: Their First Two Thousand Years, vol. 6, The Quest for the City: A.D.

740 to 1100: Pursuing the Next World, They Founded this One (Edmonton: Christian History Project, 2004), 225-

45.

22

the Ottomans at Mt Tabor on April 16, 1799, and another rout of the Turks at Aboukir on July

25, 1799. The only serious resistance Napoleon faced was the British fleet under Admiral

Nelson, who destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile on Aug 1-3, 1798. When

Napoleon left to return to France, his successor General Kleber led his army to defeat the

Ottomans yet again.

Mameluke power was not entirely broken but the followers of Muhammad, once

enjoying victory after victory against the “infidels”, were reduced to hoping that a stronger

Western nation would come to their rescue. This finally happened when a British army moved

into Egypt and defeated the French at the Second battle of Aboukir March 8 1801. It was a

terrible shock to the once proud Muslims.39

The priority for Muslim nations became the

modernization of their armies. Only then would they make administrative changes.

Unfortunately these changes required whole societies to be like the West, something that many

Muslim nations could not do.40

World War I

In 1914 the Ottoman Empire stretched from the Balkans through Anatolia and into

Palestine. Stiffened by German advisors, arms, and training, their forces defeated the British and

French invasion at Gallipoli in April 1915. After initial defeats in Mesopotamia, the Sublime

Porte also surrounded and captured a large, overextended and undersupplied British task force at

Al Kut in 1916. Nonetheless as German help dwindled the Ottomans failed, losing Jerusalem,

Palestine and Syria to Sir Edmund Allenby in 1917.41

By the armistice of 1918, Turkey was a

shadow of the nation that terrorized Europe four centuries before. Mustafa Kemal, better known

as Ataturk (father of the Turks) dissolved the Caliphate entirely in 1924.

39

Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 216.

40

Ibid., 228-31.

41

Kinross, The Ottoman Centuries, 608.

23

The major colonial powers in Europe drew boundaries to differentiate which colonial

power owned what area and which local ruler was responsible to keep peace and prosperity in

that area. After World War 1, the French and British divided the western Fertile Crescent, which

Britain had conquered from the Ottomans, into Syria-Lebanon, a French protectorate, and

Palestine, a British one. The French then subdivided their lands into a majority Muslim area,

Syria, and a majority Christian area, Lebanon, in the hopes that the Lebanese Christians would

support France and keep their key coastal terrain in French influence. Literally, Europeans froze

boundaries and froze dynasties.42

World War 2

After their defeat in World War I, Turkey remained neutral. The government of Iran

under Reza Shah was sympathetic to the Axis so the British invaded the south and the Soviets

invaded the north, driving out the Pahlavi dynasty. The entire campaign took less than one month

and highlighted the Persian weakness against Western might. British, French, Americans,

Germans and Italians fought in North Africa but helped both sides. Eventually Free French and

British forces, many from North Africa, fought against Germany in Italy. Arabs and Jews

skirmished in Palestine to shape the postwar status of Palestine. In the Pacific, Indonesia (the

Dutch East Indies) and Malaysia were conquered by the Japanese. India was a colony of the

British Empire and Indian Muslims aided the fight against Tojo’s forces.

The biggest change, though, is that the West rejected its own past after the World

Wars. Because the West rejected its own legacy from the 19th century (Christianity, Commerce

and Colonialism), its time of greatest dominance over the earth, many people in the rest of the

world have rejected the West.43

42

Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 227.

43

Ibid., 165.

24

Fault Line 5 – Muslim vs. Jews

Early conflicts

Though Muhammad considered Jews “people of the book”, the Jewish tribes at

Medina, the Banu-al-Nadir and Banu Qurayza, were among the first eliminated by Muslims.44

Relations between Islam and the Jews were tense in Medina, and in 625 Muhammad attacked the

Banu-al-Nadir, who had allegedly challenged him. The Jews promptly surrendered, received safe

passage from the Muslims, and fled.

The Banu Qurayza were not so lucky. In a last ditch effort to destroy Muhammad, the

Quyrash of Mecca asked the Jews to join them in an attack on Medina. The Qurayza did not join,

but when the Meccan attack failed, Muhammad turned on the Banu Qurayza. After nearly one

month of resistance they offered to surrender. The Muslims killed every man and divided the

spoils, including the weapons, treasure and women. Muhammad took one woman, Reihana, for

his own.45

Jews and other non-Muslims were considered dhimmi in Muslim lands. In many cases

they were treated well and some of the most famous Muslims were of Jewish origin. In other

cases, such as under the Muslim Almohad dynasty in 12th

century Spain, they were persecuted.

The founding of the State of Israel was a watershed in Muslim-Jewish relations. Just

as European crusaders had taken Palestine and set up a Kingdom of Jerusalem, so European

powers supporting mostly European (Ashkenazi) Jews had taken Palestine (from the Ottomans in

World War I) and set up a nation of Jews. The United Nations had voted on November 29, 1947

to set up a Jewish state in Palestine. On November 30th “the Supreme Muslim Council

pronounced a three day general strike.46

They attacked the Jews with snipers, bombs, and attacks

44

Byfield, ed., The Christians: Their First Two Thousand Years, vol. 5, 78-79.

45

Byfield, ed., The Christians: Their First Two Thousand Years, vol. 5, 81.

46

Mordechay Naor, Ha'haganah (Israel: Ministry of Defence Pub. House, 1985), 186.

25

at the frontier and on trade routes. On May 14-15, 1948, the combined armies of Egypt, Syria,

Lebanon and Jordan attacked Israeli settlements and forces in Palestine.47

Arabs and Israelis have fought several wars and even more skirmishes since then.

