Arab Nationalism and Islamism

Diverse ideals have been constructed upon these two foundation stones–the idea of a renewed crusader offensive and the need to draw instruction from the Middle Ages. In fact, the true power of this manipulative approach to the past has proved to be its remarkable flexibility, for Muslim adherents of two diametrically opposed ideologies–Arab Nationalism and Islamism–have sought with equal enthusiasm to appropriate crusading history.

The precepts of Arab Nationalism are essentially secular in character: positing the separation of spiritual and temporal authority in Islam; and advocating the governance of Arab Muslim states by political, rather than religious, leaders. As such, Arab Nationalist leaders have shown little interest in the crusades as wars of religion, focusing instead upon the notion of threatening foreign imperialism and the propaganda value of forging comparisons between their own lives and the achievements of Saladin. Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt’s prime minister (and later president) from 1954 to 1970, was one of the first proponents of Arab Nationalist ideology. He claimed that Israel’s creation was ‘a substitute for the crusades’, instituted when ‘imperialism signed a pact with Zionism’. Nasser also made repeated attempts to liken himself to Saladin. It was no coincidence that Youseff Chahine’s famous ‘historical’ epic Saladin (1963)–in its day the highest-budget Arabic film in history–was produced in Egypt, with a star actor who bore a striking resemblance to Nasser.

Commenting on the Arab–Israeli conflict in 1981, Syria’s President Hafez Asad encouraged Muslims to ‘go back to the Crusaders’ invasion. Although they fought us for 200 years, we did not surrender or capitulate.’ Asad also styled himself as ‘the Saladin of the twentieth century’ and in 1992 erected a larger-than-life statue of his hero in the heart of Damascus. The Iraqi Arab Nationalist leader Saddam Hussein was even more obsessed with Saladin. Conveniently forgetting Saladin’s Kurdish heritage and instead emphasising their shared birthplace of Tikrit, Saddam went to extraordinary lengths to connect their two careers. Iraqi stamps and banknotes depicted Saladin standing alongside Saddam and the exteriors of his palaces were decorated with golden statues of the president dressed as Saladin. Saddam even ordered the production of a children’s picture book, The Hero Saladin, in which he himself was named as ‘the second Saladin’.17

Islamism is the polar opposite of Arab Nationalism in terms of ideology–espousing the notion that Islam must be governed as a theocracy. Nonetheless, Islamists have, if anything, been even more strident in their attempts to establish spurious links between the medieval crusades and the modern world. Given its spiritual perspective, Islamist propaganda presents the crusades as aggressive religious wars waged against the Dar al-Islam (Islamic territory), the only response to which can be violent physical jihad. One of the most influential Islamist ideologues, Sayyid Qutb (who was executed in Egypt for treason in 1966), described western imperialism as a ‘mask for the crusading spirit’, stating that ‘the crusader spirit runs in the blood of all westerners’. He also declared that there was a conspiracy of ‘international Crusaderism’ behind the West’s Levantine interventions, citing Allenby’s supposed reference to the medieval crusades as proof.

Qutb’s ideas have influenced many radical Islamist organisations, from Hamas to Hezbollah. But in the twenty-first century the most dangerous proponents of his particular brand of extremism have been Osama bin Laden and his ally Ayman al-Zawahiri–the leading voices of the terrorist network known as al-Qaeda. Their rhetoric was littered with references to the crusades in the lead-up to 2001. When, just after 9/11, George W. Bush ill-advisedly chose to characterise his proposed ‘war on terrorism’ as a ‘crusade’ (a term carefully avoided since), he simply played into al-Qaeda’s hands. Indeed, in late 2002, bin Laden released a statement declaring that ‘one of the most important positive results of the raids on New York and Washington was the revelation of the truth regarding the conflict between the Crusaders and the Muslims [and] the strength of the hatred which the Crusaders feel towards us’. Then, in March 2003, after the US-led invasion of Iraq, bin Laden added: ‘The Zionist-Crusader campaign on [Islam] today is the most dangerous and rabid ever…[to learn] how to resist these enemy forces from outside, we must look at the previous Crusader wars against out countries.’ This inflammatory and misleading propaganda, grounded in the manipulation of history, has shown little sign of abating.18

THE CRUSADES IN HISTORY

‘Crusade parallelism’ has played a distinct role in shaping the modern world–one that, in recent times, has been widely misunderstood. The manipulation of the history and memory of the war for the Holy Land began with nineteenth-century romanticism and western colonial triumphalism. It has been perpetuated by political propaganda and ideological invective in the Muslim world. The purpose of identifying and examining this process is not to condone or condemn the ideologies of imperialism, Arab Nationalism or Islamism–but rather to expose the crude simplicity and glaring inaccuracy of the ‘historical’ parallels evoked in their name. The political, cultural and spiritual resonances of the distant crusades have been manufactured by an imaginary view of the past; one that trades in caricature, distortion and fabrication, not the medieval realities of reciprocal violence, diplomacy and trade, enmity and alliance that lay at the heart of crusading.

Of course, humankind has always shown a proclivity for the deliberate misrepresentation of history. But the dangers attendant upon ‘crusade parallelism’ have proven to be particularly intense. Over the last two centuries, a fallacious narrative has taken hold. It suggests that the crusades were pivotal to the relationship between Islam and the West because they engendered a deep-rooted and irrevocable sense of mutual antipathy, leaving these two cultures locked in a destructive and perpetual war. This notion–of a direct and unbroken trail of conflict linking the medieval and modern eras–has helped to cultivate a pervasive, and almost fatalistic, acceptance that a titanic clash of civilisations is inevitable. Yet dark, brutal, even savage as they sometimes were, the crusades left no permanent marks upon western Christian or Muslim society. In truth, the war for the Holy Land had been all but forgotten by the end of the Middle Ages and was only resurrected centuries later.

Perhaps the crusades do have things to tell us about our world. Most, if not all, of their lessons are common to other eras of human history. These wars lay bare the power of faith and ideology to inspire fervent mass movements and to elicit violent discord; they affirm the capacity of commercial interests to transcend the barriers of conflict; and they illustrate how readily suspicion and hatred of the ‘other’ can be harnessed. But the notion that the struggle for dominion of the Holy Land–waged by Latin Christians and Levantine Muslims so many centuries ago–does, or somehow should, have a direct bearing upon the modern world is misguided. The reality of these medieval wars must be explored and understood if the forces of propaganda are to be assuaged, and incitements to hostility countered. But the crusades must also be placed where they belong: in the past.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS