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Summary literature History of the Middle East (1500-present) midterm 1

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A complete and comprehensive summary of the literature for the 1st midterm of the subject History of the Middle East (1500-present). It contains a summary of the prologue and first six chapters of the book: Anderson, Betty. A History of the Modern Middle East: Rulers, Rebels, and Rogues. Stan...

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Literature History of the Middle East 2 (1500-present)

2020-2021

Leiden University – Bachelor Middle Eastern Studies– year 2 – semester 2

Midterm 1

Contents:

Summary of the prologue and chapter 1-6 from the book A History of the Modern Middle East:
Rulers, Rebels and Rogues by Betty Anderson.

 Anderson, Betty. A History of the Modern Middle East: Rulers, Rebels, and Rogues. Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2016.

*Please note that parts of this summary are quoted (almost) literally from the original tekst. I have
done this only when I thought I could not phrase it better myself. When citing directly from this
summary, please check with the original text (noted above here) if you are also citing literally from
the original and provide correct annotations. Prevent plagiarism.

Prologue

Islam and the Prophet’s Successors

Muhammad received his revelations in 610 in Mecca. He began to recite these and attracted
followers. He faced persecution from the Quraysh, a Meccan polytheist tribe. Muhammad fled to
Medina, the hijra, and here he built up an army. He fought his way back to Mecca successfully in 630
and destroyed the icons of polytheism at the Ka’ba.

The complete word of God, his revelations to all the prophets, is preserved in the Quran. Jews and
Christians are seen as People of the Book who require special legal and religious protection in Islamic
states. These dhimmis may follow their own law and leaders, as long as they accept supremacy of
Muslim rule.

Five pillars make up the core faith of Islam and in performing them the Muslims shows reverence for
God. All pillars van be done in private or in public, together with other worshippers. Muslims speak
directly to God, there are no intermediaries like priests.

 The first pillar is shahada, or declaration of the faith, is the central concept in Islam that lays
out the core elements of the belief: there is no God but God and Muhammad is his
messenger. The oneness of God (the tawhid) is central, like the idea that he cannot share his
divinity. Muhammad is the last prophet because the revelations were recorded correctly and
completely in the Quran.
 The second pillar is salat, which requires Muslims pray five times a day at designated times
facing Mecca.
 The third pillar is zakat, charity. All believers are responsible for each other.
 The fourth is the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. Every believer must carry it out if he is able to
do so.

,  The fifth is fasting during the Ramadan, the month when Muhammad first heard the
revelation from God.
The followers of the Prophet decided a successor had to be found after his death to guide the Muslim
community into the future. The first successors of Muhammad, or caliphs, were the four Rashidun
caliphs. They were related to Muhammad via marriage. They kept the umma together and expanded
it.

The choice of the last of the four Rashidun caliphs, Ali, brought the first schism in the community. It
arose from conflicting ideas about the proper qualifications for the Prophet’s successor. Shi’a believe
leadership should have gone only through the line of the Prophet. They for this reason consider the
first three Rashidun caliphs illegitimate. Ali was, as nephew of Muhammad and husband of his
daughter Fatima, legitimate. Sunni consider the decisions made by the earliest Muslim community as
valid and accept legitimacy of all for Rashidun caliphs.

The Abbasid Empire, formed in 750, was the central civilization of the world for 150 years. It was a
cosmopolitan civilization. Attention was directed to how the Quran’s message could be translated
into everyday life. All human acts should be based in the context of Islamic piety. This led to
codification of the shari’a.

Muhammad’s interpretations of God’s revelations are recorded as the hadith. This process of
compiling the hadith established the sunna, the established practice or custom of the Prophet. There
are four schools of jurisprudence in Sunni Islam, four madhhabs, because scholars were influenced
by differing legal traditions practiced across their disparate regions. All are equally legitimate.

Abbasid caliphs found it difficult to maintain centralized control over the enormous territory for
successive centuries.

,Chapter one

Birth of Empires

The Ottoman and Safavid Empires through the 18th Century

In 1055 the Turkic Seljuks conquered the Abbasid empire. They could not maintain cohesion in the
face of internal dissention and threats and the empire disintegrated in 1194. The Abbasid Empire fell
into the hands of the Mongols.

Ottomans
During the 14th century, the Ottomans became the preeminent Anatolian power and they first
captured land in the Balkans in 1346. In 1453 Sultan Mehmet II captured Constantinople. The
conquest peaked under Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent: his army stood at the gates of Vienna in
1529. They were defeated and this signalled the Ottoman advance was slowing. By the end of the
17th century, it had stopped completely. The area of military expansion was over and the empire was
defeated numerous times, but it survived until the aftermath of WWI.