Israel joined Britain and France against Egypt in 1956, attacked preemptively and routed the

armies of Syria and Egypt in 1967, and fought a hard battle against Syria and Egypt in 1973.

Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 and 2006, and Palestinians have had major uprisings (Intifada)

from 1987 to 1993 and 2000 to 2005.

The Relationship between Islamic countries in the Middle East and the Christian

countries in Europe during the Occidental “Transmutation”

From the beginning of Islam, the new faith advanced against its enemies. The

sixteenth century was the high water mark of Islamic conquests; by 1529 armies and navies

claiming the name of Allah stretched from Vienna to Bengal. Accustomed to almost 1,000 years

of advance, temporary reverses in the Crusades notwithstanding, many Muslims believed in the

“natural superiority of Islam and the Islamicate culture which would make them prevail over all

infidels sooner or later.”48

Leaman discusses the Muslim reaction to the imperial superiority of

Christian Europe when he writes “what made this fact even harder for Muslims to bear were two

widely accepted facts: in the past, the Islamic world had been superior in a wide range of

material and intellectual ways to Europe, and also that Islam is the true religion.49

In modern

times, the popular Islamic teacher Sayyid Abu l’Ala Maududi said as much when he wrote

“…for the entire human race, there is only one way of life which is right in the eyes of God and

that is al-Islam.”50

47

Ibid., 196-97.

48

Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 178.

49

Oliver Leaman, Islamic Philosophy: an Introduction, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2009), 195.

50

Ruthven, Islam in the World, 328.

26

However, this was not to be. Seminal events such as the Protestant reformation and the

settlement of the New World in the 16th

and 17th

centuries changed the balance of power

decisively in favor of the Occidental, “Christian” nations. As naval technology improved, trade

between Europe and the Far East began to bypass the overland routes through the Muslim

Middle East in favor of cheaper and safer oceangoing routes in the Indian Ocean. Due to blue

water trade, the most pivotal Muslim areas were becoming a backwater.51

Explorers like Vasco

de Gama, Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, and Francis Drake, were discovering new

lands. The money supply was also a problem. Silver from the Spanish New World flooded the

European markets, driving down the value of the specie, inflating prices and seriously harming

the Ottoman economy.52

Musketeers with bayonets in volley formation, advanced cavalry, and

field cannon overwhelmed traditional armies, Muslim and otherwise.

Since trade was increasingly seaborne, port cities rather than caravan cities grew.

European powers privileged certain population groups in trade, typically the Christians.53

As the

Christian West grew stronger, Christians in Muslim lands began to associate and trade more with

them than they did with their Muslim neighbors. Thus strength of the dhimmis in Muslim lands

grew and that of the Muslim rulers and populace waned.54

With the ascent of the West, Islamic

nations no longer shared an Islamic society but only an Islamic heritage.55

By the late 18th

and early 19th

centuries, Western hegemony was not founded only on

military strength, but also on economic strength56

and cultural strength.57

With the beginning of

51

Hodgson, The Venture of Islam,152.

52

Ibid., 130.

53

Ibid., 142.

54

Ibid., 126, 145.

55

Ibid., 167.

56

Ibid., 150.

57

Ibid., 151.

27

the Industrial Revolution, economics itself changed. The agrarian pattern of wealth being based

on land ownership and productivity disappeared. The land was able to provide enough food for

the populace, but industry, the production and trade of goods and services, became a greater

source of national wealth. In colonial economics, raw materials were shipped from colonies and

dependent nations to ruling nations. Then finished goods were produced in the ruling nations and

sold back to the colonies at a premium.58

To ensure free traffic of European trade, the powerful Western nations used their law,

European law, to govern affairs between countries, disregarding the de facto habits of

international conduct that the Muslim states had used between themselves for centuries.59

Property rights were paramount, but the Western countries went farther, insisting on identical

legal standing for every member of society,60

as well as public secular universities, or missionary

schools.61

Thus social construct of the dhimmi, a more heavily taxed and essentially second class

citizen under Muslim rule, was forbidden. With that formal status gone and with the Christians

and Jews in Muslim held lands gaining money and influence from their Western connections,

much of the social compact present in Islamic lands for centuries was turned upside down.

Finally, European nationals in Muslim lands came under the jurisdiction of European consuls,

not local courts.62

Thus Muslim rulers could not even try Europeans who were accused of crimes

in their countries.

Theories abound regarding why the modern “transmutation”, to use Hodgson’s phrase,

occurred in Christian Europe rather than in the Muslim world. More theories exist about the

reasons why the nations using the Sharia (Islamic Law) remain weak geopolitically today.

58

Ibid., 208.

59

Ibid., 224.

60

Ibid., 231.

61

Ibid., 232.

62

Ibid., 225.

28

Ruthven argues that the Sharia was an excellent guide to governance in the premodern world,

and that its very excellence has made it hard to move away from the Sharia in the modern world.

A literalistic interpretation of many areas in the Quran produces a gap between scientific and

religious truth, one which can only be bridged by denying the truth of science or religion.

Further the prohibition of bida (innovation) in the Sharia may have dampened enthusiasm for

innovation in other areas of life.

The Bedouin Weltanschauung

I have traveled extensively in the Middle East and North Africa, from Marakkesh to

Antalya and from Cairo to Baghdad, with my longest sojourn being with the Task Force First

Armored Division in 2003-2004 as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. From the Bosnian wars in

the early 90s to the conflict in Afghanistan and as illustrated in the opening story, events that

happened centuries ago have substantial currency in the minds of people today. My fellow

soldiers often struggle to understand why. One contributing factor is the Bedouin roots of Islam,

in which the concept of manliness includes “bravery in battle, patience in misfortune, persistence

in revenge, protection of the weak and defiance of the strong.63

”

How do these fault lines affect current politics in the Middle East, as well as

world efforts to stabilize the region?

