The Middle East Essay

With the exception of Israel, the region of the Islamic world that extends from North Africa to Central Asia, the Persian Gulf, and Afghanistan is referred to as the Middle East, which is a conditional portion of Asia. As a “source” of risks like terrorism, human trafficking, slavery, illegal immigration, and others, this region is seen as the primary threat to the security of Europe. Today, the Middle East and the West have never been able to communicate in a shared tongue. All forcible efforts to impose “the human rights” and other Western ideals run afoul of Islamic fundamentalists’ logic. In approaches to the problems of the Middle East, there are differences between the EU and the United States, which is the leading geopolitical player in the region.

Today’s situation is closely connected with the history of this region. The emergence of the youngest religion, Islam, is one of the most interesting aspects of the history of the Middle East. Islam is the third and the last of the developed monotheistic religions. It played a huge role in the history and culture of not only the Arabs, its first and main adherents, but also all the peoples of the Middle East region, as well as Iranians, Turks, Indians, Indonesians, many peoples of Central Asia, the Caucasus and so forth. As a result of the Arab conquest and under the direct influence of Islam, not only the destinies of the peoples of the “Islamic world” were formed, but also their cultural traditions, ideological baggage, norms of life and morality, which today largely determine their life. This paper intends to evaluate the formation and development of Islam after the World War I to the state, in which it is now and what it has led to.

Background

Islam originated in the 7th century on the territory of modern Saudi Arabia. Those places have been inhabited by nomadic Arabs, engaged in cattle breeding or farming in oases. Until those not too fertile and convenient places for living were not sufficiently settled, the local population was satisfied with the modest fruits of their labor. Over time, along the territory inhabited by the Arabs, comfortable caravan routes began to take place and densely populated villages and cities began to be formed. It has led to the emergence of a new type of relationship within tribes, the leaders of which were interested in preserving their power. In Western Arabia, the Prophet Muhammad appeared.

At first, Mohammed advocated the recognition of a single god; although, at the same time clearly related to the highest divine symbol of the Kaaba. All the dogmatic of his teaching, including the prophets from Abraham to Jesus, he borrowed from the Bible. Abraham was combined at the same time with the lord of the Kaaba as the forefather of the Arabs. All the Jews and Christians, Muhammad not only willingly invited to join the faithful community, but also regarded as his spiritual brothers. It is significant that in the first years of the spread of the new teaching, Muhammad even prayed, turning his face to the holy city of Jews and Christians, Jerusalem. Only after the Jews openly ridiculed the theological dogmatic mistakes of the illiterate Muhammad, the prophet ordered to turn his face during prayer in the direction of Mecca that, by that time had turned into the spiritual center of Islam.

The WW1

The World War I had divided the East and the West. It was formally ended in 1918, but, nevertheless, the war does not end in the Middle East nowadays. The borders traced by the victorious powers in 1919 in Versailles has led to such quarrels and hostilities that many countries cannot calm down and resolve up to now, despite all efforts. The residents of the Middle East still do not agree with the political heritage of their countries in the form of borders arbitrarily drawn by the winners. Thus, it can be concluded that the Treaty of Versailles, concluded in 1919, can be considered a peace that leads to a war, but like a time bomb.

Of all the countries of the Middle East, only Egypt and Iran can hardly be considered relatively prosperous and stable countries, and, additionally, one should not forget about Turkey and Saudi Arabia (Plattner et al., 5). However, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq and Palestine are nearby, where the state of war does not stop. In the center of this ”hell” is the ”hottest” point of the Earth, in which for the last hundred years an incredible number of terrorist acts and various political upheavals have passed. The reasons for this situation are frequent interference by the great powers in the military situation, as well as the role of political Islam, the discovery of oil and the Cold War.

Before that, in 1912 the Italians completed the division of the African provinces of the Ottoman Empire by seizing Libya. Along with Austria-Hungary, Turkey suffered the largest territorial losses. It became one of the four empires that had ceased to exist as a result of the World War I, and the only one actually divided between the victors, England and France. As a consequence, Turkey lost the Arabian Peninsula, Syria, Lebanon and Mesopotamia, Armenia. In addition to the Asian possessions, Turkey was forced to withdraw from most of the European territories.