Safavids
In the late 13th century, Shaykh Safi al-Din established the Safavid Sunni Sufi order and he attracted
followers. They allied with a confederation of tribes, the Qizilbash, in the 15 th century in the quest for
an empire. They also converted to Shi’ism. Together these forces established the Safavid Empire in
1501. Expansion to the west was thwarted by the stronger Ottomans. The height of power occurred
under Shah Abbas I in the late 16 th / early 17th century. He established a centralized administrative
structure. Successors struggled with economic problems and maintaining an army sufficient for
fending off invaders. The empire came to an end in 1736.

Differences and similarities
The two empires first differed in religion. The Ottoman sultans represented themselves as the
protectors of orthodox Sunni Islam. Safavid shahs imposed Shi’i Islam and established a clerical
establishment to oversee it, connecting religion to the ruling powers. The Ottomans had a governing
structure of trained officials at the centre and intermediaries tasked with representing the sultan’s
interests in the provinces. This ended the independence of local tribes and princes, as well as that of
the Muslim and non-Muslim religious clerics that had held power before the Ottomans. The Safavids’
centralized state structure weakened Qizilbash tribesmen as independent players. The state also
struggled to counter the independent power of the Shi’i clerical institution and the autonomy of
many local tribes.
 Sufism: study of the Quran to find a mystical connection to God. Sufi brotherhoods began to
form in the 11th century.

Ottomans secondly, had a diverse and wealthy economy. Safavids had a more precarious economy:
soil was dry and revenues from export products were monopolized by the state to support the
empire’s military and administrative structure.

The empires also had things in common: Turkic tribal origins, governmental structures and paths to
royal legitimacy. Both spoke Turkish yet glorified Persian. Both had in their time of conquest a
flexible, heterodox religion but became orthodox once established. The Safavid family was seen as
legitimate rulers because of the long-standing leadership over the Safavid Sufi order and because of

, their blood ties with renowned Turkic tribes and Byzantine royals. They also claimed to descend from
Ali and the Shi’i imams (element of divinity). Ottomans had no glorious lineage, so they faked one.
Early Ottoman and Safavid leaders also both negotiated alliances required to construct a large army.
The Ottomans gave their allies influence, while the Safavids worked to undermine their influence
(Qizilbash) by centralizing power in the hands of Persian administrators.

Ottomans and Safavids were successful in conquest and governance because they combined effective
narratives of legitimacy with negotiating skills to secure allies. Skilled intermediaries kept the empire
in motion.

Ottomans

Legitimacy
Lineage was a key element in any claim to governance. This was so, because it limited the number of
possible claimants to the throne, making it hard for newcomers. Newcomers could rule however, if
they had a strong army and a member of a legitimate family acting for them as a figurehead (this is
what the Seljuks did with the Abbasids). Once in power, they bolstered legitimacy by claiming to rule
in order to protect the Islam and her believers. The Ottomans came to military force by cleverly
marrying. They also faked a glorious lineage.

Religious Mandate
Ottomans attracted followers by presenting themselves as divinely guided warriors for Islam (ghazis).
Later on, around 1453, Sultans started presenting themselves as protectors of Sunni orthodoxy. They
had defeated Byzantine and presided over the Holy cities so they could make this claim.

Governance Mandate
Sultans also presented themselves as the suppliers of just governance. They dispensed authority
among many stakeholders to no group could grow too powerful. Sultans also made an important
point of protecting their subjects (in rule for them fulfilling their duties). State also provided the
stability that allowed the ulama to practice the Islamic faith and the peoples to practice their religion
safely.

When the power balance was distorted, rebellions erupted. This happened when the state had too
little money to fulfil its duties or when intermediaries failed to fulfil their part of the bargain with the
sultan. These were put down by force and intermediaries were replaced. This structure realised that
the Ottoman family was never threatened by another family. There was no internal military force
superior to that of the crown. Few wanted to overthrow the system, because it provided stability and
security for most people.

Military and Provincial Administrations
Ottomans dispersed power among intermediaries, meticulously stating their tasks
(religious/political/military et cetera) and limiting their terms of tenure. The Sultan achieved this by
negotiating contracts with them. The relationships were contractual: both sides laid out the services
each brought into the relationship. This system opened opportunities for the ambitious and provided
protection to the most vulnerable of the Sultan’s subjects: the ordinary people the Sultan did not
come into contact with due to the size of his empire. The Sultan had the ultimate power to break a
contract.

Sipahis and the Timar System
When it came to the army, there was a system in which cavalrymen (sipahis) contributed the
soldiers, animals and servants necessary for the repeated seasonal military campaigns. In return they

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