Islam is not unique among religions in having fault lines within itself and between it

and other faiths. Christianity has fault lines in the Catholic-Protestant-Orthodox split that could

be considered analogous to the Sunni-Shia split. At times in the past, this fault line has erupted

into wars as bloody as what we see in Islam today. Hinduism, Buddhism and other faiths have

similar fault lines within and between them.

63

Ruthven, Islam in the World, 29.

29

What is unique about Islam is its inherent religio-political nature. This nature is a

primary reason that such bloodshed continues in Islam today. Religious violence occurs in

Christianity when believers forget the nature of Christ and the teachings of the New Testament

and strive for Christendom, an earthly kingdom of Christ. This was the case from Constantine to

the early reformers and was epitomized by the Holy Roman Empire. Support for the idea of

Christendom abated after the Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War (1618-1648).

From that time conflicts in the West were notable for their secular, not their religious, nature.

Such is not the case with Islam. While most Muslims are peaceful citizens of whatever

nation they inhabit, Muslims, more than members of other faiths, grab headlines for religious

violence. Catholics and Protestants no longer butcher each other, at least not on a wide scale, but

Sunni and Shia do. The news does not bring tales of Buddhist suicide bombers, but it does of

Wahabbi ones. India recognizes the existence of Pakistan, but Iran refuses to recognize the

existence of Israel. In Clash of Civilizations, Harvard Professor Samuel P. Huntington said

“Islam’s borders are bloody, and so are its innards.”64

Wars today, like wars of yesterday, are caused by a complicated mix of politics,

money, ideology, and power. These factors themselves are rooted in both human weaknesses

such as ambition, greed, fear, anger, and human strengths such as courage, loyalty, honor, and

industry. It is, and always has been, impossible to find a single cause for any conflict.

Islam was not the single cause of prior strife, nor is it the single cause of current strife.

However, it is an important factor. To say, as some Western apologists for Islam do, that Islam

had no impact on these wars is disingenuous. Strongly held belief systems such as religion

invariably affect the thoughts, words and actions their adherents. To say that Islam did not affect

the Arab, Persian and Turkish conquests is like saying that Christianity did not affect the Thirty

Years War. As noted above, however, the Quran, the Shariah, and the actions of the Prophet,

and the early caliphs are far more violent than the New Testament, the actions of Jesus and the

64

Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon

& Schuster, 2011), 258.

30

early Christians. Therefore, Islam has a bigger role in the violent acts of its followers than

Christianity does.

How the fault lines affect Demographics and Economics

We have seen that in the past 500 years the Muslim world has gone from a position of

dominance to a position of dependence compared to the Western World. In the past 100 years,

they have also come into a position of dependence compared to the developed economies of

Japan, China, the “Little Tigers” of Asia (Singapore, Taiwan, Korea) and other places as well.

Not only with regard to the West but increasingly with regard to the East as well, the Muslim

world is falling behind.

Muslims try to catch up in three primary ways. The first approach, that of Ataturk, is

political secularization. These “modernists” jettisoned the Sharia and adopted Western models of

education, commerce, and governance. The second approach, that of the ISIS leader Al-

Baghdadi, is political traditionalism. These Islamists believe that only by returning to the tenets

of Islam can they be successful. The Muslim world has fallen behind, in their view, not because

Islam is deficient but because Muslims forsook the real Islam. The third approach is a

combination of the two.

Both the Quran and the Sharia value the family, and fertility is important in Islamic

culture. Modernists emphasize Western concerns about population and pollution, but Islamists

emphasize fertility as a source of national power. More children mean more soldiers, more

workers, and more families to produce still more children. Because war has been important in the

history of Islam and because these fault lines continue to color the relations within and between

Middle Eastern countries today, these nations need a steady stream of soldiers. A consideration

of defense spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) illustrates this point.

31

Muslim majority states comprise six of the top ten nations spending the highest percentage of

their GDP on military expenditures, and ten of the top fifteen.65

Discounting Syria, which is losing people to death and emigration, Iran has the lowest

population growth rate in the Middle East. Fearing declining marriage rates and birth rates, Iran

has started a dating website to bring men and women together. One senior ayatollah warned

government workers that those not married could lose their jobs.66

More children also mean more political power in democratic states. Palestinian Arabs,

for example, have a lot of children. This high birth rate will shift the power dynamic between

Jews and Palestinians in the West Bank. It will also affect internal politics in Israel itself. Simply

stated, Israel is intended to be a democratic homeland in Palestine for the Jewish people. If the

nation of Israel includes the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the large and growing number of Arabs

will likely become the majority, and Israel will not be controlled by the Jews. If the then-

minority Jews retain control over the then-majority Muslims, Israel will not be democratic.

Assuming demography stays the same, only by having two functional states in Palestine, one

Jewish and one Palestinian, will Israel remain a democratic Jewish nation.67

I do not suggest that there is a vast conspiracy in the Muslim world forcing women to

have plenty of children. Rather the cultural norms upheld in the Quran, Sharia, and Islamic

tradition promote large families, and the political nature of Islam causes leaders to seek political

power. This confluence in Islamic societies often results in high fertility rates. As a result, the

Muslim world in the 21st century looks very different from the rest of the world. Of the 15

65

“Country Comparison: Military Expenditures,” CIA World Factbook, accessed May 9, 2015,

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2034rank.html#us.

66

The Economist, Marriage in Iran, February 7th, 2015, 47.