Islam after the War

The process of adapting of the religious and philosophical concepts of Islam to new historical conditions that began in the 19th century and continues to this day can be considered a great Muslim reform. This was expressed in the revision of religious motivations of various aspects of secular life and only to a limited extent concerned theological issues proper. Additionally, in Islam there is no institution of the church and clergy, in contrast to the Christian, for example. Substantial changes have undergone only the Muslim judicial system, which was formed back in the middle Ages. Here there were restrictions on the jurisdiction of the Sharia courts.

Also, in certain countries criminal codes and other legal documents that were not provided for by the Sharia were introduced. The most important role was played by the changes that took place in the sphere of public consciousness (Munson, 4). First of all, this is the process of the formation of national self consciousness and the emergence of bourgeois nationalism. The process has resulted in a new meaningful traditional position Islam on the unity of all Muslims. Later, the idea of the solidarity of Muslims was formed, which later turned into pan-Islamism. Additionally, Muslim nationalism also developed. Thus, the Muslim religious- nationalist ideas had a dual character.

In the period of various ”updates” in Islam were associated primarily with the problem of developing scientific and technical achievements of the West. The process of modernizing the establishment of Islam was very slow. However, they were opposed by traditionalists who advocated the revival of the norms and values of early Islam, opposing the innovations of the Western model. Nevertheless, as national identity develops and the national liberation movement began to manifest the politicization of Islam.

Anti-colonial speeches were often accompanied by an appeal to messianic ideas. That period was also characterized by the intensification of participation in the political struggle of brotherhoods, and then there were new Islamic religious movements. At the same time, an international Islamic movement based on the concept Islamic solidarity was created. Also, in 1926 the first international Muslim organization World Islamic Congress took place. In addition, there was liberation of Muslim peoples from colonial dependence, creation of a world system of socialism, deepening of crisis phenomena. The capitalist world has posed fundamentally new problems in representatives of Muslim social thought. That had a unique effect on the struggle with the problem of choosing the path of development liberated countries. Based on Islam, its basis is created concept of an Islamic state.

The Social History

The very religious ideology of Islam is based on the Quran. All Muslims are convinced that the word this book implies the authenticity of the Divine message, and also this is the main source of the definition of truth, the definition of norms and values in society. Also, the main collections are Bukhari and Muslim. The Quran and the Sunnah, forming the basis of the doctrine of Islam, is the core of the conceptual religious consciousness in Islam. Religious consciousness manifests itself in relationships as society, and personality to a particular religion. There are four groups of religious consciousness inherent in the Islamic world: traditionalism, modernism, revivalism and secularism. To date, all these subtypes also exist. In all types of Islamic religious consciousness, there are two polarities: it is rational and dogmatic.

Islam Nowadays

Nowadays, Islam regulates civil relations, as well as the procedure for resolving property disputes, penalties and punishments in case of violation of religious orders and so forth. According to this religion, people’s actions are divided into several categories. Additionally, it is very important to evaluate an action intention. As for family relations, the morality of Islam is inherent patriarchy. A woman occupies a subordinate position and is created to serve and please a man. In addition, a man always has the right to divorce and thereby to replace wives. A woman is not entitled to divorce, and she is obliged to accept any decision of her husband, including in the event of a divorce. Wife should be faithful to her husband and adultery is cruelly punished.

Conclusion

Summing it up, it should be concluded that Islam is an unusual, specific, youngest religion in the world. It is associated with terrorism or drug trafficking, but its essence is much deeper. The development of Islam went gradually, but was formed based on other religions. Nevertheless, nowadays Islam has ruled itself out as a strong religion, believers of which adhere to strict moral principles, regularly pray and try to live right.

Works Cited

Munson, Ziad. Islamic Mobilization: Social Movement Theory and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The Sociological Quarterly, 2001, v. 42(4), pp, 487–510.

Plattner, Plattner, M.F., Way, L., Carey, J. & Reynolds, A. Comparing the Arab Revolts. Journal of Democracy, v. 22(4), 2011.