IR315 Lecture 2

Katerina Dalacoura, 13 October 2014

The Nineteenth and Early 20th Centuries

4 major developments in the ME, all inter-related and forming the axis of the lecture:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Colonialism/imperialism
Incorporation of ME into world capitalist system/globalisation
Decline of empire and rise of the nation-state/ centralisation of power
Rise of ideology, in particular nationalism

Muhammad born Mecca 570 AD

613 calling on people to join his religion
622 hijra to Medina
Died 632
Abu Bakr 632-4
Umar 634-44
Uthman 644-56
Ali becomes caliph 656. Sunni-Shia split - first fitna 656-61. Ali dies 661.
Muawiyah 661-80.
Main issues/terms: paganism, tribes, religion and politics, umma, Koran, Arabic, Bedouin,
fitna.
By 712 Islam had expanded throughout the ME, from Spain to Iran.
Umayyads (based in Damascus) 661-750
Abbasids (based in Baghdad) 750 1254; attacked by Crusaders and Mongols.
Ottomans 1280-1566. Founder of the Ottoman dynasty, Osman, at the end of the 13 th
century. Gradual ascendancy of Ottomans, culminating in fall of Constantinople, 1453.
High point of Ottoman Empire in 16th century.
Gradual decline by 19th century, collapse 1918.
19th century Ottoman Empire: losing its Balkan dominions, Greece, then Bulgaria, Rumania,
Serbia and Montenegro. 1871, Congress of Berlin.
(Detailed and very useful chronology of events, 1789-1956, Hodgson vol. 3, pp. 168-75).
1

Crimean War 1853-6

Britain in Aden and the Arabian Coast.
Capitulations.
Major point: ME insertion in European and international system; through BP system.
World capitalist system.
Tanzimat 1839-76.
Major point: empire to nation-state. Adopting new model because of competition in the
European and international system.
Late 19th century: Young Ottomans and then Young Turk movement.
Abdhulhamid II (1876 1909).
1908: Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) took power in the Young Turk Revolution.
Major point: spread of nationalism, which goes together with the rise of the state;
general context of the age of ideology.
Around the turn of the 20th century, the rise of pan-Islamism and Islamic modernism
(salafism) around major figures such as Afghani and Abduh.
1914, with the outbreak of WW1, CUP, led by Enver Pasha, sided with Germany and the
Central Powers
Parallel developments:
In Saudi Arabia. In the Najd, Muhammad Abd el Wahhab d. 1791 in alliance with Ibn Saud
a local leader, tried to impose a puritanical version of Islam.
In Iran, Savavids c. 1500-1779.
Qajars 1779-1925 weak central government.
1905-11 Constitutional Revolution in Iran.
Rise of Reza Shah Pahlavi by 1925, through the army. Pahlavi dynasty 1925-78/9.
Egypt: Napoleon in Egypt 1798-1801
1805 Muhammad Ali in Egypt: discuss state building policies.
Urabi Revolution 1881 and British occupation or, as it came to be called, the British
Protectorate in 1882.
French in Algeria 1830.
In Tunisia in 1881 In Morocco in 1912.
Italians in Libya (Cyrenaica and Tripolitania) from 1911.