67

Dan Perry, “Israeli-Arab Demographic Balance Takes Center Stage as Kerry Pushes Partition Deal,” Fox

News, February 18, 2014, accessed May 9, 2015, http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/02/18/israeli-arab-

demographic-balance-takes-center-stage-as-kerry-pushes-partition/.

32

countries with the highest population growth rate in the world, eight of them (Lebanon, Jordan,

Qatar, Libya, Burkina Faso, Mali, Gaza Strip, and Western Sahara) are majority Muslim.68

Another strategy of Middle Eastern nations for catching up to the West and the rest of

the world is to build strong economies. Practically, this has required that they leverage one of

their most valuable assets; oil. It has not been easy. Of the top 50 countries economically in the

world, measured by per capita gross domestic product (GDP), only seven (Qatar, Brunei,

Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Oman) are majority Muslim.69

In four

of these countries (Qatar, Brunei, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia), oil and gas account for over 90% of

exports, and in two (Bahrain and Oman) oil and gas comprise over 70% of exports. Since much

of the wealth of these nations is export-based and founded on a single sector, these countries are

more vulnerable to economic disruption than countries with diversified income sources.

Knowing this, many Middle Eastern countries have tried to diversify their economies. Only the

United Arab Emirates has really succeeded.70

High birth rates and struggling economies result in high unemployment rates. As a

result, nations in which the majority of the population follows Islam also tend to have high

unemployment rates. Of the 20 nations with the highest unemployment rates in the world, ten

(Burkina Faso, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Djibouti, Turkmenistan, Senegal, Gaza Strip,

Afghanistan, Syria, Mauritania, and Kosovo) are Islamic.71

This creates more problems as high

employment contributes to societal violence. Education in science and technology is also an

68

“Country Comparison: Population Grown Rate,” CIA The World Factbook, accessed April 25, 2015,

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2002rank.html#eg.

69

“Country Comparison, GDP – Per Capita (PPP),” CIA The World Factbook, accessed April 25, 2015,

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html#eg.

70

“Middle East: United Arab Emirates,” CIA The World Factbook, accessed May 9, 2015,

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ae.html.

71

“Country Comparison: Unemployment Rate,” CIA The World Factbook, accessed April 25, 2015,

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2129rank.html#ba.

33

issue, as Ruthven writes, of all the countries in the world, “science is weakest in the lands of

Islam.”72

How the Muslim-Jewish Fault Line affects the Middle East today

The fault line of Muslim against Jew is foremost in the minds of many Muslims in the

Middle East. They utterly reject the presence of a non-Muslim state in lands they consider their

own. A holy site in Islam, the al-Aqsa Mosque, is in Jerusalem under Israeli control. Over four

and a half million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, the vast majority of whom

are Muslim.73

Many of the Faithful wish to reconquer the Holy Land for Islam. The Hamas

Covenant, written in 1988, is the founding document for the group Hamas, a key member of the

coalition government of the Gaza Strip. It denies Israel’s right to exist as a nation, disparages

peaceful resolution of differences, and proclaims the duty of every Muslim to fight to liberate

“every inch of Palestine.74

Israel cannot destroy itself, and many influential Muslims refuse to

relent, so this part of the conflict is intractable.

A related problem is the plight of Palestinian Christians. Caught between Palestinian

Muslims and Israeli Jews, the estimated 60,000 Christians of Palestine are targeted by both sides.

Their numbers are dwindling. In 1948 Jerusalem was 20 percent Christian, 40 percent Muslim

and 40 percent Jewish. Now it is less than 2 percent Christian.75

The concrete barrier that Israel

has been building in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has helped protect the nation from

72

Ruthven, Islam in the World, 388.

73

“Middle East: West Bank,” CIA The World Factbook, accessed May 9, 2015,

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/we.html.

74

Hamas Covenant 1988, The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, in the Yale

Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library, accessed April 22, 2015,

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp.

75

David Austin, “The State of Affairs: Conflict in the Holy Land,” Cultural Encounters 7, no. 1 (2011): 24.

34

terrorist attacks but has caused real suffering among Palestinians. This provides another casus

belli for many Muslims.

The ebb and flow of war over the ages has made the problem what it is. Had the Jews

not rebelled against Rome in AD 66 and 135, they may still have had a nation when Islam

approached. Had Muhammad stayed in Arabia or been defeated by the Byzantines the region

would have remained Christian. Had the Crusaders held Palestine the Muslim and Arab

population may have dwindled. Had Turkey not joined the First World War, Britain would not

have taken the land and would not have been able to give it to Israel. Had the Holocaust not

occurred, worldwide sympathy for Zionism might not have developed to the point where the

United Nations voted for a Jewish state. Had Egypt, Syria, and Jordan not been so militarily and

economically weak, they might have been able to crush the nascent Israeli nation.

How the Muslim-Western Fault Line Affects the Middle East today

The fault between Islam and the West remains large. In December of 2010, Mohamed

Bouazizi of Tunisia immolated himself after being humilitated by his authoritarian government.76

The subsequent pro-democracy riots toppled their president of 23 years, Zine El Abidine Ben

Ali. By the end of February 2012, pro-democracy uprisings had forced rulers in Egypt, Libya,

and Yemen from power. Major political opposition forced reform in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan,

Kuwait, Morocco and Sudan. In Syria, insurgents hoping to topple President Bashar al-Assad

began a civil war. A fundamental question is what Syria should look like; a modern secular

nation that has Islam as its main religion, or an Islamic state which adopts little or no Western

institutions and thought. Thus Syria is asking itself the same question that the rest of the Muslim

world is asking. Syrian president Bashar al Assad is a secularist but he faces strong Islamist

forces.

