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Applied initially in the year 1902 by Alfred Mohan, the phrase Middle East refers to sixteen states in the northeastern Africa and Southwestern Asia. The states are several and some of them include but not limited to Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Kuwait with the ethnic groups including Persians, Kurds, and Armenians. Apart from being the primordial region of human civilization that is around 10,000 BC, it is also the origin of both the world prominent and infamous religions. Although over 90 percent of the populace is Muslims, other religions that have their origin there include Judaism, Christianity, Druze faith, and Mandaeism. This paper will be elucidating on the definition of the term Arabs and its relationship to pan-Arabism by distinguishing between the Muslim world and the Arab world. It will as well discuss Nasser and Saddam Hussein as pan-Arab leaders.
The term Arab is first documented to have been applied in the 9th century to refer to populace that was in the Monolith inscription and an Akkadian tongue. During the Assyrian Conquest of Syria, the Arabs did form part of a coalition of forces that opposed to Assyria. The Arab as a word did originate from an eponymous father who was referred to as Yarab and was believed to be the fast to have spoken the Arabic language. In another version by Al-Hamdani, he did allege that the Arabs were called GhArab by the Mesopotamians. This was due to the fact that they occupied the west part of Mesopotamia and hence corrupted to be Arab. Several other claims of the origin of the Arab do exist but the above can serve the purpose for this paper.
Pan Arabism on the other hand refers to the ideologies held by nationalists, that the Arabs around the world form one nation, and that the movement of Arabs is meant to unite them all. Early 1960s, the movement had climaxed, however, it is now losing its initial momentum. Notably, Pan-Arabism did not espouse religion, rather, it did quite the opposite, and it was more of a secular or rather a movement. Most of them were not Muslims turning off many people who were at the time considered to be members. After World War II, a force was formed to give the Arabs a political platform and voice and the United Arabs Emirates came into being. Due to the influence of Nasser, the president of Egypt, the union was shaky. In 1972, the union died, especially because the Syria and Egypt never reached an agreement that could steer the contentious issue ahead.
Therefore, Pan-Arabism may be described as a movement formed to bring unity among the member countries as well as the Arab people who were all around World. Through their approach and actions that characterized the way they approached issues, the movement was vied as a form of cultural and nationalism thing that belonged to the Arabic populace. At times, the idea of Pan-nationalism tends to be more socialist and secular due to the fact that they never recognized any other people apart from themselves. However, the Pan- Arabism movement most often embeds into the ideologies of Islam and the culture of Islam. The movement among other things criticized the idea of colonialism by the western world especially in the Arabic counties and they advocated against it. This viewed this as an invasion of the holy land by the western world.
Distinguishing the Arab and the Islam world can at times be difficult since they are intertwined in many ways. The Islam world urge for unity while the Arab world thinks that it has to include the nationalistic and the pan-Islamic elements. It stresses on the importance of the language as their identity. The Islam world believes that to unite a region, the holy book or the Quran is essential, especially for the inspirations and the guidance to chart the path that could be used for unification. On the other hand, the Arab World believes in secularism, and the effort of ridding of the foreign occupation. According to Al- Banna, the Quran will enable the states of Islam to reunite the Muslims that are scattered all over the Arab states. Despite these differences these worlds have cultures that are similar. The similarities and the differences could be seen in the Islamic groups that attempt to fight for the rights of the Muslims. For instance the Al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden as well as the body which attempt to unites the Arab world led by Saddam Hussein. The people who are non-Arabs and Islam are accommodated in the Islam world but not in the Arabic world. These are two most violent wings that attempt to bring normalcy in the land. Now the two worlds are intertwined closely, this has been seen even in the manner in which the Arab-world has adopted the Islam culture and artifacts in its practice. The use of language and other sorts of identity have been largely utilized by both worlds.
Mentioning the nationalism cannot go without mentioning some of the greatest leaders who saw the revolution of the movement. One such a person was Gamal Abdel Nasser. He was highly criticized for being less effective and was rather seen as an orator and less a doer for the unity of Arabs and their nationalism. Nasser though had a big role in the movement. For instance, due to tensions that was growing between Syria and Israel and later between Syria and Jordan. Nasser was involved hugely in expelling the force by United Nations from Sinai Peninsula in 1967, he then used his powers as an Arab leader to deploy tanks and the thousands of soldiers who unified Arab action to fight Israel. The wars between member states had a great impact on the philosophy that Pan-Arabism lobbied for. There were a lot of benefits that resulted despite the wars. One of them was the treaty signed between Egypt and Israel, which had an impact of disuniting the Arab world.
Saddam Hussein is a household name to the Arabs and the world over; he was an arch pan Arabist. He was known as having brought the motto famous with the Pan- Arabism, “from Gulf to the ocean”. Initially, the Pan-Arabism had the ideology of Mohammed being the forefather of the Pan-Arabism. The real conflict that now emerged between the current Muslims and the Arabs is how to reiterate the real Islam that was initially taught by the prophet Mohammed. The war between Iraq and Iran, the Arabs believed in fighting for the real Islam, not the kind of Islam that was spoiled and that represented the state of Iran. Saddam Hussein being an Arab leader brandished his religion to justify the invasion of Kuwait. Hussein did this by calling them infidels and chanting Koranic incantation to fuel the war. Saddam was responsible for calling all the Muslims all over the world to fight all infidels in a holy war. The war that Saddam was fighting was not for the Arabs, it was to enable the Pan-Arab countries to be superior. This is demonstrated in his speech, which he quoted Quran and made references to the names that he considered unworthy. He was to impact a big warning to the Jewish and the Christian nations. To Saddam, Jews were outsiders and enemies of the Arab nations. The fact that he based his allegations on the Quran resulted to him being branded the holy Muslim man by the Al-Qaeda militants. The death of Saddam Hussein, by itself revealed the bankrupt ideologies that both Islam nations and the Pan-Arab nations held in the quest of making those ideologies a revelation.
In conclusion, the Middle East countries are the states in the northeastern Africa and Southwestern Asia. As mentioned in the discussion above, they are credited for the origin of human kind civilization as well as the origin of the world’s religions. Through the emergence of the Arab that has been given differing origin, the emergence of the Arabic world comes to existence which similarly gave origin to the Pan-Arabism. It was described as a movement formed with the objective of bringing peace and unity among the Arab countries and the Arab people all around World. The Pan-Arabism as a movement was not to be without very influential people that were to steer the movement towards its goals and objectives. They were several of them but for the purpose of this paper, only Gamal Abdel Nasser who was the president of Egypt and Saddam Hussein the president of Iraq were elucidated. From the discussion, their roles both positive and negative to the Pan-Arabism have been discussed.
References
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