Arab Nationalism

Arab Nationalism

Arab nationalism is defined as the idea that Arabs constitute a single distinctive nation united by a history and common language of Arabic. It is the quest for a national identity and struggle for political power in the Fertile Cresent.

Arab nationalism is a fairly new concept; it’s only about one hundred years old. It did not really develop until after world war one. It is basically he result of three major influenced:

1.) The breakup of the Ottoman Empire after world war one and the emergence of modern states that no longer shared a common religiously rooted ideology that was Islamic based and religiously sociopolitical order.

2.) The intensified struggle for independence from political and religiocultural dominance of European imperialism.

3.) The ideological movement of Jamal Al-Deen Al Afghani disciples, Muhamed Abduh and Rashid Rida.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there were profound changes in the Ottoman system and a serious decentralization of power. With the end of the Ottoman expansion, the state of insututions lost their administrative and military capacities. The empire was plagues with popular revolts, economic regression and in the end military defeats. Many political changes came. The Ottoman Empire was becoming weak, it was the perfect time for its downfall.

Before the downfall of the Ottoman Empire, the Ottomans had ruled the Fertile Crescent as a number of separate small provinces. There were no units of territorial government corrersponding to the Ottoman sub-states in Egypt, Tunisia or Algeria. The principal cities of the region, such as Damascus, Aleppo, Mosul, and Baghdad were the main centers of government. Rural districts were often self-governing.

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...ciopolitical order. Yet not all Arabs were Muslim. The idea of Pan-Arabism was to unite the Arabs not the Muslims, to unite the Arabs no matter what religion they were.

Islamic nationalism is a completely different subject. Islamic nationalism is the idea of uniting Muslims through a common identity and religion. It went on in India in the early nineteen hundreds when Muslims felt they needed to be seperated from the Hindu majority in India and nationalize. It led to the establishment of Pakistan in 1943.

Yet the issue of Islam was very important sine Arab history, identity, pride and language had been closely linked to Islam. Historically, Arabism and Islam had been intimately connected. The language of the religious book – the Quran was in Arabic, Islam’s Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) and early Islam conquests and heroes all sprang from Arabia.