76

Rania Abouzeid, “Bouazizi: The Man Who Set Himself and Tunisia On Fire,” Time, Friday, Jan. 21, 2011,

accessed May 9, 2015, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2044723,00.html.

35

In the spring of 2015, Bashar al Assad still held power in Syria, though over 300,000

people had died.77

The Arab Spring seems to have succeeded in Tunisia, which now has a

democratic government, but it failed everywhere else. Libya has its own civil war, pitting

Islamists who want to restore a 7th

century state against modernists who wish to keep Islam as a

religion but jettison much of its political structure.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) straddles both nations. In the conflict

between revivalist (traditionalists) and modernist Muslims, ISIS stands firmly on the revivalist

side. Primarily Sunni, and allied with some of the tribes who previously supported Saddam

Hussein, they have conquered territory in both Syria and Iraq, including the large Iraqi city of

Mosul, and have proclaimed a caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Per an undisclosed source from the

US Department of Defense, roughly 5,000 foreigners from Western nations are fighting for ISIS;

including 1,000 from France, 500 from Britain and 200 from the US. ISIS runs a nation, provides

social services, and follows its interpretation of the Sharia.78

ISIS has perpetrated terrible

atrocities against people in the territories it has captured. In consequence, the US and other

Western powers have been sending air strikes against ISIS (Operation Inherent Resolve) while

the Iranian-backed Iraqi Army and Lebanese Shia group Hizbollah attacks on the ground. Other

groups line up on both sides. There is an anti-ISIS Sunni coalition including the Kurdish

peshmerga and the Afghani Taliban (under Mullah Omar), and a pro-ISIS coalition led by the

Pakistani Taliban.

Libya is an important case. Two Libyan governments exist; one comprised of Islamists

in Tripoli (formerly the Libyan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood) and the other comprised of

modernists in Tobruk (led by General Khalifa Haftar and recognized by Egypt).79

A third Libyan

77

Ben Brumfield, “Empty Out Boston; Starve Moscow, and You May Understand Some of Syria's Hell,”

CNN, April 17, 2015, accessed April 22, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/17/middleeast/syria-civil-war-by-the-

numbers/index.html.

78

Graeme Wood, “What Isis Really Wants,” The Atlantic, March 2015, 1, accessed April 26, 2015,

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/.

79

The Economist, The Spread of Islamic State:Libya’s new agony, February 21st 2015, 44-45.

36

group, which is fundamentalist Muslim, has allied with ISIS, even though ISIS is hundreds of

miles away. This third group kidnapped and ISIS later killed 21 Coptic Christians from Egypt

who were traveling near Sirte.80

Now these militant Muslim groups are threatening terrorist attacks on Italy and the

other southern European lands held by Muslim armies for so many centuries. Less violent but

threatening nonetheless for many Italians, Muslim migrants from North Africa are sailing to Italy

in hopes of staying in Europe.81

The situation in the Middle East is yet more complicated. Thousands of terrorists in

militant groups such as Al Shabbab (Somalia), Boko Haram (Nigeria, ISIS affiliate), Al Queda,

Ansar al Islam (Kurdistan), and Ansar Bait al-Maqdis (Salafist Islamists in Sinai), attack

Christians, other Westerners, and even other Muslims in routine violence. Muslims from Bosnia,

Albania and other areas conquered by the Ottomans in the 14th and 15th centuries are going to

the Middle East as mercenaries and volunteers.82

Meanwhile in Egypt, after the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood won the popular election

in Egypt in 2011, the Saudis, concerned that such Islamism would threaten them, agitated against

the new President, Mohamed Morsi. Eventually they supported the military coup that overthrew

him in 2013, installing General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as President. Thus the Saudi regime tries to

balance Islamism and secularism to maintain power.83

How the Sunni-Shia Fault Line affects the Middle East today

ISIS is not only about the Islam-West fault line; it is also a conflict between Sunni and

Shia. President Bashar al Assad of Syria is an Alawite Shia and Iraq is majority Shia. Since the

80

Jared Malsin, “Beheading of Coptic Christians in Libya Shows Isis Branching Out,” Time, Feb. 15, 2015,

1, accessed May 9, 2015, http://time.com/3710610/libya-coptic-christians-isis-egypt/.

81

The Economist, Migrants in the Mediterranean, the numbers nightmare, April 18th 2015, 46.

82

The Economist, Fight the Good Fight, April 18th 2015, 47.

83

The Economist, Hoping for a Reprieve, April 18th 2015, 43.

37

fall of the Sunni Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraqi Shia have been fighting Iraqi

Sunnis, both in the coalition government installed by the United States and on the field of battle.

ISIS is predominately Sunni and provides a force to recover Sunni power.

The Sunni vs. Shia fault line and Islam vs. the West fault line are predominant in the

eastern Fertile Crescent. The Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (2006-2014) was accused of

favoring the Shia in all areas of government and this was one reason for ISIS’ northern offensive

in June of 2014.84

Shortly thereafter, the United States encouraged al-Maliki to resign, which he

did in August 2014.85

Since Iran and Iraq are both predominately Shia, the fault line of Arab against Persian

was a primary factor behind the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War.86

Leaman labels the Persians as the

traditional enemy of the Arabs.87

During my 13 months in Iraq US forces would frequently stage

at the large monument of crossed swords in downtown Baghdad, built to commemorate Persian

soldiers killed by Iraqi soldiers. As with most wars, economics were the main motivator, but

ethnicity mattered.

Yemen is another example of violence at the Sunni-Shia fault line. 88

A Shia sect

known as the Houthi rebelled against Sunni government forces in 2004. The rebellion has served

as a proxy war with Iran supporting the Shia Houthi and Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Morocco

84

Frances Martel, “Isis Spokesman: Nouri Al-Maliki an Incompetent 'underwear Salesman',” Breitbart,

June 12, 2014, 1, accessed April 26, 2015, http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2014/06/12/isis-spokesman-

nouri-al-maliki-is-an-incompetent-underwear-salesman/.

85

“Maliki Gives up Iraq Pm Job to Rival,” Aljazeera, August 15, 2014, accessed April 26, 2015,

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/08/maliki-steps-down-as-iraqi-prime-minister-

2014814195927824856.html.

86

Leaman, Islamic Philosophy, 137.

87

Ibid., 138.

88

The Economist, Arabia Infeliz, April 18th

2015, 42.

38

supporting the Yemeni government.89

In February 2015, the Houthis took control of the Yemeni

government and claimed victory, although the fighting continues.

How the Fault Lines in other Areas affect life in the Middle East today

The caliph was the recognized leader of Islam for much of Muslim history,

encompassing religious political, and military duties. The last caliph with real power was

eliminated from Turkey under the rule of Ataturk in 1924. Since then various people have striven

for leadership in Islamdom. Gamel Abdel Nasser was the President of Egypt (1956-1970) and

was President of the United Arab Republic (UAR), a quasi-union of Egypt and Syria, which

lasted until 1961. Since then, no one has been able to claim the mantel of pan-Islamic leadership

in the Middle East, much less the whole Muslim world.

The leading nation of Islamdom must be powerful, populous, wealthy, and have

religious legitimacy. Turkey is powerful and populous but has adopted a secular government and

is Turkish, not Arab or Persian. Further, Turkey wants to straddle the political divide between

Europe and the Middle East rather than take a purely Middle Eastern role. Egypt has power and

population but not much wealth. Arabia has a proud history, religious leadership (ownership of

Mecca, radical Wahhabis), but a small population, economic (non-diversified economy) and

military weakness. Iran is a proud nation but is Shia, not Sunni, and Persian, not Arab or Turk. It

is economically declining due to international sanctions over its nuclear weapons program, and

yet remains a major state sponsor of terrorism.90

The fault line of Muslim (Arab and Turk) against Greek has waned in importance

since Byzantium fell and the nations of the Balkans regained their independence. Though there

are signs of rapprochement, in the 21st century Greeks and Turks remain at odds. The primary

89

Ben Brumfield, “Death Toll Rises Quickly as Conflict Rages in Yemen,” CNN, April 6, 2015, accessed

April 26, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/06/middleeast/yemen-conflict-houthis-saudi-arabia/index.html.

90

“State Sponsors of Terrorism,” US Department of State: Diplomacy in Action, accessed April 26, 2015,

http://www.state.gov/j/ct/list/c14151.htm.

39

flash point is the Island of Cyprus. Turkey invaded Greek Cyprus (1974) and the island remains

partitioned. Turkey maintains 30,000 troops on the island under terms of a ceasefire but there is

no peace treaty.

Historical military alliances affect the nations’ actions today. Iran is a perennial enemy

of Turkey for several reasons. Iran is Shia and Turkey is Sunni, Iran is Persian and Turkey is

Turk, and the countries have fought for centuries over the same territory (Caucasus,

Mesopotamia). Russia has also been an historical enemy of Turkey, because it is Orthodox

Christian instead of Muslim, and because the nations have historically competed for the same

territories (the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Black Sea).

Israel and Turkey have had friendly relations. Turkey was the first Muslim country to

recognize Israel (1949). As Turkey has moved away from the secularism of Ataturk and towards

the soft Islamism of Erdogan, relations have worsened.

At the same time, Russia has been a long time friend of Iran. Russia has no warm

water ports that can ply the oceans except for Vladivostok. It has historically tried to expand

south in Central Asia to get a warm water port on the Persian Gulf. As a result of these factors,

Russia has long provided weapons to Iran. Russia has also opposed the Jews. There are religious

reasons (Orthodoxy vs Judaism) and historical Russian pogroms against its Jewish population.

They also dislike the Jews support of Turkey. Russia has supplied weapons and advisors to

Egypt, Syria, and Hizbollah, Arab enemies of Israel.

For these reasons, and despite the international sanctions against Iran, Russia is selling

high-technology S-300 SAMs to Iran.91

This will make it harder for Israel to strike Iran to

destroy their nuclear facilities and weapons. Such moves destabilize the region, not the other way

around.

91

The Economist, Putin's Targeted Strike, April 18th 2015, 41.

40

What can leaders do, whether political, military, business or religious, to affect

change in the Middle East?

The Middle East and surrounding lands, such as Iran, can be lands of opportunity.

Political and military leaders have the chance to bring peace to a fractious region. Business

leaders can make money and help bring millions of people in this crossroads of the world out of

war and poverty. Christian leaders can share the story of Jesus Christ with millions who have not

heard. Though American President Barack Obama wants to shift US strategic focus to Asia,92

the

Middle East will not be denied. World attention has focused on this region for decades and will

continue to do so in decades to come.

What should Western leaders and workers do?

Westerners have several handicaps when working with Muslims in the Middle East.

Though the most honest view of the Crusades is that they were a counterattack in a great war,

Westerners labor under the shadow of the Crusades as European imperialism. For some Muslims

it is easy to see large Western organizations, whether governments, businesses, or religious

organizations, as “crusaders”. The best Western approach to this era of history is to see it as it

was, both good and bad, acknowledge both, and move on.

Westerners must check how they view Muslims. According to a Pew Report, over half

of Muslims see Westerners as selfish, arrogant and violent.93

Meanwhile less than half of

Western non-Muslims see Muslims as fanatical, violent and arrogant. In this cross cultural work,

generalizations such as these are dangerous and ineffective. Followers of Islam, followers of

Christ, and avowed secularists can and must work together towards common goals.

92

Matt Spetalnick and Matt Siegel, “In Veiled Message to China, Obama Renews Commitment to Asia-

Pacific Pivot,” Reuters, November 15, 2014, accessed April 26, 2015,

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/15/us-g20-summit-obama-idUSKCN0IZ04H20141115.

93

Ibid..

41

In Muslim history, Satan tempted Muhammad into including the “Satanic verses”,

which allowed Muslims to pray to pagan goddesses, into the Quran. Thus Satan is primarily a

tempter. The supreme Muslim cleric of the Iranian Revolution, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Moosavi

Khomeini, called the United States the Great Satan, meaning the Great Tempter. Since some of

the most visible examples of American culture are pornography, alcohol, and other license in all

areas of life, he has a point. Westerners, and especially Christian field workers, must be prepared

to address the accusation that they represent the Great Satan.

Westerners also face the envy of the weak towards the strong. The West is still the

most powerful region on earth, and everyone knows it. In Iraq we did not deny Western power

with the people we tried to work with, but we did not exaggerate it either. The personal touch,

encouraging the strengths of both sides and emphasizing common goals, was a more useful

approach.

Though overblown by Western liberals as a source of Muslim violence against the

West, Muslims in the Middle East have honest grievances and face real injustice. For the sake of

a stable oil supply, Western democracies have propped up some unsavory rulers who have

abused their people. Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was reported to have amassed

over $70 billion in personal assets, possibly through corruption.94

The US backed former

President of Iraq, the Shia Nouri al- Maliki, gave important military posts to cronies, who then

fled Mosul when ISIS approached, costing thousands of lives.95

Americans and Europeans must support basic human rights throughout the Middle

East. Tyrannical Muslim regimes such as that of Bashar al-Assad are a scourge to their own

people. Further, support for Israel must be tempered by an expectation that Israel will grant basic

94

Phillip Inman, “Mubarak Family Fortune Could Reach $70bn, Says Expert,” Guardian, February 4,

2011, accessed May 10, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/04/hosni-mubarak-family-fortune.

95

Abdulrahman al-Rashed, “Nouri Al-Maliki: Mastering the Art of Covering up Scandals,” Al Arabiya

News, December 5, 2014, accessed May 10, 2015, http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-

east/2014/12/05/Nouri-al-Maliki-Mastering-the-art-of-covering-up-scandals.html.

42

human rights to its citizens. The West must continue to support a Palestinian state, and especially

strive to improve the plight of Palestinian Christians.

Other problems are equally vexing for Middle Eastern Muslims trying to craft stable

states in their region. I have already mentioned how Islamic nations often face high

unemployment rates and unstable economies. Unworkable borders drawn in the Sykes-Picot

agreement for dividing up the Ottoman Empire in 1916 contribute to violent struggles over

natural resources (such as oil in Kurd territories) and unfulfilled aspirations for statehood

(Kurdistan).96

Western diplomats and nations must help address these honest concerns as part of

any plan for stability in the Middle East.

Western missionaries face some of the greatest resistance. As apostasy is punishable

by death in much of the region, missionaries are forbidden to go to most of the countries

although expatriates work in many. Despite these difficulties, opportunities abound in media,

including the internet, radio, TV, and print. Expatriate workers can subtly share the gospel, and

many Muslims are ready to listen. Western Christians can also provide financial support to train

members of the indigenous church as well as political support for religious freedom and rejection

of violence.

What should non-Western leaders and workers do?

The wealthy oil-based economies of the Middle East have vast numbers of expatriate

laborers, often from India and East Asia, who perform basic tasks from cleaning hotel rooms to

working oil rigs. They typically make less money and have lower social status in the eyes of

Islamic authorities. As such, these workers can influence cultural change at the most basic level

in their interactions with each other and with local Muslims.

96

Pre-State Israel: The Sykes-Picot Agreement, in the Jewish Virtual Library, accessed May 10, 2015,

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/sykes_pico.html.

43

This is especially important in Christian work. Just as Paul the prisoner successfully

shared the gospel with members of Caesar’s household, people lowest on the social scale can be

the most effective witnesses for the work of Jesus. Christian organizations would do well to train

and encourage third country field workers in the Middle East. The best route to sharing the

gospel in Qatar might be to train workers in Manila.

China and India continue to gain strength and prestige in the world, and Japan remains

a major economic power. These are powerful, respected nations without the Western baggage of

1400 years of conflict. Political and business leaders from Asia have opened doors for profit, and

perhaps someday will open doors for peace, in the Middle East. In addition, they can bring

political pressure for real religious freedom and other human rights, as well as money for cultural

influence.

National missionaries are almost always the most effective. However, people who

convert from Islam to any other religion (especially Christianity) are traitors to Islamdom.

Followers of Christ throughout the world will do best to support the national churches in the

Middle East with prayer, money, and political support.

Is there a unique role for Christians?

Whether Western or non-Western, Christians can play an important role in

understanding the struggles of Islam and communicating them to others. As a leader in the US

Army I hear talks from military experts, usually secular, on the Middle East. Having no strong

allegiance to any religious tradition, these experts struggle to understand how anyone could take

any religion seriously. Though they understand the complexity of the situation and the cast of

characters, they completely miss the heart-wrenching death-defying devotion that true believers

have for their faith. As such they can never get inside the heads, or hearts, of the most devoted;

whether those people are Christian monks or Muslim suicide bombers.

44

Such areligious experts devalue religion in business and politics just as they do in their

own lives. As a result, they routinely mistake the direction and underestimate the devotion of

true believers. One expert that I recently encountered, raised as a Sunni but now completely

secular, flippantly rejected the possibility that jihadism (Islamist armed struggle, locally and/or

globally) was a valid interpretation of the Quran and Sharia. He was entirely consistent with the

liberal modernist view, but entirely inconsistent with the truth. A Muslim who carefully

considers the Muslim Holy Book and the Law, studies them with a traditional hermeneutic and

an eye to the historical, linguistic and cultural context, and examines Islamic tradition, can

logically conclude that Islamism and even Jihadism are the right approach to the faith. Members

of ISIS are no less smart or dedicated to their faith than anyone else, and that is what they have

done.97

Though devoted Christians see the world differently than Muslims do, they also see the

world differently from secularists. Someone who feels the emotional grandeur of the Bible will

better understand that someone else can feel emotional grandeur for the Quran. Someone who is

willing to risk life and limb to reach “the Lost” on the Christian mission field can fathom

someone who is willing to risk life and limb to promote his Muslim faith. Followers of Jesus can

therefore communicate insights to business and political leaders that they could not get anywhere

else.

What must Muslims do?

This, of course, is the hardest question. All people, including Muslims, are ultimately

responsible for their own behavior. All states, including Muslim ones, are ultimately responsible

for their own behavior, both with respect to their citizens and with respect to the community of

nations. Externally, all states must behave responsibly in the existing international order. They

can work for peaceful change, but war as a tool of policy must be a last resort.

97

Wood, The Atlantic.

45

Internally, Muslim states can organize themselves along more secular lines (modernist),

among more Islamic lines (Islamists), or a combination of the two. Malise Ruthven writes

“whereas in the West the formal separation between church and state, as institutionalized in

America, opened the door to fully secular government, effectively restricting religion to the

realm of communal worship and private belief, Islam has yet to fully shed its political

aspirations.”98

He would like to see Islam do so, leaving governance to secular institutions and

channeling religious Islamic energies towards a Sufi-type mysticism.

Majid Khadduri also seems to lean towards increased secularization of political Islam. He

writes that “no nation could claim the monopoly of one standard of justice” and that the

“standard of justice governing the relationship among nations should ultimately be determined

by a confluence of the national interests of all nations.”99

Hodgson made the interesting comment that the Muslim Indian philosopher Muhammad

Iqbal “hoped that the Muslims could wait for the West to destroy itself and then take the West’s

place in world leadership.100

In the context of the first and second world wars, that may have

seemed reasonable. It seems less like a valid course of action today. Failing that, he seems to

foresee a convergence of all major religious traditions. Ultimately Hodgson states “the basis of

community allegiance needs to be reformulated in a society where the religious community is but

one of several, none serving as the foundation for their common culture.”101

Combined with his

comments that Muhammad’s teachings were geared to his time, Hodgson seems to be

recommending a worldwide, civic religion which is benign enough to include all major faiths

and supports the secular political establishment, and a private religion for individuals and

98

Ruthven, Islam in the World, 427.

99

Khadduri, The Islamic Conception of Justice, 231.

100

Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, vol 3, 430.

101

Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, vol 3, 433.

46

families which does not impact the public sphere. If that was actually his position, Julius Caesar

and the other “divine emperors” of the Roman Imperial Cult would certainly agree.

As appealing as these secular-favoring views might be to academics who write

books about Islam, many Muslims feel that too much modernity, not too little, is the problem. In

the West, modernists began by rejecting the convergence of Christianity and political power and

ended by rejecting Christianity all together. If America is “modern” and America is

simultaneously the Great Satan, as discussed above, many Muslims want nothing to do with

modernity.

Additionally, despite nearly 100 years of modernism in one Muslim country, Turkey, it

still has not caught up economically to the West. The Turkish GDP of $1.5 trillion (purchasing

power parity) barely matches Spain, a country with half the population, 2/3 the size, and a

relative weakling in the European Union.102

This is despite the fact that Spain was occupied by

Muslims for 700 years and was therefore a latecomer to modernism.

The echoes of war play a large role in this debate. Islam was successful, militarily and

politically, for nearly 1000 years. Images of Saladin and Suleiman striking blows against their

enemies for God inspire young Muslims just as images of Charles Martel and Godfrey of

Bouillon once did for young Christians. Consistent with the Bedouin world view of “persistence

in revenge,” old injuries and injustices still rankle and even motivate. A cartoon in The

Economist captured the longevity of disputes in the Muslim world, showing two boxers

representing Saudi Arabia and Iran in a ring fighting with proxies from Yemen and Syria. When

asked how long the fight would go on, the announcer said “only 14 or 15 . . . centuries.”103

Conclusion

102

“Middle East: Turkey,” CIA The World Factbook, accessed May 9, 2015,

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tu.html.

103

The Economist, The World this week, March 28th 2015, 10.

47

As vividly illustrated by my Persian friend mentioned in the introduction, the military

history of the Middle East is a powerful and ever present part of the psyche of many Muslims.

While most Americans may not consider historical military conflicts as producing fault lines in

modern relationships, many Muslims do. The fault lines between Muslims in the Middle East

(Arabs, Turks and Persians) and the Jews, the Greeks, the Westerners remain important. So do

the fratricidal fault lines between Sunni and Shia, and between Arabs and Persians. The chronic

conflict between modernism and Islamism for the future of the region is another major issue.

Understanding these fault lines will help leaders in all areas, from politics to business to religion;

attain their goals in the Middle East.

48

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